2722 The Zoologist — August, 1871. 



houses rising tier above tier, above the ever-green palm trees, 

 Gaidaia's exotic aspect can never be effaced from my memory. 

 Her gardens, indeed, stand at some little distance, but they are far 

 more extensive than would at first sight appear, and should be 

 visited in the cool of the morning or in the red blush of sunset; 

 then the "woods resound" with joyous carols, and the sparkling 

 bee-eater, the painted roller and the gilded oriole flicker in the 

 foliage like a fairy scene. Nothing can exceed the fertility of this 

 oasis: vines, surpassing any which I ever saw in size and luxuriance, 

 were bent with many an unripe cluster, trained from pahn stem to 

 palm stem, and the figs dnd apricot trees were loaded with green 

 fruit. Above them towered 40,000 date-palms, affording food and 

 shelter to many species of birds: from bush to bush flitted the 

 subalpine warbler [Sylvia siih(tlpina), and the white shrike [Lanius 

 dealhatiis) sat on every well, or rose to catch the passing locust; 

 while here and there I saw the cunning Numidian malurus [Crate- 

 ropusfulvus) fly with arrowy straightness from the further side of a 

 bush or thicket : beetles, flies and grain constitute the principal 

 food of this true denizen of the Sahara. When, as I have said, the 

 broken rays of the evening sun were viewed through this mass of 

 foliage the effect was superb. 



To return to the city itself: a motley crowd gathered round us 

 as we rode into the market-place ; brawny men and henna-stained 

 children pressed forward, or mounted on the bench of justice, with 

 greetings and cries of surprise. While we waited at the guest-house 

 for the arrival of a negro with a ponderous iron key I could not 

 help remarking how many there were in the crowd who were blind 

 or mutilated : with sunken watery eyes, these poor people presented 

 a sad spectacle. When we had washed and taken coffee, which is 

 an indispensable ceremony among the Arabs, the chief led the way 

 to the Jews' quarter. We entered the house of a wealthy Hebrew: 

 the rabbi, as I suppose him to have been, was reading in the door- 

 way ; he seemed most anxious to please, and rose on our entry 

 with many genuflexions. He showed us his wife, who sat on a 

 door-mat dangling a door-ke}' : she was handsome, but rather 

 dirty ; the lower half of her nose was painted black. I was much 

 interested in all 1 saw, particularly the texts upon the wall, and 

 many printed books, some of which I should have liked to purchase : 

 they appeared to be portions of the Old Testament printed in 

 Arabic. We were invited to partake of the thin Jews' bread and 



