"cH. V. NOETH-AFRICAN ACACIAS. 99 



desiring a man to gather some plant by the wayside, and 

 many similar phrases soon passed current between us. The 

 only term of disapproval in use with our men was ' bloody 

 dog,' and this was not seldom applied to the mules when- 

 ever they gave trouble, as those creatures are wont to do. 



As we rode on, the Argan forest grew thinner, the trees 

 were gradually intermixed with other species, amongst 

 which we noted a few specimens of Callitris quadrivalvis 

 — the Arar of the Moors — and before long we gained, 

 from the brow of a low hill where the forest ceased alto- 

 gether, a rather wide view over a country not altogether 

 unlike some parts of England. The hills of the province 

 of Haha rise in successive undulations as they recede from 

 the coast in sloping downs, relieved at intervals by clumps 

 of trees, and elsewhere broken by masses of low shrubs. 

 The calcareous rock, which seems never far from the sur- 

 face, is thinly covered over with red earth ; and patches of 

 cultivation, chiefly barley or wheat, the former now nearly 

 ripe, here and there indicated the presence of man some- 

 where within reach, but seemed to show that he plays a 

 subordinate part in fashioning the appearance of the 

 country. The prevailing bush or small tree is Zizyphus 

 Lotus, whose double sets of thorns — one pointing forward 

 and the other curved back — ^were destined to plague us 

 throughout all the low country of South Marocco. The 

 Zizyphus was often quite covered over by climbing plants, 

 that rise ten or twelve feet from the ground. The most 

 frequent of these, an Ephedra and an Asparagus, do not 

 appear to require any special organs of attachment. Pro- 

 bably the intricate branches and complex spines of the 

 Zizijphus render these superfluous. 



Soon after this we first met bushes of one of the 

 peculiar plants of South Marocco, then little known, and of 

 which we were not able to learn much by personal inspec- 

 tion. The Aca1!i.a guinmifera of Willdenow is one of a 

 group of allied species of which the remainder inhabit 

 Upper Egypt and Nubia, while one, at least, is widely 



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