CH. VIII. OUTER SKIETS OF THE ATLAS. 181 



ill-humour was increased by a long and quite unneces- 

 sary delay. As a rule, a light luncheon was all that was 

 consumed at our mid-day halt, the men being content with 

 some fragments of the irnona of the previous night. But 

 our greedy soldiers had requisitioned a further mona, 

 nominally on our behalf, from the adjoining village, and 

 were determined not to move forward imtil it was supplied. 

 When Hooker happened to surprise our Mogador Kaid in 

 the act of secreting a quantity of tea and sugar, the old 

 fellow in self-defence began to narrate the misdeeds of his 

 colleague, and so gave us a clearer notion than we before 

 had of the sort of abuses that pervade the whole fabric of 

 Moorish administration. It is true that one is told that 

 the value of goods requisitioned in this way by Grovern- 

 ment officers is allowed to the villages as payment on ac- 

 count of taxes ; but the poor country people tell a different 

 tale, and it is probable that any allowance made on this 

 head is quite inadequate. 



It was 2.30 P.M. when we were at last able to start, 

 and, as we knew that there was stiU some distance to 

 travel, we had but very little time for botanising during 

 the afternoon ride. Our way lay for more than two hours 

 along the base of the hills, whose forms were much of the 

 pattern usually seen where a high mountain rises from a 

 plain country. The ridges dividing the main valleys gra- 

 dually diminish in height as they recede from the axis, 

 and ultimately are weather-worn into eminences of a more 

 or less conical form, which project to an unequal distance 

 towards the plain. 



Towards fi\'e o'clock we began to ascend to a low pass 

 connecting a long projecting spur to the right with the 

 main mass of the hills on our left. Up to this we had 

 seen a good many scattered blocks of sandstone, but no- 

 where forming mounds. We now came on limestone — 

 showing traces of fossils. The hills hereabouts were bare 

 of trees, with p thick growth of palmetto, bushy Labiatce, 

 Hdianthemum, and perennial grasses, except where, under 



