190 SUEVIVAL OF BARBAROUS INSTiHOTS. ch. viii. 



season with rather small yellow flowers. In the midst of 

 so much that was strange to the eye, it was pleasant to 

 see two familiar European orchids, Orchis pyramidalis 

 and Ophrys apifera. 



There was something comical in the effect of our long 

 cortege, with the escort swollen to-day by the addition of 

 three sheiks of the valley, winding solemnly up the slope 

 of the mountain, but thrown every now and then into 

 general excitement by the appearance of some unpre- 

 tending plant. The order ' catch him flower ' would then 

 issue to the native attendants, or one or other of the 

 travellers would set foot to ground the better to inspect it. 

 But any sense of incongruity between the pomp and cir- 

 cumstance of our mode of travelling and the simple nature 

 of our favourite occupation was lost on the natives. To 

 them one pursuit of civilised man is as unintelligible as 

 another, and they can conceive no other serious occupa- 

 tion for men not forced to labour than war or hunting. 

 It is a curious instance of the survival of barbarous in- 

 stincts, that a good many people in our own islands, who 

 imagine themselves to belong to the upper classes of so- 

 ciety, have scarcely advanced a step beyond the mental 

 condition of the Shelluh mountaineer. 



We passed a village where we noticed some rude oil 

 mills ; and, after an ascent of about a thousand feet, reached 

 the summit of the ridge dividing the valley we had left 

 from the long and important one, the upper part of which 

 is known, from the tribe that inhabits it, as Ait Mesan. It 

 is very difficult to trace the course of the streams that 

 flow northward from this part of the Great Atlas, because 

 they are so extensively diverted into irrigation channels 

 that the natural bed is often dry, except after heavy rain. 

 According to Beaudouin's map the streams from this and 

 several adjoining valleys all flow to the Oued Tensift by 

 the east side of the city of Marocco. This we were led to 

 believe an error in that map. It is probably true of the 

 Ourika river and its affluents ; but our own observation. 



