2 1 8 SURVIVORS OF THE FOREST. ch. ix. 



imperfect that it seemed as though the daj had but just 

 dawaed. There was less than the usual delay ; but six 

 o'clock had passed, and we were not yet ready to start. To 

 our great satisfaction we found that the sheik did not pro- 

 pose to accompany us to-day, but had appointed two men 

 of the village to act as guides. With these,' and our usual 

 personal attendants, whom we knew by experience to be 

 active pedestrians, we started about 6.30 a.m. to ascend 

 the main southern branch of the valley. For rather more 

 than a mile the way over the filled-up bed of the old 

 moraine lake is quite flat, and for a considerable distance 

 beyond this the ascent along the bottom of the valley is 

 very gentle ; but we were led by the aspect of the ground 

 to ascend the rather steep western slope at a part much 

 farther from the village than we had traversed three days 

 before. 



Our inducement to leave the track was the wish to 

 examine certain solitary trees that we noticed scattered at 

 rather wide intervals on the slopes, nowhere descending 

 below the level of 8,000 feet above the sea, but extending 

 upwards, where they find a resting place, through a vertical 

 zone of about 1,500 feet. The first we were able to reach, 

 which was similar in aspect to the rest, showed a trunk 

 more than two feet in diameter, and about thirty feet high, 

 but broken off and shattered at the top ; the branches, 

 with their very dark foliage, diminishing in length up- 

 wards, give the whole a conical form. We took it at the 

 time for Juniperus phoenicea, which is rather a common 

 tree in the lower valleys. Subsequent examination showed 

 it, however, to differ from that species, and to be identical 

 with Juniperus thurifera, a tree hitherto known only in 

 Central Spain, Portugal, and Algeria, and apparently no- 

 where common. From the number of dead stems seen, it 

 seems to have once girdled this mass of the Atlas with a 

 belt of forest, which has been gradually thinned, and is 

 doomed to ultimate destruction. The existing trees are 

 probably of high antiquity, and their destruction is mainly 



