50 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
Norwich Naturalists’ Society, I endeavoured to describe the 
method of drawing water; but Canon Tristram’s description 
is so much better, that I will quote it. 
“But the machine for drawing water from the well is both 
original and ingenious. There is a double pulley and a large 
leathern bucket slung by pulleys across the beam. The water- 
drawer holds two ropes, one of which draws up the bucket, which 
has a leathern funnel at the end of it, to which the second rope 
running on the other pulley is attached. This second rope, when 
the bucket reaches the top, turns the tube into the cistern,* on the 
same principle which we see adopted in some English mines.” 
(1. c. 134.) 
The drawer is generally assisted by a camel, or sometimes 
a brace of mules pull the cord. There is always an inclined 
pathway for them to run down, which materially lessens the 
labour. There is no garden without its well, and some of 
them are very deep. The wheel reaches to at least ten feet 
above the ground. Little trenches convey the water all 
about the garden, as the sand would soon soak it up; these 
trenches, says Canon Tristram, are “beautifully formed of 
hard lime, and branching in all directions from the well, so 
that the precious fluid could be conveyed without the slightest 
waste through the grounds.” He considers the cultivation 
in these gardens “far superior to that of Laghouat,” but the 
southern oasis is capable of greater things. The water is 
limpid and tasteless. All day long the Mzab haul it up. 
“The Mzab work always” has become a saying. Men, 
women, and children toil in the gardens, even in the noon- 
tide hours when no European could venture out of doors. 
There are two cemeteries, one with a row of common 
earthenware urns on each grave, and the other without. 
Canon Tristram gives a woodcut of the urns in his work. 
A Marabout, or Sheik’s tomb, was distinguished by some 
® Generally a stone tank, sometimes two. 
