54 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 
seen the Moslem devotees, and to have had a glance into 
the interior of their Mosque. There are two towers, oe 
perfect, the other leaning; the court alluded to is not 
directly beneath either of them. 
We stayed until Friday for the weekly market, which is 
one of the most important in southern Algeria, being far 
larger than that at Berryan. It was formerly held outside 
the walls, no doubt that tribes from a distance might trade 
without seeing the internal arrangements of the city, but 
now it is in the market place near the south gate. The 
buyers sit, and the sellers walk about among them, calling 
over the wares, which consist of woollen stuffs, burnouses, 
butter, desert potatoes, and dates of all sorts, as well as live 
stock—camels, goats, and sheep—which are brought up by 
merchants to be conveyed into the Ze/Z Jews vend silver 
bracelets, and cracked date stones are sold as food for 
camels! It isa mart for everything brought by the cara- 
vans, which are constantly going and arriving. Yet it does 
not last above three hours. The merchants began to come 
about eight o’clock, mounted on Makhri or Mahara camels, 
from Waregla, and by eleven it was all over. 
We were now nearly into May, and though my health 
had been wonderfully preserved hitherto, I was anxious, with 
the summer coming on, to get back to the coast. If before 
I feared the rain and the cold nights, I now dreaded tenfold 
more the unendurable mid-day sun. Accordingly on the 
22nd we moved to Mellika, determined to make our visits 
to the other towns as short as possible. The next day, 
strolling out with my gun, I collected specimens of the Pied 
Wheatear (Saxricola leucomela, Pall.), a male in moult, with 
the under tail-coverts as nearly white as possible, and a 
good deal of grey on the crown, (the gizzard contained a 
thick white grub about three quarters of an inch long), 
Rock Pigeon, (generally observed in pairs on the rocks, 
and not in the palms where the Doves were,) Egyptian 
