160 COUNTRY OF EL- D RAH. 
the ruins of some mud- huts, surrounded by a battlemented 
wall ; opposite to these ruins is a small square mausoleum, 
the roof of which is a vaulted arch. Immediately within 
the little entrance door, is stretched a cord from which de- 
pend numerous shreds of cloth of various colours, which 
travellers had hung there from a sentiment of devotion. 
Several pyramids of flint heaped together without cement, 
and about eighteen inches in height, are another kind of 
ofi'ering made by passengers to the manes of the sherif 
whose ashes repose in this monument, and whose memory is 
held in veneration. 
Here the Moors and Berbers of our little caravan went 
through their devotions ; after a short ceremony they took 
a little sand from the place in which they had prostrated 
themselves and sprinkled it over their camels and slaves. 
1 learned that these ruins belonged to an ancient village 
called Zawat, long since abandoned by its inhabitants, who 
had elsewhere founded another town of the same name. 
The soil of the environs is barren, hard, and full of 
stones of various colours; a few bushes indeed are to be 
seen, but their foliage is parched up by the sun. 
It was noon when we passed the new village of Zaw^t, 
which belongs to the country of el-Drah. This village is 
peopled by the former inhabitants of the deserted ruins we 
had seen in the morning : the houses are of stone, with ter- 
raced roofs, and consist only of a ground-floor ; they are 
ill-built and resemble the huts of the Bambaras. We 
crossed some fields which had been cultivated, and about 
half past twelve halted in a wood of date-trees, near a neat 
village, called el-Hamit. Nothing was to be seen on all 
sides but forests of date trees majestically rearing their 
summits to the clouds. Under these trees the inhabitants 
of el-Drah cultivate wheat, barley, and some garden vegeta- 
bles. They divide their land, the soil of which is a fine 
sand but fertile, into little squares, round which they raise 
