LIBERALITY OF SIDI-ALY. 
173 
seem to be about three hundred and fifty feet in height. A 
little grass grows in the clefts of these rocks, and serves the 
sheep for pasturage. We had been joined in the morning by 
a Moor from Tafilet, who came to meet his father. The old 
man, whose name was Sidi-Abdoul-Rahman, was about fifty- 
five or sixty years of age, and nearly bald : he was returning 
to his native village, Ghourland, after a long residence at 
Timbuctoo ; where he had seen Major Laing, as he informed 
me by the way. His son brought him some black grapes 
for his refreshment ; he gave me a bunch with a small bit of 
wheaten bread, which T accepted with pleasure. Little, in- 
deed, had I expected to eat fresh bread and grapes in so 
sterile a country ! In the evening, some troops of Berbers 
came to water their flocks. Sidi-Aly proposed to buy a 
sheep for our supper, the Berbers of another troop joined us, 
and twenty of them contributed towards this purchase ; each 
gave for his share a drag?ne, the coin of the country, worth 
about eight French sous. Sidi-Aly whom I had allowed to 
see that I possessed three or four shillings, consented to lend 
me this dragme, which I promised to repay on our arrival at 
Tafilet. I must here anticipate by observing, as a fact which 
greatly surprised me, that at parting he would not accept 
payment ; desiring that I would keep this piece of money to 
assist me on my journey to Fez, and saying that he gave it 
me for the love of God. It was doubtless from remorse of 
conscience which he wished to silence at a cheap rate. The 
mutton thus procured, and which was dressed like the last, 
proved delicious, though it had not been so carefully 
cleaned. 
On the 22nd, at two o'clock in the morning, we set off 
in a N. N. E. direction ; the soil still the same, and the 
mountains extending on both sides of our route. About ten 
in the forenoon we halted at the Avells of Nyela, (or Ain - 
Yela) the water of which is abundant and good ; they are 
situated in a very stony ravine, and so shallow that the water 
