59 
Our road went S. i S. E. till eleven in the morning; 
then it turned to S. W. At one in the afternoon it 
changed again to S. ^ S. E. and continued so till half 
past three, when we halted. 
We passed on the road five douars;* two of them 
were built of dirt and stones, and the three others were 
simple tents. We placed our camp at about a hundred 
yards from a large douar, of about sixty tents, which 
were divided into four groups, each of which contain- 
ed a family. The tents are of camel hair, and its wretch- 
ed inhabitants had no other employment than to take 
care of their flocks. 
The dulness and monotony of this spot was, how- 
ever, interrupted by a marriage, and by the drums and 
bag- pipes and the firing off of some guns, as part of 
its ceremony; but the women did not add their shriek, 
because they go here uncovered and live in society with 
the men: I do not know what circumstances have caus- 
ed this infraction of the law of the prophet, which pro- 
hibits such a custom; my servants told me that they had 
seen some of these women, and that they were most 
miserably clad and almost naked. 
The soil, composed of a good vegetable earth, is cover- 
ed with fine grass for cattle; but it is useless to bees 
and botanists, as it contains few flowers; I was not able 
to collect more than three or four plants for my her- 
bary. 
The country is bounded by hills on all sides. On the 
east is the chain of the Tetuan mountains, which stretch 
from north to south; but here they advance towards the 
west, so that they are not six English miles distant from 
the western coast of Africa. 
* Groups of miserable houses, or tents of different sizes, which 
serve as dwellings for one or more families of Bedouin Arabs. 
