in the Eastern Atlas. 
175 
for Kef, the principal western frontier-town in the Tunisian 
territory, intending to cross by that road into the province of 
Constantine. Though the journey between Tunis and Kef can 
be performed without much difficulty in three days, we, prefer¬ 
ring easy stages to more rapid travelling, passed six on the 
road. Our halting-places each successive night were Medjez 
el Bab, Testour, Teboursouk, Dugga and Bordj Messaoud. The 
afternoon of the sixth day brought us to Kef. Here, thanks to 
our letters from Tunis, we were most hospitably entertained by 
the governor, till our horses, tent-equipage, &c. had been for¬ 
warded to meet us from Souk Harras, to which place Mr. Tris¬ 
tram had sent them on leaving the Desert to proceed to Tunis. 
Leaving Kef, and passing one night with the lawless frontier- 
tribe of Waregra, we reached Souk Harras, the most eastern 
military station in the French occupation. After spending a 
few days in reconnoitring, we pitched our tents on the 4th of 
April at the foot of the magnificent rocks of Djebel Dekma, our 
camp comprising, besides ourselves, three servants, three tents, 
four horses, with cooking-utensils and all the requisites for a 
nesting-campaign in the mountains. From Djebel Dekma we 
passed on to Khifan M^sakta, and from thence to Kef Laics, at 
which latter place we remained till the end of the month of 
April. The rocks and lofty precipices about Souk Harras, of 
which the above-mentioned form some of the principal, are the 
homes of the Lammergeyer, Griffon and Egyptian Vultures, of 
the Golden, Tawny, and Short-toed Eagles, of the Barbary Falcon, 
the Common and Black Kites. The eye of any lover of orni¬ 
thology would be delighted and astonished at the vast numbers 
of these magnificent birds of prey which all day long sail over 
his head, their numbers increasing in the vicinity of the rocks 
that hold their eyries. Many a time, when in that district I 
counted twenty and thirty, and on one occasion fifty-five Griffon 
Vultures on the wing at once, wheeling in circles and gradually 
extending their gyrations higher and higher till the uppermost 
birds were lost to sight, or appeared as mere specks in the sky. 
Ain Befda, another military station which stands south-east of 
Constantine, in one of those elevated plains into which the 
Algerian Atlas expands itself, and which with their numberless 
