it had more than left the horizon, and soon on our way
through a rough country of scrub and olives--a capital country for pig
(which are shot in numbers), and practicable for spearing them, one would
think. Jogging along little paths, with a cool breeze in our faces, which
invariably went round with the sun, we came by-and-by to a valley, green
and wooded with olives, where barley was growing, looking as if it had
been kept under glass, it was such an even crop, and rooted in the
richest soil. Crack--crack--ping! and a stone whistled over our heads:
this meant Arab boys scaring birds with slings, made of dried grass, and
probably after David's pattern.

From out of an Arab village a little black child ran with a bowl of very
sour milk, which, however, Omar and Said appreciated: the child wore one
filthy whitish garment and a bead necklace, a little inky-black pigtail
completing it.

This was a day of all days, in that we had our first view of the Atlas
Mountains--those mountains which we had come so far to see. There they
were, first seen from a certain ridge, mighty peaks, snow-covered,
filling one with an intense desire to travel into their fastnesses: a
haze, however, hid the greater part of the range.

A countryman joined us for a short distance, to whom Omar gave a
cigarette-paper and a pinch of tobacco. Again all cultivation was
exchanged for uncompromising plain, stones, stones, and a soil like
iron, on which nothing grew except the thorny zizyphus lotus, with the
double row of thorns, one pointing forward, the other back, out of which
the Soudanese make their zarebas. A colony of bottle-shaped nests, made
of dried grass, in these thorn-bushes, tempted me to try for some eggs.
The attempt proved what a barrier the thorny lotus can be. I was
extricated with difficulty by means of Omar's gun-barrels and Said's
hands; but not without one nest and eggs--they apparently belonged to a
variety of sparrow.

A well with one tree, a spot of shade in the arid plain, intervened
farther on. The mules drank. An Arab rode up, lean, walnut-coloured;
slipped off his high-peaked red saddle, hobbled his mule, and lay down
under the tree. Hot as it was, we pushed on. This plain is said to remind
travellers of the stony part of the Sahara. In the air was a scent of
burnt grass and flowers--a _honey_ smell: every time a breeze came we
were duly grateful. The mules clattered on over the stones until Sidi
Moktar came in sight--a sa