On the sixth day after starting, they came to a good deal of broken country,—traversed several dry beds of rivers,—and crossed a number of rugged heights, rent into strange shapes. Marching through an opening in one of these minor ridges, they passed at once from a beautiful plain into the wild and ragged outskirts of the great chain of Gebel Waslaat, celebrated for the warlike character of its ancient inhabitants. “At a little distance,” says Mr Davis, “these famous and romantic heights have a most lovely appearance, resembling the vineyards of Spain and of the south of France;” but on a nearer approach, he found—as on many other occasions during the expedition—that it was only distance that lent to them their enchanting look. The Arabs of the coast look upon this region as perhaps the blackest spot in all creation; and you may as well call one of them a devil as a _Waslaati_. They relate that this part was at one time inhabited by a very wicked people, and that the Pharaoh under whom the Israelites were in bondage, and who received such signal chastisement, was a native of these mountains. The Mohammedan doctors go still further, and assert that it was upon this Gebel Waslaat that Eblis (Satan) was hurled down, after his expulsion from the regions of light and happiness; and that it was in these mountains that he took up his first earthly abode. Leaving these ill-omened mountains to the west, they journeyed south-eastwards, for two days, through a plain, which, says Mr Davis, “for this part of the world, must be pronounced a luxuriant one.” It is pretty well cultivated, and is watered by a river which has its source in the Waslaat mountains. They then encamped for a couple of days in the vicinity of Cairwan, the “city of saints.” “At a short distance,” he says, “this, like every other Mohammedan city of any note, has a fine appearance, but as one approaches, its beauty vanishes. Crooked and filthy streets, ruined and dilapidated houses, wretched shops and miserable hovels, are too glaring not to attract one’s attention.” The city is surrounded by a wall in pretty good condition, and has a garrison of regular as well as of irregular troops. Outside are large cisterns, supplementing the reservoirs with which the houses within are furnished for collecting rain-water; and, still more remarkable, though much less useful, the tomb wherein repose the holy remains of Saint _Shaab_, “the Prophet’s barber.”