Immediately above our camp the valley narrows rapidly, and for some miles the torrent flows through a mere cleft with steeply sloping precipitous sides. To avoid this, the upward track ascends steeply for several hundred feet, and is then carried along the slope at a considerable height above the torrent. After suffering from the usual delays, we commenced the ascent about eight o’clock. The morning was bright, and the temperature delightful. The thermometer had fallen to 50° about sunrise, but during the day it stood some ten degrees higher in the shade in the middle part of the valley. To a party of naturalists it was tantalising work to ride along the rocky track, passing at every step objects of the greatest interest, yet unable to do more than snatch a fragment, or hastily drag up an imperfect specimen. The pace over the broken ground was necessarily slow, and it was easy for a man on foot to keep up with the horses; but then the temptation to linger by the way became irresistible. What botanist could be expected to pass by new and hitherto unseen forms of vegetable life without at least securing two or three specimens? As one or other of us yielded to the impulse, he was called to order by the cry of his companions, ‘We must lose no time—we must keep together’—and so reluctantly remounting, he was forced to keep time with our sheik guide, who led the way. At a point about four miles above our camp the valley opened a little, and near a village (Ouanzerout?) our track lay through a grove of large olive trees and then descended a little to cross the stream. We now found this an impetuous torrent, with a much greater body of water than it had showed where we crossed it the day before many miles lower down, and a rocky bed full of deep holes through which it was not quite easy to take our horses and mules.