Meanwhile, the afternoon was wearing away; we did not clearly know how we were to return to our camp after dark, but remembered distinctly one awkward place—the fording of the torrent—where some daylight seemed indispensable. We hurried back, our portfolios and tin boxes fully charged with spoil, and found the horses and mules awaiting us on the flat ground below Arround. A man can usually travel over rough mountain tracks as fast as a mule; but if the man be a botanist, and the track lies among new and rare plants, it is quite certain that he will not do so; and when haste is a matter of real importance, it is necessary to submit to the restraint of riding. Hurried as we were, it was necessary to dismount and make a short halt on our return to Arround. The laws of Bereber hospitality required that the villagers should present a _mona_, and that we should at least make a show of partaking of it. There was a large dish of barley porridge, with a lake of oil in a crater-like hollow in the centre, and another of buttermilk, in which were some of last year’s walnuts, as well as other unexpected delicacies. This entertainment was briefly despatched by our followers, and we proceeded down the steep track beside the moraine, and again reached Adjersiman. Here, to our vexation, another halt was called, and another slight refection was presented. Our impatience was so far successful, that the delay was limited to a very few minutes. We should, perhaps, have displayed more interest in these specimens of native cookery, if we had been acquainted with the curious passages in which Leo Africanus[1] minutely describes the dietary of the Atlas mountaineers, and the mode of preparing the identical dishes that were here presented to us.