Once more we were in the saddle, and the whole party felt that no more delay was permitted. To ride down the steep, slippery bed of the watercourse below the village seemed even a more trying affair than the ascent; but our companions seemed to take it as a matter of course, and our sturdy beasts accomplished the task bravely, though not without hard struggling, that would have strained the muscles of animals less strong and hardy. As always happens when the ground is looked at in the reverse direction, we espied, on retracing our track, several plants not before noticed, one or two of them certainly new. No botanist can resist such a temptation, even though he were flying for his life; and two or three times we dismounted to snatch a specimen or two, but were soon recalled to the necessity for pushing on. For the first time since we landed in Marocco, the evening sky was overcast with heavy dark clouds, and the last of twilight was fading fast when we reached the ford over the torrent. The banks are here overarched by poplars and other tall trees, and in the dim light the rapid stream seemed fiercer, and its roar more menacing, than when we crossed it in the morning. The passage was achieved; but not without a good deal of excitement among our followers, when one of the soldier’s horses slipped into a hole, and only after violent plunging and loud shouting of the natives, scrambled to the farther bank. Without more trouble we ascended the slope on the western side of the valley, and reached the olive grove, to which we had given little attention when we passed through it in the morning. This now unexpectedly presented the most difficult, and even dangerous, stage of our excursion. Such faint glimmering of light as remained up to this disappeared under the trees, and gave place to absolute pitch darkness. The rough spreading boughs, all beset with the ragged, leafless, half-dead branchlets characteristic of old olive trees, stretched out on every side, at a height of four or five feet from the ground. There was no regular beaten track through the grove, but by day it was easy for man and horse to thread a way among the trees. The case was now very different. Our keen-sighted Shelluh followers were as much at a loss as we were. One or two men on foot went first, and we then followed, the train being brought up by the soldiers of our escort. For a while, by moving slowly and cautiously, nothing serious happened. The beasts seemed to understand the difficulty of the case, and as one or another of us rode against a branch, with head bent down to lessen the risk of mischief, they stopped at once, and even backed a step or two. Before long the cavalcade was separated by long gaps. A loud cry of pain, followed by the vociferations of the natives, brought the foremost to a full stop, and after a while we were once more near together. It was not altogether reassuring to be told by Ambak, when we asked the cause