We had ascended several hundred feet, and were looking about for plants among rocks to the left of the path, when some faint sound made us look up, and we descried, amid the rain and mist, a party of men and laden mules descending towards us down the steep ravine. There was some obvious awkwardness in the impending encounter of three Englishmen, utterly ignorant of the native tongue, with a set of wild mountaineers of the Atlas, in a spot where no stranger had ever before been seen. In such cases, the less time that is left for deliberation the better. Suspicion or greed may prompt an attack where time is left for consultation; but if people are suddenly confronted by peaceable strangers, they will rarely, unless robbers by profession, think of molesting them. The shape of the ground happened to favour this obvious bit of policy, and some projecting rocks concealed the approaching train until we suddenly confronted them at a turn of the path, and passed within a few yards, with something approaching to a grave salute. The mules appeared to be laden with goat-skins, along with other articles that we could not distinguish. Whether these were people from the northern side of the chain returning from a trading expedition in the Sous country, or men of Sous carrying goods to the capital, we never certainly ascertained; but, from noticing pieces of orange-peel on the track, we inferred that they must have descended rather low in the Sous valley; while it is certain that people going from the lower part of that valley to the city of Marocco would not have followed this circuitous and difficult track, unless urged by special reasons. A little farther on we found, on ledges of rock near the track, several of the most interesting plants seen during the day. Thenceforward all botanising became difficult. The rain turned to sleet, and before long to snow; and, though the roughness of the ground still enabled us to discern the more conspicuous plants, it was almost impossible to secure satisfactory specimens.