The state of the prisons in Marocco is one of many scandals that disgrace the administration of this country, though an apologist might suggest that in this respect Marocco is only a century or two behind the most civilised States of Europe, and not thirty years behind the late kingdom of Naples. When in the city of Marocco, we were told that about 4,000 prisoners, of whom the large majority were unlucky peasants, unable or unwilling to pay taxes, were confined in dungeons. Criminals who have committed murders and robberies frequently escape by taking refuge at some of the numerous sanctuaries scattered over the whole territory, while lesser offenders and mere defaulters are caught wholesale. No food is provided for prisoners by the authorities; but the means of keeping body and soul together are generally forthcoming, through the kindness of relatives, or the charitable feeling which is common here, as in other Mohammedan countries. The survival among the Bereber tribes of the practice of sacrificing an animal to propitiate the favour of a man in authority, is a fact deserving the attention of ethnologists. Another instance of a similar kind came to our knowledge a few weeks later, and we had recently seen that the same rite is observed to avert the displeasure of evil spirits. Our increased acquaintance with the flora of the Great Atlas did not much modify our first impressions. Making due allowance for the earliness of the season, and for the adverse conditions that may have concealed from us some species inhabiting the higher zone, it was clear that the vegetation here differs very much from that of all the lofty mountain masses of Southern Europe and Western Asia, and especially in the absence of those families that elsewhere form the chief ornaments of the higher mountain zone, and which we are accustomed to associate with the glories of the Alpine flora. There was here to be seen no gentian, no primrose or _Androsace_, no rhododendron, no anemone, no potentilla, and none but lowland forms of saxifrage and ranunculus. Our first impression had been that the flora is absolutely very poor; but this was due mainly to the fact that so large a proportion of the plants have inconspicuous flowers. Comparing the produce of our day’s work with that of high mountain excursions made elsewhere, the species are not deficient in variety, but show a singularly small proportion of showy flowers. As regards novelty, we had nothing to complain of; for, in the upper part of this valley, out of 151 species collected, 31 are described as new; and, so far as we know, are peculiar to the Great Atlas chain. This gives about the same proportion of endemic species as the Sierra Nevada of Granada, always regarded as a singularly rich botanical district.