A mile or two beyond Kasba el Hati one passes Ulad Hanabu, which, like all this string of oases, is inhabited by Arabs of Tafilet, though the name Hanabu is without doubt a Berber one, and probably the same as Hannibal. Here at last we began to see signs of fields and cultivated land, and very attractive they were in our eyes, so weary were we with the everlasting desert. The country was green with turnips, maize, and lucerne, with intervals of long narrow strips of sand-dunes, running east and west, carried, no doubt, to their present position by the dominating east wind of summer, that, blowing across the whole area of the Sahara, comes up like the blast of a furnace, and laden with fine particles of sand. So far the desert we had been crossing had been principally composed of gravel and stones, but here we commenced to catch glimpses of the great expanse of sand-hills that lies to the east and south of Tafilet. We were now following the immediate bank of the Wad Gheris, and a few words as to this river must be written here. Rising in the main chain of the Atlas Mountains, it waters on its downward courses the following districts, commencing at the north: (i.) Mtrus; (ii.) Aït Merghad, the main settlement of that large Berber tribe; (iii.) Semgat; (iv.) Taderught; and (v.) Gheris, whence it flows almost directly south, watering the string of small oases we had passed through between Jerf and the cultivated land on [Illustration: _Wad Gheris._] the north-west of Tafilet, known as Beled el Unja. Thence it flows through the two districts of Tafilet proper, Sifa and Wad el Melha, and uniting with the main stream of the oasis, the Wad Ziz, eventually is absorbed by the sand at the great marsh of Dayet ed Daura. The water of the Gheris is brackish, but though very unpalatable, our donkeys drank it, as do also the cattle of the neighbouring district. The river at this part flows some considerable distance below the level of the surrounding country, in a bed varying from 300 to 350 yards in breadth, while the actual ford where we crossed it the same evening at El Meharza was about 60 yards across. High banks of clay, the soil deposited by the river, line its bed on each side, the palm-trees above growing close up to the edge of these cliffs. Descending to the course of the river, we waded across, and climbing the steep bank on the east side, found ourselves at the great _ksar_ of El Meharza, the capital of the district of Es-Sifa, soon after sundown on November 16.