With regard to the products of Tafilet, the most important without doubt are the dates, and it is from this culture that the inhabitants are enabled to exist at all. Not only are they sent by caravan all over Morocco, but there are merchants of Fez who ship large quantities to London, and we often eat here in the centre of civilisation dates that are grown in this far-away and little-known oasis, and which have been carried on mule or donkey back over the hot arid desert and the snowy passes of the Atlas Mountains. To realise the enormous quantity of dates grown at Tafilet one must see the oasis. The palms, planted so thickly and so closely together as to obstruct one’s vision in every direction, form a gigantic forest, to pass through which, by the narrow lanes, is bewildering. I have explained elsewhere by what means the system of irrigation is carried on, and the scanty crops of vegetables and lucerne grown amongst them. The groves of the finest date-palms are in the vicinity of Abuaam in the district of Wad Ifli, and here they are nearly all enclosed in high walls. It is these dates, the _Bu Skri_ and _Bu Kfus_, that are most prized, and luscious they are indeed, though they spoil by travelling. The commoner varieties are eaten in the country, or given as fodder to the cattle, goats, and horses. In the outer portions of the oasis the palm-groves are not walled, and the expense of building walls would not be repaid by the price realised for the commoner varieties of dates. Between the Wad Gheris and the Wad Ziz, in the province of Es Sifa, but few walls are found in repair, and the want of proper irrigation has caused the date-palms to deteriorate; but near Abuaam and Rissani the gardens are nearly all in the possession of the Shereefs, and are kept in a state of excellent repair. The dates were ripe at the time of my visit (November), and I was able to see not only the plucking but also the drying process. The labourers, principally the Haratin, are very skilful in climbing the palms. When the summit is reached either the entire bunch is cut off or else shaken, in either case the dates falling to the ground. Here they are collected into panniers, which are placed upon the backs of donkeys and taken to the drying-grounds. They are always plucked slightly unripe, as otherwise they fall to the ground themselves, and are rotted by the irrigation. At the drying-grounds—large open spaces, sometimes surrounded with walls—the dates are laid in the sun, a guard, often of women, being placed over them; for although they never object to one’s picking up a handful for one’s own consumption, the fruit would probably be stolen in far larger quantities were they left absolutely without watchers. These guards usually live in brown _ghiem_, as the hair tents of the Arabs are called, but sometimes build themselves huts of palm-leaves. The dates are poured in great heaps upon the ground, being turned over by the women every now and