At Ferkla we were well received, the Governor, who expected the Sultan in a few days, knowing better than to disregard his lord and master’s orders, for the oasis was already in bad odour at Court on account of the murder of a couple of soldiers who had been sent there as Imperial messengers only some few months before. More than this, it was at Ferkla that the tent and property of the Sultan’s uncle, Mulai Othman, had been found. This old Shereef, who had been sent to settle some intertribal warfare, and collect taxes due, a year or two before, from some of the Berber tribes nearer Fez, had been treacherously murdered, and his guard annihilated by the tribe of Aït Shokhman, whose chief, Ali ben Yahia, a sort of king amongst the Berbers, had been equally treacherously captured by the Sultan a month earlier and sent a prisoner to Marakesh. The very day that I had left that city he had arrived in chains. It was no doubt for these reasons that the Governor of Ferkla received us with a show of welcome, and supplied us with ample provisions from the store awaiting the arrival of the Sultan and his army. We camped on a level piece of ground near one of the canals that, running from the Wad Todghrá, supplied a portion of the large oasis with water. This canal near here more resembled a swamp, and when, before dawn, we were obliged to ford it, was covered so thickly with ice that my donkeys took several steps before the coating broke under their weight. Yet it was running water, and well sheltered by palm-trees. From Ferkla we crossed the weary plain of Seddat; but on reaching the Wad Todghrá near the south of the oasis of that name, forded it there, about a couple of miles north of Imin Erkilim, and continued up its right (west) bank, camping for the night near the large village of Taurirt. The latter part of the ride along the river’s banks was a charming one, and presented as picturesque scenes as could be imagined anywhere. Amongst the groves of palms ran the river, and its fall being steep, it had in many spots been banked up by the natives, in order to raise its waters to the level of their irrigating canals. In these places it formed large deep pools, out of which it tumbled in no mean waterfalls to the level of the stream below; and the entire route was enlivened with its splashing and the groaning of the millwheels it turned as it passed on its way.