Our course took us in an east-by-south direction across the plain of Misfiwa, which forms one of the large _bashaliks_, or governorships, of Southern Morocco. There were many signs of cultivation on both sides of the road; but the dry summer had turned the soil to a light yellow hue, which rendered it no easy matter to see how much was agricultural land and how much merely used for grazing. That crops are largely raised in this part is a well-known fact, yet judging from the appearance of the soil at this season of the year it looks poor enough. The villages are few and far between, and although mostly inhabited by the Berbers, the original inhabitants of Morocco before the Arab invasion, their dwellings had not as yet begun to show the neater and superior style of building we were so soon to notice. However, as we proceeded and forded the Wad Urika, placing a longer distance between us and the city, the improvement in the habitations became visible, and instead of the thatch _nuail_, or huts, of the villages that we had been passing, we found houses built of _tabia_ with flat roofs, which, though possessing no particular appearance of comfort or size, were greatly superior to the others. Two rivers were passed before we left the plain to enter one of the valleys of the Atlas Mountains, at Imin Zat. These were, namely, the Wad Urika, which I have already mentioned, and the Wad el Melha, or salt river, which owes its name to its brackish waters. Both rise in the Atlas Mountains,—the Urika in the valley above Akhliz, which I had visited some five years previously; and the Wad el Melha farther to the east, issuing from the hills by a narrow valley a few miles to the east of that of the Urika. Although such of the last winter’s snow as disappears in summer had already melted, and the fresh fall had not as yet taken place, there was a considerable body of water in both streams, a sure sign that while we had been parching in the sun-dried plains heavy rains had fallen amongst the mountains. The water of both is largely used for purposes of irrigation, although that of the Wad el Melha is salt, and a considerable amount of labour and time has been expended in banking up the small canals which carry the precious liquid to the fields far removed from the actual course. After flowing some ten miles into the plain from the Atlas foot-hills, these two rivers unite in the province of “Uidan”—“the rivers”—and finally empty themselves into the Wad Tensift some six or seven miles to the north-east of Morocco City, near the _zauia_ and tomb of Sidi Abdullah ben Sessi.