A word or two must be said as to the system of cultivation and raising crops extant in this portion of Morocco. The ground is ploughed with the primitive native implement as soon as the first rains of autumn fall, and the grain, especially the barley, sown early. By May the harvest is in full swing, and the reaping and gathering of the crops takes place. The ear is merely severed from the stalk close to the top, so that long straw is left standing. The ears are carried in nets upon the backs of mules, mares, and donkeys to the _nuadder_, where the threshing takes place. A clear hard space of ground, puddled with clay if necessary, is left bare, and upon this the grain, still in the ear, is thrown, and over the whole are driven round in circles the mares, horses, mules, and often donkeys of the farmer, until the grain is thoroughly separated. Pitchforks of wood are then made use of, and by raising the straw and grain into the air the chaff is carried off by the wind, the seed alone remaining. This is then stored in subterranean granaries—_metammer_—sunk in the soil, the outlet to which is a small hole at the top closed with stones and clay. The whole is lined with a coating of stiff clay, which prevents the ingress of water. Grain remains in a good state of preservation for long periods when housed in this manner. On to the reaped fields the cattle and sheep are now turned out to graze, finding means of subsistence through the dry summer by cropping the standing straw, and at the same time manuring the soil for the next season’s crops. It was still comparatively early morning when we reached the termination of the level ground at a spot where the Wad Misfiwa leaves the Atlas foot-hills. The Berber name for this spot is Imin Zat, the mouth of the Zat, the latter being the local title of the river. The word _imin_, “a mouth,” is of very common occurrence in geographical names amongst the Berbers, and corresponds exactly to the Arabic _fûm_, both in meaning and the term implied. It does not, as our word “mouth” geographically does, imply the estuary of a river, but any gorge or outlet by which a river or a track enters a different district or a different kind of country. In the following pages the word will be found more than once in its latter meaning.