But very few villages or habitations were to be seen, and the greater part of the soil seemed capable of but little cultivation, being here torn into deep water-courses, there covered with brushwood. One stream alone is crossed, the Wad Masin, a small clear river of no size, but which, from the appearance of its banks, floods in the rainy season. Near the ford were a few gardens, and dense bushes of oleanders lined its course. A very short distance beyond, one of the customary weekly _sôks_ or markets is held; but not being market-day, the place was deserted and left to a mangy dog or two, and a few ravens which sought for food amongst the offal and dirt. There are no buildings at the market, for the native shopkeepers bring their little tents—_gaiaton_—in which they expose their wares for sale, packing up the same in the afternoon and pushing on, probably to be in time to visit another _sôk_ elsewhere the following day. The usual custom is for the consecutive _sôks_ along the main roads to be held on following days, so as to allow all the travelling vendors of goods to visit one after the other in succession. I have sometimes travelled for a week and found each day some market by the roadside in full swing, by having hit off the right day at the first _sôk_ and followed them up in succession, though it is far more common to miss the entire number, and never see a full market-place at all upon a long journey. These _sôks_ are always known by the name of the day on which they are held, with the name of the place added as a distinctive mark. Thus one finds “Had el Gharbiya,” “Sunday of the Gharbiya,” and “Arbaa of Sid Aissa,” “the Wednesday of Sid Aissa,” so called from its proximity to the tomb of that saint. Near this _sôk_ of Tugana is a small semi-deserted village of stone-built huts, a dreary poverty-stricken-looking place. From this spot we had a choice of roads to the summit of the Atlas—namely, either to pursue the one we eventually followed, _viâ_ the Wad Ghadat and Zarkten, or to turn to the south, and skirting the side of the steep mountains on our right, strike as straight a line across country as the nature of the land would allow. The latter, a mere track, often passing along the face of precipices and at all parts difficult, leads _viâ_ Gadaruz and Tizi Aït Imiger to Zarkten, where the two unite. However, we chose the longer but more practicable, and even that was bad enough. What the other must have been like it is impossible even to guess; but the fact that it is only pursued by the native mountaineers and sturdy mountain mules would probably have meant that for us it would have been impassable. Ten miles after leaving the _nzala_ in the valley of the Wad Misfiwa, we descended by an execrable path to the level of the Wad Ghadat, close to [Illustration: _Fording the Wad Ghadat._]