Our road turned once more to the south, and we commenced a steep ascent by a sandy track up the side of a well-wooded mountain, at the summit of which I found that we had reached an altitude of 5600 feet above the sea-level, and nearly 2000 feet above the Sheikh’s house at Zarkten, the elevation of which I made out to be 3710 feet above the sea. An adventure, which happily ended only in laughter, happened to us at this part of the road. The track, never of any width, was here extremely narrow, and our impatient donkey, desirous of being the first to cross the Atlas, tried to push his way past the mules. There being no room, however, to perform this manoeuvre, he nearly put an end to his existence by falling over the precipice. Happily he alighted some 40 feet down, legs up, in the branch of a pine-tree. The difficulty was how to rescue him from this perilous position, for the poor little fellow carried on his back all my personal belongings—small though their quantity was. We were obliged, accordingly, to unpack the mules, and by tying together the ropes which held the tent, &c., in its place on their backs, I managed to descend, and, cutting the pack-saddle loose, had the happiness of seeing my luggage rescued. Then letting the rope down again, I made it fast to the four legs of the donkey, which I bound together to prevent its struggling, and the others hauled him up, I eventually reaching the track by being pulled up in much the same manner. The donkey was none the worse, and as soon as he had recovered his equilibrium, and found, to his satisfaction, that he was unhurt, issued a prolonged series of cries, and kicked violently at everything his heels could reach. Every step we took the scenery increased in grandeur, and from one spot we could obtain views of the three valleys. To the west lay that of the upper stream of the Ghadat, through which the river twisted and turned, a thin thread of silver 2000 feet below us. The lower slopes of the valley were mostly wooded, but towering far above them on the west and south rose the central peaks of the Atlas range, Jibel Glawi, or Tidili, a dome of pure white snow dominating the whole, which presented a panorama of exquisite beauty. To the north we could see the gorge of Zarkten, and far down the valley formed by the united streams of the Ghadat and the Tetula; even the plains beyond and the distant hills of Rahamna were visible in the clear atmosphere. Less pleasing, but offering features quite distinct, was the scene directly to the south of us, where the smaller river, the Tetula, dashed between walls of rock that seemed in places almost to meet over its stream. Here were no signs of vegetation, except in the immediate foreground, and all was bare limestone and snow above and shales below, a dreary but impressive scene.