We forded the Wad Todghrá, first, at a spot where it flows over its wide bed amongst the palm-groves, and then again near where it issues from the oasis to pursue its course to the east. Then desert again, only here a scrubby bush covered the arid waste, thorny mimosas for the most part, called by the Arabs _sidra_, with spikes all over it that tear one’s clothes as one proceeds. To the north-east the horizon was bounded by a low line of yellow cliffs, close beneath which we could distinguish the oasis of Gheris, to which De Foucauld, after leaving Ferkla, pursued his journey of exploration. Our roads had been parallel, and in some places identical, from Dads to this spot, but from here on to Tafilet I had an untrodden and unmapped way before me. To the east again of Gheris the palm-trees of Tiluin—Aït Iluin—were to be descried. This oasis is said to be the original home of the tribe, which we had already come across near the southern end of Todghrá, and through another territory of which we were to pass the following day. A few miles outside the limit of the palm-groves of Ferkla the road passes between two conical hills, of no great altitude, that on the right (south) being, however, the larger of the two. On the slope of the smaller one a ruined saint’s tomb stands; but I was unable to find out the name of the man whose bones lie in this desolate spot. On my return journey from Tafilet we followed another road more to the south, which passes to the farther side of the southernmost of these two hills, near the small settlement of Islef, a division of the tribe of Aït Merghad. Half a mile to the east of these two hills is a ruined _kasba_, or residence of a governor, who is said to have shared the same fate as his castle—to have been pulled to pieces. [Illustration: _Saint’s Tomb on the Road to Ul Turug._]