The mountains, burnt yellow by the hot summer sun when I first saw them, were growing rapidly green after a few hours’ torrential rain. In the forest all the spring flowers sprang to life again, flowering hastily on tiny short stems as though fearing they would not find time before being cut off by the winter frosts. A carpet of blue and white iris and crocus spread out under the shade of the mighty cedars, together with all sorts of bright creeping plants. Orchids and narcissi peeped up from every damp corner, and in the crevices of the rocks wild carnations and geraniums made a dash of bright colour. One day whilst out mushrooming I felt rather thirsty, and proposed to my husband to go and ask for some goats’ milk at a tent I saw peeping through the underwood higher up. He acceded, and, talking and picking flowers, we wandered up slowly. Never in my life have I seen so dilapidated a tent. It had been mended again and again with rags so various in shape and colour that little of the original _felidga_ was left. Around it was the traditional artificial hedge of jujube trees, whose thick, fine, long thorns protected the inmates from thieves and wild beasts. A sad-looking donkey and a few goats grazed around, while a particularly savage dog began barking violently and straining at a very rotten cord at our approach. Thin and mangy, he looked as if he could thoroughly enjoy a steak out of my husband’s substantial calves, but he soon retired, with more haste than dignity, when my better half stooped to pick up a stone. All Kabyle dogs have a settled opinion about stones, and the gesture is sufficient for them. The noise brought out the owner of the tent, and he stood gazing majestically at us, draped in dirty white rags. A woman followed him. Her thin, bony, brown face, scraggy neck and shoulders, skinny arms and legs might have been those of an old woman, yet something told me that she was young, but worn out by over-work and under-feeding. Such sights are often seen and fill one with pity. Behind her came five little children, all, except the two girls--who each modestly wore a red handkerchief on their curly heads, and a necklet of wooden beads--clothed in sunbeams. My husband asked if we could have some milk. With a lordly gesture the Arab signed to the woman, who slowly caught a goat by its hind leg and began milking it into a broken yet clean-looking earthen bowl. Nevertheless, I brought out my little picnic mug and made her milk into that. My husband offered ten sous to the Arab, but he turned away disdainfully. “He who drinks at my tent is welcome,” he said. “He is God’s guest, and between him and me no money can pass.” And yet how the want of money showed itself on every side!