The fine pasturage which this plain affords to the cows of the Mehaedi enabled their masters to regale us with fine fresh sourmilk, which interrupted our march very pleasantly. On the site of an ancient village, near the margin of a small torrent, I found the following curious specimens of upright pilasters, together with the impost, remarkable for their height as well as for the rough sculpture of a dog, or some other animal, which is seen on the higher part of one of them. About 700 yards beyond the torrent called Ksaea, we had on our right a large building of hewn stone about 140 yards square, besides six pairs of pilasters together with their imposts; but some of them are lying at present on the ground. These structures could never have been intended as doors or passages; for the space between the upright stones is so narrow, that a man of ordinary size could hardly squeeze his way through them. Other ruins are on the left. Here we entered the mountain chain which forms the natural boundary between the district of Tarhóna and that of Meselláta, and at the present time separates scenes of nomadic life from fixed settlements. The highest part of the chain round the Jebel Msíd remained on our left, while the heights on the right decreased in elevation. The chain has little breadth; and we had hardly reached its crest when the country that presented itself to our view had quite a different appearance from that just left behind, presenting among other objects the castle of Meselláta, surrounded by an olive-grove. In this spot ancient sites and modern villages with stone houses are intermixed, while thick olive- groves enliven the whole, and constitute the wealth of the inhabitants. Having passed a village called Fatír, lying in a ravine that runs S.W., we soon descried, in a hollow at the southern foot of the Kasr Sʿaade (a small ancient fortress), the first olive-plantation and the first orchards belonging to Meselláta. From this place onward they succeed each other at short intervals. Having passed a small eminence, with a fine olive-grove in the hollow at its foot, we entered the beautiful and well-inhabited plain of Meselláta. Here a great deal of industry was evinced by the planting of young cuttings between the venerable old olive-trees, or ghúrs Faraón as the Arabs call them. My shoush affirmed that the inhabitants of Meselláta are the most industrious and diligent people in the whole regency, taking good care of their plantations, and watering them whenever they need it. The whole country has here a different character from that of Tarhóna, the naked calcareous rock protruding everywhere, while in Tarhóna the plains generally consist of clayey soil. This district is only about one thousand feet above the sea, while the average height of the Jébel (Yéfren) and the Ghurián is about two thousand feet. Here the olives had been collected a month ago; in the former districts they remained still on the tree.