About eight in the morning, we passed a large village called Bounou, surrounded by beautiful palm-trees. About ten we came to a hard soil covered with small black and yellow pebbles; here we met six Berber horsemen, all well mounted, and armed with sabres and muskets; they advanced at full speed to meet us with hostile intentions, pointing their loaded muskets: the six Berbers who formed our escort, with four well armed Moors, placed themselves at the head of the cavalcade, holding their weapons in readiness to receive the enemy. The two parties halted within a certain distance, when the Berbers parleyed together in their own language, still holding their muskets ready for firing. As soon as they recognised each other to be countrymen, they saluted; and we pursued our route without molestation. What a country is this, in which it is impossible to stir a step without danger of being robbed and even murdered by one’s neighbours! We continued our course in the same direction over a hard and stony soil, and passed an ancient village in ruins, where the minaret of a mosque is still to be seen; beside it is a well at which travellers quench their thirst; one of the Trajacant Moors gave me a little of this water, which I found tepid and bad. I also observed a mausoleum, like that which we had seen the day before, and where the Musulmans again performed their devotions. Proceeding in the same direction, we met some wretched Moors, leading asses laden with forage; these men were badly clothed and walked barefoot. About noon we encamped in the fields under the shade of some date trees and not far from Mimcina, a large town of el-Drah, inhabited by Berber and Moorish husbandmen. This town, surrounded by walls twelve-feet high, is situated between two chains of hills stretching east and west, the soil of which every where presents a reddish hue, without any trace of vegetation. As it was hot, and our people were not yet returned from watering the camels at the wells, my thirst became extreme, and I determined to visit the tents of the Berbers, pitched at a short distance from our own, to beg a little water.