We continued our march over nearly the same sort of country, but all was now flat as far as the eye could see, the hills being left behind us.  About eight miles from Furfouwy, we came to a large patch of date-trees, watered by many springs, but all of them hot.  Under the grateful shade of the lofty palm were flowers and fruits in commingled sweetness and beauty.  Here was the village of Dra-el-Hammah, surrounded, like all the towns of the Jereed, with date-groves and gardens.  The houses were most humbly built of mud and bricks.  After a scorching march, we encamped just beyond, having made only ten miles.  Saw quantities of bright soft spar, called talc.  Here also the ground was covered with a saline effloresence.  Near us were put up about a dozen blue cranes, the only birds seen to-day.  A gazelle was caught, and others chased.  We particularly observed huge patches of ground covered with salt, which, at a distance, appeared just like water.

CHAPTER X.

Toser.—­The Bey’s Palace.—­Blue Doves.—­The town described.—­Industry of the People.—­Sheikh Tahid imprisoned and punished.—­Leghorn.—­The Boo-habeeba.—­A Domestic Picture.—­The Bey’s Diversions.—­The Bastinado.—­ Concealed Treasure.—­Nefta.—­The Two Saints.—­Departure of Santa Maria.—­ Snake-charmers.—­Wedyen.—­Deer Stalking.—­Splendid view of the Sahara.—­ Revolting Acts.—­Qhortabah.—­Ghafsa.—­Byrlafee.—­Mortality among the Camels—­Aqueduct.—­Remains of Udina.—­Arrival at Tunis.—­The Boab’s Wives.—­Curiosities.—­Tribute Collected.—­Author takes leave of the Governor of Mogador, and embarks for England.—­Rough Weather.—­Arrival in London.

Leaving Dra-el-Hammah, after a hot march of five or six miles, we arrived at the top of a rising ground, at the base of which was situate the famous Toser, the head-quarters of the camp in the Jereed, and as far as it goes.  Behind the city was a forest of date-trees, and beyond these and all around, as far as the eye could wander, was an immeasurable waste—­an ocean of sand—­a great part of which we could have sworn was water, unless told to the contrary.  We were met, before entering Toser, with some five or six hundred Arabs, who galloped before the Bey, and fired as usual.  The people stared at us Christians with open mouths; our dress apparently astonished them.  At Toser, the Bey left his tent and entered his palace, so called in courtesy to his Highness, but a large barn of a house, without any pretensions.  We had also a room allotted to us in this palace, which was the best to be found in the town, though a small dark affair.  Toser is a miserable assemblage of mud and brick huts, of very small dimensions, the beams and the doors being all of date-wood.  The gardens, however, under the date-trees are beautiful, and abundantly watered with copious streams, all of which are warm, and in one of which we bathed ourselves and felt new vigour run through our veins.  We took a walk in the gardens, and were surprised at the quantities of doves fluttering among the date-trees; they were the common blue or Barbary doves.  In the environs of Mogador, these doves are the principal birds shot.