If A Man Requires A Stick Or A Piece Of Wood For Any Purpose, He Hacks Unsparingly At The First Tree; Whether It Belongs To Him Or To Another Proprietor.

The ground sloped gradually to the lowest level of the hollow about four hundred yards distant, all of which

Was in cultivation; the broad-beans were in blossom, and a species of trefoil was already eight or nine inches high (22nd February); this was in anticipation of a lack of natural pasturage.

It was pitiable to see the wretched condition of the cattle throughout this district; the absence of rain had prevented the growth of the usual herbaceous plants, and the animals were forced to seek unnatural food produced in the stagnant swamps; these were full of skeletons and carcasses of oxen, that afforded bones of contention for the numerous village dogs who acted as scavengers. When the droves of oxen returned from pasture every evening, many were in a state of weakness that scarcely allowed them step by step to ascend the rising ground; all were reduced to mere skin and bones, and it would have been a mercy to have put them out of their misery. I was assured that, "the few whose constitution could hold out for another six weeks would recover when the trefoil should be fit to cut."

I daily walked over the adjoining country, and there was little difficulty in discovering the origin of M. Mattei's water sources. Upon the heights behind our camp, a plateau of many miles in extent, with an almost imperceptible inclination towards the south-east, received the rainfall, in addition to the subterranean drainage of the hills in the far distance.

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