only with two lakes of fresh or sweet water—­that of Debaia, traversed by Wad Draha,—­and that of Gibel-Akhder, which Leo compares to Lake Bolsena.  The height of the mountains, and the uniformity of their slopes, produce large and numerous rivers; indeed, the most considerable of all North Africa.  These rivers of the North are shortest, but have the largest volume of water; those of the South are larger, but are nearly dry the greater part of the year.  None of them are navigable far inland.  Some abound with fish, particularly the Shebbel, or Barbary salmon.  It is neither so rich nor so large as our salmon, and is whitefleshed; it tastes something like herring, but is of a finer and more delicate flavour.  They are abundant in the market of Mogudor.  The Shebbel, converted by the Spaniards Sabalo, is found in the Guadalquivir.

The products of the soil are nearly the same as in other parts of Barbary.  On the plains, or in the open country, the great cultivation is wheat and barley; in suburban districts, vegetables and fruits are propagated.  In a commercial point of view, the North exports cattle, grain, bark, leeches, and skins; and the South exports gums, almonds, ostrich-feathers, wax, wool, and skins, as principle staple produce.  When the rains cease or fail, the cultivation is kept up by irrigation, and an excellent variety of fruits and esculent vegetables are produced; indeed, nearly all the vegetables and fruit-trees of Southern Europe are here abundantly and successfully cultivated, besides those peculiar to an African clime and soil.  In the south, grows a tree peculiar to this country, the Eloeondenron Argan, so called from its Arabic name Argan.  This tree produces fruit resembling the olive, whose egg-shaped, brown, smooth and very hard stone, encloses a flat almond, of a white colour, and of a very disagreeable taste, which, when crushed, produces a rancid oil, used commonly as a substitute for olive-oil.  The tree itself is bushy and large, and sometimes grows of the size to a wide-spreading oak.  Not far from Mogador are several Argan forests.  The level country of the north is covered with forests of dwarfish oak; some bear sweet, and others bitter acorns, and also the cork-tree, whose bark is a considerable object of commerce.  In the Atlas, has been found the magnificent cedar of Lebanon.  This tree has also been met with in Algeria, but only on the mountains, some forty thousand feet above the level of the sea.

In the South there is, of course, growing in all its Saharan vigour, the noble date-palm, and by its side, squats the palmetto, or dwarf-palm (in Arabic dauma).  Of trees and plants, the usual tinzah, and snouber or pine of Aleppo, are used for preparing the fine leathers of Morocco.  Many plants are also deleteriously employed for exciting intoxication, or inflaming the passions.