S18 MANUFACTURES OF FAS.

mountains, the leaves of which they use in the manufacture of leather ; they are called tizra, and tasaya. Whether these render the leather impervious, 1 am not competent to say ; every inquiry that I have made at Marocco respecting this beautiful manufacture, has been unsatisfactory.

I have always found the manufacturers very guarded, and extremely jealous ; but I have often thought that two or three of our leather manufacturers, well versed in their art* and withal of penetrating minds, might contrive to extract the secret from them. In the mountains of Idaultit, in Lower Suse, they have iron-mines, and they make gun-barrels and gun-locks equal to what are made at Fas. The temptations to agriculture, however, are such, that sufficient only for the consumption of their own kahyl are manufactured ; which is done rather from a principle of self-defence, and from the amor patricB, than with a view to gain. The silver from the mines of Elala, comes to the Santa Cruz market pure, and in round lumps, weighing about two ounces each. I have bought it for its weight in Spanish dollars ; but it is generally taken to the Mint for sale. Oi'es of gold from the mines of South Barbary, and silver dust from the bed of the river at Messa, collected personally by me, I sent to England to be assayed : the person who got them assayed, reported, that the metal yielded was scarcely sufficient to pay the charges of assaying) so that the speculation was abandoned.