3-083-040 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A Visit to Tafilet: a well at sunset, 1895. '...the heat was terrific, and our baggage-animals suffered intensely from thirst, for water was scarce. What little there is consists of the collection of rain, which, if the season be a good one, is sufficient to fill the subterranean tanks, called "metfirs"; and on this limited and extremely dirty supply the natives manage to get through the summer. But after the particularly dry season of last year we found nearly all the wayside "metfirs" empty, and only by begging at the villages were we able to obtain a bucketful of water now and again to quench the thirst of our weary mules. So far does the water lie beneath the surface that there are few or no wells in these districts, while those in the tribe-lands of Dukala, further to the north, are of such extreme depth that camels are harnessed to the rope that raises the skin, and by this means water is brought to the surface. By W. B. Harris, F.R.G.S.' From "Illustrated London News", 1895.