Table III.

Superior region, Sierra NevadaMountain region of AndalusiaLower region of Southern SpainCentral, or Northern Spain, exclusivelyAbsent from Spain
Great Atlas Valleys. 455 sp.1038210044126
Superior region of the Great Atlas. 176 sp.6119202155

The figures given in this table are of much interest, proving, as they do, the wide differences that exist between the Floras of two mountain regions not widely separated from each other, and exposed to climatal conditions not altogether dissimilar. We see that three-sevenths of the plants found in the higher region of the Great Atlas are absent from the South of Spain, and that the same remark applies to considerably more than one-third of all the plants found in the portion of the Great Atlas visited by us, although a notable proportion (in both cases) is to be found in Central and Northern Spain. Especially noteworthy is the fact that many of the species thus absent in Southern Spain are plants of Central Europe, most of which extend to the northern part of the Spanish Peninsula, although some of them are altogether wanting in the Floras of Spain and Portugal.

A simple inspection of our list suffices to show that it discloses no trace of affinity between the Great Atlas Flora and that of the Canary Islands, or, to use a term of wider geographical import, that of Macaronesia. The few species belonging exclusively to the latter region and to Marocco are nearly all confined to the coast region.[5] Almost all the species common to the Atlas and to Macaronesia are widely spread Mediterranean plants that ascend from the low country into the valleys. The solitary mountain plant belonging to this category is Arabis albida, the southern form of A. alpina, common in the East, and in the Apennines of Central and Southern Italy, but which, strange to say, has not been found in Spain. In Teneriffe, as in the Atlas, it ascends to about the level of 2,700 metres above the sea. The only fact suggesting a remote affinity between the Great Atlas and Macaronesian Floras is the presence in the former of a species of Monanthes, a generic group hitherto found only in the Canary and Cape de Verde Islands. But the absence of any closer connection clearly shows that the separation between the Macaronesian group and the main land of Africa must date from a period, even geologically speaking, remote.

When we come to sum up the results of the foregoing discussion, bearing always in mind the fact that we possess a mere fragment of the Flora of the Great Atlas, and that future exploration may largely modify our conclusions, we find as its most striking characteristic the presence of a large proportion of plants of Central and Northern Europe, along with a considerable number of peculiar species not hitherto known elsewhere; and we observe that these two constituents, which together form about one-half of the Flora of the region here discussed, amount to very nearly two-thirds of the species found in the higher zone. We remark that of these northern plants none are of Alpine or Arctic type, that nearly all belong to what has been called the Germanic Flora, and all are plants of the plain, not in Europe characteristic of mountain vegetation.[6]

Of the species belonging to the Mediterranean region, which constitute more than one-half of the vegetation of the middle zone, and about one-third of that of the higher zone of the Atlas, the large majority are widely diffused species. The remaining number, for the most part mountain plants, may be divided into three nearly equal sections, some being common both to Southern Spain and Algeria, others to the Atlas and Southern Spain exclusively, and others to the Great Atlas and the Lesser Atlas of Algeria. Nothing indicates any special connection with the Floras of either of those regions.

The absence of any distinct generic types from the Great Atlas Flora has already been remarked. It is not less important to note the absence of any of the southern types, characteristic of the sub-tropical zone, some representatives of which are found in the same or even in higher latitudes, in Arabia, Syria, Persia, and Northern India, and which also appear in the Canary Islands. We finally are led to regard the mountain Flora of Marocco as a southern extension of the European temperate Flora, with little or no admixture of extraneous elements, but so long isolated from the neighbouring regions, that a considerable number of new specific types have here been developed. The physical causes which have operated to bring about these conditions are doubtless numerous and complicated, but the most important of them are easily indicated. The influence of the Atlantic climate, and the prevailing direction of the aërial and oceanic currents, have fitted this region for the habitation of such northern species as do not require a long period of winter repose. In the present condition of the African continent, the Great Desert, extending for a distance of 700 or 800 miles between the Atlas and the river region of tropical Africa, effectually prevents the northward extension of most forms of animal and vegetable life; while in a period geologically recent, it is most probable that the same area was occupied by a wide gulf, which served the same purpose of barring the migration of southern forms.

It may be premature to attempt to trace in further detail the origin of the Great Atlas Flora; but the facts already ascertained certainly authorise some negative inferences. The absence of plants of Arctic type proves that if some mountains of Southern Europe received contributions to their vegetation during the glacial period by means of floating ice-rafts, that mode of diffusion did not extend to the Great Atlas. If we suppose that during the glacial period the temperature of the region north of the Atlas had fallen so low as to permit the migration of northern species across the intervening low country, we find it difficult to understand why so many species which, according to this theory, must have retreated to the Atlas on the subsequent rise of temperature, should have failed also to find a refuge in the mountains of Southern Spain.

It is a further difficulty that if the constituents of the Great Atlas Flora had, to a large extent, travelled by the route here indicated, other species, now inhabiting the mountains of Southern Spain, could scarcely fail to take the same road, and a much nearer connection than is now apparent would have been established between the Floras of these two mountain regions.

It is, at least, possible that the wide diffusion of many of the species constituting the so-called Germanic Flora may date from a period much more remote than is ordinarily supposed; and it is a circumstance not without significance that so many species of this type prove themselves capable of tolerating wide variations in conditions of soil and climate.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]In the Superior Zone of the Sierra Nevada I include all species found above the level of about 1,600 m., considering this to correspond with the level of 2,000 m. in the Great Atlas.

[2]The name Sierra Nevada is here used in a wide sense, and is intended to include the Serrania de Ronda, and the other mountains of Andalusia. Under this head, the plants classed as ‘confined to adjoining regions’ are either common to the Sierra Nevada and the mountains of Northern Spain, including the Pyrenees, both Spanish and French, or else are common to the Sierra Nevada and the mountains of Northern Africa.

[3]The Bulgardagh has been introduced into this table rather for the sake of contrast than as showing similarity to the conditions in the Great Atlas. The species classed as ‘confined to adjoining regions’ are all found in the other mountain districts of Asia Minor, and it has been necessary to include under the heading ‘Wide-spread Mediterranean’ a large number of Oriental species, whose western limit is in Greece or Crete. As compared with the Great Atlas, the number of species common to the western and south-western parts of Europe is here quite insignificant.

[4]See ‘Spicilegium Floræ Maroccanæ,’ in Proceedings of the Linnæan Society, ‘Botany,’ vol. xvi. parts 93 to 97 inclusive.

[5]The only possible exception to this statement among the plants enumerated in our list is that entered as Asparagus scoparius, Lowe (?) From the differences between the foliage and that of other known species it was at first entered as a new species peculiar to the Atlas. Subsequent comparison with a Madeira specimen from the late Mr. Lowe suggested their possible identity. Should this be hereafter verified, the number of endemic species in the tables given above must be reduced from 75 to 74.

[6]The only apparent exception is Sagina Linnæi. This is habitually a mountain plant; but in Germany it is often seen in the moorland region, at a level of about 2,500 feet above the sea.

APPENDIX H.

Notes on the Geology of the Plain of Marocco and the Great Atlas.

By George Maw, F.G.S., F.L.S., &c.

Of the Geology of Barbary little information has hitherto been put on record. The only publications with which I am acquainted are some notes on the geological features of the district between Tangier and Marocco in Lieut. Washington’s ‘Geographical Notice of the Empire of Marocco,’ published in the first volume of the ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society;’ a few cursory remarks on the Marocco Plain by Dr. Hodgkin, in his account of Sir Moses Montefiore’s ‘Mission to Morocco in 1864;’ a short paper, by Mr. G. B. Stacey, on the subsidence of the coast near Benghazi, published in the twenty-third volume of the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society;’ a report by M. Mourlon on some rocks and fossils in the Museum of Brussels, collected in the north-west of Marocco by M. Desquin, a Belgian engineer, published in Vol. XXX. of the ‘Bulletin de l’Académie Royale de Belgique,’ for 1870, to which I shall have further occasion to refer; a geological memoir, by M. Coquand (‘Bull. de la Soc. Géolog. de France,’ vol. iv. p. 1188), on the environs of Tangier and northern part of Marocco; and finally, a paper I read before the Geological Society of London in 1872.

Barbary, with the exception of the immediate neighbourhood of a few of the ports, has been almost inaccessible to Europeans; and the extreme jealousy of the Moorish Government with reference to the mineral riches of the country has hitherto prevented any geological investigation. In the year 1869 I visited the northern portion of Marocco, including the Tangier and Tetuan promontory, and during the spring of 1871 accompanied Dr. Hooker and Mr. Ball to Mogador, the city of Marocco and the Great Atlas, permission for our visit having been obtained from the late Sultan through representations made to the Moorish Government by Lord Granville through Sir John D. Hay, our Minister Plenipotentiary at Tangier.

The object of the second journey was mainly botanical; and as an engagement was given by Dr. Hooker that we should not collect minerals, the opportunities for geological investigation were very limited.

The observations I was able to make on the structure of the great chain, which had not been previously ascended by a European, and of the plain of Marocco, are embodied in the accompanying section. Stopping for about a fortnight at Tangier, we made several excursions in the neighbourhood. The western part of the northern promontory of Marocco, facing the Straits of Gibraltar, consists of highly-contorted beds of hard courses interstratified with brindled yellowish sandstones and variegated puce and grey marls, having a general dip to the south-east, but so twisted about that the dip and strike are often reversed within a few feet. The country has a general undulating contour, here and there rising up into ridges of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, in which the hard bands weathered out from the softer strata are strikingly prominent from a great distance.

We observed no palæontological evidence of their age; but, judging from their resemblance to the cliff-sections near Saffi, where fossils occur, they are presumably Neocomian or Cretaceous.

Fucoids were collected by M. Coquand in the vicinity of Tangier, in beds considered by him to be representatives of the Upper Chalk; but M. Mourlon, referring to the works of Pareto and Studer on the nummulitic rocks of the Northern Apennines and Switzerland, inclines to place the Tangier fucoid beds above the nummulitic horizon, and as part of the Upper Eocene. But near the villages of Souani and Meharain, a little to the south of Tangier, undoubted Cretaceous fossils were met with by M. Desquin, including

and M. Mourlon concludes that the Tangier promontory consists of Eocene beds resting on Cretaceous.

The eastern half of the northern promontory, including Tetuan and Apes’ Hill facing Gibraltar, consists of beds of a different character, for the most part of a hard metamorphic limestone, in which dip and strike are very obscure: these may be a southern extension of the Gibraltar limestone; but I had no opportunity of tracing the connection to Tetuan.

The late James Smith, of Jordan Hill (in ‘Journal of Geological Society,’ vol. ii. p. 41), mentions the occurrence of casts of Terebratula fimbriata and T. concinna, belonging to the Lower Oolite, in the Gibraltar limestone. M. Coquand also assigns to the Jurassic period the beds in the neighbourhood of Tetuan, and divides them into four stages, characterised respectively by marls, dolomites, a calcareous sandstone with the odour of petroleum, and a lithographic limestone containing siliceous concretions. I am of opinion that the Tetuan series, ranging with the Gibraltar limestone, and probably extending far to the south, is separated from the more recent Cretaceous series to the west and north-west by a great north and south fault, which divides nearly equally the Tangier promontory. M. Mourlon, referring to some specimens of shelly limestone in the Brussels Museum, collected near the river Mhellah in the district of Ouled Eissa, between Fez and Tetuan, resembling the Muschelkalk in aspect, and associated with beds resembling those at Tetuan, considers that they may also be of Jurassic age.

The Tetuan limestone has given rise to enormous beds of brecciated tufa, on terraces of which the city is built. The flow seems to have taken place from the hills to the north-west of the city, and has produced beds of a collective thickness of 60 or 70 feet. This is evidently true tufa, due to aqueous deposition, and is of a different character from the great calcareous sheet, to which I shall have occasion further to refer, which shrouds over the entire plain of Marocco.

Respecting the Mediterranean coast-line of Barbary, I will not add much to a paper read before the British Association at Liverpool, in which I remarked on the singular absence of coast-cliffs of any height. The undulating contour of the land-surface extends down to the water’s edge, a continuation of the form of the bottom of the straits without the intervention of cliff-escarpments, from which I surmised that the present sea-level and coast-line of the straits had not been of long duration.

Of frequent changes of level on the Barbary coast there is abundant evidence. The more recent seem to be, first, an elevation of from 60 to 70 feet along the entire coast, implied by the existence of concrete sand-cliffs with recent shells exactly similar to the raised beaches of Devon and Cornwall. These occur in Tangier Bay to a height of 40 feet, resting on the upturned edges of nearly vertical mesozoic beds; to the south of Cape Spartel, as a long cliff nearly 50 feet high; as low shoals near Casa Blanca; as a compact cliff about 50 feet high at Saffi, and as a coast-cliff and islands at Mogador, where the concrete sand-beds attain a height of 60 or 70 feet above the sea-level. It seems probable that this elevation of coast-line was coincident with a similar rise, implied by the existence of concrete sand-cliffs, all along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts, viz. on the eastern face of Gibraltar, where stratified raised beaches are seen cropping up at a considerable height from under the great mass of drift-sand in Catalan Bay; at Cadiz, as low cliffs 40 to 50 feet high, forming a hard coarse freestone of which the city is built; and also at the Rock of Lisbon, where, at a height of from 150 to 180 feet, isolated fragments of stratified concrete sandstone are seen clinging to the sea-escarpment of the older rocks.

The great range of latitude included in this simultaneous coast-rise suggests the probability that the elevation of similar coast-beds in Devon and Cornwall may pertain to the same movement.

Judging from the evidence afforded by the coast near Mogador, a subsequent submergence appears to be taking place. The island is probably diminishing in bulk; and, from observations made by M. Beaumier, the French Consul, it appears to have been reduced about one-fourth in area in twenty years; but whether from denudation or subsidence is not clear. The sea is, however, sensibly encroaching, as an old Portuguese fort and some Moorish buildings are now environed with sand and salt-marsh close to the sea, in a position where they would not have been built. This submergence of the coast at Mogador may perhaps be contemporaneous with the subsidence at Benghazi, Barbary, described by Mr. G. B. Stacey in the twenty-third volume of the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society.’ The general absence of cliffs characterises nearly the whole of the Barbary coast. A few low cliffs occur at scattered intervals west of Tangier; but from Cape Spartel to Cape Cantin a low monotonous coast shelves under the waters of the Atlantic, and not a cliff is to be seen, save an occasional raised beach. After rounding Cape Cantin the coast trends nearly north and south; and here the first good coast-section presents itself as a vertical cliff nearly 200 feet high (fig. 1), consisting of nearly level stratified alternations of grey and reddish marl, and fine-grained sandstone with beds of argillaceous carbonate of iron resembling the cement-stone of the Kimmeridge clay.

At a distance the cliff has a massive rocky aspect due to the vertical infiltration of tufaceous seams, which support the softer beds and stand out in prominent masses. The cliffs continue southwards to Saffi, where I obtained a small series of fossils from the section represented in fig. 1, amongst which Mr. Etheridge has determined Exogyra conica, Ostrea Leymerii, and 0. Boussingaulti. He considers the beds to be of Neocomian age. The hard band c is almost entirely made up of Exogyra conica.

I am indebted to the late Mr. Carstensen, H.B.M. Vice-consul at Mogador, for a specimen of Ostrea Leymerii, brought

Fig. 1.

Cliff Section, Saffi.

to him by a Moor from Agadir, and obtained, at a height of 1,500 feet, on the flanks of the maritime termination of the Great Atlas range, 160 miles south of the Saffi section.

Two or three miles south of Saffi another section occurs, known as the ‘Jew’s Cliff;’ and from this Dr. Hooker, who landed on his homeward voyage, obtained a few fossils, viz. several undeterminable species of Pecten; an Ostrea allied to 0. Virleti, and a scutelliform Echinus of an unknown type, which Mr. Etheridge proposes to place under a new genus, and names Rotuloidea fimbriata. All these Mr. Etheridge supposes to be of Miocene age; and the ‘Jew’s Cliff’ section may probably give the key to the age of the beds of the Marocco plain in which we found no fossils. In connection with the occurrence of these Tertiary beds at Saffi, I must refer to MM. Desquin and Mourlon’s observations in the neighbourhood of Mazagan to the north-west, near which, at a place called Sidi Moussa, calcareous tufas associated with flints occur, containing

Fig. 2.

Rotuloidea fimbriata, Etheridge.

Solen, Venus, Modiola, Cardium, &c.; the deposit in its main characters resembling the description given by M. Coquand of the fluvio-marine travertines of the north of Marocco, and also the Sahara beds described by M. Ville; with the difference that the Sahara deposits are characterised by the presence of little Paludinas, whilst those of Sidi Moussa are full of vermiculiform perforations. The depressions are occupied by a very porous conglomerate, passing into a calcareous sandstone used for building. This conglomerate contains an abundance of Helix vermiculata, a species living in the country, and also found in the calcareous sands which are supposed to be of post-Pliocene age. The plain of Doukala (Ducaila of Washington), at a level of about 140 feet above the sea, is covered with these sands. At Sidi Ammer an escarpment was observed, the base of which consisted of clay and red ferruginous marls, containing a stratum formed for the most part of oysters, in which also Teredina personata occurred, supposed by M. Nyst to belong to the Eocene formation; succeeded by another fossiliferous bed containing

supposed by M. Nyst to be Miocene, the upper part of the escarpment resembling the beds of later age before described.

An examination of the higher points of the western coast near Saffi, and at Azfi in the province of Abda, near Mazagan, tended to establish the fact of the occurrence of Pliocene beds in the district.

At Cape Saffi, 180 metres in altitude, a reddish calcareous sand was met with abounding in Cyclostoma, Cylindrellas, and a species of Helix differing from that at Mazagan; and at other points, including the hill of Aher and at Sidi Bousid, white marls and sands associated with calcareous sandstones were met with analogous to the supposed quaternary beds in the neighbourhood of Mazagan.

The only other point in the geology of the coast-line I have to refer to is the great mass of blown sand surrounding Mogador, presenting a weird expanse of sea-like waves of sand, on a scale vastly greater than anything of the kind on our own coast, mimetic of mountain-chains and bold escarpments in miniature, differing only from true hill-and-valley structure in the absence of continuous valley-lines, the hollows being completely surrounded by higher ground. Many of the ranges of sand are from 80 to 100 feet in height, and their perfectly straight scarped faces are produced by the violent westerly gales blowing the sand up the angle of repose, and accumulating it in fountain-like showers over the rounded backs of the sand-hill ranges.

It is worthy of note that the sub-aërial ripple-markings superimposed on the greater undulations, occupy a reversed position with reference to the prevalent winds, their long side facing the wind, with the more vertical straight scarps on the lee side. The moving sand in this case is drifted up the long side, and falls over the scarp at the angle of repose.

The Plain of Marocco.—We now turn inland; and before referring to the details of the structure of the Great Atlas range, it will save repetition if I briefly describe the general contour of the district under consideration. Leaving the sand-hills, which die out inland, and travelling westward, we gradually ascend over an undulating country, in aspect somewhat like the Weald of Sussex, covered for 30 miles with Argan Forest, till we reach, at 60 miles inland, the average level of the plain, about 1,700 feet above the sea.

The fundamental rock is here rarely to be seen; for the entire face of the country is shrouded over by a sheet-like covering of tufaceous crust (fig. 3), rising over hill and valley, and following all the undulations of the ground. Only in river-beds and here and there by the side of a hill were the fundamental beds visible, and seen to consist of alternations of hard and soft cream-coloured calcareous strata, dipping and undulating in various directions at low angles, and so closely resembling the surface crust that it was difficult to distinguish the one from the other, unless the surface crust happened to lap unconformably over the scarped exposures of the stratified beds. This singular deposit varies in thickness from a few inches to two or three feet, and is taken advantage of by the Moors for the excavation of cellars in the soft ground, over which the crust forms a strong roof. These are termed matamoras, and are used for the storage of grain, and as receptacles for burying the refuse from the villages. The calcareous crust in the neighbourhood of Marocco is extensively burned for lime. In section it presents a banded agatescent structure, often much brecciated. It is impossible it can have been deposited by any waterflow, as completely isolated hills are shrouded over by it as thickly as the valley bottoms; and the only satisfactory explanation of its origin I can suggest is, that it results from the intense heat of the sun rapidly drawing up water charged with soluble carbonate of lime from the calcareous strata, and drying it layer by layer on the surface, till an accumulation several feet thick has been produced. The rapid alternations of heavy rains and scorching heat which take place in the Marocco plain are conditions favourable to this phenomenon, which is unknown in northern temperate climates.

Fig. 3.

Surface.

Section.

A familiar illustration of the same kind of action is seen in what brickmakers term ‘limewash.’ A brick formed of marl containing soluble carbonate of lime, if rapidly dried or placed in the clamp in a wet state, will have on its upper surface, after burning, an unsightly white scum or crust, by the accretion of soluble matter driven upwards and outwards by the quick evaporation. Before we left Mogador on our journey inland, we were told of great beds of shingle covering the plain, and fully anticipated some interesting drift phenomena; but these shingle-beds were found to be nothing more than the broken débris of the surface tufa, covering the plain for hundreds of square miles with stony fragments. Of marine drift there is not a vestige, the few isolated patches of waterworn stones and alluvial shingle being always connected with river valleys, excepting only the huge boulder deposits of the Atlas hereafter to be referred to.

About midway between Mogador and the city of Marocco, the monotony of the plain is broken by a curious group of flat-topped hills, which rise two or three hundred feet above its

Fig. 4.

‘Camel’s Back,’ flat-topped hills in the Plain of Marocco.

general surface. They present straight scarped sides, on which are exposed cream-coloured calcareous strata capped with a flat tabular layer of chalcedony, which seems, in arresting denudation, to have determined their peculiar and symmetrical form. In these we found no fossils; and I am doubtful whether they are an inland extension of the Miocene beds observed by Dr. Hooker at the ‘Jew’s Cliff,’ near Saffi, or are some members of the Cretaceous series, of which there are sections on the coast north of Saffi and on the flanks of the Atlas.

At this point the main boundaries of the plain come into full view,—on the north a rugged range of mountains trending east and west, which we estimated at from 2,000 to 3,000 feet in height; and on our right the great chain of the Atlas, rising 11,000 feet above us and between 12,000 and 13,000 feet above the sea, bounds the view to the south, framing-in the great plain, here some 50 miles broad, which is lost as a level horizon in the eastern distance.

The Atlas Range.—Commencing at Cape Guer, on the Atlantic sea-board, the range, which at a little distance has the aspect of a single ridge, averages at its western extremity from 4,000 to 5,000 feet in height, from which it slightly falls off in height for a few miles, and then gradually increases in height as it recedes from the coast. In the eastern part of the province of Haha the summits probably attain to a height of about 10,000 feet. At a point about 60 miles from the sea there is a comparatively deep breach in the range, through which runs the main road to Tarudant. Eastward of that pass the projecting summits appear to lie between 11,000 and 11,500 feet above the sea to a distance from the coast of about 100 miles, and about SW. of the city of Marocco, where a second depression occurs, affording a pass to the south, at an altitude of about 7,000 feet. Immediately east of this, and due south of the city of Marocco, the range for 30 miles in length presents a long unbroken ridge, 12,000 feet in height, on which are deposited a few isolated crags and peaks rising from 500 to 800 feet above the general level; and it is doubtful whether this part of the chain attains an extreme height of 13,000 feet. Still farther east the ridge-like character is lost, the range becoming broken up into a series of less continuous peaks (including Miltsin, estimated by Lieut. Washington to be 11,400 feet in altitude, and supposed by him to be the highest point in the chain) of diminished height: beyond this, eastward, little or nothing is known either of the altitude or character of the range, excepting that it trends NE. by E. towards the southern borders of Algeria on the Sahara.

Rohlfs, in his journal of his overland journey from Marocco to Tripoli, speaks of mountains to the east of Marocco being covered with perpetual snow; but this is a character which has been erroneously attributed to the Maroccan section of the Atlas range. When we arrived at Marocco in the first week of May, the snow was limited to steep gullies and drifts—all the exposed parts, including the very summit, being entirely bare. There were, however, frequent storms, which intermittently covered the range down to 7,000 or 8,000 feet; but it is certain that these occasional falls would be rapidly cleared off by the summer heat; and we came to the conclusion that there was nothing like perpetual snow on any portion of the chain we visited, included in the section (apparently the highest part) lying due south of the city of Marocco.

As seen from the city, the great ridge appears to rise abruptly from the plain some 25 miles off; and so deceptive is the distance, that it looks as though it were a direct ascent from the plain to the snow-capped summit, even too steep to scale; but in reality this wall-like ridge represents a horizontal distance of 15 miles or more from the foot to the summit. As we approached it, an irregular plateau four or five miles wide was seen to form a sort of foreground to the great mass of the chain, from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the plain, and 4,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea-level. This is intersected by occasional narrow ravines, which wind up to the crest of the ridge; and its face, fronting the plain, is for the most part exposed as an escarpment of red sandstone and limestone beds dipping away from the plain, and again rising from a synclinal against the crystalline porphyrites of the centre of the ridge, and unconformably overlying nearly vertical grey shaly beds with a strike ranging with the general trend of the Atlas range. Against the plateau escarpment rest enormous mounds of boulders spreading down to the level plain.

These, then, are the general features of the chain of the Atlas and plain of Marocco, the further details of which it will be convenient to consider under the following heads:—

(a) Surface Deposits and Boulder Beds.

(b) Moraines of the higher valleys.

(c) Stratified Red Sandstone and Limestone Series.

(d) Grey Shales.

(e) Metamorphic Rocks.

(f) Porphyrites.

(g) Eruptive Basalts.

(a) Surface Deposits and Boulder-beds.—Next to the Tufa crust already described, which extends over almost the entire plain of Marocco, perhaps the most remarkable feature in the physical geology of the country is the enormous deposit of boulders that occurs in the lateral valleys, and flanks the great chain on its confines with the plain. Of marine drift there is not a trace; and alluvial drift and valley gravels are very limited in their distribution, being confined to the borders of a few insignificant rivers that intersect the plain and the localities of occasional waterflows; but as soon as the flanks of the Atlas are reached, new and distinct drift phenomena present themselves. It was on our second day’s journey from Marocco to the Atlas that the great boulder-beds came under our notice, first in a valley leading up from Mesfioua to Tasseremout, as scattered blocks of red sandstone, remarkable for their large average size, many of them of from ten to twenty cubic yards; but here the method of their disposition scarcely enabled us to decide that they were other than stream-borne masses from the higher ground. From Tasseremout we turned west, and at the

Fig. 5.

Boulder-mounds, skirting Atlas Plateau Escarpment. (Section.)

mouth of a second valley, two miles from the village, suddenly came upon a huge development of these Red Sandstone boulder-beds as great ridge-like and very symmetrical masses with terminal faces three or four hundred feet high, and, like the more scattered blocks NW. of Tasseremout, intermixed with but a very small proportion of fine matter. From this valley we turned out northwards, skirting the escarpment facing the plain; and for more than ten miles no lateral valley breaks into the cliff-like face; but below it the great boulder-beds (figs. 5, 6) still occur in huge masses not resting directly against the escarpment, but as isolated mounds two or three hundred feet in advance, sloping down towards the escarpment in one direction, and in the other rolling away in great wave-like ridges and undulating sheets, which terminate at a well-marked line of demarcation, just where the level portion of the plain commences. I measured by aneroid the height of these mounds; and at one point their summit was 3,950 feet above the sea-level, from which they spread down uninterruptedly to the edge of the plain nearly 2,000 feet below. They bear a striking resemblance to the glacial ridges or escars between Edinburgh and Perth; their mound-like structure is distinctly visible from the city of Marocco, twenty-five miles off, appearing like a row of pyramidal tali resting against the face of the escarpment as though they had been cast down from its edge on to the plain. The internal structure of the mounds also suggests such a deviation from the

Fig. 6.

Boulder-mounds, skirting Atlas Plateau Escarpment.

disposition of the boulders in layers sloping away from the escarpment towards the plain; and on a nearer approach it is seen that the individual mounds are not connected with channels or valleys breaking through the escarpment.

The depression between the escarpment and the drift-mounds is a remarkable feature, and suggests an entire change of conditions since the boulder-beds were deposited. If they are a mere sub-aërial talus, they should rest directly against the cliff face, and the depression separating them must have been formed after the accumulation had ceased; and yet no satisfactory reason can be assigned for such cessation, if rain and river action were the only operating causes. The form of the mounds in the valley west of Tasseremout at once conveyed to me the impression that they were of glacial origin; and the discovery of undoubted moraines in the higher valleys strengthened my conviction that the boulder-mounds and ridges flanking the Atlas plateau can only be satisfactorily explained as the result of glaciers covering the escarpment, leaving on their recession the intermediate depression.

(b) Moraines of the Higher Atlas.—Kindred phenomena occur higher up in the Atlas valleys, most notable in the case of unquestionable moraines, commencing at the village of Adjersiman, in the province of Reraya, at an altitude of 6,000 feet. Here we met with a gigantic ridge of porphyry blocks, having a terminal angle of repose of between 800 and 900 feet in vertical height, and grouped with several other mounds and ridges of similar scale, all composed of great masses of rock with little or no admixture of small fragments, and completely damming up the steep ravine and retaining behind it a small alluvial plain 6,700 feet above the sea-level.

We failed to detect any scratched blocks or striæ; but that these ridges are true glacial moraines no one who has seen them and compared them with other glacial phenomena would for a moment doubt; and their interrupted occurrence at various heights is strictly in accordance with the distribution of moraines in many of the Swiss and Scotch valleys.

Lieut. Washington, in referring to the pointed mountainous hills NW. of the city of Marocco, crossed on his homeward journey, describes one of them as being ‘covered with masses of gneiss and coarse-grained granite (? diorite), many of the blocks being several tons in weight,’ and asks, ‘how got they there?’ ‘If granite, the nearest granite mountains are at a distance of twenty-five to thirty miles: can they be boulders?’ As far as my own observations go, there was no rock in situ in the part of this range I visited near Marocco resembling granite or diorite; and in connection with the boulder-mounds of the Atlas, the occurrence of foreign blocks north of the plain of Marocco so far from the parent source, is a circumstance of great interest.

(c) Stratified Red Sandstone and Limestone Series.—A long line of comparatively low and flattish hills, forming a plateau, with an average height of about 4,500 feet above the sea, and 2,800 feet above the plain of Marocco, intervenes between it and the main ridge of the Atlas. The edge of this plateau facing the plain is for some distance an escarpment, exposing stratified beds of limestone containing bands of chalcedonic concretions, underlain by grey and puce-coloured marls. As this plateau is crossed from north to south towards the Atlas ridge, its central line would represent a synclinal, from which the beds rise northwards towards the plain and southwards towards the Atlas; but it is locally broken and contorted, and near Tasseremout the limestone beds stand up nearly on end. South of the synclinal, i.e. between the centre of the irregular plateau and the Atlas, great deposits of red sandstone and dark-red conglomerate, interstratified with cream-coloured shelly limestone, occur, which appear to be inferior members of the series of limestones and marls exposed in the escarpment facing the plain. Lieut. Washington, who ascended Miltsin to a height of 6,400 feet, describes hard red sandstone with an east and west strike dipping 10° south, as occurring at this elevation, which is nearly 2,000 feet higher than we observed the Red Sandstone series in the province of Reraya farther west, and also both in his approach and descent from Miltsin of ranges of limestone running NE. and SW. dipping 70° SE. with abrupt sterile sandstone mountains rising above them. From the few obscure fossils, including an Ostrea, I was able to collect from the limestone bands, Mr. Etheridge considers that they are of Cretaceous age. They are, like the beds of the plain, remarkable for containing great deposits of chalcedonic concretions; but the latter may possibly be of more recent age. They rest unconformably on the upturned edges of grey shaly beds, and extend also over the porphyries that form the great mass of the Atlas chain. They appear to have been deposited subsequently to the porphyry ridge assuming its present hill-and-valley contour, as little isolated fragments are seen clinging to the sides of a narrow ravine leading out of the valley we ascended through the province of Reraya to the Atlas. Their relation to the few exposures of stratified beds in the plain is somewhat uncertain, as no fossils were obtained in the latter, and there are no direct connecting links; but, judging from petrological similarity, and from the fact that Neocomian fossils occur in exposed beds on the coast cliffs, and Cretaceous fossils in the beds forming the crest of the plateau, it seems possible that an unbroken series occurs from the cliff north of Saffi to the plateau skirting the Atlas, representing the whole of the Cretaceous epoch; but it is also open to question whether the level beds of the plain may not be an inland extension of the strata of Miocene age from which Dr. Hooker obtained fossils at the Jew’s Cliff south of Saffi.

(d) Grey Shales.—At several points on entering the lateral valleys of the Atlas, almost vertical shaly beds are crossed, having a strike nearly east and west, corresponding with the trend of the chain. They clearly underlie, and are unconformable to, the Red Sandstone and Limestone series; and their almost vertical position appears connected with one of the several upheavals that have affected the chain. Of their geological age there is no evidence, except that they are pre-Cretaceous. In places, as at Assghin, they abound in nodules of carbonate of iron. Pale shales, containing quartz veins, crop up near the village of Frouga, in the plain south-west of Marocco, which may possibly belong to this series; and if the porphyries forming the mass of the Atlas are contemporaneous, they are probably interbedded with these grey shaly beds. Lieut. Washington speaks of the occurrence of clay-slate dipping 45° east between El Mansoria and Fidallah, and again of a hilly country of clay-slate near the plain of Smira, and at Peira, farther south; but it is impossible to say whether these beds are related to the grey shales of the Atlas.

(e) Metamorphic Rocks.—The most important development of metamorphic rocks in the neighbourhood of Marocco is on the north side of the city. In its immediate neighbourhood, three miles to the north-west, a low rugged hill occurs, composed of a very hard and compact dark-grey rock, containing knotted white concretions elongated in the line of stratification, which dips from 50° to 80° south-west, the strike being north-west and south-east. The whole of the north side of the plain is bounded by ranges of rugged hills of similar form, and apparently rising from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the plain. We had not an opportunity of visiting them; but, judging from their outline, they are identical in formation with the hill close to Marocco. We observed nothing in the Atlas resembling it. Lieut. Washington, who crossed these hills on his journey to Marocco at about the point I visited, and again forty miles to the east, near the source of the river Tensift, on his homeward journey, speaks of them as from 500 to 1,200 feet in height, consisting of micaceous schist and a schistose rock with veins of quartz dipping 75°, with a strike north by east and south by west. The strike may vary a little at different points, and, taking Lieut. Washington’s and my own observations together, would average about north and south; and it is worthy of note that these apparently ancient rocks are nearly at right angles to the strike of the rocks of the Atlas chain a few miles to the south.

The only other metamorphic rocks that came under our notice were:—first, white marble or metamorphic limestone, intercalated with the porphyrites at the summit of the ridge of the Atlas south of Arround; secondly, mica-schists, pierced by red porphyry dykes, forming the mass of Djebel Tezah, a peak 11,000 feet in height, and fifteen miles farther west, ascended by Dr. Hooker and Mr. Ball after my return. It is possible that the mica-schists may be a portion of the grey-shale series, metamorphosed by the intrusion of the porphyry dykes. Lieut. Washington, on his first day’s journey south of Tangier, refers to the occurrence of rounded schistose hills about 300 feet high, strike north-west and south-east, dip 75° south-west, containing mica-slate with veins of foliated quartz; but I have no recollection of observing any such metamorphic rocks between Tangier and Tetuan.

(f) Porphyrites.—Of the eruptive rocks of the Atlas, porphyrites and porphyritic tuffs occupy by far the most prominent position, forming the great mass of its ridge.

On entering the lateral valleys, after crossing the vertical shaly beds, great masses of red porphyrites and tuffs are met with, associated with specular iron and occasional green porphyries. The harder portions of the latter are seen as Verde antique pebbles in the river-beds; but we failed to detect this in situ. From the large proportion of tuffs that occurs the porphyrites appear to be interbedded, and are possibly contemporaneous with the vertical grey shales to which they are adjacent. They are overlapped unconformably by the Red Sandstone and Limestone series of Cretaceous age. The late Mr. D. Forbes informed me that they bear a strong likeness to the porphyrites of the Andes, of Oolitic age; but beyond the fact that they were in existence and had undergone denudation into hill-and-valley contour before the Cretaceous beds were deposited over them, there is no certain evidence as to their age.

There may have been at least one or two subsequent intrusions of red porphyrites, viz. of the dykes of Djebel Tezah, metamorphosing grey shales into mica-schists, and of the dykes that break up through the stratified beds of the plain east of Sheshaoua—which may probably be more recent than the porphyrites of the Atlas, as they appear to penetrate strata which extend over the denuded surface of the Atlas mass; but I cannot speak with certainty as to the relative age of the stratified beds and the porphyritic bosses which rise up out of the plain.

(g) Eruptive Basalts.—Of these we met with three distinct species:—

(1) Black vesicular basalt (porous and compact pyroxenic lava with olivine) on the coast near Mogador, and imbedded in the base of the post-Tertiary concrete sandstone cliffs: but it was nowhere seen in situ; and I think it possible that the fragments may have been derived from the Canary Islands, which are only 70 or 80 miles distant, or possibly from some point of eruption nearer the land.

(2) Amygdaloid green Basalt, which rises up in dykes, in many places penetrating the Red Sandstone and Limestone series on the flanks of the Atlas, and also piercing the diorite of the Arround valley. We observed numerous dykes at Tasseremout, Tassgirt, and Asni, south-east and south of Marocco city. Beyond the fact that they are probably post-Cretaceous, there is no evidence as to their age. From what we could see of their distribution, the whole range of the Atlas seems abundantly intersected by these dykes.

(3) Diorite rises up in considerable masses among the porphyrites in the valley of the Arround, due south of Marocco, but forms no great proportion of the bulk of the ridge. Its intrusion may have been contemporaneous with the dislocation and upturning of the Red Sandstone and Limestone series overlying the porphyrites.

General Summary.—It now only remains briefly to recapitulate the order of sequence of the geological phenomena observed in the plain of Marocco and the Atlas.

The oldest rocks that have been noticed are:—

(1) The ranges of rugged metamorphic rocks north of the city of Marocco, and forming the northern boundary of the plain, respecting the age of which, and the period of their upheaval and metamorphism, there is no evidence.

(2) The interbedded porphyrites and porphyritic tuffs of the Atlas, forming the backbone of the ridge, the age of which, and of the grey shales with which they seem to be interbedded, is also uncertain.

(3) Mica-schists of Djebel Tezah, in the Atlas, south-west of Marocco, pierced with eruptive porphyritic dykes, which may be an altered condition of the vertical grey shales adjacent to the interbedded porphyrites.

These rocks are our starting point, respecting which there is no evidence of their age, or even relative age.

(4) We now come to a long period of denudation of the Atlas ridge, and its sculpturing into hill-and-valley contour, before the deposition of the Red Sandstone and Limestone series.

(5) The deposition over what is now the Marocco plain, of the Cretaceous Red Sandstone and Limestone series (and beds possibly of Miocene age), which also occupies pre-existing valleys in the older porphyrites of the Atlas.

(6) The intrusion of diorite into the porphyrites and porphyritic tuffs, probably accompanied by a further elevation of the Atlas range, disturbing the stratified Red Sandstone and Limestone series, throwing them into a synclinal trough, from which the beds rise northwards towards the plain, and southwards towards the Atlas.

(7) A further long period of denudation of the Red Sandstone and Limestone series, rescooping out the lateral valleys of the Atlas, in continuation of the valleys that existed in the porphyrite ridge prior to their deposition, and also denuding the beds in the Marocco plain to the extent of at least 300 feet, leaving isolated remnants as flat tabular hills rising above the present general level of the plain.

(8) A further possible emission of red porphyrites through the stratified beds of the plain, which may have been contemporaneous with the eruption of the red porphyry dykes of Djebel Tezah, in the High Atlas; but I could not clearly ascertain whether these bosses really pierced the stratified beds, or were existing before their deposition.

SKETCH ACROSS PLAIN OF MAROCCO TO WATERSHED OF GREAT ATLAS

(Note The Camels Back Hills & Frouga are West of the back of section)

([Large-size], [Largest size])

(9) A post-Cretaceous eruption through the Red Sandstone and Limestone series of a multitude of dykes of amygdaloid basalt, the age of which is uncertain.

The more recent changes commence with:—

(10) The formation of gigantic boulder-beds flanking the northern escarpment of the Atlas plateau, and spreading down in great mounds and undulating ridges from a height of 3,900 feet to the borders of the plain, 1,900 feet above the sea, with a range in vertical height of about 2,000 feet, and extending up the entrances of several of the lateral valleys, as well-defined and symmetrical moraines.

(11) The formation of moraines at the heads of the Atlas valleys, commencing at a height of 5,800 feet, and spreading up to the cliffs of the Atlas ridge, to a height of between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, with a terminal angle of repose 850 feet in vertical height.

(12) The formation of a plain of shingle behind the moraines, at a height of about 6,700 feet, which seems to be the bed of a small lake.

(13) The recession and extinction of glaciers in the Atlas range, on which there is now not even perpetual snow.

(14) An elevation of the coast-line of at least 70 feet, represented by the height of the raised beaches of concrete sand at Mogador and other parts of the coast, which may possibly be contemporaneous with the elevation of similar raised beaches on the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and with the raised beaches of our south-western coast.

(15) A slight subsidence of the coast-line, now going on, with an accumulation of extensive deposits of blown sand at Mogador.

(16) The formation of a tufaceous surface-crust over almost the entire plain of Marocco, due to the drawing up to the surface, by rapid evaporation, of water from the subjacent calcareous strata, depositing, layer by layer, laminated carbonate of lime.

APPENDIX I.

MOORISH STORIES AND FABLES.

From much information that has been kindly furnished to us by Mr. Freeman Rogers, a gentleman who was several years resident in Marocco, and had become familiar with the people and their language and manners, the following extracts have been taken for the sake of the light which they throw on the condition of the country. It being the main object of this volume to relate our personal experiences, we have not been able to avail ourselves of much information supplied to us by Mr. Rogers, and other competent witnesses; but it has appeared to us that the extracts here given form a useful supplement to the facts which came to our knowledge during our short stay in Marocco, and will help the reader to form a truer conception of its present condition.

The stories, which may be said to have a political character, furnished to us by Mr. F. Rogers, all refer to events that have occurred during the last twenty-five years, and are precisely similar in character to others which were passing at the time of our visit. They are accepted as substantially accurate by our informant, and we see no reason to refuse them credence. They certainly tally with the universal belief of the natives as to the conduct of their rulers. Any one who is familiar with the chronicles of the Middle Ages, who has marvelled at the deeds of ferocious cruelty recorded of German petty rulers, or the more refined atrocities of Italian princes, must sometimes have felt a wish to know what manner of men they were who committed these deeds. To satisfy such a curiosity, he cannot do better than pay a visit to the interior of Marocco. If duly commended to their good offices, he will be received by men of stately and courteous manners, prompt to display a lavish hospitality, who will inevitably send him away with a favourable impression; but before he has been many weeks in the country, he will become aware that these amiable hosts are habitually guilty of deeds of combined ferocity and treachery that equal, if they do not surpass, those of the dark periods of European history.

The popular fables, which were taken down from the mouth of an old Moorish story-teller, and literally translated by Mr. Rogers, complete the impression derived from the fragments of contemporary history. They all turn upon the success of fraud and force in the affair’s of life. The moral, so to speak, of all is ‘woe to the weak and the confiding;’ but admiration is mainly given to those who supply the place of strength by successful perfidy.

Abd el Saddock, Kaïd of Mogador, Duquallah, Abda, and Sous.[1]

On one occasion this Kaïd was sent to Sous by the Sultan to reduce some provinces to submission. When arrived there, a grand entertainment was given to him by the refractory Sheiks, and immense quantities of provisions sent in to supply the guests, among which was a large quantity of a particular dish of which the Kaïd was known to be very fond, and this was all poisoned. The Kaïd, suspecting from the Sheiks’ importunity for him to eat of it that it was poisoned, ordered his soldiers to guard the doors and let no one escape, and then called upon the Sheiks one by one to partake of the dish. Most of the Sheiks refused to eat, and some few came cheerfully forward at the Kaïd’s call; those who refused were compelled to eat, and those who came cheerfully forward were not allowed to eat; and so the Kaïd in one day not only got rid of his enemies, but saved his friends, whom he rewarded by putting them in the place of those who fell by their own treachery.

Kaïd Boh Djemma.

Some short time after the news of the foregoing had spread over the country, a revolt took place at Shedma, and many of the Sheiks made themselves conspicuous by their opposition to the Kaïd, who determined to get rid of all his enemies at one blow; he therefore made peace with them, and all seemed well and tranquil for some time. At last came the holiday l’ashora, or the day of the Sultan’s tenthing, when an invitation was issued by the Kaïd to all his Sheiks to appear at his entertainment; none dare refuse, and so all went. The Kaïd had, in the meantime, prepared a large room, into which he sent the Sheiks known to be his enemies, and another into which he sent those known to be his friends. When all had feasted until they could eat no more, the Kaïd quietly ordered the windows and doors to be closed, the men to be bound, burning charcoal to be placed in the room, and the doors then to be built up, and all left to their fate. Nine days afterwards, when the room was opened, nothing remained of all those men, some twenty-two or twenty-three, but bones, attesting the fatal effects of burning charcoal and the daring ferocity of the rats; except one man whom the Kaïd pardoned, believing him to be innocent, as his life seemed to be so miraculously preserved.

What the Sultan means when he bestows a Wife.

The Kaïd of Shedmah, Boh Djemma, had distinguished himself against some rebels who had risen against the Sultan, and the praise bestowed upon him openly by his enemies in the hearing of the Sultan, excited the suspicious sovereign’s anger and jealousy to such an extent that he was determined to get rid of such a dangerous enemy; in order to which he called for the Kaïd and praised his exploits in the presence of all his great men, ordered him a suit of his own royal clothing and a favourite horse, and promised him a wife out of his own seraglio. The Kaïd rejoiced, and his enemies too: the Kaïd, because he regarded himself as a favourite; and his enemies, who were older and knew better, because that he was doomed. In a few days the Kaïd was sent home and his new wife along with him in great state, and in ten days more the Kaïd was carried to the grave, he having died suddenly (poisoned by the Sultan’s female executioner) in the night.

A similar occurrence took place with the Kaïd of Haha; but he had a watchful and wise mother, who watched the new wife until she saw her prepare a dish for her son, when she presented herself before him, charged the new wife with her intended crime, and dared her to eat of her own dish. The Kaïd’s eyes were opened, and he compelled the Sultan’s lady, his new wife, to eat of the dish which she had prepared for him, when she immediately died from the effects of her own poison. This Kaïd ever after kept away from the Sultan until, a few years ago, his evil genius prevailed on him to obey the Sultan’s call, when he died within an hour after taking supper with the Sultan.

Abd el Saddock, Kaïd of Mogador, Duquallah, Abda, and Sous, and his False Friend.

Some years since, the Kaïd of Mogador[2] (father of the Kaïd Hadj Amara who entertained you when there) ruled over the provinces of Duquallah, Sous, and Abda, and made a great deal of money during his administration, and secured the love of all good Moors by his making the Jews acknowledge their inferiority to the Moors. But suspecting that his time to be squeezed by the Sultan had nearly arrived, he determined to prepare for it, and so outwit a false friend, who was an enemy of his, and the Sultan at the same time; in order to which, he called upon his false friend, and invited him to dine with him that evening in private as he had something to tell him. After dinner the Kaïd told his guest that he was getting afraid of the Sultan seizing him in order to get his money. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘I have a favour to ask of you, which is that you will carefully preserve the treasure which I will show you, and when I am seized upon take the keys of my house, but do not live in it, and when my son Hamara knows how to use my money, then tell him of the box and give him the keys; and further, I want you to swear that you will never tell where I have hid my treasure, and that you will not tell any one of what has passed this night.’ The false friend took the oath with mental reservations, as would appear from the sequel. The Kaïd then ordered four slaves to attend upon him, and all descended to the cellar, where the money was concealed in a large strong wooden box, buried in the ground. The box was then opened and was seen to be full of silver and gold, &c. The Kaïd then had the box covered up, and the false friend took his departure. After he went away, the Kaïd returned with his slaves and had the money, but not the box, removed to a really secure place, and had the box filled with bits of stones and broken pottery and recovered over in the same manner as it was before, when seen by the Kaïd’s false confidant; he then had his slaves carried off to prison and put to death on some pretext or other. The next day when the Kaïd’s confidant heard of the slaves being dead, he knew it was to prevent their telling, and concluded that it was the secret which he possessed which the Kaïd wanted to guard, and that he alone knew of the secret of the Kaïd’s wealth and its hiding place. In some short time afterwards, an order came from the Sultan ordering Abd el Saddock up to Marocco; upon which the Kaïd told his confidant of his trouble and begged him to be true to his oath, blessed him, kissed him, and then went to wait upon the Sultan. The Sultan upon seeing him ordered his arrest and torture, accusing him of robbing him and his people, &c.; upon which the Kaïd was carried off to the torture, when he kept denying having any money, and being guilty of the charges brought against him. At last the Sultan, losing all patience, sent him word that he had received information, so the Kaïd had better speak the truth at once, for such a one (the false friend) had declared that he had a large box full of treasure, but was sworn not to tell of its whereabouts. The Kaïd, therefore, must either tell or suffer death by torture. At this the Kaïd pretended to be much alarmed, and declared that nothing could be concealed from Seedna, so he would confess the whole truth, and that what such a one said was true and that it was concealed in such a place, and put there in presence of such a one (the informer, the Kaïd’s confidant), and that if the Sultan sent for it he would have it all. The Kaïd was then put in prison, and notaries and soldiers sent for the money under the guidance of the informer who was in great glee, thinking that now his fortune was made and his favour with the Sultan secure; but upon arriving at the cellar and the box being opened, nothing but stones and broken pottery was found where there had been gold and silver. Imagine the wretch’s horror as the notaries said he himself must inform the Sultan, as they dare not do so; however, as there was no use in lamenting, they returned to Marocco, and the informer had to tell Seedna that there was nothing in the box but rubbish; upon which the Sultan ordered the Kaïd to be brought before him and demanded the meaning of such a thing. The Kaïd answered, ‘True, our lord, it is that I did not oppress your people, and the money hidden in that box was made by lawful means, and I reposed confidence in my friend here, and left the money for my son; and so I told your majesty truly that I had nothing, because it then became by my gift my son’s money, and this, my false friend, has broken his trust, robbed my son and Seedna, and then to cover his knavery, sought my life by trying to turn our lord against me. I therefore beg that our lord will make him confess what he has done with Seedna’s money.’ The Sultan thought the informer simply wanted to make him a fool to cover his knavery, and at once, in a passion, ordered him to be flogged until he confessed. But as he could not confess that he had taken the money and had none of his own to replace it, the lash was continued until the wretch died under it. The Kaïd was set free and restored to Mogador, and the informer’s son is now assistant weigher at the Custom House, Mogador.