Journal of a tour in Marocco and the Great Atlas

by Joseph Dalton Hooker; John Ball

We found the Vérité, though boasting a French name, to be a nearly new Clyde-built steamer, owned by a Marseilles Company and commanded by Captain Abeille of that port, far better fitted up than most of those that ply along this coast. The passengers were few, and, as these disembarked at the intermediate ports, we at last became the sole occupants of the state cabin. On a fine evening, with the gentle heaving of the broad Atlantic billows to tune all to harmony, we passed the headland of Cape Spartel, and received the first rays of the great lanthorn as they shot out seaward when lighted for the night.

At seven o’clock next morning the engines were stopped, and going on deck we found ourselves lying some way off the shore, opposite the mouth of the river Oued Bouregrag, that divides Sallee from Rabat. The latter, as seen from a distance, is a place of somewhat imposing appearance. The chief mosque has a great square tower, rivalling those of Seville and Marocco; and a pile of modern masonry, on a scale unknown elsewhere in modern days in this country, marks the large barrack where the Sultan’s body-guard is lodged when he pays his annual visit to the coast. Carpets are made here, and also a peculiar sort of unglazed pottery, coarse in texture, but admirable in form, and singular in ornamentation.[1] Over against Rabat, on the north side of the river, is Sallee, once a famous place, the last outpost of Roman civilisation, and afterwards the home of pirates who were dreaded throughout the Mediterranean and along the coasts of France and England. Looking at the bare coast, and the paltry groups of mud boxes that make up a Moorish town, and knowing that the bar at the river’s mouth allows, except at spring tide, the passage only of ships of small tonnage, it seemed scarcely credible that the European Powers should so long have allowed such a nest of hornets to flourish at their very gates. When one reads that up to the middle of the last century it was not a very rare thing for the ‘Sallee rovers’ to lie under Lundy Island, and cut out Bristol merchantmen, one asks what the British navy was about, that the malefactors and their ships were not swept from the sea, and Sallee itself utterly destroyed. The false humanity that caused in our time such bitter lamentations over the chastisement of Bornean pirates had not been yet invented.

We lay for the greater part of the day within some two or three miles of the shore, but the Atlantic rollers were too heavy to allow a nearer approach, or permit the landing of cargo. This happens too frequently to excite remark; and these great waves, originating in the passage of cyclones in the mid-Atlantic, often arrive so suddenly in the calmest weather as to create a serious danger for the seaman. At the least it is prudent to keep up a sufficient pressure of steam in the boiler to make it easy to gain the offing on the shortest notice; and we heard of several cases where the coast steamers had called in succession at all the Atlantic ports of Marocco without being able to communicate with any one of them, and cargo and passengers had been carried on to the Canary Islands with the uncertain prospect of being landed on the return voyage. Fogs offer another serious impediment to navigation on this coast. During the summer the low country for a distance of eight or ten miles from the shore is not rarely covered during the morning with a thick mist that clears away before mid-day. At such times ships dare not approach the sandy coasts, and, when the sky clears, the scarcity of landmarks makes it extremely difficult for the seaman to ascertain his exact position. As the same difficulty prevented us from touching Rabat on our return voyage, we can add nothing to what has been told by preceding travellers. Counting Sallee as a suburb of the larger town, the population is estimated at 40,000, or more than all the other Atlantic ports put together. The inhabitants are said to suffer from three scourges—prolonged droughts, the invasion of locusts, and, worst of all, the annual visits of the Sultan, whose body-guard of several thousand soldiers has to be fed at their cost.

To the naturalist a stay of some days at Rabat might be of great interest if he were able to accomplish a visit to the famous forest of Mamora, which fills a large part of the space, some twenty miles in width, between the mouth of the Bouregrag and the larger river Sebou that carries to the sea the drainage of the high mountains near Fez. The scene of most of the wonderful tales that circulate among the people of North Marocco—adventures with lions, robbers, and other wild animals—is laid in the forest of Mamora; but excepting one solitary plant, brought thence by the Abbé Durand—a very distinct species of Celsia—nothing is known of the fauna and flora of the forests of this part of Marocco. These appear to cover a considerable tract parallel to the Atlantic coast, and probably consist mainly of the cork oak, which in any other country might become a considerable source of profit. Eastward of the forest the country south of the Oued Sebou is a marshy tract, breeding endemic fevers that are said to extend to Sallee and Rabat.

In the afternoon the swell became more moderate, and a boat came out with passengers, including the family of Mr. Dupuis, the British Vice-Consul at Casa Blanca. It was decided that it would not be safe to land cargo, so the captain resolved to start without further delay and run for Casa Blanca—the Dar el-Beïda of the Moors. The sun had set, and night was closing in as we approached the low shore, where a few white houses mark a station which has risen to some little importance owing to the preference shown for it by French merchants, who carry on a considerable trade with the interior.

We accepted a courteous invitation from Mr. and Madame Dupuis, and, landing early on the morning of the 22nd, went to breakfast at their house. A less attractive spot than Casa Blanca it is difficult to imagine. A featureless coast of low shelves of red sandstone rock overlaid by stiff clay, stretches on either side in slight undulations, nowhere rising more than a couple of hundred feet above the sea. Not a tree gives variety to the outline or shelter from the blazing sun. The attempts made by the few residents to cultivate the orange and other useful trees have met with little success; and the eye seeks in vain the gay shrubs that adorn the southern shores of the Mediterranean. The Cistuses, Genistas, heaths, Arbutus, and myrtle, as well as the more sober prickly oak and laurel, are all absent, and the arborescent vegetation is almost limited to stunted bushes of lentisk some three or four feet high.

As we strolled for several hours over the surrounding country, we at once perceived the influence of new climatal conditions. It was not that many new species marked the passage from one botanical province to another, for to our disappointment we found very few that we had not already gathered in North Marocco, and, excepting one rare Celsia, none that were not already well known. As elsewhere, Leguminosæ were predominant, and especially trefoils and medicks; grasses were both numerous and varied in species; and Umbelliferæ were represented by many conspicuous plants, of which Ferula communis, growing to a height of ten or more feet, is especially notable. In the absence of more substantial materials, the thick stems are used for fences. The contrast offered by the vegetation of this coast with that of the Mediterranean shores is caused altogether by climatal conditions, which allow one set of species to flourish while the rest are more or less rigidly excluded.

The information received from our obliging hosts respecting the country and the native population agreed well enough with what we heard elsewhere. The prejudices of the natives are not so strong as to make them indifferent to the advantages of trade with the intrusive Christians who are settled on the coast; and the unfortunate issue of the last war with Spain has taught them the prudence of avoiding wanton provocation. Whatever may be the case with the tribes farther inland, the people of the coast provinces are quite disposed for commercial intercourse; but the jealousy of the authorities makes enterprise of all kinds too unsafe to be risked by an ordinary native of the country. Some of the provincial governors who live near the coast carry on trade with European merchants; but for the rest such business as exists is in the hands of the Jews. The only interference of the Government, which is at least ostensibly dictated by a regard for the welfare of the people, relates to the corn trade. In favourable years Marocco produces much more grain than the population can consume, but drought and locusts often destroy the crops throughout large districts. The permission to export corn is therefore given or withheld by sovereign order according to the reports received at head-quarters. It is needless to point out how much the uncertainty thus produced must interfere with the profits of cultivation.

At Casa Blanca our skipper took on board a considerable quantity of maize for the Canary Islands, and a good many bales of hides and wool for Marseilles; and we found the decks in some disorder when we returned on board our steamer in the evening. All next day—the 23rd—we remained in the roads of Casa Blanca, uncertain at what moment we should continue our voyage. The time did not hang heavily on our hands, for we had as much work as we could accomplish in getting our collections into tolerably good order. We here had to deal with an enemy that was new to all of us, excepting Hooker, and which for the next week was to cause more trouble and anxiety than any one not a naturalist can easily realise. Nothing is more common with us at home than to grumble at the dampness of the climate; and, as far as the effects on the human animal are concerned, our complaints are perfectly just. Air at 50° Fahr. cannot at the utmost carry more than about 4½ grains of aqueous vapour to the cubic foot; but at that temperature it produces, when nearly saturated, that feeling on the nerves of the skin, familiar to every inhabitant of these islands, which is the ordinary forerunner of colds, sore throats, rheumatism, and many another ailment. But the botanist, to whom the condition of his drying paper is even more important than that of his own body, finds an easy remedy for the inconvenience. By exposing his damp paper to a temperature of from 80° to 90° in the sunshine, or before a fire, he readily obtains a satisfactory degree of relative dryness, and in a very few days his specimens are in a state to put away, and with ordinary care need give him no further trouble. But the case is very different where the ordinary temperature of the air in the shade is about 75°, as was the case here, not to speak of 85° which is the common limit in the tropics. To the human body there is nothing unpleasant in the effects of such air when nearly saturated with vapour, and so long as the temperature remains habitually between 70° and 80° it is decidedly favourable to health, if not to vigorous exertion. But a cubic foot of air at 77° contains nearly 10½ grains of vapour, and when at all near to the point of saturation it has no perceptible drying effect on surrounding objects, and a moderate increase of 10° or 12° Fahr. in temperature has but a slight effect in increasing its desiccating power. We were first struck by remarking the very long time required to dry the decks as compared with what is usual in the Mediterranean, and we had still more painful experience of the difficulty of drying our paper. We were now the sole occupants of the saloon, and our captain left us free to use every part of the steamer; the deck was soon turned to account, cords were stretched across the rigging, even the neighbourhood of the boiler was invaded, but with indifferent success. Few readers may care to sympathise with the distress of a naturalist who looks on his specimens, not only as scientific documents bringing some additions to our knowledge of the structure and relations of the organised world, but as things of beauty giving delight to the senses of form and colour, when, after much pains and care, he finds the flowers change their hues and drop off, the leaves turn black, and when mould, the sure sign of decomposition, begins to encrust the stems and fruits.

At 1 A.M. on the morning of the 24th we were again under steam, and soon after daylight speed was slackened as we lay off Mazagan. The abruptness of the transition from deep blue water in the offing to a somewhat milky green where the ship gets into shallower water here attracted our notice. It is of common occurrence even on coasts where there is reason to believe that the bed of the sea shelves vary gradually away from the shore, and one might expect a gradual change of tint; but no satisfactory explanation occurred to us.[2] It was some time before the land came in sight, and we were able to make out the square tower of the Portuguese fort that marks the position of Mazagan. The town stands on a slightly projecting point of land facing northward, and therefore especially exposed to the north-east breeze that prevails throughout the spring and summer. We lay all day rolling heavily, and the surf, breaking in hills of foam upon the shore, was too high to allow of the landing of cargo; but in the afternoon a small boat put off with provisions. Amongst these was a large freshwater fish, a species of shad, that had been caught in the Oued Oum-er-bia which runs into the sea some five miles east of Mazagan close to the site of Azemour, a ruined town once of some importance. The freshwater fish of the streams from the Atlas may probably offer many objects of interest to the ichthyologist, but do not seem likely to add much to the resources of the cook. We were told that the fine-looking animal which was displayed at table is considered a delicacy; but we found the flesh insipid and cottony, and during our subsequent journey we failed to find any fish worth eating.