Before long we began to ascend the slopes on the western side of the valley. The hill was covered with a dense growth of shrubs and low bushes, in great part evergreen, and had more the characteristic aspect of the region surrounding the shores of the Mediterranean than anything we had seen since leaving Tangier. But, although there were several identical species, the differences were very marked, and a single glance sufficed to show that we were far removed from the flora of North Marocco. The arbutus was the sole representative of its natural order, and no heath extends to the Great Atlas. The oak-scrub, in this and the neighbouring valleys, is all formed of some form of the evergreen oak, Quercus lusitanica, Q. coccifera, and the allied forms being all absent. The Alaternus is common to both regions, but a narrow-leaved form of Rhamnus oleoides is here more common. Seven species of Cistus that adorn the hills in North Marocco are on the slopes of the Great Atlas reduced to two, and those the least conspicuous. On the other hand, the number of bushy Labiatæ was here largely increased, and included many peculiar species not known to grow elsewhere; and there were many Umbelliferæ, of which several were not yet sufficiently advanced for recognition. Of Leguminosæ, which everywhere play a conspicuous part in the flora of this region, the most striking novelty was a new Coronilla (C. ramosissima, Ball), that forms a low bush, with very numerous slender intricate branches, covered at this season with rather small yellow flowers. In the midst of so much that was strange to the eye, it was pleasant to see two familiar European orchids, Orchis pyramidalis and Ophrys apifera.
There was something comical in the effect of our long cortège, with the escort swollen to-day by the addition of three sheiks of the valley, winding solemnly up the slope of the mountain, but thrown every now and then into general excitement by the appearance of some unpretending plant. The order ‘catch him flower’ would then issue to the native attendants, or one or other of the travellers would set foot to ground the better to inspect it. But any sense of incongruity between the pomp and circumstance of our mode of travelling and the simple nature of our favourite occupation was lost on the natives. To them one pursuit of civilised man is as unintelligible as another, and they can conceive no other serious occupation for men not forced to labour than war or hunting. It is a curious instance of the survival of barbarous instincts, that a good many people in our own islands, who imagine themselves to belong to the upper classes of society, have scarcely advanced a step beyond the mental condition of the Shelluh mountaineer.
We passed a village where we noticed some rude oil mills; and, after an ascent of about a thousand feet, reached the summit of the ridge dividing the valley we had left from the long and important one, the upper part of which is known, from the tribe that inhabits it, as Aït Mesan. It is very difficult to trace the course of the streams that flow northward from this part of the Great Atlas, because they are so extensively diverted into irrigation channels that the natural bed is often dry, except after heavy rain. According to Beaudouin’s map the streams from this and several adjoining valleys all flow to the Oued Tensift by the east side of the city of Marocco. This we were led to believe an error in that map. It is probably true of the Ourika river and its affluents; but our own observation, confirmed by the statements of the natives, led us to think that all the streams from the Reraya district flow north-westward after entering the plain, and unite with those from the districts of Gurgouri and Amsmiz to form the river Oued Nyfs, which we had passed at Misra ben Kara; the same name, variously pronounced Oued Enfist or Oued Enfisk, being applied to several of the separate torrents above referred to. It will be remarked that the name Oued Enfist is merely an anagrammatic form of Oued Tensift, the main river that drains all this portion of the Great Atlas; and it is a question whether the natives do not apply the same name, with the usual laxity as to the order of the consonants, to all the affluents of the principal stream.
After descending some way on the western side of the ridge, we came in sight of a large village perched on the summit of a hill, on the opposite side of the stream that ran at a great depth below us. This we soon learned to be Moulaï Ibrahim, a zaouia, or sanctuary, much venerated in all this part of Marocco, governed by a sherreef, belonging to the family of the saint whose tomb is the chief building of the village. This semi-independent sherreef gave permission to M. Balansa to remain in the village for some days in 1867; but just as that active traveller was prepared to attempt to penetrate into the interior of the chain, an order from El Graoui made it necessary for him to depart, and follow the direct way to Marocco. As we came in sight of the zaouia, each of our troop, Shelluh as well as Moor, commenced to recite prayers, and then, after prostrating himself on the ground, with his face towards the sanctuary, proceeded to add a stone to certain heaps that stood beside the track. The Berebers, in general, are said to be very lax in conforming to the precepts of the Koran, but they are as assiduous in their show of reverence for saints and sanctuaries as the Moors themselves, and it would appear that this is the only practical form in which their religion exhibits itself.
On the summit of the ridge, which may be about 4,500 feet above the sea, the rock is a grey schist, often shaly in texture, with the strike about east and west, and clipping at a high angle approaching the vertical. These beds may perhaps be identical with the schists, sometimes containing mica, and sometimes more calcareous in composition, which we afterwards found at the head of the Amsmiz valley, and with the rock, described as micaceous schist, seen by Washington in his ascent from Tasseremout. Our course now lay about due south, parallel to that of the torrent which ran at a considerable depth below us. At Moulaï Ibrahim this, according to M. Balansa, is called Oued Ghaghaia, but we never heard any similar designation for it. The difficulty of seizing the shades of more or less guttural sounds from the mouths of the natives makes it not improbable that the word Ghaghaia of M. Balansa is the same that we agreed in writing Reraya, and that the name may mean that this is the stream draining the district of Reraya.
On this ridge we found that curious grass, Lygeum Spartum, characteristic of Sicily and Southern Spain, where it is much used for making fine basket-work, but not seen elsewhere in Marocco. Soon after we lit upon a single specimen of a very fine plant of the artichoke family, evidently distinct from all those described, but unfortunately not yet in flower. It has been provisionally named Cynara Hystryx (Ball). The next find was not less interesting—an Oriental Echinospermum (E. barbatum of Lehmann) that extends from the Punjab to Asia Minor and the Caucasus, but had not before been seen in Africa.
About two o’clock we left behind us the rough irregular ground over which we had been riding, and found ourselves in a broad open valley, with a level floor, half a mile or more in width, at the head of which rose some fine snow-seamed peaks. As we advanced towards the main chain, our suspicion that the dividing ridge and the higher peaks were at once more distant and more lofty than had hitherto been supposed, was more and more confirmed; and we were soon able to certify that M. Balansa’s expectation that any of the higher points might be reached in a single day from Moulaï Ibrahim was based on miscalculation of the scale of these mountains.
J. B. delt.
GREAT ATLAS FROM LOWER VALLEY OF AIT MESAN