Journal of a tour in Marocco and the Great Atlas

by Joseph Dalton Hooker; John Ball

The morning sky was so gloomy that no one awoke so early as we had intended; and at sunrise on May 16, when we loudly called for breakfast, the light was still so imperfect that it seemed as though the day had but just dawned. There was less than the usual delay; but six o’clock had passed, and we were not yet ready to start. To our great satisfaction we found that the sheik did not propose to accompany us to-day, but had appointed two men of the village to act as guides. With these, and our usual personal attendants, whom we knew by experience to be active pedestrians, we started about 6.30 A.M. to ascend the main southern branch of the valley. For rather more than a mile the way over the filled-up bed of the old moraine lake is quite flat, and for a considerable distance beyond this the ascent along the bottom of the valley is very gentle; but we were led by the aspect of the ground to ascend the rather steep western slope at a part much farther from the village than we had traversed three days before.

Our inducement to leave the track was the wish to examine certain solitary trees that we noticed scattered at rather wide intervals on the slopes, nowhere descending below the level of 8,000 feet above the sea, but extending upwards, where they find a resting place, through a vertical zone of about 1,500 feet. The first we were able to reach, which was similar in aspect to the rest, showed a trunk more than two feet in diameter, and about thirty feet high, but broken off and shattered at the top; the branches, with their very dark foliage, diminishing in length upwards, give the whole a conical form. We took it at the time for Juniperus phœnicea, which is rather a common tree in the lower valleys. Subsequent examination showed it, however, to differ from that species, and to be identical with Juniperus thurifera, a tree hitherto known only in Central Spain, Portugal, and Algeria, and apparently nowhere common. From the number of dead stems seen, it seems to have once girdled this mass of the Atlas with a belt of forest, which has been gradually thinned, and is doomed to ultimate destruction. The existing trees are probably of high antiquity, and their destruction is mainly due to the practice of setting fire to the brushwood to gain pasture for animals; while the young plants, of which not a single one was seen, would be cut off while yet seedlings by the tooth of the goat, the great enemy of tree vegetation—an animal whose disastrous influence, acting indirectly on the climate of wide regions, entitles it to rank as one of the worst enemies of the human race.

Although the ground was to a great extent occupied by the two dwarf bushes seen on our first visit, Alyssum spinosum and Bupleurum spinosum, there was no lack of new forms of plants to maintain our enthusiasm; and, in spite of the desire to push on, many a halt occurred as one or other lighted on an object of fresh interest. As a natural consequence of our having chosen to make our way along the side of the glen, instead of following its bed, we had to cross several projecting spurs, the last rather steep, before descending to a spot where, at the extreme head of the valley, our guides pointed out a Saint’s tomb, consisting of a rude stone hut with a space five or six feet square in the centre. When we reached this, the guides made it clear to us that we had arrived at the end of our excursion. The hut stands at the junction of the streams issuing from two rocky ravines. That on the west side was apparently very steep and pathless; the other, mounting about due S., was nearly equally steep, but we could see that a beaten track ascended along the opposite bank of the slender torrent that tumbled over the rocks at its entrance. The native guides confirmed the statement before made to Hooker, that by that tract lay the way to Sous; but, by expressive pantomime, they explained that danger lay in that direction, and that the people of the other side were addicted to the practice of shooting at strangers. We were careful to avoid controversy, and set ourselves to collect plants in a patch of boggy ground near the hut, where familiar northern species, such as Stellaria uliginosa, Sagina Linnæi, Montia fontana and Veronica Beccabunga, grew in company with a new species of Nasturtium, and others not before seen by us.

So intent had we been on the surrounding vegetation, that we had scarcely cast a glance at the sky overhead. This had continually assumed a more and more gloomy aspect; and at length, after due notice and preparation, the long-expected rain began, not in a heavy downpour such as often occurs in southern countries, but in that fine steady drizzle which is known to those whom the fates have led to the northern parts of our island as a Scotch mist, hateful to the lover of the picturesque and still more hateful to the botanist. On this occasion, however, it seemed to us no unmixed evil, as it furthered the execution of a stratagem that was already in our minds. Our followers were scantily clad, and felt more than we did the chilly temperature of the day, and of course the rain increased their discomfort. They were, therefore, in the right frame of mind to accept at once the suggestion that they should light a fire within the hut, therein following the example of preceding wayfarers. After muttering a few prayers, they proceeded to gather some damp sticks, and presently were busy in the attempt to make a fire out of them. Having continued for a few minutes to loiter about, still gathering plants near the hut, until the men appeared to be fully engrossed in their occupation, we started together to ascend the track leading to the summit ridge of the Atlas.

We had reached the Saint’s tomb about 9 A.M., and found its height above the sea-level to be 7,852 feet (2,393·2 m.). Little more than half-an-hour had since elapsed, so that, if no unexpected difficulty occurred, there was ample time to reach the summit of the pass which, as we thought, could scarcely be 3,000 feet above us. A number of interesting plants soon rewarded our adventure, and delayed us for a while on the rocky banks of the torrent near the bottom of the ravine, but out of view of the Saint’s tomb. On joining the track, we found it a well-made mountain path, constructed with some skill, advantage being taken of the nature of the ground to make zigzags, evidently intended for the passage of beasts of burthen.

We had ascended several hundred feet, and were looking about for plants among rocks to the left of the path, when some faint sound made us look up, and we descried, amid the rain and mist, a party of men and laden mules descending towards us down the steep ravine. There was some obvious awkwardness in the impending encounter of three Englishmen, utterly ignorant of the native tongue, with a set of wild mountaineers of the Atlas, in a spot where no stranger had ever before been seen. In such cases, the less time that is left for deliberation the better. Suspicion or greed may prompt an attack where time is left for consultation; but if people are suddenly confronted by peaceable strangers, they will rarely, unless robbers by profession, think of molesting them. The shape of the ground happened to favour this obvious bit of policy, and some projecting rocks concealed the approaching train until we suddenly confronted them at a turn of the path, and passed within a few yards, with something approaching to a grave salute. The mules appeared to be laden with goat-skins, along with other articles that we could not distinguish. Whether these were people from the northern side of the chain returning from a trading expedition in the Sous country, or men of Sous carrying goods to the capital, we never certainly ascertained; but, from noticing pieces of orange-peel on the track, we inferred that they must have descended rather low in the Sous valley; while it is certain that people going from the lower part of that valley to the city of Marocco would not have followed this circuitous and difficult track, unless urged by special reasons.

A little farther on we found, on ledges of rock near the track, several of the most interesting plants seen during the day. Thenceforward all botanising became difficult. The rain turned to sleet, and before long to snow; and, though the roughness of the ground still enabled us to discern the more conspicuous plants, it was almost impossible to secure satisfactory specimens.

Soon after the snow had set in, we heard, from below, yells and screams, and immediately guessed that the caravan from Sous had brought news to our guides at the Saint’s tomb of our escapade towards the summit of the pass. The guess was correct; and though we pushed on rather faster than before, the foremost guide soon overtook us, and addressing himself especially to Maw, who led the way during the ascent, with vehement gestures and emphatic phrases, that seemed to combine threats and injunctions with supplication, urged an immediate return. Maw judiciously had recourse to an argument of universal efficacy, and, presenting the man with a piece of silver, pointed upwards and strove to explain, by signs, that we meant to go to the top and then return. Shortly afterwards, the second man appeared, panting from the pace at which he had run up the steep ascent. He addressed himself to Ball, who came next to Maw, but was answered by the same reasoning that had prevailed with his companion.

The upper part of the ravine was wider than it had been below, and the slope rather less steep. Here, as throughout the upper valley, porphyries and porphyritic tuffs of a prevailing red colour, form the mass of the ridge; but we observed at several points intrusive masses of diorite, sometimes much resembling granite in appearance. Higher up, near the summit of the ridge, Maw noticed white crystalline limestone, of no great extent, which appeared to be intercalated with the porphyrites.

To collect plants was now scarcely possible, for the snow covered the surface, and it was necessary to kick it away from the tufts of grass or dwarf bushes, in order to ascertain what might be growing beneath. The wind, which had hitherto spared us, now joined itself to the opposing forces, driving the snow with blinding force, and making the cold, already severe, well nigh intolerable. The poor fellows who had for some way followed us without further remonstrance, now renewed with redoubled energy their appeal that we should return. Kissing the hem of our coats at one moment, brandishing their arms with passionate gestures, or actually pulling us back at another, they really impressed us more by their pitiable appearance, exposed with the slightest covering to the bitter blast, their feet and bare legs cut and bleeding from the rocks and thorny bushes of the way.