Our usual evening occupation was pursued under greater difficulties than usual. There was not much wind; but the cold was severely felt in the open verandah, and the portion of our day’s harvest that was gathered in a wet state had to be left till the morning’s light should enable us to give our specimens the requisite treatment.
Our design, not disclosed to any of our native followers, had been to remain another day at Arround, and, if circumstances were favourable, to ascend some projecting point in the range that should command a panoramic view. We had, however, scarcely opened our eyes on the morning of May 17 when we clearly perceived that the fates had decided against our scheme. Snow had fallen steadily during the night, and both branches of the valley above the village were thickly covered. The sky overhead was of the same leaden complexion as that of the previous day, and flakes of snow falling slowly showed that the disposition of the weather continued unchanged. The continuous fall of the barometer for three days before the rain set in had prepared us for a persistent fit of bad weather; so we were less disappointed than we should otherwise have been, and acquiesced as a matter of course in the preparations for our departure.
The natives still flocked to the entrance of our house, seeking medical advice from the Christian hakim. When these had been disposed of, and all seemed ready for our departure, an unexpected incident occurred. Eight or ten women, dragging with them a sheep, entered the house in a tumultuous way, crowding up the stairs and into the verandah, addressed vehement entreaties to Hooker, and suddenly cut the sheep’s throat in his presence. Then followed more passionate entreaties, a document was thrust into his hand, and we were left at a loss to guess the meaning of the strange scene. At length, through Ambak’s increasing skill as interpreter, the matter was made sufficiently clear. A number of men of the village, the husbands or fathers of our suppliants, had been carried off as prisoners to Marocco, for non-payment of taxes, and were there confined in the horrible subterranean dungeons that serve as prisons. The object of these poor women was to obtain from El Graoui an order for their release, through the intercession of Hooker. A promise to do what was possible on their behalf was readily given; but, although a courteous answer was afterwards sent through the consul at Mogador, it may be feared that little attention was paid by the powerful Governor of this region to the representations of Christian strangers.
The state of the prisons in Marocco is one of many scandals that disgrace the administration of this country, though an apologist might suggest that in this respect Marocco is only a century or two behind the most civilised States of Europe, and not thirty years behind the late kingdom of Naples. When in the city of Marocco, we were told that about 4,000 prisoners, of whom the large majority were unlucky peasants, unable or unwilling to pay taxes, were confined in dungeons. Criminals who have committed murders and robberies frequently escape by taking refuge at some of the numerous sanctuaries scattered over the whole territory, while lesser offenders and mere defaulters are caught wholesale. No food is provided for prisoners by the authorities; but the means of keeping body and soul together are generally forthcoming, through the kindness of relatives, or the charitable feeling which is common here, as in other Mohammedan countries.
The survival among the Bereber tribes of the practice of sacrificing an animal to propitiate the favour of a man in authority, is a fact deserving the attention of ethnologists. Another instance of a similar kind came to our knowledge a few weeks later, and we had recently seen that the same rite is observed to avert the displeasure of evil spirits.
Our increased acquaintance with the flora of the Great Atlas did not much modify our first impressions. Making due allowance for the earliness of the season, and for the adverse conditions that may have concealed from us some species inhabiting the higher zone, it was clear that the vegetation here differs very much from that of all the lofty mountain masses of Southern Europe and Western Asia, and especially in the absence of those families that elsewhere form the chief ornaments of the higher mountain zone, and which we are accustomed to associate with the glories of the Alpine flora. There was here to be seen no gentian, no primrose or Androsace, no rhododendron, no anemone, no potentilla, and none but lowland forms of saxifrage and ranunculus.
Our first impression had been that the flora is absolutely very poor; but this was due mainly to the fact that so large a proportion of the plants have inconspicuous flowers. Comparing the produce of our day’s work with that of high mountain excursions made elsewhere, the species are not deficient in variety, but show a singularly small proportion of showy flowers. As regards novelty, we had nothing to complain of; for, in the upper part of this valley, out of 151 species collected, 31 are described as new; and, so far as we know, are peculiar to the Great Atlas chain. This gives about the same proportion of endemic species as the Sierra Nevada of Granada, always regarded as a singularly rich botanical district.
The most remarkable feature of the flora of this region, is, undoubtedly, the very large proportion of common plants of the colder temperate region (Central and North-Western Europe), here found associated with species of very different type. Nearly one-half (70 out of 151) of the species found in the upper zone, belong to this category, and the proportion is here actually larger than it is in the higher mountains of Southern Spain. It was further remarkable that several of these northern species, such as the wild gooseberry, are plants that do not extend to the South of Spain, although climatal conditions must be at least equally favourable, and whose nearest known habitat is six or seven hundred miles distant. Especially to be noted was the fact that, with the doubtful exception of Sagina Linnæi (the Spergula saginoides of the older botanists), not one of the plants in question is characteristically an Alpine species, or typical of the Arctic or glacial flora. Combining this with the almost complete absence of rushes and sedges, we are forced to conclude that, whatever agencies may have contributed to make up the existing flora of the Great Atlas, transport by floating ice during the last glacial period cannot have been amongst them. If such ice-rafts were ever borne to what was then probably a long western peninsula of Northern Africa, they must either have foundered at sea with all their vegetable crew, or, if cast ashore, must have found an inhospitable region where the voyagers were starved, and left no descendants.
As was to be expected, from the habitual dryness of the climate, ferns were here deficient in number and variety. In the upper region we found very sparingly six of the common species of Northern Europe; and lower down, in the middle part of the valley, we were able to add to our lists but two southern forms.
About one-third only of the species found in the upper-region could be described as properly belonging to the Mediterranean flora; most of these being widely-spread plants, while a few are exclusively confined to the nearest neighbouring mountain regions—the Lesser Atlas of Algeria or the mountains of Southern Spain. But there was little in the general aspect of the vegetation to suggest any special connection with either; and several of the conspicuous plants have been hitherto known only in very distant regions. A bright-flowered Veronica appeared to be no more than a large variety of a species peculiar to Asia Minor; Medicago suffruticosa had hitherto been seen only in the Pyrenees; and Evax Heldreichii had been detected nowhere nearer than the mountains of Sicily and Eastern Algeria. Our original expectation of finding some connecting links between the special flora of the Canary Islands and that of North Africa was so far completely negatived, and we saw nothing to suggest their existence.