J. D. H. delt.

DJEBEL TEZAH FROM IMINTELI

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When we sallied forth at 5 A.M., on the morning of May 22, the air was cool, but a light mist hung between us and the mountains, the usual precursor of a hot day. When our preparations for starting were complete, the sheik was not to be seen; but presently a message came to say that he had gone on ahead, and would await our arrival on the banks of the torrent below the village. It seemed as if it involved an unnecessary détour to return by the path which we had ascended the day before, instead of aiming at a point higher up the valley; but a native who was left to act as guide, insisted on keeping to the steep rocky path with which we were already acquainted. At the appointed place, by the bank of the torrent, we found the sheik, with four or five ragged fellows, of whom but two were armed with long guns. Anticipating any remark as to this sorry substitute for the promised escort of fifty armed men, the sheik announced that more men would join the party farther on. As we firmly disbelieved the stories of danger from the terrible men of Sous, who are the bugbears of the population on the northern side of the mountains, we never cared to call attention to the fact that the promised reinforcements did not make their appearance.

In the upper part of the valley, the trench which the torrent has cut for itself is less deeply excavated than through its lower course, and leaves space for a path, and a few straggling olive and walnut trees; and in some spots for small patches of cultivation. For about six miles we kept to the torrent bank, our horses sometimes preferring its stony bed, till we reached the junction of the two streams that feed the Amsmiz torrent. Between them rises the peak of Djebel Tezah, and here the ascent of the mountain begins. As the slope was still very gentle, we rode on a short distance farther, after hurriedly collecting some interesting plants, but soon came to a halt at a clump of fine walnut trees, standing by our observations at 5,604 feet (1,708 m.) above the sea. We had seen no village by the way, but only a few men engaged in fashioning gunstocks from walnut wood. It appeared, nevertheless, that there was a small village near at hand, and this place would be the proper starting point for travellers intending to make the ascent. There would be no difficulty in conveying small tents hither from Amsmiz.

Much to our satisfaction, the sheik now withdrew, committing us to the charge of an active, but unarmed young Shelluh, with strict injunctions to lead as far as the snow, but not to allow us to proceed farther. It is hard to say whether the sheik and his people felt any real uneasiness as to the possibility of a casual encounter with natives of the Sous valley; but it was pretty clear that they had succeeded in frightening our attendants, as our Mogador men, usually so active and attentive, soon dropped behind, and were not again seen till our return in the afternoon. We took the most direct course in the ascent, following a slight gully down which flowed a mere trickling rivulet, fed by the snows on the upper slope of the mountain, and pushed on rather fast with a view to get as high on the mountain as possible before the sun reached the meridian.

Bearing in mind the great diversity in the vegetable population which is seen in Southern Spain (the high mountain region nearest to the Great Atlas), where neighbouring peaks of different mineral structure exhibit numerous quite distinct species, and very few identical features, and having found the flora of the lower valley to a great extent different from that of Aït Mesan, we confidently reckoned on obtaining still greater evidence of distinctness in that of the upper region. It was therefore with some surprise that, as we continued the ascent, we met, one after another, many of the peculiar species that we had first seen in the ascent from Arround to the Tagherot Pass, and comparatively few not already familiar to us. For once, however, it must be owned that during part of this day, our emotions as botanists yielded to the interest that we felt in the near prospect of a peep into terra incognita.

If but little had been hitherto known of the northern slopes of the Great Atlas from the reports of the few travellers who had viewed the range from the low country, or attained its outer slopes, the southern side of the main chain remained a sealed book to geographers, whose reliance on the vague reports of native informants has led them, like the chartographers of the middle ages, to fill up the blank space on their maps by representations utterly discordant and contradictory. Ever since we had been in South Marocco, we had heard of the Sous valley, as the proper home of everything strange and marvellous to be found in the empire. It is there, our informants assured us, that lions and other savage beasts roam at leisure, there pythons twenty or even thirty feet long lie in wait for the traveller, mines of the precious metals abound in Sous, and in Sous the soil is so fertile that all the products of nature are obtained without labour. But of the physical features of the country we could learn nothing. Whether it were enclosed on the southern side by a second lofty range, or Anti-Atlas, parallel to that we already knew, or merely by secondary branches diverging from the main chain, and from how far eastward the sources of the Sous might flow, were all matters quite unknown to us. One European, indeed, had traversed some part of the valley, and should have been able to throw some little light on these obscure points; but unfortunately the few lines in which Gerhard Rohlfs recounts his adventurous journey to Tarudant, and thence eastward to the northern skirts of the Sahara, give scarcely any information. He speaks of high mountains lying south of the Sous valley, but says nothing to show what relation these bear to the main chain. It appears from his account, that no considerable ascent is necessary in order to pass from the southern branch of the Sous to the streams that flow southward towards the Great Desert; but whether the Great Atlas and the Anti-Atlas are throughout their length separated by a broad trough, in the same way as Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, or Anti-Atlas be a diverging range over which Rohlfs made his way by a deep pass or depression, it is impossible to infer from his narrative.

By the time we reached the lower skirts of a long snow slope that stretched upwards towards the summit of the mountain, the sun, which had now ascended nearly to the zenith, beat down upon us with intense rays, that drove two of the party to seek some temporary shelter. The Shelluh guide probably considered that he had done his day’s work; and, finding a narrow rim of shadow under an overhanging rock, lay down, with his head screened from the blazing heat. Ball, who was suffering from a violent head-ache, also found a spot that gave partial shade. Hooker took advantage of the halt to push on at a steady pace that soon carried him beyond the reach of interference from the guide. When Ball felt able to resume the ascent, the guide sprung to his feet, and for the first time became aware that one of the party was already too far ahead to be easily overtaken. He proceeded by a series of unearthly yells and frantic gesticulations, to attempt to attract Hooker’s attention, and urge his return. When these demonstrations were found to be useless, and he perceived that Ball was also about to follow in the ascent, he commenced a fresh series of exclamations and pantomimic gestures, of which the burden seemed to be that if we went to the top, we were certain to be shot; but the same argument that was used with effect on the Tagherot Pass—the gift of a silver coin—was so far successful that no attempt was made to arrest Ball’s progress, and, after ascending a few hundred feet higher, the unwilling guide gave up the attempt, and rested comfortably until he had an opportunity of rejoining Hooker in his descent.