[The writer here gives an alternative route from Marocco to Ourika, slightly longer than the direct way given in Route 6, and then refers, obviously not from personal knowledge, to a mountain path connecting Ourika with one or other of the two valleys included in the district of Reraya or Ghighaya. Tranghert is probably a village in the western branch of the Ourika valley.]
Salomon ben Daoud.
APPENDIX C.
Notes on the Geography of South Marocco.
By John Ball.
Some remarks upon the geography of South Marocco seem to be called for from a writer who has ventured to put forth a new map, largely differing from those hitherto published; but the subject is encompassed with so much difficulty, and the amount of accurate information available is so limited, that a prudent writer must be content to regard most of his own conclusions as merely provisional, and liable to be modified or set aside by the results of further exploration, whenever this shall become practicable. In the mean time, some good may be effected by clearing the ground of some received errors that are absolutely disproved by facts now ascertained.
Little need here be said of the slight contribution to the knowledge of South Marocco that can be gleaned from the writers of antiquity. The earliest document bearing on the subject was doubtless the record of the voyage of Hanno, set up in the temple of Saturn at Carthage. This is known to us only by the version, rendered by an unknown hand into Greek, which, with all the accumulated errors of the translator and the subsequent transcribers, has reached us under the title of the Periplus of Hanno. From this record the particulars to be gleaned regarding this part of Africa are scanty and of an uncertain character. Commentators have, with much probability, identified the Solois promontory of Hanno (Λιβυκὸν ἀκρωτήριον λάσιον δένδρεσι) with Cape Cantin. But what are we to make of the next statement that, having passed the cape, they sailed for half a day east, or south-east (πρὸς ἥλιον ἀνισχοντα), before reaching the great marshy lake, ‘where elephants and other wild beasts abounded’? True it is that south of Cape Cantin there are two slight indentations, mere coves, where the land for a short distance trends to the south-east; but the general direction for a mariner along this part of the coast is SSW., as far as Mogador. Agreeing with the commentators that the ‘great marshy lake’ was probably near the mouth of the Oued Tensift, we are led to believe that Hanno disembarked settlers at no less than five stations on the coast of what is now the province of Haha. If we may rely on the correctness of the Greek text we must infer that these were settlements established by the Carthaginians before the date of Hanno’s expedition.[1] The next place reached by Hanno was ‘the great river Lixus, flowing from Libya, about which dwelt a nomadic people,’ who are called in the text Lixitæ (Λιξίται). It is further stated that the river is said to flow from great mountains in the neighbourhood, around which dwell the Troglodytes, referred to in our text, [p. 301]. The only assertion that can be confidently made about the Lixus of Hanno is, that it was quite a different stream from that afterwards known to the Romans by the same name, the latter being the modern Oued el Kous, falling into the sea at El Araisch, and which Pliny makes fifty-seven Roman miles from Tangier. The learned commentator, C. Müller, identifies the Lixus of the Periplus with the Draha; but, unless we assume that great physical changes have occurred during the interval, this supposition is scarcely compatible with the existence of a numerous population near the mouth of the river. It may possibly have been the river Akassa (the native name of the river of Oued Noun); but it appears far more probable that it was the Sous, the only one of these rivers which is believed constantly to discharge a large volume of water into the sea. It may be, indeed, that there is an etymological connection between the names Sous and Lixus, as there undoubtedly is between some names still current and those used by the Romans.
After Hanno, the next voyager along this coast of whom we known anything was Polybius. The original record of his voyage has, unfortunately, not come down to posterity, but a few particulars have been preserved by Pliny.[2] We learn incidentally that the Romans called Cape Cantin promontorium Solis, a name evidently suggested by the earlier name Solois of the Carthaginians, afterwards rendered in Greek by Ptolemy ἡλίου ἄκρον. Whether Polybius succeeded in reaching the Senegal, or some other river within the tropics, may be uncertain; but he undoubtedly visited many places on the Atlantic coast of Marocco. We hear for the first time of the rivers Subur (modern Sebou), and Salat (the Bouregrag, which falls into the sea at Sallee). He touched at the port of Rutulis, said to have been eight Roman miles beyond the mouth of the river Anatis, which was 205 Roman miles from Lixus (El Araisch). The river is doubtless the modern Oum-er-bia, and the port was the same which the Portuguese named Mazagan. The next port touched by Polybius was named Risadir, which has been with much probability identified with Agadir.[3] As for the rivers named by Polybius on the coast south-west of the Atlas, their identification with any known to modern geographers is purely conjectural.
Of Roman writers Pliny is the only one from whom any positive information as to the geography of this part of Africa is to be gained; but even this is very limited.[4] He complains that the reports as to the region beyond the narrow limits within which Roman power was established in his day were most fallacious, and censures the Roman authorities for indolently giving circulation to mendacious stories, instead of investigating the truth for themselves. In his day Sala (modern Sallee) was the most southern of the Roman settlements in Marocco. He describes it as ‘a town standing on a river of the same name, on the confines of the desert (solitudinibus vicinum), which was infested by herds of elephants, and still more by the tribe of the Autololes, through whose territory lay the way to the great mountain of Africa, the many-fabled Atlas.’ It appears elsewhere that Pliny had access to the manuscripts left by Juba, which, unfortunately, have not come down to posterity. That accomplished prince appears to have held control over the whole territory of Marocco as far as the base of the Atlas. It is to these lost pages of Juba that we probably owe the only fragment of moderately correct information as to South Marocco which is to be found in Pliny’s work.[5] The river Asana, whose mouth is said to be 150 Roman miles beyond Sala, is doubtless the Anatis of Polybius, and the Oum-er-bia of the Moors. The next river, which he calls Fut, is the Tensift. The distance assigned for the interval between the mouth of the Fut and the Atlas is excessive; but not largely so if Agadir be intended, that being the first place on the coast from which the high summits of the Atlas are habitually visible. The statement as to the existence of remains of vineyards and palm-groves about the ruins of ancient dwellings seems to lend probability to the belief that the Carthaginian settlements on this coast may have had a prolonged existence. The fall of the parent State would have had but an indirect influence on their destiny. Verbal resemblances are so often misleading that little weight can be attached to them; but it is natural to compare the word Dyris, said by Pliny to be the native name for the Atlas, with that now used by the natives—Idrarn—this being the plural form of Adrar, which means generically a mountain, both in the Shelluh and in several other Bereber dialects.