Journal of a tour in Marocco and the Great Atlas

by Joseph Dalton Hooker; John Ball

Besides what Pliny may have learned from King Juba as to the geography of the coast of South Marocco, he had access to contemporary testimony as to some part of the interior of the country. Suetonius Paulinus (the same who at a later date played a conspicuous part in Britain) being appointed governor of the provinces of N.W. Africa, then recently incorporated in the Roman Empire, resolved to penetrate southward beyond the Great Atlas, whether with a view to intimidate the native tribes, or for the mere satisfaction of carrying the Roman eagles into a new region. He appears to have left a written account of his expedition, which, like so much else of ancient geographical literature, has been lost. The particulars preserved by Pliny are unfortunately so vague as to be almost valueless.

In ten days from his starting point, wherever that may have been, we are told that he reached the highest point of his march. He reported the mountain to be covered with dense forests of trees of an unknown kind, and declares the summit of the range to be deeply covered with snow, even in summer.[6] From the summit of the Atlas Suetonius descended, and marched on through deserts of black sand, out of which rose here and there rocks that had the aspect of being burnt, to a river called Ger. Although it was the winter season the heat of these regions was found intolerable. The neighbouring forests abounded in elephants and other wild beasts, and with serpents of every kind, and were inhabited by a people called Canarians.

The controversies to which this passage has given rise are not likely to be definitively decided. The balance of opinion leans to the belief that Suetonius ascended the valley of the Moulouya, and traversed the Atlas by the pass now called Tizin Tinrout, leading to Tafilelt. This was the pass traversed by Gerhard Rohlfs in 1864, and to his narrative alone we can refer for information respecting it and the country extending southward towards the Great Desert. The existence in that part of W. Africa, on the south side of the Great Atlas, so far from the influence of the Atlantic climate, of vast forests capable of maintaining elephants and sheltering a native population, would apparently be irreconcilable with existing physical conditions, and is not readily admissible in the Roman period. Whatever vigorous vegetation exists in the region traversed by Rohlfs adjoins the banks of the stream; and, though sand may encroach here and there, and sun-burnt rocks are seen there, as elsewhere on the south side of the Atlas, the description is not what would occur to any one following the course of the stream. It seems, further, highly improbable that a prudent general, such as Suetonius Paulinus, would have undertaken to lead an aggressive military force along the tortuous valley of the Moulouya, some 250 miles in length, enclosed for the most part between lofty mountains; and it is also to be noted that at the period of his expedition the Romans held no station in the valley of the Moulouya, if indeed they ever penetrated far into it.

The few particulars quoted above lead to the conclusion that the Roman general in his southward march beyond the Atlas did not follow the course of a stream, but was compelled to cross a tract of desert before reaching the river of which he speaks, which, therefore, probably flowed from E. to W. On the whole, it seems to me that the brief record is more easily reconciled with the supposition that Suetonius Paulinus made Sala (Sallee), the farthest Roman station in Western Africa, his base of operations; that he marched thence across the open country towards SSW., and gained the summit of the Atlas range at the pass between Imintanout and Tarudant.[7] Between the course of the Sous and that of the Akassa, or river of Oued Noun, there are extensive tracts of sandy desert, where, even in winter, his troops may easily have suffered from heat and thirst; and the river (called Ger) may have been the main branch, or one of the tributaries of the Akassa flowing from the range of Anti-Atlas. The former existence of great forests, frequented by elephants, on the flanks of that range, is far more probable than on the parched southern slopes of the interior, where, as Rohlfs tells us, the rocks and hills are now absolutely bare of tree and shrub vegetation. Finally, it is more natural to look for the ancient Canarians in the country near the Atlantic coast than in the interior.

The solitary argument of any weight in favour of the Moulouya and Tafilelt route seems to be derived from the fact that in descending southward from the pass at the head of the Moulouya valley the traveller follows the course of a stream which now bears the name Gers, or Ghir. But it must be remarked that this name exists elsewhere in Marocco, there being at least three streams so denominated, and further that it is nowadays borne by the river of Tafilelt only during a short part of its course. Rohlfs, who is here our only authority, tells us that the stream first met in descending from the pass of Tizin Tinrout is called Siss.[8] After following this for seven or eight hours, it is joined by another stream which he called Ued Gers. The united stream bears the latter name for a distance of some six hours’ ride, and then resumes the name of Siss, which it bears throughout its subsequent course till it is lost in the sands of the Sahara.

The long period that intervened between the decline of Roman power and the establishment of Mohammedan rule in Marocco, is a blank to the historian and the geographer. It can scarcely be doubted that Roman authority and Roman institutions spread themselves throughout a great part of the open country between the Atlas and the Atlantic, although there is but little direct evidence to that effect.

Little reliance can be placed on the statement of Leo Africanus that the people of Barbary were converted to Christianity 250 years before the birth of Mohammed, or about A.D. 320, for, in a country so split up into independent tribes, the new faith must have made way irregularly and at various periods; while it is most probable that it never struck root among the mountain tribes of the Great Atlas. But the positive assertion of the same writer, that when the Arabs arrived in Marocco they found the Christians masters of the country, probably holds good of all except the mountain tracts.

Whether any reliable information as to South Marocco is to be gleaned from the writings of the eminent Arabian geographers who lived between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, I am unable to say; but it seems sufficiently certain that the period of European exploration leading to practical results commenced in the fourteenth century. The Genoese, the Catalans, and the Venetians appear to have despatched several expeditions along the coast, most of them intended to reach the gold-producing regions of tropical Africa. The Portuguese, who were destined to outstrip all their rivals in maritime exploration, were the first to establish themselves on the western coast of Marocco; and, at one time or other, they held most, if not all, the Atlantic seaports. Much information doubtless lies concealed among the mediæval records of Italy, Spain, and, especially, of Portugal; but up to the present time nothing has been published to show that any European was able, from personal knowledge, to give an account of the interior of Marocco, before Marmol, who, having been taken prisoner by the Moors, passed several years at Fez and elsewhere in North Marocco, about the middle of the sixteenth century. The earliest known document showing a moderately correct knowledge of the coast is a map (number 5 in the series), contained in the celebrated Portulano of the Laurentian Library in Florence, bearing the date 1351.[9] In this map, which, from internal evidence, must be of Genoese origin, the general outline of the Marocco coast is correct, and the positions of the few places laid down unmistakable. The now abandoned town of Fedala (Fidalah), Mefegam (Mazagan), and Mogodor here appear for the first time. Of early Portuguese maps there must be many not now known to geographers, and it was certainly from Portuguese authorities that Gerard Mercator partly derived the materials used in both editions of his Atlas. In the Atlas Minor, published by Hondins in 1608, a map of South Marocco is given in page 567, wherein for the first time an attempt is made to represent the positions of cities and mountains, and the courses of rivers in the interior of the country. The outline of the coast is here less correct than that given in the much more ancient Medicean map; but there is far more of detail, especially as to places which were evidently well known to the Portuguese. Thus, as mentioned in the text, we here for the first time find the island of Mogador with the name ‘I. Domegador.’ The places laid down in the interior appear for the most part to be taken (but with numerous errors) from the work of Leo Africanus; but the chartographer has spoiled his map by making the river Sous flow from SE. to NW., instead of from NNE. to SSW. Mountains are scattered pretty uniformly over the map; but what is made to appear as the loftiest mass, and is marked ‘Atlas M.,’ with a town named Tagovast at its foot, stands S. of Tarudant about the western extremity of the range of Anti-Atlas. The accompanying letterpress, page 566, is to a great extent derived from Leo Africanus, but with additions from other sources. It is curious to read that Tarudant, now a place which no Christian stranger dare approach, was then resorted to by French and English merchants.

The name of the remarkable man, who stands almost alone as a geographical authority for the interior of Marocco, has already been mentioned; but it is impossible to dismiss him so lightly. Leo Africanus, to give him the name by which he is known to posterity, was a Moor of Grenada, born in the latter part of the fifteenth century, who, with his kinsfolk, fled to Fez at or about the time of the siege of Granada in 1492. In those days Fez was the head-quarters of Arabic culture; Leo was an earnest and successful student, and, as a man of learning and intelligence, was taken into favour by Mouley Ahmet, the founder of the dynasty still reigning in Marocco. Either in company with the new ruler, or with his protection and authority, he travelled through almost every part of the empire, as well as nearly all the rest of Northern Africa, and evidently made copious notes. He wrote, in Arabic, various works on history and grammar which have not been preserved, and, in the same language, the original version of his description of Africa. It would appear that he carried this with him, in manuscript, when, in 1517, he was made captive by Christian corsairs, who took him to Rome. Leo X., hearing that a learned Moor had been brought a captive to Rome, sent for him, and treated him with kindness and liberality. A suggestion that he should undergo the rite of baptism seems to have encountered no obstinate prejudices, for he soon complied, receiving at the font the Pope’s own names, Giovanni Leone, and perhaps becoming as earnest a Christian as the Pontiff himself. He afterwards lived many years in Rome, acquired the Italian tongue, and translated his work on Africa into that idiom. This remained for some time unpublished, until it fell into the hands of Ramusio, who included it in his famous work ‘Delle Navigationi et Viaggi,’ of which the first edition, in three folio volumes, was printed in Venice in 1550. It is not easy to account for the numerous variations between the original text and the versions which appeared in various languages during the century following the original publication; but in the absence of satisfactory explanation it seems safest to accept the text of Ramusio as alone authentic.

Like most modern readers, the members of our party, when they resolved to visit Marocco, knew nothing of the work of Leo Africanus beyond the fact that he is occasionally referred to by writers on North Africa. The time for preparation was far too short for extensive reading, and we took with us only the works of Jackson and Gerhard Rohlfs. It has, however, since that time been a matter of frequent regret that we had not the opportunity, while travelling in the country, of referring to the only writer who had actually seen the greater part of it with his own eyes, and as to whose general truthfulness there is no room for suspicion. It is impossible here to enter into the many interesting details that abound throughout the text; but it is worth while to point out the more important changes that are disclosed between the condition of South Marocco as it was more than three and a half centuries ago, and that of the present day.