Tafilet

by Walter Harris

The commoner vegetation of the Atlas, which differs according to altitude, are pine, arar or calitris, evergreen oak, cork, white poplar, wild olive, arbutus, laurustinus, lentiscus, palmeto, oleanders in the riverbeds, and juniper, while at places the gum cistus is found in large quantities.

The principal rivers of Morocco all rise in the Atlas Mountains, with the exception of the Wergha, the large tributary of the Sebu, which has its source in the hills to the south of the Riff country. The Draa, Sus, the Gheris, and the Ziz are the principal rivers to the south of the range; while to the north the Tensift, Um er Ribía, Bu Regreg, and Sebu are all fed by the Atlas snows; and on the west the Muluya, which empties itself into the Mediterranean.

Brief as these notes on the Atlas are, they will suffice for the objects of this book. Those who desire to know more of their geology and botany will find two works upon the subject, the results of the explorations of Sir Joseph Hooker and Mr Joseph Thomson.

With regard to the inhabitants of the Atlas, they

Approaching Marakesh from the North.

are Berbers, and the following notes upon that race in general, together with the constant mention of their customs and habits which crop up in the succeeding chapters of my narrative, will, I trust, not only bring before the reader a tolerably clear picture of these people, but add possibly to the scanty information that exists as to this trans-Atlas branch of the Hamitic people.

It would be out of place in a book which professes to be no more than a narrative of exploration to enter at length into the subject of the Berber race, and interesting though such would be, the slight description of the people here appended must suffice. Nor have I even collected into this chapter all the notes I was able personally to make upon my travels, but have preferred in many cases, such as in the descriptions of their dwellings, costumes, &c., to make mention of these details when I come across them, rather than drag them out of the context and place them all in one chapter. This I have thought best to do for more than one reason, but mainly because remarks àpropos of the Berbers of Dads are not equally applicable to those of Aït Atta for instance, though these two tribes are neighbours. So rather than cause confusion by mentioning peculiarities noticed in only one spot in a chapter which deals with the race as a whole, I have spread my notes over the entire journey, and included them at the points at which I find them jotted down in my original diary—that is to say, at such portions of my journey as I first noticed them.

Nor can mention at any length be made even of the race as a whole, for though the country through which I passed was almost entirely inhabited by this strange people, their territory is vastly more extensive, and they may be said to inhabit districts along the entire northern portion of Africa, from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean. Therefore it will be seen how impossible a task it would be to enter at any length into the peculiarities of a race which at different points presents such vastly different characteristics, both in the physical aspect of the country they inhabit and in their manners and customs. For this reason it is the safest course to mention only what can refer to that portion of the Berber tribes amongst which I found myself, with but a few general remarks that apply equally to the entire race.

As to the derivation of the name considerable doubt exists, nor was I able to trace any tradition amongst the people as to its origin. Barth asserts that it sprang from the name of their traditional ancestor Ber, but it seems more probable, at least a safer surmise, to connect it with the Greek and Roman term Barbari, for, I believe, without exception the name is not applied by the Berbers to themselves, though in this respect the Arabs use it. The general name by which they call themselves in Morocco is “Shloh,” a word meaning “noble,” and thus the same as the more classical term “Amazigh,” which, though well known all through tribes inhabiting the districts south of the Atlas, I heard only once or twice used. Amazigh is certainly the older name of the two, and was known to both the Greeks and the Romans, and seems to-day, though rarely used in Southern Morocco, to be the classical title of the race.