The change on passing from Arab Morocco into Berber trans-Atlas Morocco is in no way more marked than in the architecture. One leaves behind one the mud huts and tents to enter an immense district, every habitable portion of which is thick with great castles, often over 50 feet in height, and with richly decorated towers, unlike anything else I have seen elsewhere in the world, either with my own eyes or in the works of other travellers; and I see no reason why one should not at least surmise that the style of building in vogue to-day amongst the Berbers of trans-Atlas Morocco is not a remnant of their conquest by the Phœnicians. Another instance, slight though it may be, may help to form a link in the chain, that at Dads I saw children modelling in clay little figures of men on horseback, the very image of the Phœnician figures, which no Arab or Moor either could or would do. Excellently modelled they were too. I asked a native, and he laughingly replied, “We all did that when we were small.” Yet in all my travels in Morocco, and in the inquiries I subsequently made, I have never seen or heard of modelling of human figures or animals amongst the Moors. An idea of the artistic talent of the Arab youth, in comparison to that of these young Berbers, can be gathered from the drawings they have learned to make in Tangier on the walls of the houses, &c.; and this only from seeing artists at work. However, they confine themselves to ships, which are just recognisable and nothing more, whereas my Dads friends’ models of men and their steeds were excellent in every feature, even the bits and reins and stirrups being represented. In short, it is my belief that when the regions I passed through come to be diligently explored and excavated, remains will be found of a large former civilisation which will be proved to have been Phœnician. In the case of the one ruin I was able to take any notes about at all, it corresponds almost exactly, so far as the general idea, to some of the plans of buildings given in books upon Phœnicia and its colonies; but unfortunately, travelling in disguise as I was, it was impossible for me to take measurements, or anything, in fact, more than the most scanty notes of this curious ruin.
As to the general character of the Berbers, their manner of living and their looks, I have retained my remarks upon these subjects in the places in which they were originally jotted down, for reasons already given in this chapter, that there is such great divergence of appearance and costume in the different parts of the question. It is for that reason that I have given at this spot only such notes as can be safely applied to the tribes in general amongst which I travelled during my journey.
CHAPTER V.
THE DESCENT FROM THE ATLAS.
Having digressed for a chapter from the account of my journey, I take up again the narrative from where it was broken off—when on the morning of November 5 we had reached the summit of the Tizi n’Glawi, and were resting after our exertions.
The Glawi Pass scarcely deserves such a name, for there is in reality no pass at all. One ascends to the very summit of the mountains to descend as suddenly on the south side, the narrow strip of footing at the top being only a few yards wide. It is true that the surrounding mountains on either hand rise to a very considerable elevation above that at which we found ourselves—8150 feet; but the road merely crosses a connecting line of quartzite, overlying the shales, which runs from Jibel Glawi on the west to Adrar n’Iri on the east, the flat-topped snow-capped mountain that gives its name to the stream up the valley of which we had been ascending. The views in either direction were fine, but totally different; for while to the north our eyes wandered over the valley of the Tetula, and lower down the Ghadat, with the steep mountains densely wooded on their lower slopes, before us to the south lay range after range of broken limestone mountains, bare and bleak, and without a single sign of vegetation. But one exception there was, the circular valley of Teluet lying 2000 feet below us; but at this dry period of the year, for as yet only the very slightest rain had fallen, it looked as bare and dried up as did the hills that surrounded us.
The descent could be seen twisting in and out the escarpment of the mountains, amongst boulders of rock from which here and there unsightly wind-bent trunks of evergreen oaks appeared.
A few villages dotted the little plain below, whose flat roofs upturned to our gaze had a strange appearance as we peered down on them from so far above. For the most part they were perched upon rocky eminences, raised slightly above the level of the small valley. It is here that the great castle of the Kaid of Glawa is situated, but from our vantage-point it was indistinguishable, being hidden in the slight descent that leads from the valley to the course of the Wad Marghen. This kasba of the Kaid of Glawa, Sid el Madani, was the last point at which, should I be discovered, my return would be insisted upon, for beyond this the Moorish Government holds little or no real jurisdiction, so it was not unnaturally that we gave the place as wide a berth as possible. On my return journey, when disguise was no longer necessary, I spent a night at the kasba, and when the time comes shall describe this mountain fortress, which even in Europe would be considered a building of great size and strength.
Descending the 2000 feet that led to the valley of Teluet, we met at the bottom almost the first large caravan we had as yet come across. They were bound upon the same road as ourselves, though their destination was Dads, while I hoped to push on as far as Tafilet. The men forming the caravan were one and all Berbers, and natives of Dads, added to which they were friends of the old Shereef whom I was accompanying. Therefore I had nothing to fear from them, and the little Arabic they spoke was so mixed up with Shelha that there was no possibility of their detecting my foreign accent. Some twelve men there were in all, with as many mules and donkeys. The cheerfulness of this augmentation of our little caravan was damped by the news they gave us, for from them we learned that the road viâ Warzazat was blocked, owing to the tribes being in
