Tafilet

by Walter Harris

A Village Scene.

honest, or dishonest if necessary, labour scrape together the money—possesses a horse and a gun, while almost without exception the Berber tribes are mountaineers, and in this part of the country own very few horses. An attack upon the place is thus almost an impossibility, the Berbers on foot having no chance against the mounted Arabs, who, by scouring the desert plains, can easily cut off all retreat.

The inhabitants appear to be well-to-do, and many were handsomely dressed in spotless haiks of wool. The men are, as a rule, small of stature and wiry, with keen hungry eyes and fine features, and form a strange contrast in their appearance of cupidity and rascality to the honest open countenances of the Berbers. The odds being so vastly unequal in open warfare, the latter race have almost desisted from attacking the place—though the innate hatred of the two peoples finds ample scope in plundering one another’s caravans. Yet, rascals as are the Arabs of Askura, one cannot help admiring the immense labour with which they have dug the thousands of canals that irrigate the gardens, and the excellent manner in which these are kept in repair. The love of gardening is found all over Morocco; but the temperament of the race for sudden fits of economy, or laziness, puts a stop on all progress in this direction, and on many occasions I have known Moors sink wells and build irrigating canals, plant fruit-trees and hedges, only to allow the whole to fall into a state of ruin as soon as completed; and where one year I have seen flourishing gardens, the next the orange-trees are dried up from want of water and attention, and cattle are feeding on the leaves of the young fruit-trees. But there is also another reason for the constant ruined gardens one is continually passing when travelling in Morocco—namely, the fact that after the death of the owner the property is divided, according to the sherá or native law, amongst his heirs, who each singly wish to reap the entire benefit without sharing in the expenses of keeping the place in repair. I knew one most beautiful garden, not twenty miles from Tangier, which was once the pride of the neighbourhood, and which from the above cause is to-day a barren field, with here and there the dried trunks of what were once orange-trees appearing from the soil. At Askura, however, things are different, and the excellent state of the gardens, the walls, and means of water-supply was astonishing, and none the less creditable to the hardy desert-people.

THE VILLAGE OF DADS.

Our passage through the oasis, though I felt nervous lest amongst Arabs my foreign accent should lead to my detection, was a delightful relief after the weary days of barren mountain and still more barren plain. Leaving the spot where we had camped before daylight, we fell, just outside the caravanserai, into the hands of thieves; and although the presence of the old Shereef saved our personal property, the caravan of Dadsmen suffered considerably, and we left them behind trying to regain possession of their stolen mules and merchandise.

Just as some fifteen miles of desert separate Askura from Ghresat on the west, so some twelve miles more intervene between the oasis and the next spot where water is to be found—namely, Imasin. Like the Wad Mdri, the Imasin, from which the district takes its name, is sunk considerably below the level of the plain, and bounded east and west by a low range of flat-topped hills. Here again we were amongst Berbers, the inhabitants belonging to the tribe of Imerghan, a division of the same tribe as are found at Agurzga and Tiurassín. This same people own a large territory along the lower portion of the Wad Dads, from the south-west corner of Aït Yahia almost to Mesgita, near which the Dads, uniting with the Idermi, becomes the Draa. Although entirely Shelha-speaking people, the inhabitants of Imasin claim to be Shereefs—that is, descendants of the Prophet Mohammed, and therefore of Arab origin. One is constantly coming across these so-called Berber Shereefs, and a few words are necessary to explain the incongruity. When first the descendants of the Prophet reached Morocco, either at the same time as the first invasion, or later with Mulai Idris, the founder of the original dynasty of Sultans, they spread themselves over the country, settling down amongst the Berbers, who, with the exception of the Arab invaders and their children, were the sole inhabitants. These Shereefs, or “nobles,” as the word implies, soon became much respected, the more so as Islam spread, though no doubt their superior education and surroundings of civilisation had much to do with it. However it may have been, they in time became the arbitrators in cases of dispute, the propounders of the new faith, and as such, with but little difficulty and objection, married into the Berber families. The result of this is apparent. Separated from Arab people and brought up solely amongst Berbers, their children and descendants forgot the language of the forefather’s country, and spoke solely that of the people amongst whom they lived. Every circumstance led to their living the lives of Berbers, while still professing the religion of Islam. Their wives were taken from the tribes-people of their mothers, and to all practical purposes they lapsed back into Shloh tribesmen. Still the blood of the Arab ancestor had instilled into their veins the strain of the Prophet, and the male descendants, according to the rights of Islamic law, which recognises only paternity in this respect, still continued—as they had

A Berber Family at Dads: Woman mealing Corn.

every possible authority to do—to call themselves Shereefs; and many of these “noble” Berber families, to whom Arabic is an unknown tongue, possess probably no more than the original Arab blood of their first Shereefian ancestor. In the same way many of the Berber tribes south of the Atlas are tainted with Arab blood, and the most powerful of all, the Aït Atta, are proud of claiming descent from the tribe of the Koreish, which gave to the world the Prophet Mohammed.