Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/350

 the tribes live in tents, their love of trees alone betraying their Berber blood. In the centre of the district is the pleasant little town of Masuna, which lies in a charming valley watered by streams flowing to the Shelif. Mazuna is the birthplace of Mohammed Ben Ali-es-Senûsi, founder of the powerful order which everywhere preaches a return to the pure teachings of Islam, and hatred of Turk and Christian alike. Farther west, the heights of Nekmaria are crowned with an

old fort, beneath which are the stalactite caves of unhappy memory, where, in 1845, Pélissier caused the Uled-Riah tribe to be smoked to death.

Below its confluence with the Nahr Wassel, the Shelif leaves the region of plateaux, penetrating through the gorges of the Atlas down to the longitudinal valley which separates the Dahra from the Warsenis uplands. Near the entrance of the defile stands the village of Boghari (Bukrari), a future station on the projected railway between Algiers and Laghwat. On the crest of the