Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/390

 314 NORTH-WEST AFRICA. their local Berber dialect ; they are also otherwise relatively well instructed, all being able at least to read and write. Five of the seven Mzabite towns are grouped in an elongated cirque, which is traversed for a distance of 11 miles by the Wed Mzab, in the direction from north- west to south-east. Ghanhi/a [Tayhardeik), the capital, covers the slopes of an eminence, which is crowned by a mosque with a minaret resembling an obelisk. It is divided into three distinct quarters, each with its separate interests, and all jointly comprising a fourth of the whole population. The fort of Shcbka, erected to the south of Ghardaya, overawes this place as well as the two neighbouring towns of Melika and Beni-Isguen. Melika the " Royal," lying east of Ghardaya, was formerly the holy city of the Mzabites, and in the vaults of its mosque were deposited the treasures of the confederation. Beni- Isguen, situated a little south of Melika, ranks second for population, and is also the best built, the most commercial, and wealthiest place in the oasis. In the extreme east of the cirque lies EUAltcf, the first place founded in the district by the Mzabites. ' GUERARA MeTIJLI. Near it is Bu-Mtira, while Berrian and Guevara, completing the Heptapolis, lie beyond the cirque, and even outside the Wed Mzab basin. Berrian, on the route from Laghwat to Ghardaya, occupies a small vaUey, watered by an afiluent of the Wed Usa, which feeds some thirty-five thousand palms. Guerar (El-Guerara), with still more extensive palm groves, lies over 50 miles north-east of Ghardaya on another tributary of the Wed Usa. The town of Mctlili, 20 miles south of the capital, on the route to El-Golea, forms no part of the Mzabite confederacy. Its oasis is held by a branch of the nomad Sbaanba tribe, which affords protection to the peasantry while appro- priating the largest share of their labour. The AHclepias gigantca, one of the characteristic plants of the Sudan, flourishes in the Metlili Valley, which also grows enormous cucumbers, about a yard in length. Warqla. The Wargia oasis, which lies along the course of the Wed Miya, above the underground confluence of the Mzab affluents, alone possesses more palms than the whole group of Mzabite settlements. The town is surrounded by a dense forest of some six hundred thousand plants stretching in a vast semicircle beyond the swampy tracts to the south-east. Wargia, which was formerly far more populous than at pre- sent, comprises within the ramparts a number of separate quarters occupied by the Beni-Sissin, Beni-Waggin, and Beni-Brahim comnmnities, all half-caste Berbers and Negroes of dark complexion. The well-cultivated oasis of Ngu9a, situated farther north on the route to Tugurt, is peopled by the Haratins, also* a dark-