Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/445

 INHABITANTS OP MAKOOOO— THE BERBERS. MS the southern steppes ou the verge of the desert, the ostrich still abounds, and here also several varieties of the gazelle are hunted, less for their flesh than for the so-called bezoard, a i)eculiar concretion often found in their stomachs and valued u a powerful amulet. The dead cetaceans stranded on the coast are also opened by the fishermen in search of fragments of grey amber. The upland valleys of the Atlas range, with its almost European climate, are well suited for breeding all our domestic animals, as well as for the cultivation of all the plants peculiar to the temperate zone. The waters abound in turtles, and the river estuaries are frequented especially by the sabal, a species of salmon, highly prized for its delicate flavour. The oceanic fauna differs in other respects little from that of the "West Indian seas, the nautilus, flying-fish, and much-dreaded hammer-headed shark being found on both sides of the Atlantic. The exploration of the abysses off the Morocco coast, sounded to a depth of 2,800 fathoms, has revealed to the naturalists of the Talisman a multitude of new fpecics of fishes, crustaceans, molluscs, worms, and sponges. Inhabitants of MARoat) — The Berkeks. As in the rest of Mauritania, the population of Marocco still remains funda- mentally Berber, this element having, since the time of the rhocnicians, always maintained the preponderance. The successive conquering races, even the Arabs, who have remained masters on the plains and in the large towns, have succeeded only in driving the natives to the upland valleys, without acquiring a numerical superiority in the country. At present the proportion of Berbers is estimated at about two-thirds of the whole population, and especially in the highland districts, remote from the town and seaboard, they form the almost exclusive element At the same time this general expression, Berber, applied collectively to all the inhabitants not of distinctly Semitic or Negro descent, by no means implies a community of origin. On the contrary, many different races have probably con- tributed to the formation of the aborigines, and Iberian tribes are even sui)|K)8ed at one time to have occupied the slopes of the Atlas. As in other parts of Barbary, especially Tripolitana and East Algeria, megaliths have been found in various parts of Marocco, in every respect similar to the dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs, and suchlike remains in Britain and Brit tuny. The finest monolith hitherto discovered is that of Mzora, standing on the eastern edge of a plateau, whence a view is commanded of the Tetuan highlands. Tiiis menhir, which is over 20 feet high, is known as the Uted, or " tent-pole." The Iniazighen, or Berbers of Marocco, who comprise several tribes or con- federations bearing the same name as those of Algeria (Shawia, Beraber, Zenaga or Saheja, Guezzula, &c.), are divided into four perfectly distinct groups, occupy- ing separate territories and characterised by different tribal customs. Those of the north, who hold the Rif highlanls, the peninsula of Tangier, and most of the hilly district bounded southwards by the course of the 8cbu, take the generic name of