Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/448

 866 NORTH-WEST AFRICA. of tLe Marocco Berbers. It is even much better preserved in the extreme weot than in other parts of Mauritania, and old manuscripts of the Koran transcribed in Berber characters are said still to exist in the Rif highlands. In nearly all the northern tribes the women and even the children understand and even speak Arabic. But in the hills and oases of the Saharian slope certain communities living in secluded districts remote from the great trade routes speak Tamazight alone, employing interpreters, chiefly Jews, in their intercourse with the Arabs. On the other hand, the Beni-Hassen of the Tetuan uplands, and some other tribes of undoubted Berber origin, have, completely forgotten their mother- tongue, and now speak Arabic exclusively. Amongst all these Imazighen, scattered over a vast territory, varying in com- plexion from fair to dark, and speaking different languages, a great diversity of types, habits, and customs also naturally prevails. In some tribes the women have preserved the practice of tattooing ; in others they cover the face with a black veil at the sight of strangers, or else turn their back on the wayfarer ; but, as a rule, they walk abroad unveiled and with a bold carriage. The practice of stuffing young girls with paste-balls, to give them the corpulence so much admired in Marocco, is common to most of the urban communities, and even to many nomad peoples. The dress varies with every tribe, and at a distance the clan to which strangers belong is easily recognised by their costume and arms. Usually men and women wear only a single haik woven of wool or cotton^ and attached to the shoulders with clasps or knots. Nearly all the natives have bow legs : a feature due to the way children are carried pickaback by their mothers, wrapped in a fold of the haik. Except the nomads that roam the plains at the foot of the Anti-Atlas and Bani ranges, and the semi-nomads in the north and south, whose movable straw dwellings resemble beehives, nearly all the Imazighen live in stone houses variously grouped in the different villages. On the southern slope of the Atlas they are disposed in the form of ksurs, or strongholds, like the fortified villages of the border ranges in South Orania. Elsewhere each family dwells apart, the houses of the community being scattered irregularly over the hillside, like those of the Pyrenean Basques. With the exception of a few tribes near the large towns, the bulk of the Berber population may be said to have remained practically independent, although every phase of transition occurs, from complete submission to absolute autonomy. Some of the Imazighen pay the imposts voluntarily, but most of them do so only under pressure, often even escaping to their allies, and leaving nothing but empty houses in the hands of the taxgatherers. The oppression of the Sultan's government is foimd on the whole more intolerable than tribal warfare and the savage freedom enjoyed by the independent communities. Nevertheless, some of the more powerful tribes consent to receive a kaid, that is, a sort of envoy from the Sultan, who is respected if upright, but usually merely tolerated as a stranger. The dej)endence of some clans is of a purely spiritual character, while the autonomous tribes often