Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/453

 by descendants of the Prophet, and situated on a plain where converge the upper branches of the Moluya. Kseabi (Eksebi) marks tho linguistic parting-line between Arabic and Berber, the latter being spoken exclusively on one side, in the direction of the Atlas, the former prevailing on the other, in the direction of the plains,

The small town of Debdu lies, not on the Moluya, but on an eastern affluent on the route leading to the upland plateaux. Immediately above the town rises a

vertical bluff crowned with a minaret and a dismantled fortress. Beyond it the ground still rises through a series of escarped terraces to the plateau of Gada, which is clothed with one of the finest forests in Marocco. Debdu, which consists of about four hundred earthen houses, is the only place in the empire where the Jews are in a majority. All are engaged in trade, their commercial relation extending eastwards to Tlemcen in Algeria, westwards to Fez through the Taza route, and down the Lower Moluya valley to the Spanish coast-town of Melilla. In the neighbouring hills is bred a race of mules famous throughout Western Mauritania.

West of Debdu the Moluya flows through a series of mountain gorges down to