Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/490

 404 NORTH- WEST AFEICA. authority is powerless agaiust tbe will of the communal assemblies. He cannot even prevent the inhabitants of his own ksar from waging war against their neighbours. Tafilelt, the original home of his family, is the Berber form of Filal, a district in Arabia, whence are supposed to have come the ancestors of Mulai Ali- Sherif, founder of the Marocco dynasty. His tomb is still shown, 2^ miles south- east of Abuam. West of the present capital stretches an extensive plain, strewn with the ruins of Arum, at least 5 miles in circumference, in the centre of which stand a minaret and the arches of a mosque covered with exquisite arabesques as fresh as if sculp- tured yesterday. Amra, or Medinet-el-Aamera, " the populous city," is almost certainly the famous Sejelmassa {Sijiimassa) mentioned by mediaeval writers, which geographers long sought for beyond the oasis, until it was shown by Walckenaer and D'Avczac that the names Tafilelt and Sejelmassa are identical. It was founded over a hundred years after the Hejira, and although frequently ruined by sieges and wars, it continued to serve as the governor's residence down to the close of the seventeenth century, when the present fort Er-Rissani was erected. Till the year 1815, the mosque was a centre of Koranic studies, where live hundred students were supported at the expense of the state ; and ever since the middle of the century the public prayer for the emperor of Marocco was still read every Friday. The fluvial basin east of the Zis, although more extensive, contains a less volume of water. Nevertheless the traveller passing north of the great hamada can always depend on finding a spring or stream, pastures and habitations, at every station. The Sultan's forces never penetrate into this region, although his spiritual suzerainty is recognised by the natives. The country, however, has been several times traversed by French detachments in pursuit of Algerian rebels. In 1870, Wimpffen's column reconnoitred a part of the Upper Guir basin close to the Tafilelt oasis, and 150 miles from the Oran frontier. The chief tribes inhabiting this borderland of the desert are the Berabers, the Beni-Guils, Dui-Menias, and Ulad-Jerirs. The Beni-Guil Berbers are chiefly centred on the upland pastures about the headstreanis of the Weds Guir, Kenatsa, and Zusfana, while the Dui- Menia and Ulad-Jerir Arabs, kinsmen of the Algerian Hamians, lie nearer to the desert. All are often collectively known by the general name of Zegdu, or " Confederates." The Guir Basin. The farthest sources of the Guir, that is, " River," rise on the plateaux near the headstreams of the Moluya, flowing thence in deep gorges through the southern escarpments of the hills skirting the Sahara. Ain-Shair, the chief oasis in this upland region, grows a few dates ; but, as indicated by its name, its chief source of wealth is cereals, exported to all the lower oases. In the Dui-Menia territory beyond the mountain gorges, the bed of the Guir is so wide that it takes the name of Bahariat, or " Little Sea." Here it ramifies into innumerable rivulets flowing between forests of tamarisks, or watering the open cultivated tracts. Immediately