Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/313

 MAURETANIA. § 3; Sail. Jug. 19; Pomp. Mela, i. 4. § .3; Li v. xxi. 22, xxviii. 17; Horat. Carm. i. 22. 2, ii. 6. 3, iii. 10. 18; Tac. Ann. ii. 52, iv. 523, xiv. 28, Hist. i. 78, ii. 58, iv. 50; Lucan, iv. 678; Juv. v. 53, vi. 337; Flor. iii. 1, iv. 2); hence the name Maijue- TANIA (the proper form as it appears in in.-icrip- tions, Orelli, Inscr. 485, 3570, 3672; and on coins, Eckhel, vol. vi. p. 48; comp. Tzchucke, ad Pomp. Mela, i. 5. § 1) or Mauritania (Maupirai/ia, Ptol. iv. 1. §2; Caes. B. C. i. 6, 39; Hirt. B. Afr. 22; Pomp. Mela, i. 5; Plin. v. 1 ; Eutrop. iv. 27, viii. 5; Flor. iv. (the MSS. and printed editions vary be- tween this form and that of Mauretania) ; ^ Mciu- povaiwv 7^, Strab. p. 827). These Moors, who must not be considered as a different race from the Nuniidians, but as a tribe belonging to the same slock, were represented by Sallust (Jug. 21) as a remnant of the army of Hercules, and by Procopius {B. V. ii. 10) as the posterity of the Cananaeans who fled from the robber (Arjar?)?) Joshua; he quotes two columns with a Phoenician inscription. Procopius has been supposed to be the only, or at least the most ancient, author who mentions this inscription, and the invention of it has been attri- buted to himself; it occurs, however, in the history of Moses of Chorene (i. 18), who wrote more than a century before Procopius. The same inscripti(jn is mentioned by Suidas (s. v. Xafaai'), who probably quotes from Procopius. According to most of the Arabian writers, who adopted a nearly similar tradi- tion, the indigenous inhabitants of N. Africa were the people of Palestine, expelled by David, who )assed into Africa under the guidance of Goliah, whom they call IJjalout. (St. Martin, Le Beau, Bas Empire, vol. xi. p. 328 ; comp. Gibbon, c. xli.) These traditions, though so palpably fabulous, open a field to conjecture. Without entering into this, it .seems certain that the Berbers or Berebers, from whom it has been conjectured that N. Africa received the name oi Barbary or Barharia, and whose lan- guage has been preserved in remote mountainous tracts, as well as in the distant regions of the desert,
 * ire the representatives of the ancient inhabitants of

JIauretania. (Comp. Prichard, Physical Hist, of Mankind, vol. ii. pp. 15 — 43.) The gentile name of the Berbers — Amazigh, "the noble language" — is found, according to an ©bservation of Castighone, even in Herodotus (iv. 191, ed. Bahr), — where the correct form is Mazyes (Mafues, Hecataeus, ap. Steph. B. s. v.), which occurs in the MSS., while the printed editions erroneously give Ma|i;es (Nie- buhr. Led. ore Anc. Etlmog. and Geog. vol. ii. p. 334), — as well as in the later Mazices of Am- mianus Marcellinus (xxix. 5; Le Beau, Bas Em- pire, vol. iii. p. 471 ; comp. Gibbon, c. xxv.). IL Physical Geography. From the extraordinary capabilities of the soil — one vast corn plain extending from the foot of Atlas to the shores of the Atlantic — Mauretania was formerly the granary of the world. (Pliu. xviii. 20.) Under a bigoted and fanatical government, the land that might give food to millions, is now covered with weeds. Throughout the plains, which rise by three great steps to the mountains, there is great want of wood ; even on the skirts of the Atlas, the timber docs not reach any great size — nothing to justify the expression of Pliny (" opacum nemo- rosumque " v. 1 ; comp. Journ. Geog. Sac. vol. i. pp. 123 — 155; Barth, Wanderungen). Slrabo (xvii. pp. 820—832) has given an account AIAUnETANIA. 297 of the productions of Mauretania, marvellous enough, in some particulars, as where he describes weasels as large as cats, and leeches 10 ft. long; and among other animals the crocodile, which there can scarcely be any river of Marocco capable of nourishing, even if the climate were to permit it. (In Aegypt, where the average heat is equal to that of Senegambia, the crocodile is seldom seen so low as Siout.) Pliny (viii. 1) agrees with Strabo (p. 827) in asserting that Mauretania produced elephants. As the whole of Barbary is more European than African, it may be doubted whether the elephant, which is no longtr found there, was ever indigenous, though it may have been naturalised by the Carthaginians, to whi;m elephants were of importance, as part of their military establishment. Appian (5. P. 9) says that when jjreparing for their last war with the Romans, they sent Hasdrubal, son of Gisco, to hunt elephants; he could have hardly gone into Aethiopia for this purpose. Shaw {Trav. p. 258 ; Jackso'ii, Marocco, p. 55) confirms, in great measure, the statements of Strabo (p. 830) and of Aelian (/f. A. iii. 136, vi. 20) about the scorpion and the " pha- langium," a species of the " arachnidae." The "so- litanus,"' of which Varro (de Re Rustica, iv. 14. § 4; Plin. ix. 82) gives so wonderful an account, has not been identified. Copper is still worked as in the days of Strabo (p. 830), and the natives con- tinue to preserve the grain, legumes, and other pro- duce of their husbandry in " niatmoures," or conical excavations in the ground, as recorded by Pliny (xviii. 73; Shaw, p. 221). Mauretania, which may be described generally as the highlands of N.Africa, elevates itself like an island between the Jlediterranean, the Atlantic, and the great ocean of sand which cuts it off towards the S. and E. This " plateau " separates itself from the rest of Africa, and approximates, in the form and structure, the height, and arrangement of its elevated masses, to the system of mountains in the Spanish peninsula, of which, if the straits of the Mediterranean were dried up, it would form a part. A description of these Atlantic highlands is given in the article Ati^s. Many rivers flow from this great range, and fall into the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. (Jf these, the most important on the N. coast were, in a direction from E. to W., the Ampsaga, Usak, Chixalapii, and ]Iui,ucha ; on the W. coast, in a direction froniNE.to SW., the Sucue,Sai,a,Phuth, and Lixus. The coast-line, after passing the Ajipsaga ( Wad- el-Kibir') and Sinus Numidicus, has the harbours Igilgilis {Jijeli), Saldae P.s. (Bi/jeiyah), and KusucuRRiUM (Tedlez). Weighing from Algic?:',; and passing Iomniuji (Ras-al-Kanaiir), to stand towards the W., there is a rocky and precipitous coast, mostly bold, in which in succession were the ports and creeks Iol (Zershell), Cartenna (Ze/ifs), Murustaga {Mostaghanoni), Arsenauia {Ar- £((«), QiiiZA {Wahran or Oran); Poktus Mag- nus {Marsa Kibir-), within Metagonium Pri>m. {Ras-alllarsbah) ; and Acra {Ishgun). The I^IuEUCiiA falls into the Gulf of Melilah of the charts. About 10 miles to the NW, of this river lay the Tres Insulae {Znphran or Jaftrii group) ; about 30 miles di.stant from these rocks, on a NW. by W. rhumb, was Ku.sadi-i Prom. {Cap Trcf Forcas of the Spanish pilots, or Ras-ud-Dehur of tlie natives), and in the bight formed between it and the Mulucha stood Kusauik