Chapter XIX: Appendix: C

_Notes on the Geography of South Marocco._

By JOHN BALL.

Some remarks upon the geography of South Marocco seem to be called for from a writer who has ventured to put forth a new map, largely differing from those hitherto published; but the subject is encompassed with so much difficulty, and the amount of accurate information available is so limited, that a prudent writer must be content to regard most of his own conclusions as merely provisional, and liable to be modified or set aside by the results of further exploration, whenever this shall become practicable. In the mean time, some good may be effected by clearing the ground of some received errors that are absolutely disproved by facts now ascertained.

Little need here be said of the slight contribution to the knowledge of South Marocco that can be gleaned from the writers of antiquity. The earliest document bearing on the subject was doubtless the record of the voyage of Hanno, set up in the temple of Saturn at Carthage. This is known to us only by the version, rendered by an unknown hand into Greek, which, with all the accumulated errors of the translator and the subsequent transcribers, has reached us under the title of the _Periplus of Hanno_. From this record the particulars to be gleaned regarding this part of Africa are scanty and of an uncertain character. Commentators have, with much probability, identified the Solois promontory of Hanno (Λιβυκὸν ἀκρωτήριον λάσιον δένδρεσι) with Cape Cantin. But what are we to make of the next statement that, having passed the cape, they sailed for half a day east, or south-east (πρὸς ἥλιον ἀνισχοντα), before reaching the great marshy lake, ‘where elephants and other wild beasts abounded’? True it is that south of Cape Cantin there are two slight indentations, mere coves, where the land for a short distance trends to the south-east; but the general direction for a mariner along this part of the coast is SSW., as far as Mogador. Agreeing with the commentators that the ‘great marshy lake’ was probably near the mouth of the Oued Tensift, we are led to believe that Hanno disembarked settlers at no less than five stations on the coast of what is now the province of Haha. If we may rely on the correctness of the Greek text we must infer that these were settlements established by the Carthaginians before the date of Hanno’s expedition.[1] The next place reached by Hanno was ‘the great river Lixus, flowing from Libya, about which dwelt a nomadic people,’ who are called in the text Lixitæ (Λιξίται). It is further stated that the river is said to flow from great mountains in the neighbourhood, around which dwell the Troglodytes, referred to in our text, p. 301. The only assertion that can be confidently made about the Lixus of Hanno is, that it was quite a different stream from that afterwards known to the Romans by the same name, the latter being the modern Oued el Kous, falling into the sea at El Araisch, and which Pliny makes fifty-seven Roman miles from Tangier. The learned commentator, C. Müller, identifies the Lixus of the Periplus with the Draha; but, unless we assume that great physical changes have occurred during the interval, this supposition is scarcely compatible with the existence of a numerous population near the mouth of the river. It may possibly have been the river Akassa (the native name of the river of Oued Noun); but it appears far more probable that it was the Sous, the only one of these rivers which is believed constantly to discharge a large volume of water into the sea. It may be, indeed, that there is an etymological connection between the names Sous and Lixus, as there undoubtedly is between some names still current and those used by the Romans.

After Hanno, the next voyager along this coast of whom we known anything was Polybius. The original record of his voyage has, unfortunately, not come down to posterity, but a few particulars have been preserved by Pliny.[2] We learn incidentally that the Romans called Cape Cantin promontorium Solis, a name evidently suggested by the earlier name Solois of the Carthaginians, afterwards rendered in Greek by Ptolemy ἡλίου ἄκρον. Whether Polybius succeeded in reaching the Senegal, or some other river within the tropics, may be uncertain; but he undoubtedly visited many places on the Atlantic coast of Marocco. We hear for the first time of the rivers _Subur_ (modern Sebou), and _Salat_ (the Bouregrag, which falls into the sea at Sallee). He touched at the port of _Rutulis_, said to have been eight Roman miles beyond the mouth of the river Anatis, which was 205 Roman miles from Lixus (El Araisch). The river is doubtless the modern Oum-er-bia, and the port was the same which the Portuguese named Mazagan. The next port touched by Polybius was named _Risadir_, which has been with much probability identified with Agadir.[3] As for the rivers named by Polybius on the coast south-west of the Atlas, their identification with any known to modern geographers is purely conjectural.

Of Roman writers Pliny is the only one from whom any positive information as to the geography of this part of Africa is to be gained; but even this is very limited.[4] He complains that the reports as to the region beyond the narrow limits within which Roman power was established in his day were most fallacious, and censures the Roman authorities for indolently giving circulation to mendacious stories, instead of investigating the truth for themselves. In his day Sala (modern Sallee) was the most southern of the Roman settlements in Marocco. He describes it as ‘a town standing on a river of the same name, on the confines of the desert (_solitudinibus vicinum_), which was infested by herds of elephants, and still more by the tribe of the Autololes, through whose territory lay the way to the great mountain of Africa, the many-fabled Atlas.’ It appears elsewhere that Pliny had access to the manuscripts left by Juba, which, unfortunately, have not come down to posterity. That accomplished prince appears to have held control over the whole territory of Marocco as far as the base of the Atlas. It is to these lost pages of Juba that we probably owe the only fragment of moderately correct information as to South Marocco which is to be found in Pliny’s work.[5] The river Asana, whose mouth is said to be 150 Roman miles beyond Sala, is doubtless the Anatis of Polybius, and the Oum-er-bia of the Moors. The next river, which he calls Fut, is the Tensift. The distance assigned for the interval between the mouth of the Fut and the Atlas is excessive; but not largely so if Agadir be intended, that being the first place on the coast from which the high summits of the Atlas are habitually visible. The statement as to the existence of remains of vineyards and palm-groves about the ruins of ancient dwellings seems to lend probability to the belief that the Carthaginian settlements on this coast may have had a prolonged existence. The fall of the parent State would have had but an indirect influence on their destiny. Verbal resemblances are so often misleading that little weight can be attached to them; but it is natural to compare the word Dyris, said by Pliny to be the native name for the Atlas, with that now used by the natives—_Idrarn_—this being the plural form of _Adrar_, which means generically a mountain, both in the Shelluh and in several other Bereber dialects.

Besides what Pliny may have learned from King Juba as to the geography of the coast of South Marocco, he had access to contemporary testimony as to some part of the interior of the country. Suetonius Paulinus (the same who at a later date played a conspicuous part in Britain) being appointed governor of the provinces of N.W. Africa, then recently incorporated in the Roman Empire, resolved to penetrate southward beyond the Great Atlas, whether with a view to intimidate the native tribes, or for the mere satisfaction of carrying the Roman eagles into a new region. He appears to have left a written account of his expedition, which, like so much else of ancient geographical literature, has been lost. The particulars preserved by Pliny are unfortunately so vague as to be almost valueless.

In ten days from his starting point, wherever that may have been, we are told that he reached the highest point of his march. He reported the mountain to be covered with dense forests of trees of an unknown kind, and declares the summit of the range to be deeply covered with snow, even in summer.[6] From the summit of the Atlas Suetonius descended, and marched on through deserts of black sand, out of which rose here and there rocks that had the aspect of being burnt, to a river called Ger. Although it was the winter season the heat of these regions was found intolerable. The neighbouring forests abounded in elephants and other wild beasts, and with serpents of every kind, and were inhabited by a people called Canarians.

The controversies to which this passage has given rise are not likely to be definitively decided. The balance of opinion leans to the belief that Suetonius ascended the valley of the Moulouya, and traversed the Atlas by the pass now called Tizin Tinrout, leading to Tafilelt. This was the pass traversed by Gerhard Rohlfs in 1864, and to his narrative alone we can refer for information respecting it and the country extending southward towards the Great Desert. The existence in that part of W. Africa, on the south side of the Great Atlas, so far from the influence of the Atlantic climate, of vast forests capable of maintaining elephants and sheltering a native population, would apparently be irreconcilable with existing physical conditions, and is not readily admissible in the Roman period. Whatever vigorous vegetation exists in the region traversed by Rohlfs adjoins the banks of the stream; and, though sand may encroach here and there, and sun-burnt rocks are seen there, as elsewhere on the south side of the Atlas, the description is not what would occur to any one following the course of the stream. It seems, further, highly improbable that a prudent general, such as Suetonius Paulinus, would have undertaken to lead an aggressive military force along the tortuous valley of the Moulouya, some 250 miles in length, enclosed for the most part between lofty mountains; and it is also to be noted that at the period of his expedition the Romans held no station in the valley of the Moulouya, if indeed they ever penetrated far into it.

The few particulars quoted above lead to the conclusion that the Roman general in his southward march beyond the Atlas did not follow the course of a stream, but was compelled to cross a tract of desert before reaching the river of which he speaks, which, therefore, probably flowed from E. to W. On the whole, it seems to me that the brief record is more easily reconciled with the supposition that Suetonius Paulinus made Sala (Sallee), the farthest Roman station in Western Africa, his base of operations; that he marched thence across the open country towards SSW., and gained the summit of the Atlas range at the pass between Imintanout and Tarudant.[7] Between the course of the Sous and that of the Akassa, or river of Oued Noun, there are extensive tracts of sandy desert, where, even in winter, his troops may easily have suffered from heat and thirst; and the river (called Ger) may have been the main branch, or one of the tributaries of the Akassa flowing from the range of Anti-Atlas. The former existence of great forests, frequented by elephants, on the flanks of that range, is far more probable than on the parched southern slopes of the interior, where, as Rohlfs tells us, the rocks and hills are now absolutely bare of tree and shrub vegetation. Finally, it is more natural to look for the ancient Canarians in the country near the Atlantic coast than in the interior.

The solitary argument of any weight in favour of the Moulouya and Tafilelt route seems to be derived from the fact that in descending southward from the pass at the head of the Moulouya valley the traveller follows the course of a stream which now bears the name Gers, or Ghir. But it must be remarked that this name exists elsewhere in Marocco, there being at least three streams so denominated, and further that it is nowadays borne by the river of Tafilelt only during a short part of its course. Rohlfs, who is here our only authority, tells us that the stream first met in descending from the pass of Tizin Tinrout is called Siss.[8] After following this for seven or eight hours, it is joined by another stream which he called _Ued Gers_. The united stream bears the latter name for a distance of some six hours’ ride, and then resumes the name of Siss, which it bears throughout its subsequent course till it is lost in the sands of the Sahara.

The long period that intervened between the decline of Roman power and the establishment of Mohammedan rule in Marocco, is a blank to the historian and the geographer. It can scarcely be doubted that Roman authority and Roman institutions spread themselves throughout a great part of the open country between the Atlas and the Atlantic, although there is but little direct evidence to that effect.

Little reliance can be placed on the statement of Leo Africanus that the people of Barbary were converted to Christianity 250 years before the birth of Mohammed, or about A.D. 320, for, in a country so split up into independent tribes, the new faith must have made way irregularly and at various periods; while it is most probable that it never struck root among the mountain tribes of the Great Atlas. But the positive assertion of the same writer, that when the Arabs arrived in Marocco they found the Christians masters of the country, probably holds good of all except the mountain tracts.

Whether any reliable information as to South Marocco is to be gleaned from the writings of the eminent Arabian geographers who lived between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, I am unable to say; but it seems sufficiently certain that the period of European exploration leading to practical results commenced in the fourteenth century. The Genoese, the Catalans, and the Venetians appear to have despatched several expeditions along the coast, most of them intended to reach the gold-producing regions of tropical Africa. The Portuguese, who were destined to outstrip all their rivals in maritime exploration, were the first to establish themselves on the western coast of Marocco; and, at one time or other, they held most, if not all, the Atlantic seaports. Much information doubtless lies concealed among the mediæval records of Italy, Spain, and, especially, of Portugal; but up to the present time nothing has been published to show that any European was able, from personal knowledge, to give an account of the interior of Marocco, before Marmol, who, having been taken prisoner by the Moors, passed several years at Fez and elsewhere in North Marocco, about the middle of the sixteenth century. The earliest known document showing a moderately correct knowledge of the coast is a map (number 5 in the series), contained in the celebrated _Portulano_ of the Laurentian Library in Florence, bearing the date 1351.[9] In this map, which, from internal evidence, must be of Genoese origin, the general outline of the Marocco coast is correct, and the positions of the few places laid down unmistakable. The now abandoned town of Fedala (Fidalah), Mefegam (Mazagan), and Mogodor here appear for the first time. Of early Portuguese maps there must be many not now known to geographers, and it was certainly from Portuguese authorities that Gerard Mercator partly derived the materials used in both editions of his Atlas. In the _Atlas Minor_, published by Hondins in 1608, a map of South Marocco is given in page 567, wherein for the first time an attempt is made to represent the positions of cities and mountains, and the courses of rivers in the interior of the country. The outline of the coast is here less correct than that given in the much more ancient Medicean map; but there is far more of detail, especially as to places which were evidently well known to the Portuguese. Thus, as mentioned in the text, we here for the first time find the island of Mogador with the name _‘I. Domegador.’_ The places laid down in the interior appear for the most part to be taken (but with numerous errors) from the work of Leo Africanus; but the chartographer has spoiled his map by making the river Sous flow from SE. to NW., instead of from NNE. to SSW. Mountains are scattered pretty uniformly over the map; but what is made to appear as the loftiest mass, and is marked _‘Atlas M.,’_ with a town named Tagovast at its foot, stands S. of Tarudant about the western extremity of the range of Anti-Atlas. The accompanying letterpress, page 566, is to a great extent derived from Leo Africanus, but with additions from other sources. It is curious to read that Tarudant, now a place which no Christian stranger dare approach, was then resorted to by French and English merchants.

The name of the remarkable man, who stands almost alone as a geographical authority for the interior of Marocco, has already been mentioned; but it is impossible to dismiss him so lightly. Leo Africanus, to give him the name by which he is known to posterity, was a Moor of Grenada, born in the latter part of the fifteenth century, who, with his kinsfolk, fled to Fez at or about the time of the siege of Granada in 1492. In those days Fez was the head-quarters of Arabic culture; Leo was an earnest and successful student, and, as a man of learning and intelligence, was taken into favour by Mouley Ahmet, the founder of the dynasty still reigning in Marocco. Either in company with the new ruler, or with his protection and authority, he travelled through almost every part of the empire, as well as nearly all the rest of Northern Africa, and evidently made copious notes. He wrote, in Arabic, various works on history and grammar which have not been preserved, and, in the same language, the original version of his description of Africa. It would appear that he carried this with him, in manuscript, when, in 1517, he was made captive by Christian corsairs, who took him to Rome. Leo X., hearing that a learned Moor had been brought a captive to Rome, sent for him, and treated him with kindness and liberality. A suggestion that he should undergo the rite of baptism seems to have encountered no obstinate prejudices, for he soon complied, receiving at the font the Pope’s own names, Giovanni Leone, and perhaps becoming as earnest a Christian as the Pontiff himself. He afterwards lived many years in Rome, acquired the Italian tongue, and translated his work on Africa into that idiom. This remained for some time unpublished, until it fell into the hands of Ramusio, who included it in his famous work ‘Delle Navigationi et Viaggi,’ of which the first edition, in three folio volumes, was printed in Venice in 1550. It is not easy to account for the numerous variations between the original text and the versions which appeared in various languages during the century following the original publication; but in the absence of satisfactory explanation it seems safest to accept the text of Ramusio as alone authentic.

Like most modern readers, the members of our party, when they resolved to visit Marocco, knew nothing of the work of Leo Africanus beyond the fact that he is occasionally referred to by writers on North Africa. The time for preparation was far too short for extensive reading, and we took with us only the works of Jackson and Gerhard Rohlfs. It has, however, since that time been a matter of frequent regret that we had not the opportunity, while travelling in the country, of referring to the only writer who had actually seen the greater part of it with his own eyes, and as to whose general truthfulness there is no room for suspicion. It is impossible here to enter into the many interesting details that abound throughout the text; but it is worth while to point out the more important changes that are disclosed between the condition of South Marocco as it was more than three and a half centuries ago, and that of the present day.

So far as regards the manners, ideas, habits, and mode of living of the inhabitants, the changes are quite insignificant, save in so far as these are affected by a general decline in material prosperity. The central authority was at that period much weaker, and the separate tribes led a more independent existence. Amongst the Bereber people of the mountains, and even in many of the larger towns, such government as existed was ordinarily of the democratic type. Thus we read that in Tarudant four chiefs were elected to manage the affairs of the city, holding office for only six months at a time.

If it were possible to doubt the results of the establishment of a system of grinding despotism, administered by officials who enjoy practical impunity so long as they satisfy the pecuniary demands of their master, the pages of Leo Africanus bring ample evidence. It is, indeed, true that a slight improvement has ensued as regards internal tranquillity. There is now rather less of habitual turbulence; the mutual encounters between neighbouring tribes may be somewhat less frequent; and brigandage, which appears to have been not uncommon in the open country, is now comparatively rare. It may be doubted whether this advantage, such as it is, is not as much due to diminished population as to the successful administration of the Moorish Sultans.

On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence of a general and progressive decline in prosperity. Throughout the southern provinces, and especially in Haha and Sous, Leo Africanus found numerous flourishing towns, most of them visited and described by him. In each one of these he found people living in comparative ease, inhabiting good houses with gardens, and possessing, according to the standard of the age, some literary education. From the towns, and even from the inner valleys of the Atlas, students flocked to Fez, then the head-quarters of Arabic knowledge and civilisation. All the principal places were then local centres of production, the artificers being principally Jews.

It is notable that excepting the city of Marocco, then full of a numerous and active population, none of the towns mentioned owed their foundation to the conquering race. Leo, not likely to detract from the achievements of his own people, expressly attributes the origin of most of them to the ‘antichi Africani,’ by which designation he commonly speaks of the primitive Bereber stock; and, as regards the smaller towns lying in the low country north of the Atlas, he frequently speaks of the population being harassed by the Arabs, then, as at this day, leading a semi-nomad existence in the plains.

If we confront his description with the present state of the country we find comparative ruin and desolation. In all the southern provinces we now find but two inland cities of any importance, Marocco and Tarudant, and these dwindled to a mere tithe of their ancient wealth and population. Where the traveller in the sixteenth century found thriving towns at intervals of ten or twelve miles, there are now miserable villages whose wretched inhabitants maintain a bare existence, and are often unable to pay the imposts which leave no surplus behind. It does not appear that in the great province of Haha there is now a single place that can be called a town except the ruined seaport of Agadir, destined by nature to be the chief port of South Marocco, but closed to trade by the caprice of a Sultan. Throughout the interior we saw or heard of but two places that could by courtesy be called towns, Amsmiz and Moulai Ibrahim. Although no statistics are available, it seems a moderate estimate if we reckon that the present population of South Marocco cannot exceed one-third of what it was when Leo wrote.

Along with the decay of wealth and population, we naturally find that of everything that could raise the people in the scale of existence. In Leo’s day iron and copper mines were worked in many places in the Atlas, and various handicrafts exercised, of which there is now no trace. Education, such as it was, was widely spread; and in some parts of the Atlas where it was absent, the traveller noted the fact as a proof of the low condition of the population. He notes as a curious incident that when he visited the mountain district of Semele, where the people were ignorant of reading and writing, they forced him to remain nine days, hearing and deciding all pending cases of litigation; in doing which, as he records, he had to act both as judge and notary, there being no one competent to write down the decisions of the court.

Several incidental statements in the work of Leo Africanus suggest an inquiry of considerable interest. There is nothing in the published annals of the Portuguese wars with the Moors to suggest a belief that the former at any time established their authority in the interior of South Marocco, or even undertook any inland expeditions. From Leo’s narrative it appears, however, that, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, they had, at least occasionally, penetrated much farther into the interior than has commonly been supposed, and that the authority of the Portuguese king was in some places paramount. At Tumeglast, a place in the plain of Marocco, probably not far from the present village of Frouga, Leo lodged in the house with a Moor, named Sidi Yehie, who had come in the name of the king of Portugal to levy tribute, the same Moor having been made by the king chief (capitano) of the district of Azasi. Elsewhere he relates that the king of Marocco sent an expeditionary force against an independent chief in the district of Hanimmei, forty miles east of the city of Marocco (apparently in the present province of Demnet), and which force was accompanied by 300 Portuguese cavalry. The expedition was unsuccessful, the Sultan’s troops were defeated, and, according to the narrative, not one of the Christian horsemen returned from the disaster. It seems highly improbable that the Portuguese should have taken part in such an affair if their troops had not at the time been stationed somewhere in the interior.

After Leo Africanus but little of a definite kind is to be learned from subsequent writers as to the geography of South Marocco. In 1791 the reigning Sultan applied to General O’Hara, then Governor of Gibraltar, for the assistance of an English physician to treat his favourite son, Mouley Absalom, who was at the time governing the province of Sous. Mr. Lempriere, an army-surgeon, undertook the office, and travelled by the west coast to Agadir, and thence to Tarudant. After successfully treating his patient, he was partly induced, and partly forced, to travel to the city of Marocco, whence, after considerable delay and difficulty, he succeeded in returning to Gibraltar. Mr. Lempriere probably travelled across the Atlas by the road from Tarudant to Imintanout, but his narrative supplies little information to the geographer. He speaks of the distance from Tarudant to the northern foot of the Atlas as an easy journey of three days, and describes the track as leading beneath and along tremendous precipices.

Frequent reference is made in the text to Jackson’s ‘Account of the Empire of Marocco,’ of which the first edition appeared in 1809, and the third in 1814. This is undoubtedly the fullest and most correct modern work on Southern Marocco. Jackson spent sixteen years in the country, chiefly at Mogador and Agadir; he acquired the familiar use of the Moorish Arabic, and seems to have obtained merited influence among the natives. Either because he had but little taste for exploration, or because he found the difficulties too serious, Jackson has added little to our knowledge of the geography of the country. His map, though it contains some corrections, is on the whole inferior to that of Chénier, published a century earlier.

A definite contribution to the slight existing amount of positive knowledge was made by the late Admiral Washington, then a lieutenant in the navy, who accompanied the late Sir J. Drummond Hay on his mission to the city of Marocco in the winter of 1829-1830. His paper, published in the first volume of the ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,’ is frequently referred to in our text; and in the accompanying map the positions of several points in the interior of the country were accurately laid down from astronomical observation.

A most important step towards extending our knowledge of the entire empire of Marocco was made in 1848, when the French War Department published the map compiled by Captain Beaudouin. Whatever errors it may contain—and these were unavoidably numerous—this must be regarded as a monument of intelligence and industry. Recognising the fact that the greater part of the territory is likely long to remain inaccessible to Europeans, the author applied himself to obtaining information from natives who were personally acquainted with various portions of the country. Hundreds of such informants, as we were assured, were separately examined by Captain Beaudouin; the information supplied by each was laid down on a skeleton map; and by the careful comparison of the separate materials the general map was compiled.

Without noticing minor errors, which are, of course, inevitable in such a work, the most serious objection to be made to this map is that the orography is exhibited in a fashion _primâ facie_ improbable, and which has been to a great extent negatived by subsequent evidence. The main range of the Southern Atlas is represented as a nearly straight wall, over 400 miles in length, with few and short diverging ridges, and, parallel to this on the south side, another equally straight and narrow ridge is made to stretch for nearly 300 miles. From near the eastern extremity of the main range two other straight ridges are shown, diverging abruptly at an acute angle, and enclosing a trench-like valley that extends north-west for fully 120 miles. If this were even approximately correct, we should be led to conclude that the structure of the Great Atlas is quite unlike that of any other known mountain region. The tendency of mountain ranges to follow a uniform general direction is always modified by the numerous secondary causes that have helped to fashion the earth’s surface.

The first recent traveller who succeeded in penetrating some considerable portions of the Marocco territory was M. Gerhard Rohlfs. Assuming the garb and professing the faith of a Mussulman, he traversed many districts where no Christian dare present himself; but the care necessary to prevent his real character from becoming known imposed severe restrictions on M. Rohlfs. Produced under conditions where it was impossible to be seen taking notes or using any scientific instrument, it is not surprising that the narrative of his adventurous journey is extremely meagre; but even for the little that he is told about a region so little known the reader is thankful. The chief geographical results of these journeys were embodied in the map annexed to G. Rohlfs’ first work[10] by the eminent geographer, M. Petermann. The scale of that map is small and admits of little detail; but, so far as regards the mountain country, I am disposed to think that the direct evidence, supplemented in some points by native report, requires us to depart more widely from the orographic features of Beaudouin’s map than M. Petermann has thought it fit to do.

In the map accompanying this volume I have ventured, in addition to the changes for which I had direct authority, to introduce a few others, avowedly conjectural, which must await further exploration before they can be either adopted or condemned. It is difficult to believe that in an age when the barriers that have closed the other least known regions of the earth are successively removed, Marocco, so close to Europe and so attractive, can alone resist the progress of modern exploration.[11]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The phrase used is κατῳκίσαμεν πόλεις πρὸς τῇ θαλάττῃ καλουμένας Καριχόν τε Γύττην καὶ Ἄκραν καὶ Μέλιτταν καὶ Ἄραμβυν. When the author speaks of Thymiaterium, founded by Hanno in this expedition, he says, ἐκτίσαμεν πρώτην πόλιν.]

[Footnote 2: See Pliny, V. 1, § 8. His account is vague and confused, and the distances not to be reconciled with those given by him elsewhere.]

[Footnote 3: Not content with the indication afforded by the identity of the two terminal syllables in each name, C. Müller conjectures that the ancient name of the promontory near Agadir was Râs adir, Râs being the common Arabic designation for a headland. He apparently supposes that the natives spoke Arabic in the time of Polybius. Even now none of the headlands on this coast have the designation Râs.]

[Footnote 4: I am indebted for information as to several passages in Pliny’s writings to my friend, Mr. E. Bunbury, who will doubtless throw further light on the subject in an important work, ‘An Historical View of Ancient Geography’ which he is preparing for publication.]

[Footnote 5: ‘Indigenæ tamen tradunt in ora ab Sala CL m. p. flumen Asanam, marino haustu sed portu spectabile: mox amnem quem vocant Fut: ab eo ad Dyrin (hoc enim Atlanti nomen esse eorum lingua convenit) CC m. p., interveniente flumine cui nomen est Vior. Ibi fama exstare circa vestigia habitati quondam soli vinearum palmetorumque reliquias.’]

[Footnote 6: This must have been from native report, as the expedition was made in winter. If he had said that the snow never quite disappears, and sometimes falls heavily, even in summer, his statement would have been accurate enough.]

[Footnote 7: Mentioned in the text at p. 294.]

[Footnote 8: This is evidently the river Ziz of Leo Africanus; and in his time, as at the present day, travellers going from Fez to Segelmese (modern Tafilelt) followed the course of the Ziz, or Siss. He also speaks of a river Ghir, which may possibly have been the affluent of the Siss mentioned by Rohlfs; but the particulars given are vague and scanty. It is interesting to remark that in Leo’s day the valley of the Siss was inhabited by a hardy and energetic Bereber tribe named Zanaga, probably the same as the Azanegues whom Cà da Mosto found about Oued Noun. They have since migrated across the Sahara, and still calling themselves Zanega, and speaking a Bereber dialect, are dangerous neighbours to the negro tribes of the Senegal.]

[Footnote 9: A portion of this map, containing the coast of Africa from the Straits of Gibraltar to the latitude of the Canary Islands, was published (in facsimile) by Count Baldelli Boni of Florence in his edition of Marco Polo, and is reproduced in Mr. Major’s valuable work, ‘The Life of Prince Henry the Navigator.’ London, 1868.]

[Footnote 10: Afrikanische Reisen, von Gerhard Rohlfs. Bremen, 1867.]

[Footnote 11: The scope of these remarks being limited to the geography of South Marocco, I have not noticed several recent publications, not devoid of interest and value, but in which no important contribution is made to our geographical knowledge. We have referred in the text to papers by MM. Beaumier, Balansa, and Lambert, in the Bulletin of the French Geographical Society. A more considerable work, entitled ‘Morocco and the Moors,’ by Arthur Leared, M.D., appeared in 1874. It contains much information carefully collected by the author, along with a lively account of his own experiences, but circumstances prevented him from entering on new ground.]

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