ME. J. ball's SPICILEGTUM FLOBiE MAR0CCANJ3. 281 



Spicilegium Florae Maroccanse. 

 Bj JoHx Ball, Esq., F.E.S., P.L.S. 



r 

 r 



[Ilead March 1, 1877.] 

 (Plates IX.-XXVIII.) 



Ijs^teodtjctort Obsekyations. 



The territory of Marocco extends from the Straits of Gibraltar, 

 with the neighbouring part of the Mediterranean at its northern 

 extremity, to the great desert on the southern side of the Great 

 Atlas, and from the frontier of Algeria to the Atlantic coast of 

 Northern Africa. Of this extensive region, about equal in extent 

 to Spain, it may be truly said that none other so easy of access is 

 so little known to geographers. 



Although the chief ports are within a few days' journey from 

 London or Marseilles, and are freely open to Europeans, so little 

 is known of the interior that the maps, all founded on native in- 

 formation, which profess to represent the direction of the moun- 

 tain-ranges and the course of the chief rivers, are hopelessly at 

 variance, and of the best of them it may be said that the little 

 positive knowledge we possess show^s that even in its main features 

 it is very wide of the truth.^ 



The causes of our ignorance of the country are easily stated. 

 The traditional policy of the government has been hostile to the 

 admission of strangers into its terrritory ; and as regards the 

 natives of Christian States the diflRculties have been aggravated 

 by the fanatical character of a great part of the native population. 

 But a still more serious, and probably a more enduring, obstacle 

 to exploration arises from the fact that fully two thirds of the 

 entire country is inhabited by independent tribes, who recognize 

 no external authority, even when they accord a nominal supre- 

 macy to the Sultan of Marocco. These tribes, descendants of the 

 original Berber population of IS'orthern Africa, which has never 

 heen subjugated by any of the foreign rulers who have held the 

 coast and the open country, occupy nearly all the mountain region 

 Possessing, it would seem, many of the rude virtues common to 

 such populations, they are constantly engaged in internal^ petty 

 warfare, and always disposed to regard strangers not of their own 



tribe as lawful prey. 



Even in the parts of Marocco where the natives have approached 

 the limits of European civilization, access to mountain districts is 



LIKN. JOV:BiN. — EOTA^'X, TOL. IVI. ^ 



