368 MOROCCO. 



and Belli Mtir, keep all explorers aloof, without exception, and have 

 prevented the armies of the Sultan and all conquerors from pene- 

 trating into their land or, at least, effecting a lodgment there. Even 

 Roman domination extended only up to this border land. Though 

 formed by the northern and northwestern projections of the Middle 

 Atlas, w^hich here thrusts itself forward toward the ocean like a 

 wedge, this region, the basin of the Bu Ilegreg and the Wed Belit, a 

 tributary of the Sebu, does not consist of high mountains. So far 

 as I could ascertain, the countiy rises in natural terraces, with iso- 

 lated peaks not much over 1,0()() m. high, whose core is formed by 

 the ancient underlying strata, which in great stretches has been laid 

 bare by denudation of the overlying strata. It is the steep terraces, 

 the rugged, rocky hind, torn ]jy ravines, thick wdth underbrush, and 

 in the higher mountains partially covered by might}^ cedars of the 

 primitive forest, that have made it so difficult to penetrate into this 

 region, while the inlialntants, whom the nature of the country made 

 half noniad, are in a position, in case of need, to place themselves 

 in security by withdrawing with their herds intQ the higher moun- 

 tains, to which they betake themselves at any rate in the summer 

 season. 



On account of this impassable region all communication between 

 North and South Morocco is forced into the one route along the ocean 

 coast, and even the Sultan at the head of his army w^hen he changes 

 his seat from the southern capital, Marrakesh, to the northern capital, 

 Fez, must lake the same way. Rabat owes its strategic and commer- 

 cial imj^ortance in greatest measure to this fact. Rabat is the con- 

 necting link between north and south, a great fortress in the sense 

 of the term given it by the inhabitants of Morocco. Indeed, it is 

 almost a bit of walled-in country, which, however, is kept nearly 

 all the time in a latent state of siege by tlie tribes Zemmur and Zair. 

 Thus an enemy common to North and South Morocco which besets 

 Rabat separates the two districts from each other. As a result of 

 reflection and counsel upon this point, the father of the present Sul- 

 tan had a fort built through the agency of a former officer of the 

 Prussian engineer corps, which, with its mighty Krupp guns, domi- 

 nates the roadstead of Rabat. 



Five German meteorological stations have been placed in Morocco ; 

 the two older, in Mogador and Saffi, were constructed by the German 

 naval observatory, and I erected the two more recent stations, at Casa 

 Blanca and Marrakesh. The fifth is at Maragon. The best of the 

 meteorological stations is a sixth one at Lloyd's signal station on 

 Cape Spartel. Climatic conditions, which have been investigated 

 at these stations, may be said to be favoral)le, not only in the 

 Atlas Vorland, but in the whole country. Malaria, the pest of the 

 other Atlas countries, manifests itself here only slightly. Desert 



