AUG 7- 1923 
MR. J. BALL’S SPICILEGIUM FLOREZ MAROCCANS. 281 
Spicilegium Flore Maroccane. 
By Joun Batt, Esg., F.R.S., F.L.S. yey 
[Read March 1, 1877.] 
(Puates IX.-XXVIII.) 
InTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 
Tue 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 shows that even in its main features 
it is very wide of the truth. 
The causes of our ignorauce 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 difficulties 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 Northern Africa, which has never 
been 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 
LINN. JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XVI. x 
