DISCOVERY 



331 



country. In some districts they have become more 

 or less completely fused with Arabs and Arabic is 

 spoken as well as the Berber tongue, or has even super- 

 seded it, but in others the primitive race and tongue 

 still persist. 



The remaining peoples of Morocco (other than Euro^ 

 pean settlers) may be briefly summarised as follows : 

 the Arabs, descendants of Arab invaders in the eleventh 

 and following centuries ; the Moors, a name that, 

 strictly speaking, should be confined to the mixed 

 population, largely Berber in origin, of the ports and 

 other towns who are descendants of the Moors expelled 

 from Spain ; the Jews, who live in a ghetto [mellah] 

 in certain towns, and travel about as traders, inter- 

 preters, etc. ; they are despised, rather than actually 

 ill-treated ; the negroes, formerly imported in great 



(Tamazight) is derived from the same word. They are 

 a virile race of fine physique ; fanatical lovers of 

 liberty, casual in religious observance (when they take 

 up arms it is far more in defence of their independence 

 than as a " holy war " against the infidel), but appal- 

 lingly superstitious ; shepherds and agriculturists, 

 scorning trade. They have democratic institutions 

 peculiar to themselves, of which we shall speak later. - 

 Three main groups of Berbers may be distinguished 

 in Morocco : (i) the Riiafa, or tribes of the Rif, i.e. 

 the eastern portion of the Spanish zone along the 

 Mediterranean ; these of old furnished the redoubted 

 " Barbary pirates " ; they speak a dialect of Tamazight 

 known as Tarifif, or in some parts as Zenatiya ; (2) 

 the Shiuh, of the western or south-west districts (the 

 Sus, Southern Atlas. Marrakesh, etc.), speaking another 



l-'IG. I.— A WAYSIDE SCENE. 

 {By couricsy of the French Protectorate Government in Morocco.) 



numbers from the Sudan as slaves ; and the harratin. 

 a negroid race, varying from brown to black in colour, 

 possibly half-castes, possibly a distinct race, who are 

 largely employed as agricultural labourers. 



The Berbers themselves are in origin essentially a 

 white, Mediterranean race, with whom a brown 

 Saharan race would appear to have mingled. They 

 are often deeply bronzed by the .sun, and black-haired ; 

 north of the Atlas, e.g. in the Rif, a distinctly fair type 

 is found, with reddish hair and blue or grey eyes. 

 Some Berbers in the,'south-west of Morocco are as black 

 as negroes, and are rather despised by the others in 

 consequence. The Moroccan Berbers are, of course, 

 akin to the famous Tuaregs and to some Algerian 

 tribes (e.g. the Shawiya). They call themselves 

 Imazighen (= noble), and the name of their language 



of its dialects called Tashilhait (arabic, Shilha), and 

 often Arabic also ; (3) the Beraber, of the Middle and 

 High Atlas, extending northward to the Franco- 

 Spanish frontier and southward to the Tafilelt,' with 

 outlying gi oups in the west. Their dialect is known 

 as Taberberit. The Beraber are the most formidable 

 and numerous group of Berbers, and the least arabised 

 or subdued. Several of their tribes have not yet made 

 their submission to the French. They do not form a 

 political unit, though there are two or more powerful 

 confederations of tribes among them ; the unifying 

 factors are their language and central position. Very 

 few Jews are found in their territory. 



Each of these groups consists of a great number 



1 This is the Berber form of the name of the famous date- 

 palm oasis, in Arabic, Tafilalet. 



