Scenes from North Africa 



615 



thicket. The next morning, nearly a mile 

 from the spot, I found him dead, and 

 discovered that one of the bullets had 

 passed horizontally through the largest 

 diameter of his heart. 



On following a bear trail into a thicket 

 on another occasion, I found that to con- 

 tinue I must crawl on my hands and 

 knees, and as I passed under fallen trees 

 and undergrowth the daylight was turned 

 into darkness. I came upon a swampy 

 piece of ground, and as all seemed quiet 

 I let my dog follow the trail. He made 

 a considerable disturbance ahead of me, 

 while the bear, who had taken fright, was 

 trying to get away, slightly on my right. 

 Being in no position to shoot, for the 

 longest unobstructed range could have 

 only been ten or fifteen feet, and seeing 

 by the disturbed bushes that everything 

 seemed to be coming my way, I lost no 

 time in getting up a tree well above the 

 ground, and while I was still scrambling 

 to gain my equilibrium, the game passed 

 below and went on. 



I have been told by responsible parties 

 of many lives that have been lost hunt- 

 ing grizzlies and know personally of two 

 cases of men who never returned from 

 bear hunts, and later remnants of clothes 

 and pieces of their skeletons were found. 

 In one instance the searching party, as it 

 approached the spot where the fight took 

 place, were attacked by a large grizzly, 

 who managed to get away. 



In the photograph are two grizzlies 

 killed by myself and friend. 



SCENES FROM NORTH AFRICA 



THE renewed disturbances in Mo- 

 rocco lend special interest to the 

 illustrations from North Africa contrib- 

 uted to this number of the National 

 Geographic Magazine by Mr David 

 Fairchild. Morocco and Abyssinia are 

 the only countries of Africa that have 

 not yet been subjugated or politically 

 annexed by a European power. Morocco 

 has a population of from 4,000,000 to 

 15,000,000, or whom two-thirds are Ber- 

 bers or of Berber descent. These Ber- 



bers are the aborigines. They are a 

 purely white race, and Mr Ion Perdicaris 

 has described them (Nat. Geog. Mag., 

 1906, p. 118) as a very energetic and 

 vigorous people. They antedated Phoe- 

 nician, Carthaginian, Roman, Gothic, By- 

 zantine, and Arab occupation by cen- 

 turies and form one of the oldest living 

 races and there are certain ethnologists 

 of the present day, at the head of whom 

 is an Italian writer named Sergi, who 

 maintain that the theory of the successive 

 invasions of Caucasians, which are gen- 

 erally believed to account for the origin 

 of the races of southern Europe, did not 

 furnish the main part of the population 

 of the Mediterranean basin, but that the 

 latter was derived from these Berbers, a 

 white race which has many resemblances 

 to the ancient Etruscans. They are also 

 quite like the pictures of some of the 

 ancient Egyptian dynasties. 



The Berbers have always opposed any 

 attempt to control them, and have never 

 been held in subjection for any great 

 length of time. They dislike any more 

 authoritative rule than that of their own 

 village elders. 



There are two other important factors 

 among the population — the Jews and the 

 negroes. The Jews are mostly exiles 

 from Spain and Portugal, having been 

 driven out after the Moors had been ex- 

 pelled from Spain. The Jews were driven 

 out by the Inquisition, and a great many 

 of them came over to Morocco and set- 

 tled there. Others went as far east as 

 Turkey. Still others visited other coun- 

 tries. Those who settled in Morocco 

 were almost all confined to a special 

 quarter of the towns, entitled El Mellah. 

 This word Mellah means salt, and it 

 comes from a very curious feature in the 

 customs of the country. Whenever re- 

 bellions break out — and they are very 

 frequent occurrences — the soldiers in 

 Morocco have instructions to bring in as 

 many heads as possible. These heads 

 have to be preserved and salted, and 

 nobody likes to execute this commission ; 

 consequently the Jews were compelled to 

 undertake this revolting task. 



