GEOGEAPHY OF SOUTH IIAROCCO. 377 



Anti- Atlas. The former existence of great forests, frequented 

 by elephants, on the flanks of that range, is far more probable 

 than on the parched southern slopes of the interior, where, as 

 Rohlfs tells us, the rocks and hills are now absolutely bare of 

 tree aad shrub vegetation. Finally, it is more natural to look 

 for the ancient Oanarians in the country near the Atlantic coast 

 than in the interior. 



The solitary argument of any weight in favour of the 

 Moulouya and Tafilelt route seems to be derived from the fact 

 that in descending southward from the pass at the head of the 

 Moulouya valley the traveller follows the course of a stream 

 which now bears the name Gers, or Ghir. But it must be re- 

 marked that this name exists elsewhere in Marocco, there being 

 at least three streams so denominated, and further that it is now- 

 a-days borne by the river of Tafilelt only during a short part of 

 its course. Eohhs, who is here our only authority, tells us that 

 the stream fii-st met in descending from the pass of Tizin Tinrout 

 is called Siss.' After following this for seven or eight hours, it 

 is joined by another stream which he called Ued Gers. The 

 united stream bears the latter name for a distance of some six 

 hours' ride, and then resumes the name of Siss, which it bears 

 throughout its subsequent course till it is lost in the sands of 

 the Sahara. 



The long period that intervened between the decline of 

 Roman power and the establishment of Mohammedan rule in 

 Marocco, is a blank to the historian and the geographer. It 

 can scarcely be doubted that Roman authority and Roman 

 institutions spread themselves throughout a great part of the 

 open comitry between the Atlas and the Atlantic, although 

 there is but little direct evidence to that effect. 



' This is evidently the river Ziz of Leo Africanus ; and in his time, 

 as at the present day, travellers going from Fez to Hegelmese (modern 

 Tafilelt) followed the course of the Ziz, or Siss. He also speaks of a 

 river Ghir, which may possibly have been the affluent of the Siss men- 

 tioned by Eohlfs ; but the particulars given are vague and scanty. It 

 is interesting to remark that in Leo's day the valley of the Siss was 

 inhabited by a hardy and energetic Bereber tribe named Zanaga, pro- 

 bably the same as the Azanegues whom C4 da Mosto found about Oued 

 Noun. They have since migrated across the Sahara, and still calling 

 themselves Zanega, and speaking a Bereber dialect, are dangerous 

 neighbours to the negro tribes of the Senegal. 



