378 APPENDIX C. 



Little reliance can be placed on the statement of Leo Afri- 

 canus that the people of Barbaiy were converted to Christianity 

 250 years before the birth of Mohammed, or about A.p. 320, for, 

 in a country so split up into independent tribes, the new faith 

 must have made way irregularly and at various periods ; while 

 it is most probable that it never struck root among the moun- 

 tain tribes of the Great Atlas. But the positive assertion of 

 the same writer, that when the Arabs ariived in Marocco they 

 found the Christians masters of the country, probably holds 

 good of all except the mountain tracts. 



Whether any reliable information as to South Marocco is to 

 be gleaned from the writings of the emiaent Arabian geogra- 

 phers who lived between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, I 

 am miable to say ; but it seems sufficiently certain that the 

 period of European exploration leading to practical results com- 

 menced in the fourteenth century. The Genoese, the Catalans, 

 and the Venetians appear to have despatched several expeditions 

 along the coast, most of them intended to reach the gold-pro- 

 ducing regions of tropical Africa. The Portuguese, who were 

 destined to outstrip all their rivals in maritime exploration, 

 were the first to establish themselves on the western coast of 

 Marocco ; and, at one time or other, they held most, if not all, 

 the Atlantic seaports. Much information doubtless lies con- 

 cealed among the mediseval records of Italy-, Spain, and, espe- 

 cially, of Portugal ; but up to the present time nothing has been 

 piibUshed to show that any European was able, from personal 

 knowledge, to give an account of the interior of Marocco, before 

 Marmol, who, having been taken prisoner by the Moors, passed 

 several years at Fez and elsewhere in North Marocco, about the 

 middle of the sixteenth century. The earliest known document 

 showing a moderately correct knowledge of the coast is a map 

 (number 5 in the series), contained in the celebrated Portulano 

 of the Laurentian Libraiy in Florence, bearing the date 1351.' 

 In this map, which, from internal evidence, must be of Genoese 

 origia, the general outline of the Marocco coast is correct, and 



' A portion of this map, containing the coast of Africa from the 

 Straits of Gibraltar to the latitude of the Canary Islands, was published 

 (in facsimile) by Count Baldelli Boni of Florence in his edition of 

 Marco Polo, and is reproduced in Mr. Major's valuable work, ' The Life 

 of Prince Henry the Navigator.' London, 1868. 



