ii8 The National Geographic Magazine 



bring me supplies and who remained 

 with me ; and, thirdly, Raisuli, who was 

 my captor. 



The fact which I gave you here con- 

 cerning this Idris and a good deal of the 

 other matter is taken from the first 

 volume of M. De Slane, page 24, of "Le 

 Tresor de Chronologie du Moyen Age de 

 Maslatrie," which is one of the most com- 

 plete and celebrated chronicles which we 

 have. It had pleased me to place myself 

 thus, as it were, on the boundary at 

 Tangier between our Western life and the 

 life of the East — of the old world. But it 

 was one thing to look, as it were, from 

 one's windows out upon conditions which 

 were precisely like those of the time of 

 Idris, or even farther back; it was quite 

 another thing to be snatched away from 

 one's home and friends and family and to 

 be plunged into the lawless condition of 

 such a period. 



THE LAND OF THE EXTREME WEST 



El Moghereb is the name by which 

 Morocco is known in native official docu- 

 ments. The inhabitants, however, speak 

 of their country as "El Gharb." This 

 term, "El Moghereb," signifies the land 

 of the extreme west — that is, of the ex- 

 treme west of the African Continent. It 

 is probably derived from the verb which 

 means to sink, or the sunset; so that in 

 English it is sometimes described as the 

 sunset land. The varied domains of this 

 vast territory — almost as large as either 

 France or Spain — are protected from the 

 desert winds which sweep over Algeria 

 and Tunis by a barrier of snow-capped 

 mountain ranges — those of the greater 

 and of the lesser Atlas, forming, as it 

 were, a huge backbone. And just oppo- 

 site the Straits of Gibraltar a spur strikes 

 out and runs down at right angles to the 

 seacoast and terminates in an abrupt 

 eminence known to the ancients as Mount 

 Abyla and to the Arabs as Djebel 

 Moussa. The range itself is known as 

 the Riff Mountains, and offers a splendid 

 barrier or defense toward the east — that 



is, toward Algeria. It was among these 

 mountains that we were taken prisoners. 

 The population of Morocco has been 

 variously estimated at from so trivial a 

 number as four million up to seventy 

 million ; but, as none of our authors who 

 have made these statements have been 

 able to base their reports upon any cen- 

 sus, it is the vaguest kind of guesswork. 

 The country gives to strangers who do 

 not know it the impression of being very 

 sparsely populated, because the natives 

 avoid the neighborhood of the high- 

 roads. This is due to the continual pas- 

 sage of troops, and because the inhabitants 

 are subjected to what is called the system 

 of supplying "moona" — a system which 

 enables travelers to procure letters from 

 the government. These letters entail 

 upon the inhabitants of the roads the 

 necessity of supplying food, not only for 

 the travelers themselves, but for all their 

 escorts ; so that it is a very serious tax ; 

 and the natural consequence is that the 

 inhabitants avoid the neighborhood of the 

 highroads as much as possible. There- 

 fore the travelers going back and forth 

 see very few inhabitants in the few vil- 

 lages that still remain. But people who 

 know the country better — the merchants 

 and others who travel in the country it- 

 self — realize very soon that it is much 

 more densely occupied than would ap- 

 pear from the highways. 



THE BERBERS — THEIR ANTIQUITY 



About two-thirds of this population are 

 probably Berber or of Berber descent. 

 These Berbers are the aborigines. They 

 are a purely white race and a very ener- 

 getic and vigorous people. The term 

 "berber" itself is possibly derived from 

 the Semitic root her, which means land. 

 Therefore "berber" would mean "land 

 of the land ;" or it may be simply a cor- 

 ruption of the Greek term "Barbaroi," 

 applied by the early Greek navigators to 

 foreigners in general, but more especially 

 to all this coast along the southern shore 

 of the Mediterranean. Hence we have 



