its fiery track across the desert.
Returning from this expedition without undergoing any particular
hardships, he shortly afterward passed into Morocco, where he remained
during several years, visiting its most celebrated cities, mountains, and
deserts, and carefully studying the manners of its inhabitants under all
their aspects. The first place of any note which he examined was Mount
Magran. Here, amid wild Alpine scenes, and peaks covered with eternal
snow, he found a people whose simple manners carried back his imagination
to the first ages of the world. In winter they had no fixed habitations,
but dwelt in large baskets, the sides of which were formed of the bark
of trees, and the roof of wicker-work. These they removed from place
to place on the backs of mules, stopping and dismounting their houses
wherever they met with pasture for their flocks. During the warm months,
however, they erected huts of larger dimensions, roofing them with
green boughs, and provender for their cattle being plentiful, remained
stationary. To defend their flocks and herds from the cold, which is
there always severe during the night, they kindled immense fires close to
their doors, which, emitting too great a flame when fanned by tempestuous
winds, sometimes caught their combustible dwellings, and endangered the
lives both of themselves and their cattle. They were likewise exposed
to the daily hazard of being devoured by lions or wolves, animals which
abound in that savage region.
From hence he proceeded to Mount Dedas, a lofty chain eighty miles
in length, covered with vast forests, and fertilized by a prodigious
number of fountains and rivulets. On the summit of this ridge were then
found the ruins of a very ancient city, on the white walls and solitary
monuments of which there existed numerous inscriptions, but couched in
a language and characters totally unknown to the inhabitants, some of
whom supposed it to have been built by the Romans, though no mention
of the place occurs in any African historian. The wretched race then
inhabiting the mountain dwelt in caverns, or in huts of stones rudely
piled upon each other. Their whole riches consisted in large droves of
asses and flocks of goats; barley bread with a little salt and milk was
their only food; and scarcely the half of their bodies were covered by
their miserable garments. Yet the caverns in which they and their goats
lay down promiscuously abounded in nitre, which in any civilized country
would have sufficed to raise them to a state of opulence. The manners of
these troglodytes were execrable. Living without hope and without God in
the world, they fearlessly perpetrated all manner of crimes, treachery,
thieving, open robbery, and murder. The women were still more ragged and
wretched than the men, and the traveller found it, upon the whole, the
most disagreeable place in all Africa.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account