Talent, or Tilin, the difference only is the adding of the Berber
termination. The other consonants are the same, perhaps, as Mr. Davidson
incidentally mentions. It is a strong city, and capital of the province
of Sous-el-Aksa, or the extreme part of Sous. This province is sometimes
called Tesset, or Tissert. A portion of it is also denominated
Blad-Sidi-Hasham, and forms a free and quasi-independant state, founded
in 1810 by the Emir Hasham, son of the Shereef Ahmed Ben Mousa. This
prince was the bug-bear of Captain Riley. The district contains upwards
of twenty-five thousand Shelouhs and industrious Arabs. Talent is the
residence of the prince, and is situate on the declivity of a hill, not
far from the river Wad-el-Mesah, or Messa, and a mile from Ilekh, or
Ilirgh, a populous village, where there is a famous sanctuary, resorted
to by the Mahometans of the surrounding regions, of the name of Sidi
Hamed-ou-Mousa, (probably Ben Mousa). The singularity of this sacred
village is, that Jews constitute the majority of the population. But
they seem absolutely necessary to the very existence of the Mussulmen of
North Africa, who cannot live without them, or make profitable exchange
of the products of the soil, or of native industry, for European
articles of use and luxury.
Shtouka, or Stuka, is, according to some, a large town or village; or,
as stated by Davidson, a _district_. The fact is, many African districts
are called by the name of a principal town or village in them, and _vice
versâ_. This place stands on the banks of the Wad-el-Mesah, and is
inhabited by some fifteen hundred Shelouhs, who are governed by a
Sheikh, nearly independent of Morocco.
On Talent and Shtouka, Mr. Davidson remarks. "There is no town called
Stuka; it is a district; none that I can find called Talent; there is
Tilin. The Mesah flows through Stuka, in which district are twenty
settlements, or rather towns, some of which are large. They are known in
general by the names of the Sheikhs who inhabit them. I stopped at
Sheikh Hamed's. Tilin was distant from this spot a day's journey in the
mountains towards the source of the river. If by Talent, Tissert is
meant, Oferen (a town) is distant six miles."
On the province of Sous generally, Don J.A. Conde has this note:--
"In this region (Sous) near the sea, is the temple erected in honour of
the prophet Jonas; it was there he was cast out of the belly of the
whale." This temple, says Assed Ifriki, is made of the bones of whales
which perish on this coast. A little further on, he alludes to the
breaking of horses, and being skilful in bodily exercises, for the Moors
and Numidians have always been renowned in that respect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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