The prehistoric source lives in the prehistoric mountains. The Moor here is Berber. No one knows who is the Berber save that his speech is kin to the speech of Abyssinia and Egypt. His villages are perched on the slopes of the Atlas and in the stony fastness of the Rif, much as the Roman found them--and the Phœnician. Squat rectangular houses with thatch roof form a semicircle on the crest of a divide. Below is a thousand feet of air and a torrent; above are the clouds. The houses are of mud and grapple like goats to the earth. In the low, flat lands between the tiers of mountain, the houses are round. Closer to them than the houses of Europe are the huts of the Congo. They form a full circle within which dwell the cattle at night and sleeps safety. The archaic world lies whole in the stratified history that is the Moghreb. Ages before Christ the Semite scattered markets on the coast and Carthage grew great. Rome became a mere machine for periodic taxes. Roman order and Vandal havoc left the Berber untouched. He is a hard, dark, leathery man. His head is close-cropped. He is prone to silence. Despite the myth of the Moroccan Sultanate--that feeble creature of the French and Spaniard--he is still unconquered. Between the coast and the valley of Meknes and Fez he has lived, sullen and declining. The spark in his eye, the curl of his black lip tells that as he has outlived a long parade of empires, he will outlive this French one. In such mood, he dons his woolen tunic broidered red or blue, loads his olives on his donkey’s back and goes down to effete Fez or Marrakech for barter. Yesterday he bartered with the Arab, with the Vandal, with the Roman. Earlier, he knew the men of Carthage, the silver lords of Tartessos. _He_ is a Berber. Islam alone has won him. But not until Islam had passed him many times, conquering half the Mediterranean world. The first Arabs converted some Berbers and took them along, not loitering in these mountains. Berber horsemen were soldiers and captains in Spain. But the Berber at home did not stir from his stone somnolence. Córdoba and Toledo kindled fires that warmed the monastic cells of Italy and England. Egypt awoke once more. Mecca and Bagdad grew great. Morocco, halfway between the east and the west, was invaded by new waves of Arabs. Hillalians and Idrissides built fine towns in Algeria and Tunis. Morocco was surrounded by splendors. The mountains remained mountains.