FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92  
93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   >>   >|  
Jackson being beyond all rhyme or reason. Graeberg thus classifies and estimates the population. Amazirghs, Berbers, and Touaricks 2,300,000 Amazirghs, Shelouhs and Arabs 1,450,000 Arabs, mixed Moors, &c. 3,550,000 Arabs pure, Bedouins, &c. 740,000 Israelites, Rabbinists, and Caraites 339,500 Negroes, Fullans, and Mandingoes 120,000 Europeans and Christians 300 Renegades 200 ---------- Total 8,500,000 If two millions are deducted from this amount, perhaps the reader will have something like a probable estimate of the population of Morocco. It is hardly correct to classify Moors as mixed Arabs, many of them being simply descendants of the aboriginal Amazirghs. I am quite sure there are no Touaricks in the Empire of Morocco. Of the Maroquine Sahara, I have only space to mention the interesting cluster of oases of Figheegh, or Figuiq. Shaw mentions them as "a knot of villagers," noted for their plantations of palm-trees, supplying the western province of Algeria with dates. We have now more ample information of Figheegh, finding this Saharan district to consist of an agglomeration of twelve villages, the more considerable of which are Maiz, counting eight hundred houses, El-Wadghir five hundred, and Zenega twelve hundred. The others vary from one or two hundred houses. The villages are more or less connected together, never farther apart than a quarter of a league, and placed on the descent of Wal-el-Khalouf ("river of the wild boar") whence water is procured for the gardens, containing varieties of fruit-trees and abundance of date-palms, all hedged round with prickly-pears. Madder-root and tobacco are also cultivated, besides barley sufficient for consumption. The wheat is brought from the Teli. The Wad-el-Khalouf is dry, except in winter, but its bed is bored with inexhaustible wells, whose waters are distributed among the gardens by means of a _clepsydra_, or a vessel which drops so much water in an hour. The ancients measured time by the dropping of water, like the falling of sand in the hour-glass. Some of the houses in these villages have two stories, and are well built; each place has its mosque, its school, its kady, and its sheikh, and the whole agglomeration of oases is governed by a Sheikh Keb
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92  
93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

hundred

 

houses

 

villages

 
Amazirghs
 
Touaricks
 

Khalouf

 

population

 

Morocco

 
gardens
 

Figheegh


twelve
 

agglomeration

 

prickly

 

abundance

 

varieties

 

hedged

 

Madder

 

league

 
descent
 

quarter


farther

 

procured

 

connected

 

stories

 

falling

 

dropping

 

ancients

 

measured

 

sheikh

 

governed


Sheikh

 

school

 
mosque
 

vessel

 

brought

 

consumption

 

sufficient

 
cultivated
 
barley
 

Zenega


winter

 
distributed
 

waters

 

clepsydra

 
inexhaustible
 
tobacco
 

Renegades

 

Christians

 

Fullans

 

Mandingoes