SIR JOSEPH HOOKER AND MR. BALL IN MAROCCO.* Tins is,

without any doubt, one of the most interesting and valuable books of travel published for many years. Morocco, although within sight of Europe, is virtually as remote and secluded from the prying eye of the antiquary and the natural- ist as though it were an oasis in the desert of Cobi. Since the time of Leo Africanus, a Moorish native of Grenada in Spain, who travelled through the country at the beginning of the six- teenth century, no man of high scientific attainments had pene- trated far into it. The few who, like Gerhard Rohlfs, ventured through the central parts, were men of enterprising spirit, but they were not qualified by previous education to add much to our knowledge, and dared not make drawings or collections, and could only, by stealth, note down in writing what they saw.

The three travellers who visited the country in 1871—Sir Joseph Hooker, Mr. John Ball, and Mr. Maw—are men of high attain ments, the two first as botanists, and the latter as a geologist. They were provided with the requisite apparatus, and they had every assistance that the British Government could secure for them.

The successful journey in which a distinguished Swiss botanist, M. Boissier, explored the southernmost and highest mountain range of Spain, the Sierra Nevada, about forty years ago, and the rich collections that he brought home with him, had led naturalists to suppose that the flora of this region was an outlie of a vastly richer one, which had its home in the higher Atlas, and might form a connecting link with that of the Canaries. In this respect we are undeceived, for as our travellers ascended to- wards "the snow," the ordinary Mediterranean vegetation which occupies the lower country was found to pass into one closely resembling that of middle Europe ; shrubs such as the dog-rose, blackberry, elder, ivy, and gooseberry, and rubaceous plants of types familiar to us at home. In a word, it may be said that as the lowland flora of Norway becomes the Alpine flora of Swit- zerland, so the lowland flora of the middle of Europe becomes the alpine flora of the Great Atlas. The authors have added in several appendices most elaborate tables of the range of these plants, as compared with those of the Canaries and of tropical Africa, of the Mediterranean region, and of middle Europe.

How they came to be so dispersed is an interesting inquiry, and great light has been thrown upon the subject by Sir Joseph Hooker in a paper in the Transactions of the Linnwan Society (Vol. XXIII.), and by Professor Asa Gray in North America. According to the present view of geologists and botanists, the advance and retrocession of cold during and after the last glacial period has been the chief determining cause.

Migrating birds will, no doubt, have contributed to their dis- tribution.

Our travellers, after a short stay at Tangiers, proceeded to Mogador, and thence to the capital. Upon their route they found little in the vegetation distinct from that of the Medi- terranean region, a vegetation which extends from Gibraltar to Cashmere. In the garden and grounds of the palace assigned to them at Morocco, the wild plants were—all but four out of eighty-one—such as are found in the South of Europe, and about half of them British species. The botanical results of their journey will, of course, be the most valuable, and in- trinsically the most interesting ; but these must be left for the comments of reviewers in more exclusively scientific journals. When, however, we turn from the exhilarating contemplation of the works of nature in the spread of plants, the upheaval of mighty mountain masses, the atmospheric phenomena, and the other great features of this country, and direct our attention to the population of it, we see such a revolting state of existence as can scarcely be paralleled upon the globe. Painful as the details may be, they are too important in the history of man to be passed over unnoticed. In every chapter, in almost every page, our travellers note the misery of the people, the filthy state of their houses, the walls crawling with vermin, the floors per- forated with scorpion-holes, disease and poverty in all their most hideous forms, and a rapidly decreasing population. Speaking of Tangier, Sir J. Hooker says (p. 5) :—

"The stranger who knows that Tangier is one of the most important towns of Morocco, and the residence of the representatives of the chief civilised States, is apt to be shocked when he first sets foot within its walls. The main street is as rough and steep as the most neglected of Alpine mule-tracks, and disfigured by heaps of filth ; im- portunate beggars of revolting aspect, led about by young boys, assail * Journal of a Dour in Morocco and the Great Atlas. By Sir J. Hooker,

0.B., &c., and John Ball, F.B.S. London: Macmillan & Co.

him at every step ; there is no bazaar, as in Eastern towns, and the miserable shops are mere recesses, where, in an unglazed opening, little larger than a berth in a ship's cabin, the dealer squats, surrounded by his paltry wares."

Yet this is an exceptionally well-governed and prosperous place.

Sir Joseph goes on to say (p. 6) :—" In and around Tangier, but nowhere else in this country, it may be said that life and property are tolerably secure, not only from outward violence, but from the caprice and cupidity of men in authority." Let us see what was the state of things at the capital. Here (p. 128) Mr. Ball says :— " Before the gate we found an officer, evidently of inferior position, with some ten or twelve ragged fellows on foot, armed with rusty matchlocks, posted there to receive us, and to conduct us to our quarters ; and with this sorry escort we made our entry into Morocco. It is impossible by any language to convey the sense of utter disap- pointment and disgust which overpowered us on our first arrival ; and though these feelings soon became subordinate to others connected with our personal position, they are those which predominate in our subsequent recollection."

They entered the town, and,— " On either side of the road rose accumulations of refuse and filth that looked as if they might have been the growth of centuries, and the farther we went the greater became the piles of abomination, until it seemed as if these would block up the passage. Old travellers as we all were, and familiar with the squalor of Oriental cities, we none of us had ever known, or even imagined, the existence of a large town so expressive of human degradation, so utterly foul and repul- sive, as this wherein we found ourselves."

In speaking of Ceuta, a Spanish possession, Sir Joseph remarks :—

" Say what we will, there is a vast gap between the condition of the least advanced countries of Europe, and the barbarism from which no Mahommedan State has yet contrived to raise itself."

The reader continually asks himself,—Can these Moors of the present day be people of the same race as those who, while they occupied Spain, carried the sciences and the arts of civilisation higher than elsewhere in Europe, who invented chemistry and algebra, to whom we are now indebted for the discovery, or at least the introduction, of writing-paper, without which printing had been impracticable, and to whose schools the natives of Italy, France, and England resorted for the study of medicine and philosophy ? What has brought them so low? Why, upon returning to the country of their origin, did they abandon the habits of civilised life ?

The principal cause of their decline is perhaps here, as in other Mahommedan nations, the insecurity of person and property.

But it is probable that upon entering Spain the Moors formed merely the bulk of their armies, and that their officers in war and governors when they were settled were Arabians of Asiatic birth and higher capacity. They may also have found in the south of Spain a civilisation already established, and adopted it, but never transferred it to their home in Africa. Our travellers, finding the deputy governor of Marocco a black of nearly pure negro type, and in all probability originally a slave, remark that "the negro often possesses far more energy than the Moor, united to at least equal natural intelligence."

Our sympathy throughout the volume is with the poor Shelluhs. These are the lineal descendants of those ancient Numidians, the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, which, before the Saracen invasion, had, under Roman government, attained to a considerable degree of civilisation. Plundered and utterly disorganised by hordes of Vandals, and over- whelmed by the Mahommedan armies, they retired from the more fertile districts, and are now found chiefly in the valleys of the Great Atlas, and in the region to the south of it. In their mountain retreats they are industrious and hospitable, and show themselves superior to their oppressors. But their numbers are rapidly diminishing. Speaking of Tarudant, Mr. Ball says (p. 341) :—" In the sixteenth century, Tarudant was resorted to by English and French merchants, and it was the seat of active trade and of manufactures in copper, which was extracted from mines in the neighbouring chain of the Great Atlas. The popu- lation was apparently then altogether of Berber stock. In the course of continued efforts made by successive Sultans to esta- blish their authority, the Moorish element becsme more and more predominant?' It may here be noticed that under the general appellation of Berber is comprehended Kabyle, Shelluh, and Tuaxeck. The Moors are a mongrel breed of Arab, Negro, European, and Berber, and speak a corrupt dialect of Arabic. "When Leo Africanus travelled in this part of the empire, Tarudant was only one of many large and flourishing towns, and was much surpassed in importance by Tagavost, a place whose very name has disappeared from memory, and whose exact site is unknown to modern geographers."

In Appendix C, p. 381, Mr. Ball gives fuller details of the decline of prosperity and diminished population of this unhappy race, through the grinding despotism of officials who enjoy pram:- tical impunity, so long as they satisfy the pecuniary demands of their master. In the southern provinces, where Leo found flourishing towns, and people living in comparative ease, in- habiting good houses with gardens, and possessing some literary education, at intervals of ten or twelve miles, there are now miserable villages, whose wretched inhabitants maintain a bare existence. "It seems," he says, "a moderate estimate if we reckon that the present population of South Marocco cannot exceed one-third of what it was when Leo wrote." The only remedy which he can suggest is the occupation of the whole Empire by some European Government, a measure which our mutual jealousy will prevent being taken.

It was through the villages of these poor Shelluhs that lay the path to "the snow," and at each halting-place the inhabi- tants had to supply a mona or meal to the strangers and their escort. The ascent was made at the Tagherot Pass, and its height was estimated to be about 13,000 feet above the sea. Unfortunately, a snow-storm set in as they approached the summit, which made it scarcely possible to collect plants where, with more favourable weather, they might have found the most interesting specimens. They persisted as long as possible, and till "not one could have been recognised by his nearest friends. Faces of a livid purple tint were enclosed by masses of hair thickly matted with ice, and the beards, frozen in the direction of the wind, projected on one side, giving a strangely-distorted expression to each countenance."

In regard to the collections made at this height, Mr. Ball says :—" Our first impression had been that the flora is abso- lutely very poor, but this was due mainly to the fact that so large a proportion of the plants have inconspicuous flowers. Thespecies are not deficient in variety, and as regards novelty we had nothing to complain of. The most remarkable feature of the flora of this region is, undoubtedly, the very large pro- portion of common plants of the colder temperate region (Central and North-Western Europe) here found associated with species of very different type."

Skirting the foot of the Atlas range, and making ascents where it was practicable, they returned to Mogador. The reader will find much in respect to the tillage and produce of the soil, and other points of interest, to which for want of space- we cannot allude. It is curious that among the domestic animals, the guinea-fowl appears to be unknown, a bird which is supposed to have been originally brought from this country. It will be an additional recommendation to the book that it has a copious index and a good map ; but above all, that the character of the authors is a guarantee for the truth of what they relate.