ABSTRACT
The Muhammadan natives of Morocco are chiefly of Berber race, although the Berber language, which before the arrival of the Arabs was spread over the whole country, has in a large part of it been superseded by the tongue of the invaders. The Berber-speaking tribes, to whom alone the term "Berber" is popularly applied, may be divided into several groups. There are the Berbers of the Rīf called by themselves Irifīyẹn and in Arabic Ruâfa, whose country extends along the Mediterranean coast between a line about forty miles south-east of Tetuan and the neighbourhood of the Algerian frontier; the Brä̂ber who inhabit the mountain regions of Central Morocco and the eastern portion of the Great Atlas range; the Shlöḥ, or Išelḥīn as they call themselves, who inhabit the western part of the Great Atlas and the province of Sūs, situated to the south of it—a territory the eastern frontier of which may be roughly indicated by a line drawn from the neighbourhood of Demnat in a southeasterly direction, and the northern frontier by a slightly curved line uniting Demnat with Mogador on the Atlantic coast and following the foot of the mountains or, in some places, intercepting a strip of the plain; and the Drâwa, who inhabit the valley of the Wǟd Drā in the extreme south of Morocco. A fifth group consists of various tribes living in the neighbourhood of Ujda, in the north-eastern corner of the country. All the Berber-speaking people are called by a Berber name Imazīġĕn.
