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.
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