In the Atlas Mountains

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22356, 29 February 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

In the Atlas Mountains

cently taken homo to England by Mr. Kenneth Chapman, Cambridge zoologist and botanist, after a thrilling and adventurpus expedition to thelAtlas Mountains. To get this collection of insects, Mr. Chapman and another naturalist ventured into regions that no Englishman has visited before. Wild animals prowled near their little tent at night, swarms of enormous biting insects invaded them, hostile tribes hovered menacingly around them. What saved them more surely even than tho guns they carried or tho intimidating fires they lit when sudden darkness fell was their beards. . " With tho natives of Morocco it pays to grow a beard, which gives you status," explained Mr. Chjvpman. " They have no respect for a beardless man. So that was one reason we grow beards. , , . " Tho other was to protect our faces from the giant, wingless grasshoppers that bite holes in all your clothes and even crawl on to your face and chew that." , Much more dangerous were tho threeinch long scorpions met in tho mountains. These aro poisonous, and might even kill you. " I woke one night," saul Mr. Chapman, " and saw a scorpion about six inches from me. I got my blow in lirst. On another occasion Mr. Lhapman awoke to see a leopard about 20 yaids from his bed. _ Luckily some _ natives nearby chased him off with their rittes. " All the time we wero in what is known as the zone of insecurity, _ added Mr. Chapman, " and it was insisted that we should have an escort of three or four armed native soldiers. " I have been as high as 14,8uU feet. The natives on the hills aro Berbers, and on tho coast Arabs. They speak their own dialect, which has never been written down. . " In the wandering tribes tho men iust sit idly under the trees, while the women do all the work and even look after the flocks. Many of the men are very kcou to join in tho Abyssinian war, because it would give them a chance to cut a few throats without being arrested. " They asked me if there were any armies and generals in England, and when I said there were they asked disgustedly, 'Then why don't they come and fight •us like the 1' rench and Spanish do?' . , , " They are under tho impression tnat America is part of England. " I went to Moulay Driss, the sacred city of Morocco, which is named after tho Arab conqueror of Morocco who drove the Romans out. Europeans have never been allowed in the city_ until recent years, and even now, owing to religious feeling, they aro not allowed to stav there at night. " I was not permitted to go near the tombs. A Moor, who was taking mo round, forbade me to enter one place, and when I asked why he explained lfc was sacred because it contained the tomb of the royal barber who used to shave tho Emperor Moulay Driss beard."