CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH
IN SEARCH OF “MILTSIN”
IN case there may be some among my readers who
acknowledge doubt as to the whereabouts o f “ Milt-
sin,” let me give them consolation by confessing equal
ignorance. This may seem strange in one who offers
to describe the Land of the Moors, but in A «Geography"
this belated empire things are often unex- Mountain.
pectedly reversed, and no such mountain is
known in Morocco. With memories of school books, which
asserted that the highest peak of the Atlas was “ Miltsin,
11,400 feet above the s e a ;” with maps before me clearly
marking this same peak in various positions to the south
of Marrakesh, the city wherein I write, one day in May
I started with two friends for the forbidden goal. Forbidden,
as all mountains are in this country, whether to
the Government or foreigners, by primitive Berber tribes
whose ancient home they are, tribes which have never
known subjugation.
On this account the visitors who have found access
to them may be reckoned on one’s fingers. Twice determined
attempts have been made by English prmious
parties under Government escort; Hooker, Searches.
Ball and Maw in the seventies, Joseph Thomson
and Crichton-Browne in the eighties; while once or
twice European hunting parties have gone up in search
of áüdád. Of the two parties mentioned, the latter
was by far the more successful, but neither reached