Journal of a Tour in Marocco and the Great Atlas (1878)
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| Author | Joseph Dalton Hooker and John Ball |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Composed | Journey April–June 1871; written up from the travellers' journals after their return |
| Published | 1878 |
| Publisher | Macmillan and Co. |
| Place | London |
| Volumes | 1 |
| Total pages | xvi + 499 pages, with plates, woodcuts and a map of southern Morocco |
| Volume | single volume |
|---|---|
| Pages | pp. 46, 188 |
| Chapter | Chapter II (the hills above Tétouan, April 1871) and chapter VIII (the Great Atlas, May 1871) |
| Plates | none |
| Regions documented | Hills of the western Rif above Tétouan; Morocco in general |
| Preparations | "kief" (kif): chopped hemp leaves, smoked |
| Uses documented | Intoxicant (smoking) |
| Digital facsimile | Read on Project Gutenberg |
|---|
Journal of a Tour in Marocco and the Great Atlas is the account of the botanical journey that Joseph Dalton Hooker, John Ball and George Maw made in Morocco in the spring of 1871, published in London by Macmillan in 1878 with an appendix on the geology of the country by Maw.[1]: title page The party went from Tangier and Tétouan down the Atlantic coast to Mogador and inland to the city of Marocco. They spent most of May in the valleys of the Great Atlas.[1]: ix–xii The book mentions hemp twice, both times as kif smoked in place of tobacco.[1]: 46, 188
The book spells the country Marocco and calls Marrakesh "the city of Marocco"; it writes Mogador for Essaouira, Tetuan for Tétouan, Bereber for Amazigh and Shelluh for the Shilha of the Atlas. Its kief, "prepared from the chopped leaves of common hemp", is the preparation called kif. This article uses the current names in its own voice and keeps the book's in quotation.
The journey was made with the leave of the Sultan, obtained through the British Minister in Morocco at Hooker's request.[1]: vi The book's last chapter calls the government of Morocco "a hopeless failure" and argues that the one reasonable prospect of improvement lay in the country "passing under the control of a civilised State", which the authors judged should be France. The same chapter calls the ruling Moors "an effete race".[1]: 348, 351 The book is evidence of how British men of science saw Morocco in the decades before the protectorate as much as it is evidence of the plants they collected.
Origins
Hooker, then director of the Royal Gardens at Kew, asked for permission to visit the Great Atlas. At his request Lord Granville, the Foreign Secretary, instructed the British Minister, Sir John Drummond Hay, to apply to the Sultan for leave.[1]: title page, vi The party of Hooker, Maw and Ball, with a young Kew gardener named Crump, left Southampton for Gibraltar on 1 April 1871.[1]: 1
Hooker meant to write the narrative soon after the party's return and wrote most of the first two chapters. His work at Kew and his election in 1873 as President of the Royal Society kept him from finishing. He asked Ball to complete the book. Ball was then preparing his account of the flora of Morocco, which appeared in the Journal of the Linnean Society and enumerates the botanical collections of the journey.[1]: v The narrative is founded mainly on Hooker's and Ball's journals, with additions from Maw's.[1]: vi
The journey
The party anchored off Tangier on 7 April 1871 and set out for Tétouan on 10 April. From there they climbed into the hills of the Beni Hosmar. On 13 April they rode to Ceuta.[1]: 4, 25, 41, 51 After a crossing to Algeciras and a return to Tangier they went south by steamer past Rabat and Casablanca and reached Mogador on 26 April.[1]: 58, 75
They left Mogador on 29 April, crossed the provinces of Haha and Shedma and the plain, and reached the walls of the city of Marocco on 3 May.[1]: 95, 119 In the city they were lodged in the palace of Ben Dreis, inside its walled garden near the Bab Roub. They botanised in that garden. They packed their collections on 7 May and left on 8 May.[1]: 137, 142–143, 156–157 Turned back in the Ourika valley, they worked in the valley of the Aït Mesan, crossed the Tagherot pass in a snowstorm and stayed at Arround.[1]: 175, 207 From the plateau of Sektana, where Maw left them, they went on to Amsmiz and climbed Djebel Tezah, then rode west by Seksaoua and Milhaïn to Mtouga and returned to Mogador at the beginning of June.[1]: 239, 271, 299, 323–325 They sailed from Mogador on 7 June and were back at Tangier on 12 June. Hooker reached the Thames on 21 June.[1]: 338, 345–346
The book
The narrative runs to 13 chapters, each headed with a list of its places and subjects, and a 14th chapter discusses the resources and prospects of Morocco.[1]: ix–xii, 348 Eleven appendices follow. They include Ball's observations of altitudes and notes on the geography of southern Morocco, routes across the Atlas from the city by Salomon ben Daoud, Hooker's papers on some economic plants of Morocco and on the flora of Morocco compared with those of the Canary Islands and the mountains of tropical Africa, Maw's notes on the geology of the plain and the Great Atlas and Ball's notes on the Shilha language.[1]: xiii–xiv A map of southern Morocco by Ball is bound at the end.[1]: xvi The frontispiece is a panorama of the Great Atlas from the city, from a drawing made by W. Prinsep in December 1829.[1]: frontispiece
In the preface the authors set the delay in publication against what they saw as an unchanging country: in Morocco, they wrote, "no notable change is apparent during the last two centuries".[1]: vi
Kif in the book
The hills above Tétouan, April 1871
On the descent from the Beni Hosmar above Tétouan on 11 April, Hooker came on a hamlet where several "Bereber or Riffian" families lived in hovels of mud and stone. One man apparently asked for a pinch of snuff and declined a cigar.[1]: 41, 46 The book then states:
The use of tobacco for smoking appears to be unknown in Marocco, while kief—prepared from the chopped leaves of common hemp—is almost universally employed for that purpose both by Moors and Berebers; but snuff is in general request, and is imported in considerable quantities, both by regular traders and by smugglers who profit largely by the heavy duty.[1]: 46
The index lists this passage under "Kief".[1]: 494
The Great Atlas, May 1871
In the chapter on the Aït Mesan valley the authors compare the Shilha of the Great Atlas with the Arabs. They describe the Shilha as "active and hardworking", while of the Arab they write:
The Arab hates work, takes to it occasionally from necessity, but passes his time so far as he can between talk, story-telling, and song, and dreamy contemplation, in which he is helped by the habitual use of kief, prepared from Indian hemp, the local substitute for tobacco.[1]: 188
Hooker's hemp specimen
A sheet of hemp in the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, labelled South Marocco and collected by Hooker in April–May 1871, carries the handwritten addition Hort. Marocco: Hooker s.n., Marocco (1871).[2][3]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 Hooker, Joseph Dalton; Ball, John (1878). Journal of a Tour in Marocco and the Great Atlas. London: Macmillan. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence 4519454856: Cannabis sativa subsp. indica". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ "Digitised sheet K001604462: Cannabis sativa". Kew Herbarium images. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
