Note 276 — Chapter XIII · THE AFRICAN PROVINCES.

A good observer, Charles Tissot, (Géogr. de la province romaine de l’Afrique, i. p. 403) testifies that upwards of a third of the inhabitants of Morocco have fair or brown hair, and in the colony of the inhabitants of the Riff in Tangier two-thirds. The women made the impression on him of those of Berry and of Auvergne. Sur les hauts sommets de la chaîne atlantique, d’après les renseignements qui m’ont été fournis, la population tout entière serait remarquablement blonde. Elle aurait les yeux bleus, gris ou “verts, comme ceux des chats,” pour reproduire l’expression même dont s’est servi le cheikh qui me renseignait. The same phenomenon meets us in the mountain masses of Grand Kabylia and of the Aures, as well as on the Tunisian island Jerba and the Canary Islands. The Egyptian representations also show to us the Libu not red, like the Egyptians, but white, and with fair or brown hair.