Mediterranean seaports and sea routes including Madeira, the Canary Islands, the coast of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia : handbook for travellers / by Karl Baedeker.

Karl Baedeker

Date:: 1911

Credit: Mediterranean seaports and sea routes including Madeira, the Canary Islands, the coast of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia : handbook for travellers / by Karl Baedeker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$XXXVl ap]()GRAPIlIOAL SKETCH. Icutiscus), myrtles, arbutus-trees (Arbutus unedo), broom, tree- like heaths (Erica arborca and scoparia), resinous and aromatic cistus-shrubs with large blossoms resembling wild roses, and climb- ing-plants of many varieties. Most prominent among trees in the cultivated lands is the silver-grey olive, which, as well as the vine and the tig-tree, has thriven here from the earliest times and is the most characteristic feature in every Mediterranean landscape. >[ost of the other fruit-trees also have been known here sinre remote antiquity. The fruit of the date-palm attains perfection in the oases of Korth Africa only (comp. p. 171), but the tree bears fruit on the Spanish coast, and is very popular as an ornamental tree on the French and Italian Riviera and in otlier sheltered situ- ations. Lemons were introduced by the .\rabs, and oranges were brought from southern China by the Portuguese about the middle of the Kith century. iSIany other foreign trees and plants have been introduced since then. Aloes and opuntias, which now grow wild and are often regarded as characteristic of the Mediter- ranean, were introduced from .America. In the beautiful and luxur- iant gardens, especially in Italy, on the French Riviera, and in .\lgeria, the flora of almost every ({uarter of the globe is re- presented. No less varied and interesting are the Inhabitants of tho iilediterranean lands, who belong to three distinct continents, and who differ widely in race and language, in religion and culture. In remote mountain-regions there still exist peoples, like the Bdnijueti and the Albanians, who belong to the oldest races in Europe. In the south and the east dwell Arabs and Turks, com- paratively recent immigrants from the ste])pes of Asia. On one side, as in Southern France, is witnessed the height of civili- zation; on the other, as in Albania and many parts of Northern Africa, the population is sunk in the depths of ignorance. The dwellers in the west profess the Roman Catholic faith, those in the east belong to the Greek Catholic church, while they differ mateiially in culture also. Christianity again Islam, which prevails in Turkey, Asia Minor, Aliica. I he inhabitants of the Atlas regions, of of Rarca arc Berbers (p. 94), who are neither but are more akin to the Europeans. The Osman Balkan leninsula and Asia Minor have been so Mediterranean races that they now retain little of ilonpihan character. Entirely distinct again from If® r'-’ they speak Arabic, the bellahin ol Egypt. Most mixed perhaiis of all the Modern Greeks. is antagonistic to Syria, and North Tripolitania, and Arabs nor Turks, Turks of the blended with their original the Arabs are and so too are is the blood id'$