The Jews of the Atlas formed the subject of some of Mr. Davidson’s literary labours; I have made further inquiries and shall give the reader some account of them, adding that portion of Mr. Davidson’s information which was borne out by further investigation.  The Atlas Jews are physically, if not morally, superior to their brethren who reside among the Moors.  They are dispersed over the Atlas ranges, and have all the characteristics of mountaineers.  They enjoy, like their neighbours, the Berbers and Shelouhs, a species of quasi-independence of the Imperial authority, but they usually attach themselves to certain Berber chieftains who protect them, and whose standards they follow.

These are the only Jews in Mahometan countries of whom I have heard as bearing arms.  They have, however, their own Sheiks, to whose jurisdiction all domestic matters are referred.  They wear the same attire as the mountaineers, and are not distinguishable from them, they do not address the Moors by the term of respect and title “Sidi,” but in the same way as the Moors and Arabs when they accost each other.  They speak the Shelouh language.

Mr. Davidson mentions some curious circumstances about these Jews, and of their having a city beyond the Atlas, where three or four thousand are living in perfect freedom, and cultivating the soil, which they have possessed since the time of Solomon.  The probability is that Mr. Davidson’s informant refers to the Jews of the Oasis of Sahara, where there certainly are some families of Jews living in comparative freedom and independence.

As to the peculiarities of the religion of the Atlas Jews, they are said not to have the Pentateuch and the law in the same order as Jews generally.  They are unacquainted with Ezra, or Christ; they did not go to Babylon at the captivity, but were dispersed over Africa at that period.  They are a species of Caraaites, or Jewish Protestants.  Shadai is the name which they apply to the Supreme Being, when speaking of him.  Their written law begins by stating that the world was many thousand years old when the present race of men was formed, which, curiously enough, agrees with the researches of modern geology.  The present race of men are the joint offspring of different and distinct human species.  The deluge is not mentioned by them.  God, it is said, appeared to Ishmael in a dream, and told him he must separate from Isaac, and go to the desert, where he would make him a great nation.  There would ever after be enmity between the two races, as at this day there is the greatest animosity between the Jews and Mahometans.