One Day He Would Cut Off
The Heads Of A Couple Of His Domestics, And Play At Bowls With Them;
Another day, he would ride across the path of an European, or a consul,
and singe his whiskers with the
Discharge of a pistol-shot; another day,
he would collect all the poor of a district, and gorge them with a
razzia he had made on the effects of some rich over-fed Bashaw. The
multitude sometimes implored heaven's blessing on the head of Yezeed. at
other times trembled for their own heads. Meanwhile, our European
consuls made profound obeisance to this son of the Shereef, enthroned in
the West. So the tyrant passed the innocent days of his pilgrimage. So
the godless herd of mankind acquiesced in the divine rights of royalty.
[7] See Appendix at the end of this volume.
[8] The middle Western Region consists of Algiers and part of Tunis.
[9] Pliny, the Elder, confirms this tradition mentioned by Pliny. Marcus
Yarron reports, "that in all Spain there are spread Iberians, Persians,
Phoenicians, Celts, and Carthaginians." (Lib. iii. chap. 2).
[10] In Latin, Mauri, Maurice, Maurici, Maurusci, and it is supposed, so
called by the Greeks from their dark complexions.
[11] The more probable derivation of this word is from _bar_, signifying
land, or earth, in contradistinction from the sea, or desert, beyond the
cultivable lands to the South. To give the term more force it is
doubled, after the style of the Semitic reduplication. De Haedo de la
Captividad gives a characteristic derivation, like a genuine hidalgo,
who proclaimed eternal war against Los Moros. He says - "Moors, Alartes,
Cabayles, and some Turks, form all of them a dirty, lazy, inhuman,
indomitable nation of beasts, and it is for this reason that, for the
last few years, I have accustomed myself to call that land the land of
Barbary."
[12] Procopius, de Bello Vandilico, lib. ii. cap. 10.
[13] Some derive it from _Sarak_, an Arabic word which signifies to
steal, and hence, call the conquerors thieves. Others, and with more
probability, derive it from _Sharak_, the east, and make them Orientals,
and others say there is an Arabic word _Saracini_, which means a
pastoral people, and assert that Saracine is a corruption from it, the
new Arabian immigrants being supposed to have been pastoral tribes.
[14] Some suppose that _Amayeegh_ means "great," and the tribes thus
distinguished themselves, as our neighbours are wont to do by the phrase
"la grande nation." The Shoulah are vulgarly considered to be descended
from the Philistines, and to have fled before Joshua on the conquest of
Palestine.
In his translation of the Description of Spain, by the Shereef El-Edris
(Madrid, 1799), Don Josef Antonio Conde speaks of the Berbers in a
note -
"Masmuda, one of the five principal tribes of Barbaria; the others are
Zeneta, called Zenetes in our novels and histories, Sanhagha which we
name Zenagas; Gomesa is spelt in our histories Gomares and Gomeles.
Huroara, some of these were originally from Arabia; there were others,
but not so distinguished. La de Ketama was, according to tradition,
African, one of the most ancient, for having come with Afrikio.
"Ben Kis Ben Taifi Ben Teba, the younger, who came from the king of the
Assyrians, to the land of the west.
"None of these primitive tribes appear to have been known to the Romans,
their historians, however, have transmitted to us many names of other
aboriginal tribes, some of which resemble fractions now existing, as the
Getules are probably the present Geudala or Geuzoula. But the present
Berbers do not correspond with the names of the five original people
just mentioned. In Morocco, there are Amayeegh and Shelouh, in Algeria
the Kabyles, in Tunis the Aoures, sometimes the Shouwiah, and in Sahara
the Touarichs. There are, besides, numerous subdivisions and admixtures
of these tribes."
[15] Monsieur Balbi is decidedly the most recent, as well as the best
authority to apply to for a short and definite description of this most
celebrated mountain system, called by him "Systeme Atlantique," and I
shall therefore annex what he says on this interesting subject,
"Orographie." He says - "Of the 'Systeme Atlantique,' which derives its
name from the Mount Atlas, renowned for so many centuries, and still so
little known; we include in this vast system, all the heights of the
region of Maghreb - we mean the mountain of the Barbary States - as well
as the elevations scattered in the immense Sahara or Desert. It appears
that the most important ridge extends from the neighbourhood of Cape
Noun, or the Atlantic, as far as the east of the Great Syrte in the
State of Tripoli. In this vast space it crosses the new State of
Sidi-Hesdham, the Empire of Morocco, the former State of Algiers, as
well as the State of Tripoli and the Regency of Tunis. It is in the
Empire of Morocco, and especially in the east of the town of Morocco,
and in the south-east of Fez, that that ridge presents the greatest
heights of the whole system. It goes on diminishing afterwards in height
as it extends towards the east, so that it appears the summits of the
territory of Algiers are higher than those on the territory of Tunis,
and the latter are less high than those to be found in the State of
Tripoli. Several secondary ridges diverge in different directions from
the principal chain; we shall name among them the one which ends at the
Strait of Gibraltar in the Empire of Morocco. Several intermediary
mountains seem to connect with one another the secondary chains which
intersect the territories of Algiers and Tunis. Geographers call Little
Atlas the secondary mountains of the land of Sous, in opposition to the
name of Great Atlas, they give to the high mountains of the Empire of
Morocco. In that part of the principal chain called Mount Gharian, in
the south of Tripoli, several low branches branch off and under the
names of Mounts Maray, Black Mount Haroudje, Mount Liberty, Mount
Tiggerandoumma and others less known, furrow the great solitudes of the
Desert of Lybia and Sahara Proper.
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