224 APPENDIX. No. II.
in tents, as these are described to be, certainly cannot be
entitled to the appellation of Moors. Neither can thle
people in question, whom Park describes to have short
bushy hair, be a pure Arab tribe; though their leader, Ali,
appears to have been an Arab. But by whatever name
they ought to be distinguished, it seems very probable that
they are descended from the ancient invaders of Soudan,
who having been left to garrison the conquered places,
remained on the southern borders of the Desert after the
authority which originally brought them there, became
extinct; and who by occasional intermarriages with the
Negroes have gradually lost many of the distinguishing
features of their Arab ancestors.
Viewing the term Moor as a translation or corruption of
the Latin word Mauri, by which the Romans designated a
particular nation, it is evident, that it cannot with strict
propriety be used even in the limited sense to which I have
here confined it; for, the people who now occupy the
towns of Western Barbary, (with the exception, perhaps, of
that small portion of them allied to the Berrebber tribes)
are certainly not descendants of the -ancient Mauritanians.
The name, as I have said before, is not used amongst the
people themselves, as the names of Arab, Berrebber, &c.
a re : but the class is quite distinguished from the other
inhabitants of Barbary by the modes of life and pursuits of
those who compose it. And as Europeans in their loose
acceptation of the name Moor, have successively designated
by it all the different races who have from time to time,
occupied this part of Africa; applying it even to the Arab
invaders of Spain, who proceeded from hence; they may
very naturally appropriate it to those stationary residents of
the Empire of Morocco with whom, almost exclusively,
they carry on any intercourse. The only distinguishing
term which the Arabs occasionally give to the Moors is that
of Medainien, towns-people; which is a depreciating appellation
in the estimation of an Arab. If you ask a Moor;
what he calls himself? he will naturally answer you that he
is a Mooslim, or believer;—his country ? Bled Mooselmin,
the land of believers. If you press him for turther particulars,
he will then perhaps tell you the tribe to which he
belongs, or the district or city in which he was born.
Neither have they a general name for their country; in
other Mohammedan states it is distinguished by the name
of El Ghdrb, the West ; but the natives themselves only
apply this name to 'a province in the northern part of the
Empire beyond the River Azamoor.
The term Moor, therefore, seems to stand, with respec
to the people to whom we apply it, exactly in the same
predicament as their term Romi with respect to us ; which
having survived the times when the extended power of the
Rotnans rendered it not an improper appellation for all the
inhabitants of Europe known to the Mauritanians, continues,
in the dialects of Barbary, to be the general name for
Europeans of every nation at this day. D.