exist wherever waters spring forth from the soil, and irrigate
small surrounding tracts'^ shaded with groves of palm-trees,
and affording places of refuge and safety to caravans, and
often to travellers perishing with thirst: The area of this
great desert, which is the most extensive, and, at the same
lime, the most ardent in the world, scorched by thevertical
rays of the sun, has been supposed to be equal to thg-halfofEu-
rope, or to twice the space occupied by the Mediterranean sea.
The oases are various in extent; sometimes they are arranged
in groupes, or in chains; and the larger ones become, like
islands in the ocean, the abodes of fixed inhabitants, the
cradles of tribes and races of men, which, springing from one
or from a few original stocks, have acquired, in such insulated
retreats, peculiarities of manners and language, and display,
even in their physical conformation, the influence of external
agencies to which they have been subjected during a long
series of generations. In several instances, these distant ,spots
have been places of refuge, where ancient tribes and languages-
have been preserved from remote periods of antiquity, and
many of them keep the names by which they-are recognised
in the writings of the ancients. Fezzan, the Phazania^of
Pliny, the abode of the Garamantes, is one pf the most donfi
siderable. Siwah, the-oasis of the Ammonians, preserves the
remains of the celebrated temple of Ammon. Tuat, Gualata,
and Agades, are great oases situated in the remotest parts of
the Sahara.
; CHAPTER II.
OF THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF ATLANTICA.
S e c t io n iWÊÀIistory of the Atlantic Nations, elucidated by
researches into their Language.
Av race of people divided into many different tribes, and
spread .Over a vast région in’Northern Africa, has its principal,
and'had'probably its'móst anciëbt abode, in the mountains
of Atlas. The tribes of this ‘ race have different denominations'
in variodê' districts ; the mOst prevalent name is that of
Berbers^M Ber'ebbers : from them thfe north of Africa appéars
th have received the designation of Barbary or Barbafia.*
The term as applied to the^Oohntry now So named is of
modern date, for the Barbary or Berberia of ;&e ancients
was-'the eastern coast of Africa, including Ithë? snores1 of the
Red Sea and the land Of the Sumâli, near th^'pbrt of Bar.-
bara. The history of the Berber" 'pèoplef ‘and the tribes
allied to- them in origin, has only been investigated in recent
times, and sintóe^the value Of philoïogièàl' researches has beeii
known in tracing the ..origin and affinity of nations. The
Berbers, and the tribes allied to them in different parts of
Africa; are known by their'peculiar language; which, notwithstanding
the repeated conquests bf Mauretania by foreign nations,
has been preserved in remote mountainous tracts, as dól 1
as in the distant regions of the desert, and which is the only
idiom known to the great mass of the people. This probably
was the language, as it has been observed by Mr. Hodgson,
which the “ Tyria Bilingues” were obliged to learn in addition
to their Own mother tongue;'fchfe Punic or Phoenician
* On the import and origin of this name, and on the circumstances connected with
its translation from one part of Africa to another, involving considerations of some
importance in ethnography, the reader will find some remarks in a note at the end
of this Book.