Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/123

 ETHNICAL ELEMENTS. 90 forming the great majority, the Berbers have at all points been driven from the plains to the uplands. Peaceful tillers of the soil, too sluggish to progress, too slow to combine together, they have been fain to yield to the more warlike Arab tribes. The Arabs themselves, forming probably less than a sixth of the Mauritanian population, are found either in settled or nomad communities scattered over the whole region as fur as the Atlantic seaboard. But while more numerous in the central districts, they diminish gradually from east to west, according as they recede from the Arabian peninsula. The blacks, who by intermixture have also tended much to modify the other ethnical elements, were everywhere originally introduced as slaves or mercenaries. But they are naturally most numerous in those districts which maintain the most frequent relations with their native land ; hence they prevail chiefly in Marocco, which enjoys constant commercial intercourse with Western Sudan. Even the imperial family, although claiming descent from the Prophet, is more Nngro than Arab. All the towns throughout Mauritania are largely peopled by " Moors," that is, an endlessly mixed race, resulting from the fusion of Roman, Vandal, Arab, Berber, Italian, French, Spanish, and other ^lediterranean elements. If the Moors present a somewhat uniform type from one end of the land to the other, this is assuredly due, not to racial purity, but to their common historic evolution, to the similar surroundings and pursuits of more or less civilised urban com- munities. The term " Moor " is, however, one of those vague expressions which has often been used in different senses. According to Tissot, it originally meant " Western," while Sabatier thinks it was at first applied to the inhabitants of the upland districts. Mauritania would thus mean " Jlighlands," as would appear from the root wrtwr, mur (Amur), still met with in all parts of the country. But the Spaniards, and after them EurojK^an Christians generally, applietl the term Moors, Moor, in a much wider sense to all Mohammedans, and in ordinary language even to all pagans. At present its use is restricted to the Mohammedans of the Mauritanian towns, distinguished by their settled life and higher culture from the Arabs of the rural districts. Relatively speaking, the Moors are most numerous in Tunisia. Although numerically inferior to the indigenous element, the intruding Arab people were long the rulers of Mauritania, and from them the French met with the most obstinate resistance in the conquest of Algeria. It is noteworthy that they have spread with a certain uniformity, especially over all the open plains and least rugged plateaux — a phenomenon due to the successive migrations pressing the tribes continually forward, and thus producing at diverse epochs a general dis- placement from east to west. Even long before the Ilejira, ^lauritania had already been invaded by Arab tribes, such as the Luata, or Ruadites, who settled in Cyrenaica during the first centuries of the new era, and who under different names gradually advanced to the eastern districU of Mauritania. Then followed the period of conquest and conversion, which also left a certain number of Arab tribes