Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/26

 10 NORTH-WEST AFRICA. elements. No feature in their physical appearance seems to betray any trace of lieilenic or Roman blood, while the Berber type here so closely resembles that of the Arabs, that it would be difficult to distinguish the races in so mixed a popula- tion. In Derna, Benghazi, and other towns subject to the influences of external commerce, the usages differ little from those of the Egyptian Arabs, and the women do not appear unveiled in public. Here, also, the inhabitants are grouped, not according to their tribes, but according to their trades and pursuits. But in the rural districts distinct territories are occupied by the ailets, a term collectively applied to all the tribes of Cyrenaica. The Aulad-Ali of the Egyptian Libya are encroaching from the west on the Barka highlands, where they already possess extensive grazing-groimds. Here they are replacing the Marmaridae, who gave their name to the country under the Ptolemies, and who subsequently followed the general movement of migration and conquest in the direction from east to west. The Zwiyas lead a wandering life in the section of the plateau in the vicinity of Derna, whence they descend southwards as far as White Barka, south of Ben- ghazi. The more numerous Abeidats, jointly with the Berasa, the Hassa and Dorsa, occupy the districts of the Jebel Akhdar, lying east and west of the ruins of Cyrene. The Eshteh dwell in the western part of the range above Benghazi, while immediately north and south of them are the camping- grounds of the Bragtas and other clans of the Awaghirs, the most powerful of all the Barka tribes. This ailet is said to be able to muster in war time altogether 10,000 infantry and 1,000 horsemen. The Harabi, Mogharba, and other less important tribes occupy the lower terrace lands comprised between the Barka highlands and the desert. All these Libyan Arabs are fond of painting the breast, arms, and face with antimony. The women, who never go veiled, always dye the lower lip black, and encircle the eyes with the same extract of koheiil. Both sexes wear the hauH, a kind of toga, to which Europeans give the name of bamkan. During youth the daughters of Cyrenaica are comely, but proportionately much smaller than the men. The national diet is a species of " barley-bree," known as hasina. It was amongst the Arabs of Merj, the ancient Barke, that the " bubonic pestilence " broke out in the year 1874, and Cyrenaica is said, with the West Persian highlands and those of Assir, in Arabia, to be one of the three regions where this disorder is endemic. Since the middle of the present century, thanks especially to the establishment of the order of the Senusiya in this part of Tripolitana, the Arabs of Barka have certainly made some progress in material culture and moral cohesion. Manners have undergone a great change, and certain questionable laws of hospitality described by all travellers from Herodotus to Barth are no longer practised. On the other hand, the natives have become less kindly and cheerful, more sullen and surlv to strangers. In ihe year 1843, the Algerian Sheikh Senusi el-Mejahiri, being compelled to