Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/42

 mentioned by Herodotus, still speak a Berber dialect closely related to the Tamasirht of the Tuaregs. Inhabiting the western oasis and the part of Jalo which surrounds Lebba, the capital, they are engaged chiefly in agriculture. They also work the saline beds of the neighbouring depressions, for in these old marine inlets salt is everywhere found, associated with gypsum. They have an excellent breed of camels, which they hire to the caravans, conducting them along the desert routes us far as Benghazi, Murzuk, Siwah, and Kufra.

The Mojabras, who also claim Berber descent, although now speaking Arabic, dwell in the eastern part of the oases, and especially in the district of El-Areg in the Jalo depression. This tribe despise agriculture, but, like the people of Ghadâmes, they are born traders, and like them also have founded commercial centres

throughout all the Libyan oases. Travellers praise their courage, temperance, and perfect honesty. According to Burckhart, to then is due the discovery of the route leading from the coast through Kufra and Wajanga to Wadai.

The little Leshkerreh oasis is inhabited by the Zwiyas (Swayas), a tribe of Arab origin. But whatever the differences in speech and race, Mojabras, Wajilis and Zwiyas all closely resemble each other physically; and their almost black complexion attests the importance taken by the Negro element in the crossings of the races. The marriage tie is very lax amongst the inhabitants of Aujila. According to Hamilton, men are not unfrequently met who have successively contracted twenty or thirty unions, the price of a bride varying from twenty-five to thirty shillings. But the establishment of the austere Senûsiya sect in the country cannot Wadjili