Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/67

 INHABITANTS OF TRIPOLITANA. 49 attacked wherever mot by the natives, who think it not only poisonous but also endowed with magic powers. The cerastes, or homed vi|x?r, is also much dreaded, although never dangerous in winter, or when the sun is not at its full strength. It is a very timid animal, cowering in the sand, to which it has become assimilated in colour, and numl)od at the least lowering of the temperature. But few birds are met in the thi-kets of Tripolitana, except during the few days of migration north and southwards in spring and autumn. Of domestic animals the most useful are the camel and ass, employed as pack animals. Both cattle and horses are rare and of small size. In some oases scarcely two or three steeds are to be met, and these are reserved for the chiefs, who are very proud of their mounts. This absence of horses is largely due to the Turkish pashas, whose policy it has been to deprive the restless Arab tribes of their cavalry. This was a sure way of " clipping their wings," and reducing them to a state of tranquillity. Nor are dogs at all numerous ; except in the coast towns, scarcely any breed is to be met besides the sluyhi, or Arab greyhound. The fat-tailed sheep, the only variety in Tripolitana, still wears a woolly coat, notwithstanding the heat of the climate. The fleece does not disappear until we reach Fczzan, south of the Jebel-es-Suda. Much more common than the sheep are the goats, to which the scrub affords a sufficient nutriment. According to native report, those that browse on the retama plant give an intoxicating milk. Inhabitants of Tripolitana. As in the other " Barbary States," as they were formerly called, the population of Tripolitana consists of Berbers and Arabs, the latter name compri.sing all the descendants of the invaders who settled in the country at the time of the first Mussulman conquest, and again during the great Hilaliau immigration in the eleventh century. The Berbers are probably the more numerous, representing as they do the aboriginal element. But in several districts they have laid aside their primitive dialects, having become assimilated to their conquerors in speech, as well as in religion and usages. Hence many tribes of undoubted Berber descent pass nevertheless for Arabs. This incessant process of assimilation was already noticed by Ibn-Khaldun in the fourteenth century. Even in most of the oases and rural districts, where Berbers and Arabs constitute distinct ethnical groups, each with its own name and special organisation, both have become so intermingled by family alliances that it becomes impossible to detect the least physical difference between them. In all the tribes alike are met persons characterised by Negroid, Semitic, or Caucasic features. But the colour of the skin is alinost without exception yellowish or bronzed, the hair black and kinky, the body ylim, with shapely limbs. As amongst all North African peoples, the women are relatively of much smaller size than the men, the discrepancy between the sexes being in this respect much greater than amongst Europeans.* The Berbers of Tripolitana projx^r who appear to have best preserved the ♦ Gerhard Rohlfs, " Kufra ; Querdurch Africa."