Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/97

 INHABITANTS OF FEZZAN. 77 intrwluctnl from the north, are ull of small size, and resist the climate badly. Horses arc found ouly in the stables of chiefs and grandees, and scarcely fifty are said to exist in the whole country. The only quadruiKxl extensively employed in the service of man is the camel, which is of the Arab species, diiTcring little from the variety common in the Tuareg territory. The largest and finest breeds are found in the Black Mountains and the Ilari^j district. Here they are clothed in winter with a dense coating of hair, which is shorn once a year, and employed for weaving carpets and tent-tloths. According to most authorities, the camel was rot introduced from Kgypt into the more westerly regions of Libya lx?fore the first century of the vulgar era, before which time the Garamantes made use of oxen, of horses, and wheeled carts in their journeys across the dunes and serirs. This circumstance indicates a great change of climate during the last two thousand years, for at the present time it would be impossible to traverse these solitudes without the aid of the camel. The rock carvings still seen at Telissarht^, in the south-western part of Fezzan, represent with great accuracy herds of cattle on their way to the watering-places. On these rocks have also been recognised sketches figuring a horse and an ass. IXHABTTANTS OF FeZZAX. The inhabitants of Fezzan belong to all the races of North Africa, constituting an essentially mixed population, in which the primitive elements appear to be the fair Berbers and the dark Ethiopians, the oldest occupants of the laud. In more recent times the Arabs, especially the Aulad Slinmn family from Egypt and Cyrenaica, have also largely contributed to renew or modify the local population. Formerly, when the Barbary corsairs still scoured the jMediterrancan waters, a number of Italian captives were regularly introduced into the harems of the Murzuk sheikhs, thus supplying an additional ethnical element possessing a certain relative importance in a region so sparsely peopled. Amongst the natives of Fezzan is seen every shade of colour, from a deep black to an almost fair complexion. Rohlfs even tells us it frequently happens that, by a phenomenon of which the inhabitants of Spanish America offer many examples, individual members of the family have spotted skins — white on a black, or black on a white ground. The blacks of Fezzan are also often seen with long, sleek hair, while that of the whites is on the contrary .short and woolly. On the whole the predominant colour may be said to be that of the yellow Malays, although the hair and features are those rather of the Negro stock. Besides that of the Tuareg Berbers, several languages are current amongst these mixed communities. The most prevalent is Kanuri, the speech of the kingdom of Bornu ; and several local names of villages, wells, and other places attest a long residence in Fezzan of the Bornu Negroes, descendants probably of the Garumantes. All the adult men understand Arabic, the language of commerce; and the dialects of IIau.ssa, and other parts of North Africa, are also heard in the cabins of the Fezzan Negroes.