Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/360

 eminences of fantastic shape, in some places presenting the outlines of vast rocky strongholds flanked with square towers. The natives have even converted them into citadels, where they defend themselves from the attacks of the Fulah conquerors. South of the Hombori Hills the plain is dotted over with some lesser eminences, such as the granite, gneiss, and sandstone Aribinda heights falling abruptly southwards and presenting a more gentle incline towards the north.

The region stretching north-west of Timbuktu in the direction of the Walata and Tishit oases is peopled by Arabs, or at least a half-caste Berber race of Arab speech. Many Arab traders also penetrate across the river southwards to the Hombori Hills. But east of the meridian of Timbuktu the whole of the Saharian region belongs to the Imohagh (Imosharh) Berbers, whose countless tribes are

scattered for nearly 1,200 miles in every direction northwards to the Algerian frontier, eastwards to the neighbourhood of Lake Tsad. Those of the Niger region all belong to the Awellimiden confederation, some still bearing the name of Tademakka (Tademekket), a vanished city which lay west of the Air Mountains. These are kinsmen of the Khumirian Dedmakas, now assimilated in speech and usages to the Arabs.

Below Timbuktu the Imohaghs have crossed the Niger and reduced the country far to the south of the river. They not only occupy the sandy tracts and savannas, but have penetrated into the Hombori valleys, and beyond them into the fertile Libtako plains. Here, however, few of them have preserved the camel, faithful associate of all other Tuaregs, breeding horned cattle and sheep instead, and in some places even intermarrying with the native Negro populations. Hence, perhaps, all these southern Berbers have received from their northern kindred the