Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/197

 LIBYA, (3) the Phoenicians, and (4) the Greeks. He enu- merates, moreover, a considerable number of indi- genous tribes, and his catalogue of them is greatly- increased by subsequent writers, e.g. Scylax, Hanno, Polybius, and Ptolemy. When, however, we would assign to these a generic connection, or a local habi- tation, the insurmountable difficulty meets us which ever attends the description of nomad races ; igno- rance of their language, of their relations with one another, and their customary or proper districts. The Greek geographers, in their efforts to render the names of barbarians euphonic, impenetrably dis- guise them for the most part. Again, their infor- mation of the interior was principally derived from the merchants, or guides of the caravans ; and these persons had a direct interest, even if their knowledge were exact or various, in concealing it. Moreover, the traveller, even if unbiassed, was liable to error in his impression of these regions. The population, beyond the settled and cultivated districts, was ex- tremely fluctuating. In the rainy season they inha- bited the plains, in the hot months the highlands, accordingly as their cattle required change of chmate and pasture. The same tribe might, therefore, be reckoned twice, and exhibited under the opposite characteristics of a highland or a lowland people. Savage races also are often designated, when de- scribed by travellers, by names accidentally caught up or arbitrarily imposed, and not by their genuine and native appellations. Thus Herodotus, in com- mon with the other geographers of antiquity, gives an undue extension to the name Aethiopes, derived from the mere accident of a black or dark com- plexion, and had he been acquainted with the Caffirs and the Hottentots, he would, doubtless, from their colour, have placed them in the same category. The diet of the Ichthyophagi was not restricted to fish, since they were also breeders of cattle ; but they acquired that appellation from their principal food at one season of the year. The Troglodytes, during the spring and summer months, dwelt among the low meadows and morasses of MeriJe and Ae- thiopia ; but their name was given them because, during the rainy period, they retired to habitations scooped in the rocks. With regard to the native races of Libya, the only secure presumption is, that they formed one of those sporadic offsets of the hum.an family which remain in, or acquire a lower degree of civilisation, because they have wandered beyond the verge of the great empires and communities in which civilisation is matured. The Libyan con- tinent has, indeed, been in all ages the principal resort of these sporadic tribes; The deserts, which intervene between the cultivated and uncultivated portions of it, removed much of its population from the neighbourhood of cities ; they were liable to no admixtures from other countries ; they were never thoroughly subdued or intermingled with superior races : and though, as in the instance of the Perioeci of the Greek states, the Liby-Phoenicians in the dominions of Carthage, and the subordinate castes of Aegypt, they were not incapable of a high material cultivation ; yet, when left to themselves, they continued to exist under tiie simplest forms cf social life. Combining the glimpses we obtain from the ancients with the more accurate knowledge of tlie modems, we are warranted in ascribing to them, generally, a monarchical form of government, with some control from the priests and assembly of chief men, warlike and migratory habits, debased condition of the female sex, and the vice of Africa, LIBYCUM MARE. 181 in all ages, constant warfare, waged with the sole purpose of supplying the slave-markets of the North and East. The Fauna of Libya must not be unnoticed. In the northern deserts tawny and grey tints are the prevailing colours, not merely in birds and beasts, but also in reptiles and insects. In consequence of the extension of this barren region from North Africa through Arabia to Persia and India, many similar species of animals are common to both continents, — as the ass, antelopes, leopards, pan- thers, and hyaenas. The cat tribe prevails in great beauty and variety : the lion of ]Iount Atlas is said to be the strongest and most formidable of his species. The African elephant is difterent from the Asiatic, and has always been preferred to it for military purposes. The hippopotamus, which was known to the ancients as the inhabitant of the Senegal and the Upper Nile, appears to be a different species from that which is found in the inter-tropical and southern parts of the continent. The magot or Barbary ape was known to the ancients, and is mentioned by the Byzantine writers as imported for the menageries of Constantinople. The giraffe or camelopard is found as far north as the Great Desert. It appears on the monuments of Aegypt, and was exhibited in the imperial triumphs at Rome. The Atlas region contains two kinds of fallow-deer, one of which is the common fallow-deer of Europe. The ox of Nuhia, Abyssinia^ and Bornou is remarkable for the extraordinary size of its horns, which are sometimes two feet in circumfeience at the root. Of the Libyan animals generally it may be remarked, that while the species which require rich vegetation and much water are found in the Atlas valleys and the plains below them, the Desert abounds in such kinds as are content with scantier herbage, — such as the deer, the wild ass, and the antelope. These being fleet of foot, easily remove from the scorched to the green pasture, and find a sufficient supply of water in the ooze of the river beds. As regards its Flora, the northern coast of Libya, and the range of the Atlas generally, may be re- garded as a zone of transition, where the plants of southern Europe are mingled with those peculiar to Africa. The Greek and Phoenician colonists built their naval armaments of the pine and oak of Mount Atlas, the Aleppo pine and the sandarach or Thida articulata, being celebrated for their close grain and durability. The vegetation of the interior has been already in part mentioned. The large forests of date-palms, along the southern base of the Atlas, are its principal woodland. The date tree is indigenous, but improved by cultivation. Of the Desert itself stunted shrubs are the only produce besides the coarse prickly grass (pennisettim dicho- to»wm), which covers large tracts, and supplies fodder to the camels. For the authorities upon which this account of Libya rests, see, besides the ancient writers already cited, the travels of Shaw, Hornemann, Burckhardt; Ritter's Erdhunde, Africa ; Heeren, Ideen, vol. i. ; Mannert's Geographie, Libya; and Maltebrun, Afriqiie. [W. B. D.] LIBYA PALUS. [Libya,?. 180, b.; Tkitoh.J LIBYARCHAE. [Maumakica.] LIBYCI MONTES. [Aegyptus, p.37; Oasis.] LI'BYCUM MARE (jh AiSvKbv -niKayos, irdv- Tos AiSur/s), was the name applied to that part of the Mediterranean which washed the shores of I N. Africa, from the E. coast of Africa Propiia ou N 3