The further extremity of this region, which the poetic nomenclature of the Oriental had designated by the name of Al-Maghreb, “The Land of the Evening,” was the wealthier and more productive; but its storm-swept coast had subordinated its trade to the superior commercial advantages of the eastern half, now Tunis and Tripoli, which was known as Ifrikiyah. A prefect appointed by the court of Constantinople administered the government of these colonies, in the name of the Emperor, but his jurisdiction was confined to a narrow belt of territory, beyond which roamed at will bands of ferocious and hardy barbarians, some of whom had no settled habitation; while a considerable number dwelt in the slopes and defiles of the Atlas Mountains, eking out a miserable subsistence by a superficial cultivation of the soil and a precarious traffic with their scarcely less civilized neighbors. The population of this province was, owing to repeated immigration and invasion, and the consequent admixture of races, of the most heterogeneous character. Along the coast, the elegance of the Grecian type, occasionally modified by the dignified features and martial bearing of the Roman, whose physical traits had been partially preserved by the frequent renewal of garrisons and the importation of colonists from Italy and Constantinople, largely predominated. Further inland appeared, in the swarthy complexions, blue eyes, and auburn locks, the cross between Vandal and Mauritanian, side by side with the unmistakable lineaments of the Syrian and the Jew. But most numerous of all, the most formidable in war, the most perfidious in peace, were the Berbers, whose origin tradition has variously assigned to Europe, Assyria, Arabia, Ethiopia, and Palestine. Whatever may have been the home of this undoubtedly Semitic race, their affinity with the Arabs was most conspicuous and remarkable. Generous, brave, patient of suffering, prodigal of hospitality, reverential to the aged, loyal to their kindred, impatient of restraint, merciless in revenge, their character was an epitome of the rugged virtues and cruel vices of the roving barbarian. The fighting qualities of this people, joined to the inaccessible nature of their haunts, and, in no small degree, aided by their poverty, had always secured for them immunity from conquest. Political reverses had never been able to efface their national peculiarities. Under persecution, while apparently conforming to the public faith, they remained, in reality, fetich worshippers. The long dominations of Phœnician, Roman, Byzantine, Teuton had effected no alteration in their language--the Arabic alone has been able to engross about a third of the terms of their guttural idiom. Their polity resembled a republic, where each village was independent and governed by a chieftain elected by the people. Time and again they had mustered for service against the Emperor armies of thirty and forty thousand