A remarkable fact, and one which has not been noted or discussed by philologists, is that the Berber name for the olive, both tree and fruit, has the root _taz_ or _tas_, similar to the _tat_ of the ancient Egyptians. The Kabyles of the district of Algiers, according to the French-Berber dictionary, published by the French Government, calls the wild olive _tazebboujt_, _tesettha_, _ou’ zebbouj_, and the grafted olive _tazemmourt_, _tasettha_, _ou’ zemmour_. The Touaregs, another Berber nation, call it _tamahinet_.[1409] These are strong indications of the antiquity of the olive in Africa. The Arabs having conquered this country and driven back the Berbers into the mountains and the desert, having likewise subjected Spain excepting the Basque country, the names derived from the Semitic _zeit_ have prevailed even in Spanish. The Arabs of Algiers say _zenboudje_ for the wild, _zitoun_ for the cultivated olive,[1410] _zit_ for olive oil. The Andalusians call the wild olive _azebuche_, and the cultivated _aceytuno_.[1411] In other provinces we find the name of Latin origin, _olivio_, side by side with the Arabic words.[1412] The oil is in Spanish _aceyte_, which is almost the Hebrew name; but the holy oils are called _oleos santos_, because they belong to Rome. The Basques use the Latin name for the olive tree. Early voyagers to the Canaries, Bontier for instance, in 1403, mention the olive tree in these islands, where modern botanists regard it as indigenous.[1413] It may have been introduced by the Phœnicians, if it did not previously exist there. We do not know if the Guanchos had names for the olive and its oil. Webb and Berthelot do not give any in their learned chapter on the language of the aborigines,[1414] so the question is open to conjecture. It seems to me that the oil would have played an important part among the Guanchos if they had possessed the olive, and that some traces of it would have remained in the actual speech of the people. From this point of view the naturalization in the Canaries is perhaps not more ancient than the Phœnician voyages. No leaf of the olive has hitherto been found in the tufa of the south of France, of Tuscany, and Sicily, where the laurel, the myrtle, and other shrubs now existing have been discovered. This is an indication, until the contrary is proved, of a subsequent naturalization.