North Africa, in a physical and ethnographic point of view, stands by itself like an island. Nature has isolated it on all sides, partly by the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea, partly by the widely-extended shore, incapable of cultivation, of the Great Syrtis below the modern Fezzan, and, in connection therewith, by the desert, likewise closed against cultivation, which shuts off the steppe-land and the oases of the Sahara to the south. Ethnographically the population of this wide region forms a great family of peoples, distinguished most sharply from the Blacks of the south, but likewise strictly separated from the Egyptians, although perhaps with these there may once have subsisted a primeval fellowship. They call themselves in the Riff near Tangier Amâzigh, in the Sahara Imôshagh, and the same name meets us, referred to particular tribes, on several occasions among the Greeks and Romans, thus as Maxyes at the founding of Carthage (ii. 8) {ii. 7.}, as Mazices in the Roman period at different places of the Mauretanian north coast; the similar designation that has remained with the scattered remnants proves that this great people has once had a consciousness, and has permanently retained the impression, of the relationship of its members. To the peoples who came into contact with them this relationship was far from clear; the diversities which prevail among their several parts are not merely at the present day glaring, after in the past thousands of years the mixture with the neighbouring peoples, particularly the Negroes in the south and the Arabs in the north, has had its effect upon them, but certainly were as considerable even before these foreign influences as their extension in space demands. A universally valid expression for the nation as such is wanting in all other idioms; even where the name goes beyond the designation of stock,[275] it yet does not describe the circle as a whole. That of Libyans, which the Egyptians, and after their precedent the Greeks use, belongs originally to the most easterly tribes coming into contact with Egypt, and has always remained specially pertaining to those of the eastern half. That of Nomades, of Greek origin, expresses in the first instance only the absence of settlement, and then in its Roman transformation as Numidians, has become associated with that territory which king Massinissa united under his sway. That of Mauri, of native origin, and current among the later Greeks as well as the Romans, is restricted to the western parts of the land, and continues in use for the kingdoms here formed and the Roman provinces that have proceeded from them. The tribes of the south are comprehended under the name of the Gaetulians, which, however, the stricter use of language limits to the region on the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Mauretania. We are accustomed to designate the nation by the name of Berbers, which the Arabs apply to the northern tribes. [Sidenote: Type.]