How far southward the settlements of this North African race originally extended, it is difficult to say; but it may be gathered, even from ancient writers, that they did not extend to the very border of the naked desert, and that they were bounded on the south by a region occupied by Æthiopian races,—an observation which is confirmed by the present state of things. Wárgela evidently belonged originally to the dominion of the Blacks, as well as Tawát. The Berbers seem in general to have kept within their borders till driven from their native seats by the Arabs: for they had been mildly treated by the former conquerors of the country (the Phœnicians, the Romans, Vandals, and Byzantines), and they appear even to have partly embraced Christianity[65]; but this, of course, was just another principle of opposition between them and their Mohammedan conquerors, and a great proportion of them were evidently obliged to retire into the more desolate regions in their rear. The exact time when this happened we are not able to determine. In the western part of the desert this transmigration commenced before the time of Islam; but in the central part of Barbary the flight of the Berbers seems to have been connected with that numerous immigration of Arab families into North Africa, which took place in the first half of the 11th century, in the time and at the instigation of Ahmed ben ʿAli el Jerjeráni, who died in A.H. 436, or 1044-5 of our era.[66] The fugitives pushed forward in several great divisions, which it is not essential here to enumerate, as, with a few exceptions, they have become extinct. It seems only necessary to advert here to the fact, that of all the reports handed down to us by the ancient Arab historians and geographers respecting the different Berber nations existing in the desert, the name of Tarki, or Tawárek, by which they are at present generally designated, occurs only in Ebn Khaldún[67], under the form Tarká or Táriká; and after him Leo Africanus is the first who, in mentioning the five great tribes, names one of them Terga.[68] This name, which has been given to the Berber inhabitants of the desert, and which Hodgson[69] erroneously supposed to mean “tribe,” is quite foreign to them. The truly indigenous name by which these people call themselves, is the same by which they were already known to the Greeks and Romans, and which was given to their ancestors by Ebn Khaldún and other Arabic writers, viz. Amázigh, Mázigh, Mazix, Masix, Mazys, Mazax, and even Maxitanus in the singular form. The general form now used in these regions is Amóshagh[70] in the singular, Imóshagh in the plural, and Temáshight in the neutral form. This is the native name by which the so-called Tawárek[71] designate their whole nation, which is divided into several great families. And if the reader inquires who gave them the other name, I answer, with full confidence, the Arabs; and the reason why they called them so was probably from their having left or