[Footnote 106: It will be well to say a few words about this name, as the way in which I write it has been made the subject of criticism. Tin- téllust means “(the valley) with or of the téllust;” “tin” is the pronoun expressing possession, and exactly corresponds with the Western Arabic متاع. It is of very frequent occurrence, as well in names of localities as of tribes, and even of men, such as Tin-Yerátan, son of Wasembú, the celebrated King of Aúdaghost. “Téllust” is the feminine form of “ellus,” the feminine Berber nouns having the peculiarity of not only beginning with _t_, but often ending with it likewise. (Newman, in Zeitschrift für Kunde des Morgenlandes, 1845, vol. vi. p. 275.)] [Footnote 107: These mountains, which from this side seem to form a well-defined group, have, as far as I know, no general name.] CHAP. XIV. ETHNOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS OF AÏR. The name Aïr, exactly as it is written and pronounced by the natives at the present day, first occurs in the description of Leo, which was written in 1526.[108] The country Káher, mentioned by the traveller Ebn Batúta[109] on his home-journey from Tekádda by way of the wells of Asïu, is evidently somewhere hereabouts, but seems rather to denote the region a few days’ journey west from Tintéllust, and to be identical with the “Ghir” of Leo[110], though this extended more to the S.W. The name being written by the Arabs with an _h_ (Ahír), most historical geographers have erroneously concluded that this is the true indigenous form of the name.[111] Aïr, however, does not appear to be the original name of the country, but seems to have been introduced by the Berber conquerors, the former name being Asben or Absen, as it is still called by the black and the mixed population. Asben was formerly the country of the Góberáwa, the most considerable and noble portion of the Háusa nation, which does not seem to belong to the pure Negro races, but to have originally had some relationship with North Africa; and from this point of view the statement of Sultan Bello cannot be regarded as absurd, when in the introduction to his historical work on the conquests of the Fulbe, “Infák él misúri fi fat hah el Tekrúri,” he calls the people of Góber Copts[112], though only one family is generally considered by the learned men of the country as of foreign origin.