[7] See Appendix at the end of this volume.
[8] The middle Western Region consists of Algiers and part of Tunis.
[9] Pliny, the Elder, confirms this tradition mentioned by Pliny. Marcus
Yarron reports, "that in all Spain there are spread Iberians, Persians,
Phoenicians, Celts, and Carthaginians." (Lib. iii. chap. 2).
[10] In Latin, Mauri, Maurice, Maurici, Maurusci, and it is supposed, so
called by the Greeks from their dark complexions.
[11] The more probable derivation of this word is from _bar_, signifying
land, or earth, in contradistinction from the sea, or desert, beyond the
cultivable lands to the South. To give the term more force it is
doubled, after the style of the Semitic reduplication. De Haedo de la
Captividad gives a characteristic derivation, like a genuine hidalgo,
who proclaimed eternal war against Los Moros. He says--"Moors, Alartes,
Cabayles, and some Turks, form all of them a dirty, lazy, inhuman,
indomitable nation of beasts, and it is for this reason that, for the
last few years, I have accustomed myself to call that land the land of
Barbary."
[12] Procopius, de Bello Vandilico, lib. ii. cap. 10.
[13] Some derive it from _Sarak_, an Arabic word which signifies to
steal, and hence, call the conquerors thieves. Others, and with more
probability, derive it from _Sharak_, the east, and make them Orientals,
and others say there is an Arabic word _Saracini_, which means a
pastoral people, and assert that Saracine is a corruption from it, the
new Arabian immigrants being supposed to have been pastoral tribes.
[14] Some suppose that _Amayeegh_ means "great," and the tribes thus
distinguished themselves, as our neighbours are wont to do by the phrase
"la grande nation." The Shoulah are vulgarly considered to be descended
from the Philistines, and to have fled before Joshua on the conquest of
Palestine.
In his translation of the Description of Spain, by the Shereef El-Edris
(Madrid, 1799), Don Josef Antonio Conde speaks of the Berbers in a
note--
"Masmuda, one of the five principal tribes of Barbaria; the others are
Zeneta, called Zenetes in our novels and histories, Sanhagha which we
name Zenagas; Gomêsa is spelt in our histories Gomares and Gomeles.
Huroara, some of these were originally from Arabia; there were others,
but not so distinguished. La de Ketâma was, according to tradition,
African, one of the most ancient, for having come with Afrikio.
"Ben Kis Ben Taifi Ben Tebâ, the younger, who came from the king of the
Assyrians, to the land of the west.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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