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Show 534 TIIE MONOGENISTS AND Kab?lylee: whilst the Kabyle mountaineer, i.n bringing his produce to market, has much more need of Arabic than an Algerian .Arab has of Bcrbor.391 ".Albeit, thet·c exist whole tribes who present the bilingual character. But, among such septa the principal localities almost always bear names of Berber origin; which seems to announce that, upon these diflorcnt points, tho Kaoai'l had originally poAsesscd the soil. Tho existence of these doublo-Ianguagcd populations expresses, therefore, nothing else than the transition between the primitive stratum, formed out of the J(abyle element, and tho alluvial stratum, formed out of the .Arabic element. * * * "Two incontestable facts arc the following, viz: prior even to the most ancient of invasions [the Punico-Canaanitis]J ?], there existed, along this part of the .African coast, a people m1d an idiom differing from all those peoples, and from all those idioms, which were to ucceed each otl1or tlUl·ing 2000 years; and that, now-a-days, the last [French] invasion finds again, in tl1is country, a people and an idiom different from all those which preceded it." 'l'he well-known "monument of Dugga" contained 7 lines in Phcnnician, and 7 others in an unknown writing. After tho French occupation (1830), abundant bilingual inscriptions were found,sometimes Latin, at others Punic; but ever accompankd by the same unintelligible characters. The Berber alvhabct, observed by OuDNEY in 1822, advanced by DE SAur.oy in 1844, and recovered by BnrssONNET in 1845, has aided to unfold a great fact, viz: "the examination of these documents leaves no doubt as to the close relationship that exists between the idiom of these antique in. criptions and that other idiom now being spoken from tho Egyptian Oas1s of Scewah (westwanl ) to the shore of the Ocean, and (southwards) from tho M ditorrancan to the confines of the Sooclan (ncgro-la~ds). Hone the secular filiation of the Libyan tongue has revealed Itself,- a ton guo poor and simple, of which the type has p rpctuatcd itself in 1ho present idiom of the Kabtdl, athwart the course of ages and tho vi issitudcs of revolutions; without any other parchmc11t than the sudacc of desert-rocks, without any other means of conservation than tho vis inertire of tradition ;-now known hy the scv?ral names of Be1·be1·, Oltaweeya, or J(abyle; which becomes a d1alect called Lar' oua in parts of the Sahara, aud SltilMeya on the Atlas range. 893 For the topogrnphioo.l distribution of those clnns, see tho cxccllont "Corte de I' Alg6rio .. divis6e par 'l'ribus," by CAn•:T1'E and WARNIER, ro.ris, 1846: -also, WILHEJ,M Our:n MULI.En, Atlas etlmo-(Jlograplliqut, "Loa po.ys ot los pouplos * * * do ln Berberi~ dana lour ~tat notuel," Paris nnd Leipzig (Urookhnus and Avorum·ius). TIIE POLYGENISTS. 535 "The different names under which this idiom presents itself arc recognized in a common appellative, as if forming brancbes of one and the same trunk. The word Berber comprises equally the Kah:Xil of tho littoral, the Chawecya of tho south-cast, the Shilh6cya of Morocco, the Beni-M'zab, and the Touariks: aucl, in tho same manner that,all these dialects offer but slight di.Lfcrcncos among thcnu~clves, leaving no doubt whatever as to their community of origin, so the pco1 los that make usc of them must be regarded as the scaLL red members of one and the same family." On the Jmjura plateaux there is a tribe still called (beni, Arabic for "sons") Beni-IQbUa; another on the Aurea is ( owUtd, = " children ") Oued-Sltelih, or SltilMeya; and a third, Beni-Be1·ber: and thus, without break in the chaiu of nomenclature, we can now ascend,-in the same language, race, and country-from the T-Arnazirg, or Amazirg-T, or "li'1·ee-men," name given by this people to tltcmsclvcs,39 ' thl'ough the Mazee-elt of Arab authors, to the Gentes Mazicx of the Romans,-and thence, finally to the MtxguEs of Ilcrodotus, iu whoso day they were {3txp{3txpo•; that is to say, not barbarians etymologically, but these same old Berbe?' oi, our "Berbers." From tho earliest times, when they were tho "bow-country " and the "nine-bow-countries " of Egyptian hieroglyphics of the Xllth dynasty, 22 centuries n. o., through the period when they bad become the Misulani, Saboubares, and quinquegentani of Latin writers, these Berbers have ever been the same "unconquerable Moors (llfatwi) ;" to such degree, that their highland fastnesses amid the Atlas were designated as "mons fcrratus" by the liomau legions, and "eladoowa" (the inimical) by the later Saraconic lancers- " (Gens) t.orva, fcrox, procax, verbo~a, robollis."99S My above allusion to the familiar hieroglyphics for Libyan nations prompts reference to new inquii·ics that l1avc just arisen as to tho question-How far did the pharaonic Egyptians push their conquests into Wcstcm Aft-ica? Manctho 390 says that M.~t:NES (Ist dynasty, n. c. 40 centuries) gained glory fi:om his foreign wars; and that under NEOIIEROCJHS (llid dynasty), not very long after, the "Libyans wore defeated by tho Egyptians:" but, until recently, no conohorativo testimonies had boon suspected, oven, in Barbary itself: The :first discovery of such monumental analogy was made by tho daring travel-s~ JfonasoN (of Savannah, Go..), cited in GMonoN, Otia .i!J,'gitPiiaca, pp. 117-20. 896 As G1ouoN somowhcre snys of tho Armorionns: or, in the more explicit Cnstilinn of a wrathy old Spanish writer, not partial to l\'ruHs ulrnans, ITA:oo,-" Moros, Alarbes, Cnbnylcs, y algunos 1.'urcos, todos gente pucrcn, suzin, torpo, indomita, inhnvil, inhumnnn, bostiltl; y por to.nto, tuvo por ciorto rnzon el quo d11 pooos oil•>S non. n.custumbro llamnr a csta ticr1·a Barbaria" (PASOAJ, DuPRAT, .Ajtique S eptmtriouale, 184G, p. GG, uoto). soo Toxt in DuNslm, Egypt'8 Place, i pp. (lll, 616. ~~~.~.l 'l ,',lI' I |
