504 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
Gurara, and Tidikelt, recently taken by the French. They belong to 
the old Berber tribe, the Zenata, and number not 400,000 as is usually 
assumed, but only 60,000, which indicates that this region is also very 
sterile. Berbers make up almost entirely the inhabitants of the oases 
of Wed Rir and the Tunisian Sahara, and also the people of the oasis 
studded desert plateaus extending from the bend of the Lesser Syrtis 
at Gabes to the western limits of the Greater Syrtis. The semi- 
nomadic tribes in the hilly country extending along the coast south 
of the Atlas Mountains to Cape Juby are likewise Berbers. 
The principal home of the Berbers, however, is the Atlas region, 
although until recently they were all considered Arabs, on account 
of the general prevalence of the Arabic language and because the 
French have long persisted in the unfortunate error of not differ- 
entiating between Arabs and Berbers, and have generally spoken only 
of Arabs. Yet how fundamentally different are they in physical 
and mental characteristics! 
The number of pure Arabs in all northwest Africa is very small. 
Kven the conquering invaders were few in number, both actually 
and in comparison with the Berber folk which they encountered. 
For how could any great number of truly nomadic people be produced 
from thinly populated Arabia? It was a small army according to 
our ideas. The results they accomplished were due to the idea that 
the soldiers represented, the reckless fanaticism which possessed 
them, and the disastrous political and social condition of the people 
they encountered. | 
The first Arab influx of any great extent took place in 1050 A. D., 
when the central Arabian nomad tribes Uled Hilal and Uled Soleim, 
amounting at most to about 250,000, entered the country. With the 
coming of these nomad hordes the wasting of the country began. 
Part of them also scattered over the Saraha, and being herdsmen 
they appropriated the plains and valleys by preference, and forced 
the Berbers into the mountains. They penetrated gradually even 
into the extreme western parts into the plains of the Atlas foreland 
of Morocco, where there are to-day Arab tribes like the Amar, who 
live a little south of Tangier, the Khlot and Tlig, between El Ksar 
and Larash, the Howara in Sus and the Vled Delim south of Tensift, 
who have maintained themselves in such a pure state that they can 
be recognized as Arabs by their physical peculiarities, although they 
have assumed many of the Berber characteristics. They have re- 
mained nomads to this day, or at best are seminomads even under 
the influence of the most favorable conditions of land. 
flow many pure Arabs there are in the Atlas region is very difficult 
to state. Hamy has recently estimated them to be about 60,000 in 
Tunis, out of the one and a half million inhabitants. The tribes of 
Hamema in south Tunis near Gafsa and the Riah between Ed Djem 
