THE MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLES—FISCHER. 507 
by the Government in Morocco, in order to weaken and subdue some 
of the tribes. They would deliver one tribe, with whom they could 
do nothing by fair means, over to another or several others to be 
“eaten up.” These always carried out the commission as thoroughly 
as possible, so that the implacable hatred of the conquered people 
was rendered ineffective for a long time. 
The Berbers are endowed with all the characteristics, physical and 
intellectual, which go to make superior soldiers: personal bravery, 
scorn of death, and sobriety. The French would before long have 
had all of them organized into a large army, but since by so doing 
a hostile force would be assembled, only a few thousand men were 
enrolled. Berbers form the principal part of the Tirailleur regiment. 
It is to be observed, however, that these physical characteristics, as 
well as the astonishing longevity which was noted even in the Roman 
inscriptions in the eastern Atlas region, are to be attributed to the 
fact that only the strongest by nature survive the lack of care during 
childhood. 
The skin of the Berbers is light brown like the southern Europeans; 
their hair is usually brown, though frequently blond, and their eyes 
are blue. Their countenance is open, fearless, and intelligent, and 
their eyes full of life. 
The Beni Mgild of the central Atlas region of Morocco are termed 
reddish blond by de Segonzac; the neighboring Ait Aiach are also 
usually blond and blue-eyed, according to him. The Fahcya around 
Tangier are mostly brown or blond with blue eyes, and Ch. Tissot 
maintains also that the blond element is most frequent among the 
Berbers of the Moroccan Atlas country, where they have retained 
the purest type. At least one-third of all the inhabitants there are 
blond. The same is true of the Berbers of Jurjura and of the Aures 
Mountains in Algeria. 
Colonel Lartigue, who has made a comprehensive study of the 
Shauia of these mountains, says that they closely resemble Europeans 
and often have blond hair, although they are generally dark. They 
are wiry and thin and their average height is about 1.75 meters 
(5 feet 9 inches). Kobelt, the German physician, and naturalist, 
asserts that among the Milianah west of Algiers half of the children 
have blond hair and blue eyes, and even among the adults there is a 
striking number of blonds or of those with light-brown hair. The 
Berbers of Jerba also are blond or have chestnut-brown hair. This 
characteristic is verified by the oldest extant set of sailing directions 
for the Mediterranean, the Stadiasmos, in the latter half of the third 
century A. D., where these Berbers are mentioned as blond and very 
handsome. 
The famous poet Kallimachos, a Cyrenean Greek of the third 
century B. C., also tells of the light color of the indigenes of Cyrene, 
