•^ History Prior to the Middle Ages 



is just possible, therefore, that the Canary Islands may only 

 have been peopled by Moors about two or three thousand 

 years ago, with the aid of Carthaginian or Phoenician vessels. 

 If, however, the case was otherwise, and the Moors of 

 prehistoric periods possessed vessels in which they could 

 at any rate cross the strait of sixty miles between the 

 Morocco coast and the Canary Islands, they might have 

 managed to journey in the same way along the north-west 

 coast of Africa. Probably they travelled overland along the 

 Atlantic fringe of the Sahara Desert to the Senegal even in 

 prehistoric times. The Fula race is an ancient relic of Berber 

 advance in this direction. 



After the destruction of the Roman Empire in North Africa 

 at the hands of the Arabs and Arabised Berbers, all exploration 

 of West Africa by Mediterranean peoples came to an end for 

 a hundred and fifty years, yet afterwards developed in a more 

 surprising way than ever. The first Arab invaders of Morocco 

 possessed no means of sea-transport, and all communication 

 between Morocco and the Canary Islands seems utterly to have 

 ceased ; so that the Berber inhabitants of the Canary Islands, when 

 they were rediscovered by Normans, Portuguese, Italians, and 

 Spaniards, were absolutely untouched by Muhammadanism, and 

 showed but little aflinity in customs with the people of Morocco, 

 though they spoke a Berber language and were apparently Libyan 

 in their physical features. It is an interesting fact to be noted 

 that Ca' da Mosto, a Venetian sea-captain in the service of 

 the Portuguese, who visited the Canary Islands early in the 

 fifteenth century, describes the natives (afterwards called Guanches 

 by the Spaniards) as being much given to nudity, the adults 

 sometimes appearing without a vestige of clothing. This 

 trait — nudity — is absolutely unlike anything recorded of the 

 inhabitants of North Africa in historic times, 



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