BARBARY. 



251 



Barbary. 



Origin of 

 name. 



llUtory. 



reckoned more than 8 degrees, or 556 males, while at 

 the narrowest point it is not above 2 degrees, or J 39 

 miles. It cor-mences on the west, where Mount 

 Atlas approaches the Atlantic, stretches along the 

 coast in a north-east direction to cape Spartel, and 

 thence proceeds with various windings, but chiefly m 

 an easterly course, along the shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean to the city of Alexandria. . 

 Various conjectures have been formed respecting 

 the origin and import of the word Barbary. Some 

 have derived it from the general appellation Barba- 

 rians, which the Romans, when they conquered the 

 country, are supposed to have applied, by way of 

 eminence, to the inhabitants of North Africa. Others 

 suppose it to have originated with the Arabian con- 

 querors, in whose language " barbar" signifies a mur- 

 muring noise, and who are understood to have given 

 this name to the country, because the language of 

 the natives appeared to them at first as merely an in- 

 articulate, muttering sound. Others, again, have 

 considered it as nothing more than a repetition of the 

 Arabic term " bar," which signifies a desert ; and as- 

 cribe its origin to the following circumstance, that, 

 when king Ifrick, in his flight from Arabia Felix, 

 was hesitating which course to take, his attendants ex- 

 claimed, " bar, bar!" to the desert, to the desert! 

 It has, last of all, been deduced from the word Ber- 

 ber or Berebber, signifying barren, a name, which is 

 supposed to have been appropriated to the north A- 

 fricans, on account of the barrenness of their soil, and 

 which is still retained by the inhabitants of the moun- 

 tainous districts of Barbary. But the word Berebbers 

 denotes also shepherds ; and the shepherd tribes who 

 were expelled from Egypt, are conjectured to have 

 taken refuge in Abyssinia and northern Africa : hence, 

 according to Mr Bruce, Barbary may be equivalent 

 to Barbaria, or Berberia, " the country of the Be- 

 rebbers," that is, of the shepherd race. 



The ancient history of Barbary will be found more 

 at large under the articles Numidians, Maurita- 

 nians, Carthaginians Romans, and the other na- 

 tions by whom, it was formerly inhabited, or to whom 

 it was successively subjected. It is conjectured, with 

 sufficient probability, that this country received its first 

 inhabitants from Egypt, and that it was afterwards co- 

 lonized by the Phenicians. By this enterprising peo- 

 ple the cities of Utica and Carthage were founded ; 

 and as the Carthaginians increased in wealth and 

 power, they either reduced or rendered tributary most 

 of the other states in the north of Africa. Upon 

 the fall of Carthage, B. C. 144, the greater part of 

 those provinces of which Barbary now consists, be- 

 came subject to the Romans, and continued under 

 their government till the year of Christ 428. About 

 this period, the Vandals under king Genseric began 

 to make incursions from Spain into Africa ; and be- 

 fore the year 455, rendered themselves complete mas- 

 ters of all that the Romans had possessed in that 

 quarter of the globe. These savage conquerors gave 

 the first fatal blow to the prosperity of northern 

 Africa, and reduced its most flourishing cities to a 

 state of desolation, from which they have never recover- 

 ed. The noblest monuments of Roman grandeur 

 were converted into heaps of ruins ; while the mi- 

 serable inhabitants were involved in the most relent- 



VOL. III. PART II. 



less persecutions. About the year 530, the power Barbary. 

 of these barbarous invaders was completely over- , > i ' 

 thrown by the renowned Belisarius ; and . Barbary 

 remained under the dominion of the Greek emperors, 

 till towards the end of the 7th century, when it was 

 overrun by the resistless arms of the Mahometan 

 Arabs, and formed a part of that vast empire of 

 which the caliphs were the head. Its great distance, m 

 however, from the seat of government, encouraged its 

 rulers to assert their independence ; and the caliphs 

 were often obliged to connive at acts of rebellion 

 which they were unable to prevent. In this manner J 

 Barbary was gradually divided into a number of petty 

 kingdoms, continually at war with each other, and 

 continually varying in their extent. It was the scene 

 of many sanguinary revolutions, and was ruled by se- 

 veral succeeding dynasties, whose history is very im- 

 perfectly known, and scarcely deserving of a particular 

 detail. It continued in this unsettled and neglected 

 state till the beginning of the 16th century, when the 

 rise of the piratical states under the Barbarossas, (See 

 Algiers and Barbarossa,) rendered it at once more 

 formidable and better known to the nations of Eu- 

 rope. Since this last mentioned icra it has been fre- 

 quently visited by travellers, and described by a great 

 variety of authors ; but it must still be considered as 

 a country with which we are very imperfectly ac- 

 quainted. This may be ascribed chiefly to the very 

 short and rapid visits which Europeans in general 

 make to this country ; to the superficial knowledge 

 which they possess of the language of the inhabi- 

 tants ; to the watchful jealousy with which foreign 

 residents are regarded by the governments ; to the 

 bigotted and bloody antipathy which the natives en- 

 tertain towards the subjects of Christian states ; and 

 to the incalculable hazards to which travellers are ex- 

 posed from ihe plundering Arabs, against whose fe- 

 rocious cupidity even the authority of the princes can 

 scarcely afford sufficient protection. 



The country of Barbary, as has been already men- states ami 

 tioned, soon after its subjection to the caliphs, was govem- 

 divided into a multitude of petty sovereignties ; but ment. 

 these have been so continually varying, both as to 

 their particular number and relative strength, that it 

 is impossible either to enumerate or describe them 

 with any tolerable degree of accuracy. The chief of 

 them at present are, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tri- 

 poli ; and to one or other of these, the smaller king- 

 doms of Fez, Tremecen, Constantina, Barca, &c. 

 are now become subject. The largest of these, Mo- 

 rocco and Fez, comprehending the greater part of 

 west and south Barbary, forms an entire and indepen- 

 dent empire of itself. The more northern and eas- 

 tern states are still in some degree dependent upon 

 the Turkish power, or at least occasionally claim its 

 protection. For a separate account of whatever may 

 be peculiar in each of these divisions, with respect to 

 history, description, government, population, &c. 

 we refer the reader to the several articles Algiers, 

 Morocco, Tunis, Tuii-oli, &c. ; and shall here en- 

 deavour to collect and arrange, in one view, such ob- 

 servations as apply to the country and inhabitants of 

 Barbary in general. 



The climate of Barbary is, in general, peculiarly Clirhafe. 

 temperate and salubrious, equally removed from the 

 2k 



