284 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



or discussed by philologists, is that the Berber name for 

 the olive, both tree and fruit, has the root taz or tas, 

 similar to the tat of the ancient Egyptians. The Kabyles 

 of the district of Algiers, according to the French- 

 Berber dictionary, published by the French Govenaraent, 

 calls the wild olive tazebboujt, tesettha, ou zebbouj, and 

 the grafted olive tazevimourt, tasettha, ou' zemmour. The 

 Touaregs, another Berber nation, call it tamahinet} These 

 are strong indications of the antiquity of the olive in 

 Africa. The Arabs having conquered this countiy and 

 driven back the Berbers into the mountains and the 

 desert, having likewise subjected Spain excepting the 

 Basque country, the names derived from the Semitic zeit 

 have prevailed even in Spanish. The Arabs of Algiers say 

 zenboiidje for the wild, zitoun for the cultivated olive,^ zit 

 for olive oil. The Andalusians call the wild olive aze- 

 bucJie, and the cultivated aceyiimo^ In other provinces 

 we find the name of Latin origin, olivio, side by side with 

 the Arabic words.* The oil is in Spanish aceyte, which 

 is almost the Hebrew name ; but the holy oils are called 

 oleos Santos, because they belong to Rome. The Basques 

 use the Lc.tin name for the olive ti'ee. 



Early voyagers to the Canaries, Bontier for instance, 

 in 1403, mention the olive tree in these islands, where 

 modern botanists regard it as indigenous.^ It may have 

 been introduced by the Phoenicians, if it did not pre- 

 viously exist there. We do not know if the Guanchos 

 had names for the olive and its oil. Webb and Berthelot 

 do not give any in their learned chapter on the language 

 of the aborigines,^ so the question is open to conjecture. 

 It seems to me that the oil would have played an impor- 

 tant part among the Guanchos if they had possessed the 

 olive, and that some traces of it would have remained in 

 the actual speech of the people. From this point of view 



. * Duveyricr, Les Touaregs chi Nord (ISGi), p. 179. 



* Munbv, Flore de I'Algerie, p. 2 ; Debeaux, Catal. Boghar, p. 63. 



* BciEsier, Vcjage Bot. en Espagne, edit. 1, vol. ii. p. 407. 



* Willkoirm and Lange, Prod. Fl. Hispan., ii. p. 672. 



* Welb and Berthelot, Hist. Nat. des Cmmries, Geog. Bot., pp. 47, 4S. 



* Webb and Berthelot, ibid., Eihnographie, p ISS. 



