INTRODUCTION xi 



Commerce even carries its dialects into Tripoli. But this i 

 Tibu-Kanuri group of tongues has no discernible connec- ] 

 tion with any other African group and is utterly dissimilar 

 in syntax and in word-roots from the sex-denoting Hami- 

 tic, Libyan, Egyptian and Semitic languages of North 

 and North-east Africa. Neither does it offer any point 

 of resemblance with the Nubian group, with the Niger 

 families, with Songhai or Fulfulde. It is rather hurriedly 

 called a 'Negro' tongue, which explains nothing. ThereJ 

 seem to have been many pre-Aryan, pre-Semitic, pre- 

 Hamitic forms of speech generated by the White man 

 in Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, which, like 

 the original language-impulse of the Bantu and Semi- 

 Bantu, were introduced into Tropical Africa and sub- 

 sequently adopted by the Negro, who was at all times so 

 easily influenced by the White invader. The Tibu speech 

 seems to have been one of the several distinct groups of 

 tongues (Fula may have been another) spoken in North 

 Africa before that region was invaded from the east by 

 the Hamites and from the North-west by the Libyans. 

 It was pushed southwards into Fazan and thence ex- 

 tended across the Libyan Desert to the oases of Kufara. 



But though ranking themselves as 'white men' or atHf 

 any rate as a racial type much above the Negro, the Tibu 

 were not quickly on the White man's side in religion. The 

 ancient Garamantes became Christian only a short time 

 before the Moslem invasion of Tripoli ; and were possibly 

 not Islamized until the eleventh century. Probably the 

 Tebu of Kufara were of some vaguely Pagan faith when 

 their oases were invaded by the Zwiya Arabs of Fazan 

 two or three hundred years ago. As they only had spears 

 and arrows to defend themselves against the invaders who 

 were armed with guns, they were soon conquered, semi- 

 enslaved, and coerced to adopt the Muslim faith. They 

 seem to have possessed camels of what is known as the 



