Africa's place in history. 161 



the imperfection of the Roman conquest. Their 

 occupation was of a purely military kind and it 

 did not embrace an extensive area. The Romans 

 were entirely distinct from the natives in manners 

 and ideas. It was natural that the Berbers should 

 reject the religion of a people whose language they 

 did not understand, whose tyranny they detested, 

 and whose power most of them defied. But the Arabs 

 were accustomed to deserts ; they did not settle, like 

 the Romans and Carthaginians, on the coast ; they 

 covered the whole land ; they penetrated into the 

 recesses of the Atlas ; they pursued their enemies 

 into the depths of the Sahara. But they also mingled 

 persuasion with force. They believed that the 

 Berbers were Arabs like themselves and invited 

 them, as kinsmen, to accept the mission of the 

 prophet. They married the daughters of the land ; 

 they gathered round their standards the warriors whom 

 they had defeated, and led them to the glorious con- 

 quest of Spain. The two people became one ; the 

 language and religion of the Arabs were accepted by 

 the Moors. 



With this event, the biography of ancient Africa is 

 closed, and the history of Asiatic Africa begins. But 

 I have in this work a two-fold story to unfold. I 

 have to describe The Dark Continent ; to show in what 

 way it is connected with Universal History ; what it 

 has received, and what it has contributed to the de- 

 velopment of man. And I have also to sketch in 

 broad outline the human history itself. This task has 

 been forced upon me in the course of my inquiries. It 

 is impossible to measure a tributary and to estimate 

 its value with precision, except by comparing it with the 

 other affluents, and by carefully mapping the main stream. 



L 



