480 APPENDIX K. 



tion, who from an early period have ruled the open country 

 and carried on all commercial intercourse ; while the character- 

 istic grammatical features have been in many respects obscured 

 or efiaced. On the other hand, it appears from a recent publica- 

 tion by General Faidherbe ' that the dialect spoken at the 

 south-western limit of the Bereber races, adjoining the river 

 Senegal, while preserving the chief Bereber grammatical cha- 

 racteristics, has undergone much etymological alteration, whether 

 from contact with the Negro tribes, or from inherent causes. As 

 far as the available materials enable us to form a judgment, it 

 seems clear that the best living representative of the Bereber 

 language is that spoken by the Touarecks of the Great Desert, 

 and especially by the great tribes, the Azguer and Ahaggar, who 

 occupy between them a territory measuring at least half a 

 million of square miles. Of this, which is properly called 

 Tamashek', a grammar was published by General Hanoteau in 

 1860, and another by Mr. Stanhope Freeman in 1862. The 

 Tamashek' is distinguished from the other languages of the 

 same family by the greater regularity and completeness of its 

 grammatical system, by the comparative absence of Arab words, 

 of which the Kabyle shows a large infusion ; but especially by 

 the possession of a system of writing, rude, indeed, and imper- 

 fect, but not known to any other branch of the Bereber stock. 

 This privilege has not led to the growth of a national literature ; 

 the written characters are used only for rock inscriptions, for 

 mottoes on shields, and occasionally for verses on festive occa- 

 sions ; but their use is widely spread among men of the higher 

 class, and still more among the women, and, however restricted, 

 has doubtless tended to give comparative fixity to the lan- 

 guage. 



Of the Shelluh tongue the materials available are, indeed, 

 very scanty. The most considerable document is contained in the 

 ninth volume of the ' Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society,' 

 where Mr. Francis Newman has given a literal Latin version of 

 a story written in Arabic characters by a native of South Ma- 

 rocco. It would require far more knowledge of the Shelluh 

 language and familiarity with Arabic writing than I possess to 

 enter on any examination of that document ; and there is the 



I Lc Zenaga des Trihtig SSneffaJaises. Paris, 1877. 



