49^ MORAL AND POLITICAL STATE. 
or weakness, take the opportunity of acting for 
themselves, and giving a loose to their predatory 
habits. AH the Arabs are attached, with bigotted 
zeal, to the Mussulman tenets. 
These, which form the mass of the population 
of Barbary, are all aboriginal races. The moun- 
tains and deserts to the south harbour a number 
of tribes, whose native valour and inaccessible 
abodes have enabled them to preserve their dis- 
tinct character and original institutions. The 
Brebes or Brebers occupy the larger portion of 
the chain of the Atlas. The Errifi, who inhabit 
the mountains between Algiers and Morocco, and 
the Shelluhs, who occupy the southern part of 
the latter empire, appear to be merely branches 
of the same race. It reappears in Nubia, where 
it borders on Egypt, and where the Barabras, or 
Berberins, seem merely a branch of the Brebers. 
To these we may add the Tibbo and the Tuarick, 
who inhabit so large a portion of the African 
desert. The radical identity of all these tribes 
seems established by Adehmg,* from the use of 
merely different dialects of the same language, 
doubtless one of the most ancient in existence. 
The little that is known of the Tibbo and Tuarick 
will be found in our analysis of the journal of 
* Mithridates, oder Allgemeine Sprachenkunde, B. HI. 
Th. I. 
