y of undyed wool, and
unsewn, mere blankets with slits cut in the centre for the head. This
is, however, in every respect, a great difference between the various
districts. The turban is little used by these people, skull-caps
being preferred, while their red cloth gun-cases are commonly twisted
turban-wise as head-gear, though often a camel's-hair cord is deemed
sufficient protection for the head.

Every successive ruler of North Africa has had to do with the problem
of subduing the Berbers and has failed. In the wars between Rome and
Carthage it was among her sturdy Berber soldiers that the southern
rival of the great queen city of the world found actual sinews enough
to hold the Roman legions so long at bay, and often to overcome her
vaunted cohorts and carry the war across into Europe. Where else did
Rome find so near a match, and what wars cost her more than did those
of Africa? Carthage indeed has fallen, and from her once famed Byrsa
the writer has been able to count on his fingers the local remains of
her greatness, yet the people who made her what she was remain--the
Berbers of Tunisia. The Ph[oe]nician settlers, though bringing with
them wealth and learning and arts, could never have done alone what
they did without the hardy fighting men supplied by the hills around.

When Rome herself had fallen, and the fames of Carthage and Utica were
forgotten, there came across North Africa a very different race from
those who had preceded them, the desert Arabs, introducing the creed
of Islam. In the course of a century or two, North Africa became
Mohammedan, pagan and Christian institutions being swept away before
that onward wave. It is not probable that at any time Christianity
had any real hold upon the Berbers themselves, and Islam itself sits
lightly on their easy consciences.

The Arabs had for the moment solved the Berber problem. They were the
amalgam which, by coalescing with the scattered factions of their
race, had bound them up together and had formed for once a nation of
them. Thus it was that the Muslim armies obtained force to carry all
before them, and thus was provided the new blood and the active
temper to which alone are due the conquest of Spain, and subsequent
achievements there. The popular description of the Mohammedan rulers
of Spain as "Saracens"--Easterners--is as erroneous as the supposition
that they were Arabs. The people who conquered Spain were Berbers,
although their leaders often ado