[8] The middle Western Region consists of Algiers and part of Tunis.
[9] Pliny, the Elder, confirms this tradition mentioned by Pliny. Marcus Yarron reports, "that in all Spain there are spread Iberians, Persians, Phoenicians, Celts, and Carthaginians." (Lib. iii. chap. 2).
[10] In Latin, Mauri, Maurice, Maurici, Maurusci, and it is supposed, so called by the Greeks from their dark complexions.
[11] The more probable derivation of this word is from bar, signifying land, or earth, in contradistinction from the sea, or desert, beyond the cultivable lands to the South. To give the term more force it is doubled, after the style of the Semitic reduplication. De Haedo de la Captividad gives a characteristic derivation, like a genuine hidalgo, who proclaimed eternal war against Los Moros. He says—"Moors, Alartes, Cabayles, and some Turks, form all of them a dirty, lazy, inhuman, indomitable nation of beasts, and it is for this reason that, for the last few years, I have accustomed myself to call that land the land of Barbary."
[12] Procopius, de Bello Vandilico, lib. ii. cap. 10.
[13] Some derive it from Sarak, an Arabic word which signifies to steal, and hence, call the conquerors thieves. Others, and with more probability, derive it from Sharak, the east, and make them Orientals, and others say there is an Arabic word Saracini, which means a pastoral people, and assert that Saracine is a corruption from it, the new Arabian immigrants being supposed to have been pastoral tribes.
[14] Some suppose that Amayeegh means "great," and the tribes thus distinguished themselves, as our neighbours are wont to do by the phrase "la grande nation." The Shoulah are vulgarly considered to be descended from the Philistines, and to have fled before Joshua on the conquest of Palestine.
In his translation of the Description of Spain, by the Shereef El-Edris (Madrid, 1799), Don Josef Antonio Conde speaks of the Berbers in a note—
"Masmuda, one of the five principal tribes of Barbaria; the others are Zeneta, called Zenetes in our novels and histories, Sanhagha which we name Zenagas; Gomêsa is spelt in our histories Gomares and Gomeles. Huroara, some of these were originally from Arabia; there were others, but not so distinguished. La de Ketâma was, according to tradition, African, one of the most ancient, for having come with Afrikio.
"Ben Kis Ben Taifi Ben Tebâ, the younger, who came from the king of the
Assyrians, to the land of the west.