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 Islám. 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 Islám 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 adopted Arabic names with an Arab religion and Arab culture. The Arabic language, although official, was by no means general, nor is it otherwise to-day. The men who fought and the men who ruled were Berbers out and out, though the latter were often the sons of Arab fathers or mothers, and the great religious chiefs were purely Arab on the father's side at least, the majority claiming descent from Mohammed himself, and as such forming a class apart of shareefs or nobles.
Though nominal Mohammedans, and in Morocco acknowledging the religious supremacy of the reigning shareefian family, the Moorish Berbers still retain a semi-independence. The mountains of the Atlas chain have always been their home and refuge, where the plainsmen find it difficult and dangerous to follow them. The history of the conquest of Algeria and Tunisia by the French has shown that they are no mean opponents even to modern weapons and modern warfare. The Kabyles,[3] as they are erroneously styled in those countries, have still to be kept in check by the fear of arms, and their prowess no one disputes. These are the people the French propose to subdue by "pacific penetration." The awe with which these mountaineers have inspired the plainsmen and townsfolk is remarkable; as good an illustration of it as I know was the effect produced on a Moor by my explanation that a Highland friend to whom I had introduced him was not an Englishman, but what I might call a "British Berber." The man was absolutely awe-struck.