The Eastern Libyans (1914)

Oric Bates

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136248849
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mediorientale

First published in 1914, this is a systematic treatment of the people whose contribution to civilization of the Nile Valley was for so long a source of controversy.

CHAPTER I

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF EASTERN LIBYA¹

MAN’ relations to his physical environment are of such vital importance that it is essential at the outset of this essay for the reader to be acquainted with the physiography and climatology of those regions over which the Eastern Libyans were anciently distributed. This is the more necessary because, on the one hand, the characteristics of Africa between Egypt and Tunisia are such as profoundly to influence the lives and habits of those dwelling in that area, and because, upon the other, the existing general descriptions of this region as a whole are unsatisfactory.

Eastern Libya may be deied as that area bounded on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by the Nile Valley, and on the south by the twenty-second parallel of north latitude. To the west, it is bordered by a line running S. from the Shott el-Gerîd on the eighth meridian (E. Greenwich) to lat. 28° N. ; thence on S.E. to lat. 22° N. In the most general terms, the region thus defined may be described as a central rectangle of desert, with a fertile coastal belt on the north ; a still more fertile strip, the Nile Valley, on the east ; the fertile mountains of Tibesti on the southwest, and a chain of small oases along the western border. South of the northern fertile zone runs another chain of oases ; yet a third lies in the eastern section, parallel to the Nile. Such, in its broadest outlines, is the region which is discussed in the present chapter:² for convenience it will be treated under the following eight headings :—

I.	The Littoral Zone—the Syrtes ; Cyrenaica ; Marmarica.
II.	The Libyan Desert—Northern and Eastern Oases; Nile Valley ; Kufra.
III.	The West—the Chad Route Oases ; Hamadah el-Homrah ; Hamadah Murzuk.
IV.	Internal Geography—Roads ; Rates of Travel.
V.	Geographic position with regard to outlying regions—the West ; South ; East ; North.
VI.	Climatology.
VII.	Flora ; Fauna.
VIII.	Man—Present Numbers ; Distribution ; Relations of Man to his Environment in Eastern Libya.

I. THE LITTORAL ZONE

The East Libyan littoral is about 11OO miles in length, measured from long. 1o° E. in the Gulf of Kabes to long. 29° 30’. in the el-Arabs Gulf, near Alexandria. The general trend of the shore line, from its western extremity, is S.E. to the bottom of the Syrtis Major, a distance of about 500 miles; thence N. by E. about 100 miles, following the western coast of Cyrenaica, thence to the el-Arabs Gulf, about 550 miles in a mean E.S.E. direction. The above courses define the main bends of the coast : they are, as it were, the simplest terms short of a right line to which the coastal traverse can be reduced. By examination of the littoral somewhat more in detail, though again without regard for its minor irregularities, it will be seen to proceed thus, from west to east :—

Gulf of Kabes to Cape Mizratah, about 275 miles S.E. by E.

Thence to Zerîd (S.W. part of the Syrtis Major), about 50 miles S.

„Marsa Braygah (S.E. part of the Syrtis Major), about 180 miles S.E. by E.

„Benghazî (W. extremity of Cyrenaica), about 100 miles N. by E.

„Ras et-Tîn (E. extremity of Cyrenaica), about 175 miles E. by N.

„Ras el-Mudawr (S.E. extremity of Cyrenaica), about 30 miles S.S.E.

„Ras el-Milh (beginning of Gulf of Solium), about 90 miles E. by S.

„Sollum(S W point of Gulf of Sollum, about 30 miles S.

„Long. 29° 300’ in the el-Arabs Gulf, about 250 miles E. by S.

In all this extent of coast, the most northerly points touched are lat. 33° 55’ N. (northern point Gerbah Island) in the west, and lat. 32° 57’ N. (Ras el-Hillil in Cyrenaica) in the east. The lowest latitude on the coast is 30° 17’ N. (Muḫtar, at the bottom of the Syrtis Major), and the whole coast lies therefore between the thirtieth and the thirty-fourth parallels.¹

The physiography of the littoral zone may best be followed from west to east. Beginning at the Shott el-Gerîd,² a shallow salt lake interposed between the eastern extremity of the Atlas system and the lower and smaller mountains of the Syrtica Regio, the reader will, even from a glance at the map, note that the Shott has every appearance of having at one time been connected with the Gulf of Kabes. Such, in fact, seems once to have been the case, for although the level of the Shott is now different from that of the sea, the connecting channel between the two is still marked by the Wady Akarît. Immediately east of the Shott el-Gerîd, the Gebel Dahar recedes southward to meet the Gebel Nafusa in lat. 32° N. This latter range has a general E. trend, running, as the Gebel Gharyan, into the fertile zone from N.W. corner of the great Hamadah el-Homrah in a direction roughly parallel with the coast. From the point of contact between the Gebel Nafusa and the Hamadah, the boundary of the fertile littoral district trends away S.E., following a direction approximately parallel to the coast, at a never greatly varying distance of about 125 miles from the Mediterranean. The line is marked by the northern declivities of the Hamadah, the edge of which, under the names of el-Mudar mta el-Hamadah, Gebel es-Sodah, Gebel Sharkîah, and the Harug es-Sod, is fairly well denned as far east as the Oasis of Wagîlah (Augila), where the Hamadah itself begins to give place to the sand dunes of the Libyan Desert. The shore line of the district just outlined is, excepting that of Marmarica, the most desolate and forbidding in the whole Mediterranean. After leaving Gerbah, the only inhabited island¹ on the East Libyan coast, the voyager sees only a monotonous succession of sand dunes, with an occasional cluster of palms at a seaside well. In the immediate neighbourhood of Tripoli town, the monotony is varied by the rich gardens that there stand by the sea, but these once passed, the coast again takes on a desolate character which it maintains throughout the rest of the Syrtic region. In some places, as along the west shore of the Gulf of Kebrît (Syrtis Major) in the vicinity of Melfah, the low dunes are backed by sebḫas, some of which are rendered dangerous to travellers by treacherous quicksands. Occasionally, shallow boat-coves occur, as at Marsa Zaffran and el-Hammah, but these interruptions are not sufficient to break the mournful monotony of the coast.

Between the sea and the Hamadah el-Homrah (to return to the western part of this district) the interior country is diversified by numerous low hills and ridges, presenting for the most part a barren and stony appearance, which is, however, often relieved by the verdure of the wadys they contain. These latter are in some cases perennially fertile, at least in spots, and throughout the lower parts of their courses water may be had by excavation. The general trend of these wadys, and so of the ranges that form them, is E. or N.E., those in the vicinity of the Syrtis Major being less inclined from the meridian than those farther west. East of the Syrtis Major, lacking the mass of the Hamadah as a watershed, the wadys are fewer and drier; the Wady Farag, which, as its name implies, is without water, and runs S.W. and then W. to the coast near Marsa Braygah, is the only one of any considerable size. A few of the western wadys unite several smaller branches at points not far north of the edge of the Hamadah, and reach the coastal sands bearing a little water, which is increased in winter by the rains. Unlike the great water-bearing wadys of Algeria and Marocco, those of Tripolitana hardly ever carry water to the sea itself, except when in full spate from the winter rains.

On leaving the Syrtica Regio, with its sandy coast, its hills, and the Hamadah el-Homrah, one passes at once into Cyrenaica,² which constitutes, together with the Gebel el-‘ Akabah which lies next it on the east, the central portion of the East Libyan littoral. In shape, this district rudely resembles the segment of a circle thrust out into the Mediterranean, the chord of this segment being about 170 miles in length, and running E.N.E. from Bueb Bay in the Gulf of Kebrît, to Ras el-Mudawr in the Gulf of Bombah.¹ The area thus denned consists, in its northern part, of a mountainous limestone gebel, the N.W. end of the great Libyan Coastal Plateau which runs east and west behind the shore line, nearly to the Egyptian Delta. In Cyrenaica, the heights are separated from the sea by a very fertile sahel or ribbon of coastal plain, descending in steep terraces, which are broken by numerous short ravines and wadys, to the sea.

The height of the plateau, which from the fertility of its valleys is called the Gebel el-Ahdar (“Green Mountain”), is in its more elevated parts as much as 2200 feet above sea-level ; its mean elevation is about 2000 feet. The depth of the fertile zone in Cyrenaica is at its greatest only about 70 miles, at which distance from the sea the plateau, which declines toward the south, takes on the appearance of a barren grass steppe. Still farther south, where the underground moisture from the north is dissipated by the sand and the heat, the grasses disappear, the limestone ends, and the dunes of the Libyan Desert, which have already been seen meeting the eastern extremity of the Hamadah el-Ḥomrah near Wagîlah, again appear.

Taking up the topography of Cyrenaica in greater detail, one finds that the western district, just north of Bueb Bay, and known as Barḳah el-Ḥomrah (“Barḳah the Red”), is a plain, roughly triangular, having its apex at the north where the mountains of the limestone plateau approach the sea. Its name is due to the hue of the soil, which is here a peculiar sandy loam, the colour of old tan-bark.² At Ras Teyones, a little south of Benghazî, the mountains approach the coast to within about 12 miles, and at about half this distance north of Benghazî, come almost to the sea, which they may be said to meet at a point yet farther north, near Ṭolmeytah.

In proceeding easterly from Ṭolmeyṭah, the traveller crosses a...