esteemed being named the Tillis, Tuati and Auregh. In all
Fezzan the date is the staple food, not only for men, but for
camels, horses and dogs. Even the stones of the fruit are
softened and given to the cattle. The huts of the poorer classes
are entirely made of date-palm leaves, and the more substantial
habitations consist chiefly of the same material. The produce
of the tree is small, 100 full-grown trees yielding only about
40 cwt. of dates. Besides the date there are numerous olive,
fig and almond trees. Various grains are cultivated. Wheat
and barley are sown in winter, and in spring, summer and autumn
several kinds of durra, especially ksob and gafoli. Cotton
flourishes, is perennial for six or seven years, and gives large pods
of moderate length of staple.
There are no large carnivora in Fezzan. In the uninhabited oases gazelles and antelopes are occasionally found. The most important animal is the camel, of which there are two varieties, the Tebu or Sudan camel and the Arabian, differing very much in size, form and capabilities. Horses and cattle are not numerous. Among birds are ostriches, falcons, vultures, swallows and ravens; in summer wild pigeons and ducks are numerous, but in winter they seek a warmer climate. There are no remarkable insects or snakes. A species of Artemia or brine shrimp, about a quarter of an inch in length, of a colour resembling the bright hue of the gold fish, is fished for with cotton nets in the “Sea of Worms,” and mixed with dates and kneaded into a paste, which has the taste and smell of salt herring, is considered a luxury by the people of Fezzan.
Inhabitants.—The total population is estimated at between 50,000 and 80,000. The inhabitants are a mixed people, derived from the surrounding Teda and Bornu on the south, Tuareg of the plateaus on the west, Berbers and Arabs from the north. The primitive inhabitants, called by their Arab conquerors Berāuna, are believed to have been of Negro origin. They no longer persist as a distinct people. In colour the present inhabitants vary from black to white, but the prevailing hue of skin is a Malay-like yellow, the features and woolly hair being Negro. The chief languages are the Kanuri or Bornu language and Arabic. Many understand Targish, the Teda and the Hausa tongues. If among such a mixed people there can be said to be any national language, it is that of Bornu, which is most widely understood and spoken. The people of Sokna, north of the Jebel-es-Suda, have a peculiar Berber dialect which Rohlfs found to be very closely allied to that of Ghadames. The men wear a haik or barakan like those of Tripoli, and a fez; short hose, and a large loose shirt called mansarīa, with red or yellow slippers, complete their toilet. Yet one often sees the large blue or white tobe of Bornu, and the litham or shawl-muffler of the Tuareg, wound round the mouth to keep out the blown sand of the desert. The women, who so long as they are young have very plump forms, and who are generally small, are more simply dressed, as a rule, in the barakan, wound round their bodies; they seldom wear shoes, but generally have sandals made of palm leaf. Like the Arab women they load arms and legs with heavy metal rings, which are of silver among the more wealthy. The hair, thickly greased with butter, soon catching the dust which forms a crust over it, is done up in numberless little plaits round the head, in the same fashion as in Bornu and the Hausa countries. Children run about naked until they attain the age of puberty, which comes very early, for mothers of ten or twelve years of age are not uncommon. The Fezzani are of a gay disposition, much given to music and dancing.
Towns and Trade.—Murzuk, the present capital, which is in telegraphic communication with the town of Tripoli, lies in the western corner of the Hofra depression, in 25° 55′ N. and 14° 10′ E. It was founded about 1310, about which time the kasbah or citadel was built. The Turks repaired it, as well as the town-wall, which has, however, again fallen into a ruinous condition. Murzuk, which had in 1906 some 3000 inhabitants, is cut in two by a wide street, the dendal. The citadel and most of the houses are built of salt-saturated dried mud. Sokna, about midway between Tripoli and Murzuk, situated on a great gravel plain north of the Suda range, has a population of about 2500.
Garama (Jerma-el-Kedima), the capital under the Garamantes and the Romans, was in the Wadi-el-Gharbi. It was a flourishing town at the time of the Arab conquest but is now deserted. Among the ruins is a well-preserved stone monument marking the southern limit of the Roman dominions in this part of Africa. The modern Jerma is a small place a little north of the site of Garama. Zuila, the capital under the Arabs, lies in a depression called the Sherguia east of Murzuk on the most direct caravan route to Barca and Egypt. Of Traghen, the capital under the Nesur dynasty, which was on the same caravan route and between Zuila and Murzuk, little besides the ruined kasbah remains.
Placed roughly midway between the countries of the central Sudan and Tripoli, Fezzan serves as a depot for caravans crossing the Sahara; its commerce is unimportant. Its most important export is that of dates. Slave dealing, formerly the most lucrative occupation of the people, is moribund owing to the stoppage of slave raiding by the European governments in their Sudan territories.
History.—The country formed part of the territory of the Garamantes, described by Herodotus as a very powerful people. Attempts have been made to identify the Garamantes with the Berāuna of the Arabs of the 7th century, and to the period of the Garamantes Duveyrier assigns the remains of remarkable hydraulic works, and certain tombs and rock sculptures—indications, it is held, of a Negro civilization of ancient date which existed in the northern Sahara. The Garamantes, whether of Libyan or Negro origin, had certainly a considerable degree of civilization when in the year 19 B.C. they were conquered by the proconsul L. Cornelius Balbus Minor and their country added to the Roman empire. By the Romans it was called Phazania, whence the present name Fezzan. After the Vandal invasion Phazania appears to have regained independence and to have been ruled by a Berāuna dynasty. At this time the people were Christians, but in 666 the Arabs conquered the country and all traces of Christianity seem speedily to have disappeared. Subject at first to the caliphs, an independent Arab dynasty, that of the Beni Khattab, obtained power early in the 10th century. In the 13th century the country came under the rule of the king of Kanem (Bornu), but soon afterwards the Nesur, said to have been a native or Berāuna dynasty, were in power. More probably the Nesur were hereditary governors originally appointed by the rulers of Kanem. In the 14th century the Nesur were conquered and dethroned by an Arab tribe, that of Khorman, who reduced the people of Fezzan to a state of slavery, a position from which they were rescued about the middle of the 16th century by a sherif of Morocco, Montasir-b.-Mahommed, who founded the dynasty of Beni Mahommed. This dynasty, which came into frequent conflict with the Turks, who had about the same time that Montasir secured Fezzan established themselves in Tripoli, gradually extended its borders as far as Sokna in the north. It was the Beni Mahommed who chose Murzuk as their capital. They became intermittently tributary to the pasha of Tripoli, but within Fezzan the power of the sultans was absolute. They maintained a bodyguard of mamelukes, mostly Europeans—Greeks, Genoese, or their immediate descendants. The annual tribute was paid to the pasha either in money or in gold, senna or slaves. The last of the Beni Mahommed sultans was killed in the vicinity of Traghen in 1811 by El-Mukkeni, one of the lieutenants of Yusef Pasha, the last sovereign but one of the independent Karamanli dynasty of Tripoli. El-Mukkeni now made himself sultan of Fezzan, and became notorious by his slaving expeditions into the central Sudan, in which he advanced as far as Bagirmi. In 1831, Abd-el-Jelil, a chief of the Walid-Sliman Arabs, usurped the sovereign authority. After a troublous reign of ten years he was slain in battle by a Turkish force under Bakir Bey, and Fezzan was added to the Turkish empire. Towards the end of the 19th century the Turks, alarmed at the increase of French influence in the neighbouring countries, reinforced their garrison in Fezzan. The kaimakamlik is said to yield an annual revenue of £6000 only to the Tripolitan treasury.
