of pagan African tribes to the south, and the rude strength of European tribes—many still pagan―to the north, lay the belt of Arab civilization, full of life. Incorporating much of the Berber life of Africa, the Arabs carried it onward with them into Spain. In turn they brought Spain back with them into Africa. The Moorish kingdom which the Arabs set up was known as Adouatein, the empire of the two shores, one being European, one African. Twice during the long-continued Moorish dominance African dynasties reigned over the court in Spain.
Arab civilization and commerce also spread southward across the sandy desert—a caravan journey of from forty to fifty days. Imagination turns again and again, unsated, to the mystery and solitude of those ancient desert tracks, the most permanent of all means of communication, which are still as they were a thousand years ago. One main route strikes southward through Tripoli, forking to Lake Chad on the east and to Khago or Gao on the bend of the Niger on the west. The other main route pushes southward through Morocco; it is the caravan road to Timbuktu.
Standing in that great town on the Niger, the
