Barbary

a general name for the most northerly portion of Africa, extending about 2,600 miles from Egypt to the Atlantic, with a breadth varying from about 140 to 1,550 miles; comprising Morocco, Fez, Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli (including Barea and Fezzan). ‘The principal race are the Berbers, the original inhabitants, from whom the country takes its name; the Arabs, who conquered an extensive portion of it during the times of the caliphs; the Bed- ‘ouins, Jews, Turks, and the French colonists of Algeria, etc. The country, which was prosperous under the Cart hag in i ans, was, next to Egypt, the richest of the Roman provinces, and the Italian States enriched themselves by their intercourse with it. In the 15th century, however, it became infested with adventurers who made the name of Barbary corsair a terror to commerce, a condition of 0 things finally removed by the French occupation of Algeria.