Economics

In the discussion of the relation of man to his environment in Eastern Libya at the present time, something has been said of the dependence of the nomadic population on the permanently inhabited centres. The present conditions seem to reflect with fair accuracy those which existed anciently, despite the Herodotean characterization of the whole country as “nomadic.” ¹ At all events, the degree of nomadism was not, like that prevailing among the Romanies of mediaeval Europe or the Solubbi of modern Arabia, quite unrestricted, for it has been shown in the chapter on ethnogeography that the Libyan tribes had fairly well defined boundaries. The Egyptianized Adyrmachidae, ² the Hellenized Asbystae ³ and Auschisae, ⁴ and the Bacales, ⁵ therefore, could have been nomads only in a limited sense. This is true to an extent even greater of that remarkably stable ethnic group, the Nasamones. These last-named people may be taken as typical ; they had their main seat on the Syrtic shore, where they left their herds in summer, while they themselves went up-country to Augila for the date crop. ⁶ Similarly, the Aulad ‘Alî of western Egypt at the present day leave the coast after sowing their crops in the autumn, and return to their harvest and pasturage in the spring. The Macae, unlike the Nasamones or the Aulad ?Alî, frequented the littoral during the rains. In winter they lived along-shore, their flocks being confined in pens ; but in summer, when there was scarcity of water in the sandy coastal zone, they moved away from the sea into the midlands—presumably into the fertile Gebel Gharyan. ⁷ The nomadism of the Psylli must have been restricted, since they had permanent wells, ⁸ and the wanderings of part at least of the “Lotophagi” could not have been very extensive, since they were circumscribed by the confines of a península so small as that of Zuchis. ⁹ The Machlyes and Auseans both inhabited the region contiguous to Lake Tritonis, ¹⁰ where the latter held a yearly festival that began with a procession around the lake. ¹¹