The gathering of the populations must also be taken into consideration; the citizens of Tunis, of Algiers, and even in the cities of Morocco, have a more exact idea of civilized life than the Berber of the mountains or the desert.

The mosque of Fez grew up around the tomb of his posthumous son, Moulay Idriss II, who, descending from the hills, fell upon a camp of Berbers on an affluent of the Sebou, and there laid the foundations of Fez, and of the Moroccan Empire.

Then came the Romans, who carried on the business, set up one of their easy tolerant protectorates over "Tingitanian Mauretania,"[A] and built one important military outpost, Volubilis in the Zerhoun, which a series of minor defenses probably connected with Salé on the west coast, thus guarding the Roman province against the unconquered Berbers to the south.

While these races, all Berbers under different local names, are Mussulmans in profession, they are not so highly civilized as their co-religionists who people the coast of the Mediterranean.

The Romans might, however, confound the African term berber with barbari, which latter they applied, like the Greeks, to all strangers and foreigners.