Few nations, either ancient or modern, have surpassed the Amazirgs, or lineal descendants of the primitive inhabitants of northern Africa, in power to produce a more ingenious and contemplative writer than the one now before us. And yet this writer, equally profound as an historian and as a statesman, has hitherto been so little known in Europe, that the majority of our Arabic scholars have but very confused notions of his scientific and literary merits, and to many, even his name is almost unknown. In the East, and in Africa, however, the great historical work he has composed, has given him a celebrity which no lapse of time, nor any vicissitude of events, will ever impair or lessen.