a kingdom or province of Zaara in Africa, extending from 12 to 22 degrees of east longitude. BOR

The northern part is poor, and like the rest of the provinces of Zara: but all the rest is well watered by springs and rivers that tumble down with a dreadful noise from the mountains; rendering the country prolific in corn, grass, and fruits, and giving it a pleasing aspect. The eastern and western frontiers are divided into mountains and valleys, the latter being all covered with flocks of cattle, fields of rice and millet, and many of the mountains with wood, fruit-trees, and cotton. On the north-west stands the mountain of Tarton, having plenty of good iron mines; and on the south flows the river Niger, which, it is said, after running a great many leagues under a long chain of mountains, rears up its head again, and mingles its streams with the waters of the lake Bornou in its course, from whence it washes the walls of the capital of this kingdom. The compilers of the Universal History, however, are of opinion, that in these mountains the river Niger hath its source, because no river hath been traced to the eastward, except the Nile, which runs in a different course from north to south, and the White river, on the western frontiers of Abyssinia, which is a branch of the Nile. The eastern and western parts of Bornou are inhabited by a people of a roving disposition, who live in tents, and have their women, children, and everything else, in common; the word property, or any idea equivalent to it, being utterly unknown among them. They have neither religion, laws, government, nor any degree of subordination; and hence they have been supposed by Claverius to be the lineal descendents of the ancient Garamantes, and this to have been the residence of that people. In these parts, the natives are almost to a man shepherds and husbandmen. In summer they go naked, except a short apron before; but in winter they are warmly clothed with the finest sheep-skins, of which they also form their bed-clothes; and indeed this is scarce a sufficient defence against the inclemency of the weather at certain seasons of the year, when a cold piercing wind blows from the northern mountains that chills the blood in proportion as the pores of the body have been opened by the scorching heats of summer. Baudrand and Daper affirm, that the natives are scarce superior in their understanding to brutes; not even having any names whereby to distinguish each other, except what they take from some personal defect or singularity; such as lean, fat, squinting, hump-backed, &c. In the towns, however, it is acknowledged that they are something more civilized and polite, being many of them merchants; but of these towns, or indeed of the kingdom in general, very little is known.