THE knowledge of this great continent which ancient writers have transmitted to posterity, is of very limited extent, owing principally to its physical construction. The great desert, which in a broad belt stretches quite across the continent, forbade every attempt to pass it until the introduction of the camel by the Arabs. The want of any known great river, except the Nile, that might conduct into the interior, contributed to confine the Greek and Roman colonists to the habitable belt along the northern coast. The Phenicians are known to have formed establishments on the northern coast of Africa at a very early period of history, probably not less than 3000 years ago; and the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses dates as far back as the year B.C. 525. We may consider, therefore, the coasts of Egypt, of the Red Sea, and of the Mediterranean, to have been settled and well known to the ancient Asiatics, who were constantly passing the narrow isthmus which divided their country from Africa, and led them immediately from parched deserts into a fertile valley, watered by a magnificent river. But whether they were much or little acquainted with the western coast, which bounds the Atlantic, and the eastern coast washed by the Indian Ocean, is a question that has exercised the research and ingenuity of the ablest scholars and geographers, and has not yet been satisfactorily answered.

This question being one of curiosity rather than utility, we shall only state the case, and the results of the several inquiries, without entering into the merits of the arguments advanced by the different parties. We are told by Herodotus, that Necho, king of Egypt, sent out an expedition under the command of certain Phenician seamen, for the purpose of circumnavigating Africa; and that, on their return, they asserted that they had accomplished this undertaking. Few of the ancient writers give credit to the story; but, among the moderns, the Abbé Paris and Montesquieu have contended that this voyage was actually performed. Isaac Vossius and D'Anville have strong doubts; and Dr Vincent and M. Gosselin maintain that such an expedition, at such a period, exceeds all the means and resources of navigation, then in its infancy. Last of all comes Major Rennell, who in his elucidation of the geography of Herodotus, has done more than all the rest in clearing away the doubts of history; and he argues the possibility of such a voyage, from the construction of their ships, with flat bottoms and low masts, enabling them to keep close to the land, and to discover and enter into all the creeks and harbours which any part of the coast might present. At all events, one thing is evident: if such an expedition ever circumnavigated the African continent, the fruits of it have nearly, if not entirely, perished.

About half a century after this supposed expedition, the account of another voyage, down the western coast, is contained in the Periplus of Hanno, which has also called forth many learned and elaborate discussions among modern geographers, some of whom would carry Hanno to the Bight of Benin, others only to Sherbro Sound or the river Nun in Lat. 28. N.

The extent to which ancient discovery proceeded along the eastern coast of Africa, has divided the opinion of the coast, learned nearly as much as its progress on the western coast. Delisle, Huet, and Bochart, made the discovery of the coast to extend as far south as Mozambique and Madagascar. D'Anville could trace such discovery no farther than to Cape Delgado; and M. Gosselin contends that the ancients never proceeded down the coast beyond Brava. But Dr Vincent, who has entered more profoundly into the subject than any of his predecessors, and brought a great fund of learning to bear on the question, in his Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, has with great plausibility extended these boundaries to Mozambique and to the island of Madagascar.

Egypt, under the Ptolemies, the great patrons of science and promoters of discovery, possessing the advantage of the only great river which falls from the African continent into the Mediterranean, made no progress beyond its ancient boundaries; and though the Romans, who subsequently possessed Egypt, penetrated beyond the limits of their own dependencies, they extended their discoveries no further than Fezzan in one direction, and, at a later period, beyond Nubia as far as Abyssinia, and the regions of the Upper Nile. We know nothing of the progress made by the Carthaginians in the discovery of Interior Africa; but although it has been asserted that their merchants had reached the banks of the interior river, which we call the Kawara or Niger, they have left nothing on record that will warrant such a supposition. The story told by Herodotus, of some Nasa-monians crossing the desert, and arriving at a large river, can only be applicable to some western arm of the Nile. The people from whom we derive the first information concerning the interior of Northern Africa are the Arabs, who, by means of the camel, were able to penetrate across the great desert to the very centre of the continent, and along the two coasts as far as the Senegal and the Gambia on the west, and to Sofala on the east. On this latter coast, they not only explored to an extent far beyond any supposed limits of ancient discovery, but planted colonies at Sofala, Mombasa, Melinda, and at various other places.

The fifteenth century produced a new era in maritime discovery. The voyages of the Portuguese were the first to give anything like an accurate outline of the two coasts, and to complete the circumnavigation of Africa. The discovery of America and the West India islands gave rise to that horrid traffic in African negroes which has since been carried on without intermission; and this traffic has been the means of acquiring a more extended and accurate knowledge of that part of the coast which lies between the rivers Senegal and the Cameroons, as well as of the manners and character of the people who inhabit this extended line of coast. With the English and French settlements in Africa began a systematic survey of the coast, and portions of the interior.

Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort thus sums up the surveys of the coasts of Africa, as far as they were made up to 1848. From the Strait of Gibraltar, the western coast of Africa has been sufficiently surveyed and published as far as Cape Formosa, in the Bight of Benin; but there is much legitimate traffic in the eastern part of that great Bight, as well as farther to the southward, both it and many of the ports and anchorages on this side of the Cape of Good Hope require a more careful and connected examination. The charts of the whole of the Cape Colony are exceedingly defective, as the numerous wrecks there amply testify, and from thence to the Portuguese settlements of Delagoa we know scarcely anything. From Delagoa to the Red Sea, and the whole contour of Madagascar, are sufficiently represented on our charts for the general purposes of navigation, though many further researches along the former coast might still be profitably made. The Red Sea has been well surveyed by the East India Company. The northern shore of Africa, with the exception of Egypt, has been surveyed by the English and French.

The uncertainty and confusion that prevailed in the geography of the interior of Africa induced a few learned and scientific individuals to form themselves into an association for promoting the exploration of Inner Africa. This society was formed in London in 1788, and under its auspices important additions were made to the geography of Africa by Houghton, Mungo Park, Hornemann, and Burchhardt. Repeated failures, however, at length discouraged the association from engaging other missions, and it subsequently merged in the Royal Geographical Society in 1831.

During the last sixty years more has been done to make us acquainted with the geography of Africa, than during the whole of the 1700 previous years, since Ptolemy, taken together. With Mungo Park, strictly speaking, commences the era of succeeding endeavours to explore the interior.

Mungo Park proceeded in 1795 from the river Gambia on the west coast, to the Joliba (commonly called Niger), traced this river as far as the town of Silla, explored the intervening countries, determined the southern confines of the Sahara, and returned in 1797. In 1805 this adventurous traveller embarked on a second journey in the same regions, for the purpose of descending down the river Joliba to its mouth. This journey added little to the discoveries already made, and cost the traveller his life. He is ascertained to have passed Timbuktu and to have reached Boussa, where he was killed by the natives.

Hornemann, in 1799, penetrated from Cairo to Murzuk, and transmitted from that place valuable information respecting the countries to the south, especially Bornu. He then proceeded in that direction, but it is supposed that he soon afterwards perished, as no accounts of his further progress have ever reached Europe. In 1816 an expedition was sent out by the English government under the command of Captain Tuckey, to the river Congo, which was at that time believed to be the lower course of the Joliba. This was a disastrous undertaking, and the geographical additions were but slight, the river having been ascended a distance of only 280 miles.

In 1819, Lyon and Ritchie penetrated from Tripoli to Lyon and Murzuk, and a little distance beyond that place.

In 1822, Denham, Clapperton, and Oudney, set forth from Denham, Tripoli in the same direction, crossed the Great Desert, and Clapper- reached, on the 4th February 1823, the great Lake Tsad, ion, and the surrounding countries were explored as far as Sakatu, Oudney, in the west, and Mandara in the south. This journey was altogether one of the most successful and important into the interior. Oudney died in Bornu, but Clapperton undertook a second journey from the coast of Guinea, crossed the Kawara and arrived at Sakatu, at which place he also died. His servant Richard Lander returned to England after having explored a part of the adjoining regions.

Major Laing succeeded in reaching Timbuktu from Tripoli, but was murdered on his return, in the desert.

In 1827 and 1828, Caillé set out from the Rio Nunez on Caillé, the western coast, reached Timbuktu and returned from that place through the Great Desert to Morocco.

The termination of the Joliba, Kawara or Niger, remained Landers, in obscurity till 1830, when it was ascertained by Lander and his brother, who succeeded in tracing the river from Yaoori down to its mouth. They embarked on a second expedition, which sailed in 1832, for the purpose of ascending the Kawara as far as Timbuktu. But only Rabba was reached, and the general results of the expedition were most disastrous.

The great Niger expedition, similar to the foregoing, consisted of three steam-vessels, and was despatched by the government in 1841, under Captain Trotter. It proved a failure, and resulted in a melancholy loss of life.

In the region between the Kawara and the coast, Mr Duncan, one of the survivors of the Niger expedition, has made some additions to our geographical knowledge by his journey to Adafoodia, in 1845–46. This enterprising traveller has since met with an untimely death, in a second attempt in the same region for the purpose of reaching Timbuktu.

The preceding journeys were confined chiefly to the East-African northern and western portions of the continent. A much greater number of travellers explored the regions drained by the Nile, the salubrity of which, particularly of Abyssinia, is so infinitely greater than that of Western Africa, that among the many explorers of the former a very small proportion have died as compared with the immense loss of life in Western Africa. Among the most distinguished of the East-African travellers are Bruce, Brown (who reached Darfur), Burchhardt, Cailliard, Rüppell, Russegger, Beke, and the Egyptian expeditions up the Nile.

Though the Dutch settlement in South Africa was founded as early as 1650, not much information of the interior of that African portion of the continent was gained till the end of the 18th century, when a series of journeys was commenced by Sparrmann, and followed up by Vaillant, Barrow, Trotter, Somerville, Lichtenstein, Burchell, Campbell, Thomson, Smith, Alexander, and Harris.

Within the last five or six years a number of important discoveries have been made in various parts of Inner Africa, and the present time bids fair to outstrip all previous periods which are in lifting the veil that has hitherto enveloped Central Africa still in impenetrable mystery.

The Church Missionary Society established a mission at Monibas, in about 4 deg. south lat., on the east coast of Krapf and Africa, consisting of the zealous missionaries Krapf and Reb-Rebmann. Africa. These gentlemen have, ever since 1847, explored the interior from that direction with untiring perseverance. At several hundred miles from the coast they have discovered high mountains covered with perpetual snow, which is the more interesting from their position being so near the equator. The existence of snow on the mountains of Kilimanjaro and Kenia has been disputed, but with little reason. These two remarkable peaks, to judge from the description of the missionaries, seem isolated cones rising out of regions comparatively little elevated and surrounded by plains in the same way as Mount Ararat, Mount Hermon, or the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the equatorial regions of South America.

In South Africa also, missionaries have been the pioneers of geographical discovery. Kolobeng (in Lat. 24° 40' S., Mur. Long. 25° 55' E.) is, of all the missionary stations in that continent, the furthest inland. It lies on the southern borders of the Kalahari Desert, the Sahara of South Africa, which had frustrated many attempts at proceeding northward, to reach a large lake reported a long time previously to exist in that direction. On the 1st of June 1849, Mr Livingston, the missionary, accompanied by Messrs Oswell and Murray, set out from Kolobeng. After having travelled 300 miles through the desert of Kalahari, they came to a fine river, the Zouga, which issues from the lake. They followed it upwards about 300 miles, when they reached the eastern extremity of that lake, the chief name of which is Ngami, at an elevation of 2825 feet above the sea. Some English traders, who lately reached the lake, succeeded in walking round it, and ascertained it to be about sixty miles in length and about fourteen in breadth.

In 1851, Livingston and Oswell again started for the north, but more in an easterly direction, when they reached the latitude of 17° 25' S., and discovered the Chobe and Sesheke, deep and constantly flowing rivers, supposed to be the feeders of the Zambezi. The Zouga was ascertained to be absorbed in sands and salt-pans. The country through which the former rivers flow is level and very fertile.

Captain Vardon explored the region north-east of Kolobeng, tracing the Limpopo river to a considerable distance. In 1851, Gassiot made an interesting journey from Port Natal north-west, through the mountains, keeping along their western slope, and ultimately reaching the Limpopo.

During the same year, Mr Galton explored a part of South Africa, from Walvisch Bay, on the west coast, extending from that point as far as 17° 58' S. Lat. in the north, and to 21° E. Long. in the east, and inhabited by the Damara and Ovampo. No very interesting features were discovered, but the whole region was accurately determined; and in this respect this journey is one of the most important yet accomplished between the equator and the tropic of Capricorn.

In 1852, a journey was made by Mr Plant, of Natal, from that place to Delagoa Bay, in which he discovered that St Lucia Bay leads into an extensive inlet, hitherto unknown. The preceding journeys are all that have recently been performed south of the equator. In addition to them, may be mentioned a journey across the whole of the continent, from the coast of Zanzibar to Benguela, performed by a caravan of native traders, of which an account has recently been given by the Portuguese. In this journey they crossed Nyassa, the great lake of South Africa.

To the north of the equator, the mission to Lake Tsad, Barth, originated by Mr James Richardson, promises to exceed in importance all previous expeditions to Central Africa. That gentleman left England in 1849, for the purpose of concluding commercial treaties with the chiefs of Northern Africa, as far as Lake Tsad, by which the legitimate trade with those countries might be extended, and the system of slavery abolished. Upon the proposal of Mr Petermann, Drs Barth and Overweg accompanied Mr Richardson, for the purpose of making scientific observations. The three gentlemen started from Tripoli on the 23rd of March 1850, after having minutely surveyed the mountainous region to the south of that place. During the first year the travellers successfully crossed the whole of the Sahara, in a very circuitous westerly direction, and thus explored a great portion of Northern Africa, which had never before been visited by any European. Their route from Ghat to Kano, in particular, leading them through the powerful kingdom of Air or Ashen, was highly interesting. In the second year the travellers explored a large portion of Sudan in different directions, for which purpose they separated on their arrival at the northern frontiers of that country, each pursuing a different route, their plan being ultimately to meet at Kuka, the capital of Bornu. Barth and Overweg reached that place in safety, but Richardson died on the way, within six days journey of it, in March 1851. The other travellers, nothing daunted, continued their explorations, Barth penetrating 350 miles to the south, as far as Yola, the capital of the kingdom of Adamawa; and Overweg navigating Lake Tsad in a boat, which, with great labour, had been conveyed in pieces, on the backs of camels, from Tripoli across the burning sands of the Sahara. In September 1851, the travellers set out together on a journey to Borgu, a mountainous country lying to the north-east of Lake Tsad, about midway between it and Egypt. They travelled under the protection of a large army of the Sheikh of Bornu, which, however, was attacked at no great distance beyond Lake Tsad, and put to flight so suddenly, that Barth and Overweg saved their lives and instruments only by a quick retreat. Having returned to Kuka, they set out southward with another and a very considerable ghazzia, consisting of about 10,000 horse, and the same number of foot soldiers, with innumerable trains of camels and other beasts of burden. On this occasion they explored the country a considerable distance beyond Mandara, the furthest point of Denham's journey, and found it to be one of great fertility. With the beginning of the third year of their explorations, Dr Barth made a journey to Masefa, the capital of the kingdom of Baghermi, to the south-east of Lake Tsad; while Dr Overweg travelled in a south-westerly direction, and reached to within 150 miles of Yacoba, the great town of the Fellatahs. This, alas, was his last journey. On his return to Kuka he was seized with fever, and after a short illness and extreme sufferings, he died, the second victim in that expedition, in September 1852. Dr Barth was about to start for Timbuktu. A reinforcement, consisting of Dr Vogel and two sappers and miners, was despatched to his assistance on the 20th of February last.

The origin and meaning of the name of this great continent has been a fertile subject for conjecture among philologists and antiquaries. By the Greeks it was called Libya, Λιβύη, and by the Romans Africa. Varro believed he had found the etymology of the former in Libis, the Greek name of the south wind; and Servius, the scholiast on Virgil, proposed to derive the other from the Latin word aprīca (sunny), or the Greek word α-φρίκη (without cold). It is more probable that the name Libya was derived by the Greeks from the name of the people whom they found in possession of the country to the westward of Egypt, and who are believed to have been those that are called in the Hebrew Scriptures Lehabim or Lubim. With respect to the word Africa, Suidas tells us, that it was the proper name of that great city which the Romans called Carthago, and the Greeks Karchedon. It is certain, at least, that it was applied originally to the country in the immediate neighbourhood of Carthage, that part of the continent first known to the Romans, and that it was subsequently extended with their increasing knowledge, till it came at last to include the whole continent. Of the meaning of the name, the language of Carthage itself supplies a simple and natural explanation; the word *Afrygah*, signifying a separate establishment, or in other words a colony, as Carthage was of Tyre. So that the Phoenicians of old, at home, may have spoken of their Afrygah, just as we speak of our colonies. Be that as it may, the Arabs of the present day still give the name of Afrygah or Afrikiyah to the territory of Tunis. It may also be remarked, that the name seems not to have been used by the Romans till after the time of the first Punic war, when they became first acquainted with what they afterwards called *Africa Propria*.

Africa lies between the latitudes of 38° north and 35° south, and is of all the continents the most truly tropical. It is, strictly speaking, an enormous peninsula attached to Asia by the isthmus of Suez. The most northern point is the Cape, situated a little to the west of Cabo Blanco, and opposite Sicily, which lies in Lat. 37.20.40. N., Long. 9.41. E. Its southernmost point is Cabo d'Agulhas, in 34.49.15. S.; the distance between these two points being 4330 geographical, or about 5000 English miles. The westernmost point is Cabo Verde, in Long. 17.33. W., its easternmost Cape Jerdafin, in Long. 51.21. E. Lat. 10.25. N., the distance between the two points being about the same as its length. The western coasts are washed by the Atlantic, the northern by the Mediterranean, and the eastern by the Indian Ocean.

The form has been likened to a triangle, or to an oval, but such a comparison is scarcely warranted, it being of an irregular shape, the northern half rounding off, the southern one contracting and terminating in a point.

The superficial extent of Africa has never been accurately determined, but may be taken at 8,550,000 geographical square miles, exclusive of the islands. It is larger than either Europe or Australia, but smaller than Asia and the New World.

The coast line of Africa is very regular and unbroken, presenting few bays and peninsulas. The chief indentation is formed by the Gulf of Guinea, with its two secondary divisions, the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. On the northern coast, the Gulf of Sidra and the Gulf of Kabes must be mentioned, and on the eastern coast the Gulf of Arabia.

The physical configuration may be considered under two heads, the great plain of Northern Africa, and the great table-lands, with their mountain ranges and groups, of Central and Southern Africa. The great plain comprises the Sahara, the Lake Tsad region, and the valley of the Lower Nile. The Sahara is by no means a plain throughout, but for the greater part it rises into table-lands, interspersed with mountain groups of 6000 feet elevation, and probably more, and the term plain can only be applied to it in a general way, to distinguish it from the more elevated region to the south.

The Sahara has often been pictured as a monotonous and immense expanse of sand; but nothing could be more erroneous, as the greatest variety exists in the physical configuration of its surface, as well as in its geological features. Our knowledge is as yet too scanty to enable us to trace its features in every part. On the north, this great desert is fringed with extensive table-lands, which in some places rise abruptly from the Mediterranean, as the table-land of Barca, elevated 1500 feet, and gradually descending towards the Delta of the Nile. This elevated ground is succeeded to the south by a depressed region, which extends from the Great Syrtis or Gulf of Sidra, in a general direction as far as middle Egypt, and comprises the oases of Augila and Siwah. So greatly depressed is this region, that the level of the oasis of Siwah is 100 feet, and in one place (Bahrein) even 167 feet below the level of the sea. This depressed region is again followed by a table-land of considerable extent and width, extending from the Gulf of Kabes in a southerly direction, along the Tripoline shores, and probably traversing, in the same direction, the Lybian Desert, and reaching as far as the Nile, near the first cataract. Its north-western part, as far as Sokna, consists of the Hamadah, a stony, dreary, and extensive table-land, of from 1500 to 2000 feet high, "which seems to be like a broad belt intercepting the progress of commerce, civilisation, and conquest, from the shores of the Mediterranean to Central Africa." Our knowledge of this table-land is only of a recent date, derived as it is, from the expedition under Richardson, Barth, and Overweg, and the journey of Dickson to Ghadamis. Near Sokna, this plateau breaks up and forms what are called the Jebel-es-Soudy, or Black Mountains, a most picturesque group of cliffs; and again, on the route from Murzuk to Egypt, it also breaks into huge cliffs, and bears the name of El-Harouj. The edge of this table-land towards the Tripoline shores is formed by what is generally called the Gharian Mountains; but, strictly speaking, this name applies only to a small portion of that range, situated due south of Tripoli, the western part being called the Yofran or Jebel, the eastern the Tarhona. This range is not, as is generally supposed, connected with the Atlas Mountains, but is separated from them by a depressed belt, which even sinks below the level of the sea. This depressed region forms the north-western boundary of the Sahara, and extends from the Gulf of Kabes along the southern slope of the Atlas system to the Wady Dras, bordering on the States of Marocco, Algeria, and Tunis. The extensive oasis of Tuat occupies the central portion of that region. From Wady Dras, this great plain extends along the western shore as far as the river Senegal, and probably continues as such to the east towards Timbuktu, and thence to Lake Tsad. To the south of the Hamadah, the kingdom of Fezzan and the oasis of Ghadamis are flat and depressed; and between Fezzan and Lake Tsad, a tract of country intervenes which may also be considered rather a desert plain than a table-land. Thus it appears, that the western half of the Sahara is surrounded by a broad belt of plains and depressions, the central parts being formed by extensive table-lands and mountainous regions, comprising the kingdom of Air or Asben, lately explored by Messrs Richardson, Barth, and Overweg. The route of Dr Barth in his journey to Agadez, the capital of that kingdom, was girdled by mountain ranges and groups rising to 3000 and 4000 feet, and Mount Dogem, the culminating point in that region, is even between 4000 and 5000 feet high.

The eastern portion of the Sahara appears for the greater part to be a considerably elevated table-land, comprising the mountainous country of Borgu. The summit of Ercherdat-Erner is said to be the highest in the whole region, but the testimony of European eye-witnesses is altogether wanting in treating of its geographical features.

The narrow valley of the Nile forms the eastern boundary of the Great Desert.

To the south of the region just described, Africa may be considered as one connected mass of elevated land, rising more or less above the level of the sea, and comprising the most extensive table-lands, as well as high mountain groups and chains. Some geographers have attempted to trace a system of terraces, which, they maintained, this elevated mass presented on all sides. Such is certainly the case in its southern extremity, where three well-defined terraces are well known to exist, but the same feature cannot be traced throughout; on the contrary, the plateau either gradually slopes down into a plain along the sea-shore, or it rises abruptly almost from out the sea, and presents a deep edge of from 7000 to 8000 feet elevation, as the northern part of the Abyssinian table-land at Massowah. The edge of the table-land, however, is generally from 100 to 300 miles distant from the sea-shore. Little is known at present beyond some parts of this outer fringe, and a few routes across the interior. Commencing at the Cape of Good Hope, and traversing the three aforementioned terraces, an almost uninterrupted table-land has recently been ascertained to extend to the north for at least 1000 geographical miles. The southern portion is formed by the basin of the Orange river, followed by the desert of Kalibari, which is again succeeded by the basin of the River Sesheke and Lake Ngami, with many other rivers, traversing a region which presents a dead level, its elevation at Lake Ngami being 2825 feet. That region probably is in connection with the basin of Zambezi. Farther north the ground ascends to the line of water-parting with the basins of the Congo river and Lake Nyassa; a region very little known, and succeeded by a complete terra incognita, extending to the north of the equator. In this region are supposed to be the celebrated "Mountains of the Moon," which have played so exciting a part in the history of African geography, and have given rise to so many curious hypotheses. Since the time of Ptolemaeus of Alexandria, geographers have continued to shift these mountains from one latitude to another, from 10° to the north of the equator to 12° to the south of it, but all seem to have agreed in one point, namely, in giving them a direction from west to east. Rennell, one of the ablest geographers of recent times, argued that a very high central chain must cross Africa from east to west in about 10° N. Lat., beginning at Cape Jerdaffan, and ending at Sierra Leone; and in some of the most recent maps this direction is still to be seen. When, therefore, the Egyptian expeditions up the Bahr-el-Abyad, not only advanced as far as the fourth parallel of north latitude, but actually sailed over the alleged site of the Mountains of the Moon, without seeing any elevations whatever which could claim the title of mountains, that favourite hypothesis fell completely to the ground. Dr Beke was the first who, from his own personal researches, combined with extensive studies of the geography of Eastern Africa, propounded the opinion that the Mountains of the Moon have a direction from north to south, and run parallel to the eastern coast, and that they form in fact the southern continuation of the Abyssinian table-land. This direction also agrees much better with what is known of the basin of the Nile. It is a remarkable feature that the most elevated peaks rise on the outer edge of this great table-land, and even between it and the coast as isolated cones. This seems to be the case with the Kenia and Kilimanjuro, which are the only snowy mountains of Africa at present known, and must have for that reason an altitude of at least 20,000 feet. Alba Yared rises out of the northern edge of the Abyssinian table-land to the height of 15,000 feet. Menidif, south of Lake Tsad, another isolated mountain, is probably as high as 10,000 feet; and Atlantica, a conspicuous mountain to the south of Yola (in 8° 30' N. Lat. 13° 45' E. Long.), also an isolated peak, was estimated by Barth to be 10,000 feet high; the highest of the Cameroons is 13,760 feet, and the highest known mountain of southern Africa, the Spits Kop, or Compass Berg, attains 10,250 feet.

The system of the Atlas mountains is quite distinct from either of the two divisions described above; it occupies the north-western region of Africa, consists of several ranges, and its highest summits are said to reach an altitude of about 15,000 feet.

Of all the rock formations, those of sandstone and limestone are the most frequent and the most widely distributed in Africa; natron, a rare deposit in other countries, is comparatively abundant; salt is very widely distributed, though in some districts wholly wanting. Metals, although met with in different quarters, seem nowhere abundant; of all the different metals, gold being the most generally distributed. Precious stones, so frequent in other tropical regions, are here of rare occurrence. The African continent is nearly exempt from volcanic action.

Africa is emphatically the land of deserts, which are productive of a scarcity of rivers. Many of the smaller rivers and lakes, and not a few of the large ones, present only dry water-courses during certain periods of the year. Even Lake Tsad is said at times to become nearly dry; this large expanse of water has no outlet, and the immense supply of water received during the rainy season is lost again by evaporation. With the rains, floods are prevalent all over the country, even in the desert, as the recent observations made by the expedition under Richardson testify. That traveller relates that when on the borders of the kingdom of "Air, in about latitude 19° north, on the 30th September 1850, there was a cry in the encampment, 'The wady is coming.' Going out to look, I saw a broad white sheet of foam advancing from the south between the trees of the valley. In ten minutes after a river of water came pouring along, and spread all around us, converting the place of our encampment into an isle of the valley. The current in its deepest part was very powerful, capable of carrying away sheep and cattle, and of uprooting trees. This is one of the most interesting phenomena I have witnessed during my present tour in Africa. The scene, indeed, was perfectly African. Rain had been observed falling in the south; black clouds and darkness covered that zone of the heavens; and an hour afterwards came pouring down this river of water into the dry parched-up valley. This instance of Wady Tintaghoza explains the Scriptural phrase, "rivers of waters," for here indeed was a river of water, appearing in an instant, and almost without notice." The importance of the floods and inundations of the Nile scarcely requires to be referred to.

Africa is chiefly drained into the Atlantic Ocean, and its branch the Mediterranean Sea, the river system of the Indian Ocean being comparatively inconsiderable.

The Nile is the oldest of historical rivers, and afforded the Nile only means of subsistence to the earliest civilised people on earth. Thus renowned from immemorial ages as the gift of the Nile, Egypt issues from the womb of primordial time, with a civilisation already perfected at the very earliest epoch of her history, hieroglyphed on the monuments of the third and fourth dynasties, prior to the 35th century before the Christian era. But the origin of the river itself remains an enigma to this day; and when we moderns, in the quiet of our cabinets, calmly span the chronological interval of above 5000 years, our vain-glorious boastings of the patronage vouchsafed by Europe towards African exploration and discovery, encounter signal reproof from the mate fact that "caput Nili querrere" is a task as arduous now-a-days, as fifty-three centuries ago it was to the primeval builders of the Pyramids.

A strange mystery has enshrouded the sources of this river, one of the mightiest of the globe. Its three principal tributaries from the east have, each in succession, claimed the distinction of being the main stream, but that stream remains still to be discovered. The Atharn, called by the Abyssinians Takkazie, the last of the tributaries of the Nile before it disembogues into the sea, was looked upon, in early Christian ages, as the head of the Nile; it rises in the Abyssinian provinces of Lasta and Samen, amid mountains attaining the height of 15,000 feet. From the same lofty regions issues the Abai, termed formerly the Astapus, which becomes the Bahr-el-Azrek, or "Blue River," at Khartum. The Abyssinians still look upon the Abai as the Gihon of the Genesis; as did the Portuguese Jesuits in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One hundred and fifty years before Bruce, its source in the peninsula of Gedjami was visited and far more accurately described by Pedro Paez.

Above the junction of the Astapus with the Bahr-el-Abyad, or "White River," the ancients seem to have known nothing of the course of the Nile, previously to the time of Ptolemy the geographer, except that it came from the west; in this vaguely referring to the Keilak. Our present knowledge of the upper course of the Bahr-el-Abyad is derived from the three expeditions sent up between 1835 and 1841 by the late Mohammed Ali; from which we learn that on the eastern bank the main stream is joined, in about 9° 20' N. Lat., by the Sobat, otherwise Telfi, or Bahr-el-Habesh, which takes its rise in the same Abyssinian high lands whence issues the Takazze and the Abai. Of the head streams of the Sobat, the principal is the Baka, known higher up its course by the names Uma and Godjeb. This last, in the country of the Gallas, is joined by the Gibbe, or Zebe of Father Antonio Fernandez (1618), the Gibbe itself being formed by the union of three rivers all bearing the same name. One of the three, the Gibbe of Enarea, has been singled out by D'Abbadie as the true source of the Nile, but this theory is contradicted by facts. A little beyond the confluence of the Sobat, the main stream of the Nile divides itself into two great arms, the eastern one of which has been ascended to about 4° north of the equator. At the point where the expedition turned back, the river was found still upwards of 1000 feet broad, from which it may be inferred that the sources are several hundred miles beyond; indeed Lakono, the king of Bari,—a country comprising the farthest region reached by the expedition,—stated that the river came from a distance 30 days farther south, a direction which was also corroborated by the direction of the valley. Hence the sources of this river, which is there called the Tubirib, may be looked for either under the equator or south of it, and the prevailing opinion at present is that it forms the true head of the Nile. It is, however, not unlikely that the great western arm of the Nile, the Keilak, is the principal branch of the Nile, but the present state of our knowledge of that river does not justify any thing but a mere speculation respecting this point. That the basin of the Keilak extends westward to the basins of Lake Tsad, Kawara, and the Congo, is, however, now pretty well established by the researches of Dr Barth.

The length of the Bahr-el-Azzel, or Blue River, is 2830 English miles, that of the Bahr-el-Abyad, or White River, is:

| From the mouth to Khartum | 1780 English miles | |---------------------------|------------------| | From Khartum to the farthest point reached by the Egyptian expeditions | 1300 " | | Thence to the source, probably | 300 " |

3380

which is second only to that of the Mississippi-Missouri. The area drained by the Nile is at least 2,000,000 English square miles.

There are no other rivers, of any consideration, along the northern shores of Africa. Proceeding to the western coasts, we first find the Wady Draa, augmented by the Wady Sagis and el Hamra, which runs into the sea opposite the Canary Islands, and is spoken of as a considerable river.

The River Senegal has a length of upwards of 1100 miles, and has its sources in the same elevated tract of land as those of the Kawara.

The Gambia and Rio Grande, south of the River Senegal, are also considerable rivers.

The Kawara, commonly but erroneously called Niger, is next to the Nile the largest of African rivers. Its sources are like those of the Nile still unknown. It appears to be the Amuer, which is said to rise in a high group of mountains east of Liberia. As far as Timbuktu the river is called Jo-liba, and its course is pretty well known, but from that place to Yaouri it is as yet unexplored. Thence down to its mouth it was first traced by Lander. It is there called Kawara in general, although it has several names in the different languages of the tribes which inhabit its shores. Of the tributaries of the Kawara our knowledge is very scanty. The Tchadda is the most important of these, and rivals the Kawara, if it do not actually surpass it in magnitude; it extends far into the heart of Inner Africa, and was recently explored by Dr Barth in its upper course, where it flows through the kingdom of Adamama; even there it is half a mile broad, and ten feet deep, and is called Benne. It is highly probable that this splendid river will eventually form the natural and most important line from the west for the spread of commerce and civilisation into the very centre of Africa. The kingdom of Adamama, situate in the valley of the upper Tchadda, with its pastoral and agricultural population, is spoken of by Dr Barth as the most beautiful country in Central Africa, and as such may probably become the key to the interior of that continent.

The length of the Kawara is about 3000 miles, and the area drained by it may amount to 1,500,000 square miles.

In contradiction to the facts observed by Denham and Clapperton, an hypothesis was started some time ago, that Lake Tsad was drained into the Kawara by means of the Yeou and Tchadda, but their observations have recently been confirmed by Barth and Overweg, who have refuted this hypothesis.

South of the equator, the west coast receives many large rivers which are as yet little explored. Such are, the Zaire Zaire, or Congo, known only for a short distance beyond its mouth; Coanza, the Comaza, which is better known; the Nourse river or Nourse Cunene, almost unknown. The Swakop has recently been swakop explored by Mr Galton.

The Orange river is about 1000 miles in length. Its Orange R. head streams are the Ki Gariep or Vaal river, and the Nu Gariep, which latter again consists of the Caledon and Craddock rivers. The Orange river drains an area of about 350,000 English square miles.

Rounding the southern extremity of Africa, and proceeding up its eastern coast, the Limpopo is the first river re-Limpopo. quiring notice. Its head streams and its middle course are pretty well known, but whether it disembogues into the sea at Delagoa Bay or at Inhambane, is a matter of doubt. The most trustworthy testimony is that it reaches the sea at the latter place.

The Zambezi is the largest river of the eastern coasts. Zambezi. Its upper course is also shrouded in mystery. It is most probable that the Rivers Seshcké and Chobé, recently discovered by Messrs Livingston and Oswell, form the head streams of the Zambezi; their magnitude is opposed to the hypothesis entertained by some that they are lost in the sands.

Africa possesses several considerable lakes, among which Lake Tsad is probably the largest and most interesting. It was discovered by Denham and Clapperton, who traced its borders, except on the eastern side; but was first navigated by Overweg, who recently fell a victim in the cause of African exploration. This was done in a boat which had been conveyed from Malta across the Sahara to Lake Tsad, as already mentioned. It was successfully launched on the 18th June 1850; and Dr Overweg embarked in it at Bree, to the east of Kuka. At a distance of twelve miles from the former place he reached the first of the islands, of which there are about one hundred of large size scattered over the lake. They are wooded, and inhabited by the Bidhuma, a pagan tribe who have remained independent of the Mahomedan na- Africa lies almost entirely in the torrid zone, and is the hottest continent of all. The greatest heat, however, is not found under the equator but to the north of it, in consequence of the northern portions being of greater extent than the southern, and of less elevation. The greatest temperature is found throughout the Sahara, particularly in its eastern portions towards the Red Sea. In Upper Egypt and Nubia eggs may be baked in the hot sands, and the saying of the Arabs is, "In Nubia the soil is like fire and the wind like a flame." The regions along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts are rendered more temperate by the influence of the sea. To the south of the Great Desert, where the country becomes more elevated, the temperature decreases, and it is now fully confirmed that some spots, quite near the equator, even reach the altitude of permanent snow. Regular snowfall, however, does not occur even in the most southern or northern regions. The intensity of radiation and its influence upon the temperature are very great in Northern Africa; while in the daytime the soil of the Sahara rapidly absorbs the solar rays, during the night it cools so rapidly that the formation of ice has often been known to occur. Africa is not much under the influence of the regular winds, except the monsoons of the Indian Ocean. It will be seen in the next paragraph, that the monsoons, although they extend only to about a third portion of the East-African shores, have an extremely important bearing upon the physical economy of the whole African continent. From hurricanes Africa is nearly exempt, except its south-eastern extremity, to which at times the Mauritius hurricanes extend. Northern Africa is much exposed to the hot winds and storms from the Sahara, which are called in Egypt Khamsin, in the Mediterranean, Scirocco, and in the western regions Harmattan. Extreme heat and dryness are the characteristics of these winds, which raising the sand, filling the air with dust, and prodigiously favouring the powers of evaporation, are often fatal to the vegetable and animal creation in the regions visited by them.

The supply of rain is, upon the whole, scanty in this continent. The Sahara and also the Kalhari of Southern Africa are almost rainless regions. There seems, however, no part where rain is entirely wanting, even in the middle of the desert. A very striking instance, as related by Mr Richardson, has already been referred to. At sea, between the tropic of Capricorn and the Cape of Good Hope, on both sides of the continent, the transparency of the atmosphere exceeds what is known in any other part of the world; and European astronomers, on first visiting those latitudes, contemplate with astonishment the nocturnal splendour of the heavens, in which the naked eye can perceive stars of considerably less magnitude than it can discern in the northern skies. There Jupiter and Venus shine with startling fulgurance, and cause opaque bodies to cast well-defined shadows; the fixed stars Aldebaran, Castor and Pollux, the Corona Australis, and Orion, appear preternaturally brilliant. The littoral regions of Western Africa, from the Kawara to the Senegal, receive copious falls of rain with the south-east trade-winds, so much so that at Sierra Leone 313 inches of rain have been known to fall in one year. But the largest supply of rain appears to be brought to Africa by the summer-monsoon on the east coast. This monsoon, lasting from April to October, extends over the Indian Ocean in a half-circle from south-east to north-east by west. From the latitude of Mozambique to the equator it has a general direction from south-east, and there, in a corresponding manner the chief rainy season is found during April, June, and July. Under the equator the direction of the monsoon changes and becomes south-west. To these winds are to be ascribed the heavy falls of rain that drench the extensive plains and ascending grounds of the east horn of Africa. Farther inland they are broken by the great Abyssinian table-lands, so that they do not extend beyond the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, south-east of which a great fall of rain consequently occurs; to the north-west, on the other hand, scarcely any rain falls. No rain occurs in these regions when the monsoon comes from the opposite direction, namely, from the Asiatic continent. The south-east monsoon does not stop in the coast regions, but continues in a more or less modified direction northwards as far as Lake Tsad and Kordofan, and even the latitude of 22°; in both regions its influences begin to be felt in May, or one month later than on the coast. This is a most important fact, as it evidently shows that no connected equatorial range of high mountains—such as the hypothetical Mountains of the Moon of early geographers—can exist in Central Africa, and the assumption is corroborated by the fact that in the eastern portion, where high mountains are known to exist, the same rainy wind is interrupted so much that it reaches the northern portions of Abyssinia one month later than Lake Tsad and Kordofan. The upper basin of the Nile, being probably not far from the coast, receives the undiminished supply of water with the beginning of the monsoon, and hence, after two months, the Nile begins to rise in Upper Egypt and continues to do so till September. Were the head streams of the Nile surrounded by a high mountain range in the east and south, like the Andes of South America, the monsoon would probably not have the same beneficial influence upon its development.

Although Africa belongs almost entirely to the torrid and warm zones, its vegetable productions are essentially different in different parts. Thus, in the extreme north, groves of oranges and olives, plains covered with wheat and barley, thick woods of evergreen-oaks, cork-trees, and sea-pines, intermixed with cypresses, myrtles, arbutus, and fragrant tree-heaths form the principal features of the landscape. On this northern coast the date-palm is first found; but its fruit does not arrive at perfection, and it is chiefly valued as an ornamental object in gardens. Various kinds of grain are cultivated. Beyond this region of the coast and the Atlas chain, with the borders of the Sahara commences a new scene. It is in this region, extending to the borders of Sudan, that the date-tree forms the characteristic feature, it being peculiarly adapted to excessive dryness and high temperature, where few other plants can maintain an existence. Were it not for the fruit of the invaluable date-tree, the inhabitants of the desert would almost entirely depend on the products of other regions for their subsistence. With the southern boundary of the Sahara, the date-tree disappears, the baobab or monkey bread-tree takes its place, and, under the influence of the tropical rains, a new, rich, and highly-developed flora presents itself. These trees, together with huge cotton-trees, oil-palms, sago-palms, and others of the same majestic tribe, determine the aspect of the landscape. The laburnum expands its branches of golden flower, and replaces the sena of the northern regions, and the swamps are often covered with immense quantities of the papyrus plant. Instead of waving fields of corn, the cassava, yam, pigeon-pea, and the ground-nut, form the farinaceous plants. The papaw, the tamarind, the Senegal custard-apple, and others, replace the vine and the fig. In Southern Africa, again, the tropical forms disappear, and in the inland desert-like plains, the fleshy, leafless, contorted, singular, tribes of kassias, of mesembryanthemums, euphorbias, crassulas, aloes, and other succulent plants, make their appearance. Endless species of heaths are there found in great beauty, and the hills and rocks are scattered over with a remarkable tribe of plants called cycadaceae. Plants of the protea tribe also add to the extraordinary variety in the vegetable physiognomy of that region.

Of the characteristic African plants, the date-tree is one of the most important, as it is likewise among the nearly palm one thousand different species of palms. It furnishes, as it were, the bread of the desert, beyond which it occurs only in Western Asia, wherever a similar dry and hot climate prevails. This tree requires a sandy soil, and springs must not be absent. The dates furnish food not only for man, but for the camel and the horse. For the latter purpose the stones are used in many parts, and are said to be more nourishing than the fruit itself. The Arabs make a great variety of dishes of which dates form the chief part. Of the sap of the tree palm-wine is prepared, and the young leaves are eaten like cabbage.

In Southern Africa are the extensive miniature woods of heaths, as characteristic as the groves of date-palms in the north. No less than five hundred species have already been discovered. These plants, of which some reach the height of 12 to 15 feet (Erica urceolaris), are covered throughout the greater part of the year with innumerable flowers of beautiful colours, the red being prevalent.

The papyrus is an aquatic plant, having a stem from 3 Papyra to 6 feet high. It inhabits both stagnant waters and running streams, and is common in the countries of the Nile, particularly Egypt and Abyssinia. Its soft, smooth, flower-stem afforded the most ancient material from which paper was prepared, and for this reason it is one of the noticeable African plants. It has, however, also been used for other purposes; its flowering stems and leaves are twisted into ropes; and the roots, which are sweet, are used as food.

Africa is distinguished from other continents by the scar- Animals. city of forests: it has consequently very few of the animals which inhabit forests. Deer are almost entirely wanting; in their place we find antelopes, which occur in greater numbers than in any other country. Peculiar to Africa are the zebras and other striped mammalia of the equine and asinine tribes; the giraffe, and their constant companion the ostrich. The extraordinary swiftness of these animals, which enables them to seek for their food at great distances, is peculiarly adapted to the immense plains of the country. The scarcity of forests further corresponds with that of squirrels, the few that are found being mostly ground-squirrels. Mice are numerous, as are also hares, which prefer steppe-like countries to woodland. The immense quantity of game affords food for plenty of carnivorous animals. Upon the whole, the mammalian fauna of Africa approaches in resemblance much nearer to that of Southern Asia than that of South America. The following table affords a general view of the distribution of mammalia in the different parts of Africa,—the figures denoting the number of species found in each of the divisions, those in parentheses being the number peculiar to Africa.

| Orders | N. Africa, incl. Barbary & the countries bordering on the Mediterranean | S. Africa | W. Africa | Egypt, Nubia | Abyssinia | Madagascar | All Africa | |-----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------|-----------|--------------|-----------|------------|------------| | Simiae | | | | | | | | | Carnivora | | | | | | | | | Marsupialia | | | | | | | | | Rodentia | | | | | | | | | Edentata | | | | | | | | | Pachydermata | | | | | | | | | Ruminantia | | | | | | | | | Cetacea | | | | | | | | | **Total** | | | | | | | |

The order Simiae is well represented, more particularly within the tropics, whence they decrease northwards and southwards. In Barbary and Lower Egypt only one ape is found (*Ianus oceadatus*), and in the southern extremity only two species. In Madagascar, the place of the true monkeys is supplied by the peculiar tribe of the makis. Many species are similar to those of Asia; thus the orang-outang of Borneo is represented in Africa by the chimpanzee. The gibbons and solemn dous (*Hylobates* and *Semnopithecus*) are entirely wanting.

Bats are numerous in Africa, but few are peculiar to it: the hedgehog is represented by the *tenrecs* of Madagascar; the shrew peculiar to this continent is the elephant-shrew of the Cape; our mole is represented by the *chrysochloris*, with iridescent hair, and eyes not perceptible. Of the larger carnivora the bear is almost entirely wanting, and occurs only sparsely in Barbary and Abyssinia. The true martens are unknown; but otters occur; and the civets are characteristic types. Of the *Canis* family the shakal (jackal) is characteristic; it differs from the Asiatic species by a paler skin, which approaches the colour of the prevailing deserts. Hyenas are true African tenants. Africa is the chief home of the lion, who there remains undisturbed as king over the animal creation, while in Asia his power is divided with the tiger; he is found all over the continent, except in the northeastern portions, in the greater part of the Sahara, and where European civilization has taken root. The panther, the leopard, and once, are the other principal representatives of the cat-tribe.

The Marsupialia are entirely wanting.

Of Rodentia the burrowing kinds prevail, both of squirrels and of mice. Hares are unknown in Western Africa, but porcupines extend from the Cape to Barbary.

Of Edentata the six species known to occur in Africa, are also peculiar to it. The aardwark (*Orycteropus capensis*) is essentially burrowing in its habits; and the burrows formed by these animals are the source of frequent danger to the waggoners and horses of the Cape colonists.

Of wild horses the asinine group is peculiar to Asia, and the hippotigrine group to Africa. The different species are found in large herds. The zebra ranges from Southern Africa northwards to about 10° north latitude. Africa has three peculiar species of rhinoceros, one elephant; and that remarkable animal, the hippopotamus, is one of its most characteristic types, extending from the Orange River to the Nile, Lake Tsad, and the Senegal. In the genus *sus*, the wart-hogs (*Phacochoerus*) belong exclusively to Africa, and the *Hyrax* (wabber, daman, dassie, of the colonists) is also its peculiar inhabitant.

Antelopes occur in all parts, and in great varieties and numbers. Dense herds sometimes extend over the farthest stretching plains as far as the eye can reach, and, when in the dry season they are forced to approach the colonies, and pay visits to the farmers, they become as destructive as locusts. The most valuable of the African animals is the camel or dromedary, which is believed to have been introduced by the Arabs. It ranges over the Sahara and all Northern Africa, as far as Lake Tsad, and is everywhere domesticated. Lastly, the giraffe, one of the most celebrated and characteristic of African quadrupeds, ranges from the Cape Colony as far as the Sahara and Nubia.

The ornithology of Africa presents a close analogy in Birds, many of its species to those of Europe and South Asia. Thus, on its northern coasts, there is scarcely a single species to be found which does not also occur in the other countries bordering on the Mediterranean. The ornithology of the region of the Nile and the northern coasts is identified with that of Arabia, Persia, and Spain. The deserts are inhabited by species adapted to its solitudes; while Southern Africa presents different species.

The ostrich, the biggest of birds, which has been described as the feathered camel, or the giraffe among birds, is found in almost every part of Africa. But its chief home is the desert and the open plains; mountainous districts it avoids unless pressed by hunger. The beautiful white feathers, so highly prized by the ladies of Europe, are found in the tail only of the male bird. The chase is not without its difficulties, and it requires the greatest care to get within musket-shot of the bird, owing to its constant vigilance and the great distance to which it can see. The fleetest horse, Africa too, will not overtake it, unless stratagem be adopted to tire it out. If followed up too eagerly, the chase of the ostrich is not dejectute of danger; for the huntsman has sometimes had his thigh-bone broken by a single stroke from the leg of a wounded bird.

The large messenger or secretary-bird, which preys upon serpents and other reptiles, is one of the most remarkable African birds. It is common near the Cape, and is not seldom domesticated. Of gallinaceous fowls, adapted to the poultry-yard, Africa possesses but a single genus, the guinea-hens, which, however, are found in no other part of the world. These birds, of which there are three or four distinct species, go in large flocks of 400 or 500, and are most frequently found among underwood in the vicinity of ponds and rivers. There are, besides, many species of partridges and quails in different parts of Africa. Water fowl of various species are also abundant on the lakes and rivers, as are likewise various species of owls, falcons, and vultures, the latter of which are highly useful in consuming the offal and carrion, which might otherwise taint the air and produce disease.

Among the smaller birds of Africa are many species remarkable for the gaudiness and brilliancy of their plumage, or the singularity of their manners and economy. Of the former kind may be mentioned the sunbirds, the lamprotornis, the bee-eaters, the rollers, the plantain-eaters, the parrots, the halcyons, and numerous smaller birds that swarm in the forests. Of the latter kind, it will be sufficient to mention the honey-cuckoo (Cuculus indicator).

Though Africa is not exempt from the scourge of venomous or dangerous reptiles, still it has comparatively fewer than other tropical countries, owing to the dryness of the climate. Many of its rivers disappear in the hot season, and forests are scarce, and seldom extensive and large. The reptiles harboured by the desert regions consist chiefly of harmless lizards and serpents of a small size, though often venomous. The frog and tortoise tribes are represented in but few species and numbers.

The most important among the reptiles is the crocodile, which inhabits nearly all the large rivers and lakes within the tropics, and is still abundant in the Nile below the first cataract.

The chameleon is common in Africa. Among the venomous species of snakes are the purple naja, the cerastes or horned viper, the ringed naja, and the darting viper.

The edible fish are found almost everywhere in great variety and quantity. The fresh waters of Egypt produce the gigantic bishir, the coffres, and numerous species of the pimelodes. The greater number of the fish of the Red Sea resemble the saxatilis of the warm seas of Asia. On the west coasts are found the fish belonging to equatorial latitudes, while the shores of the Mediterranean produce those of France and Spain. The seas of the southern extremity possess the species common to the latitudes of the antarctic, south of the three great capes. The fish of the east coast are the same as those of the Indian Sea.

Of the insect tribes, Africa also contains many thousand different kinds. The locust has been, from time immemorial, the proverbial scourge of the whole continent; scorpions, scarcely less to be dreaded than the noxious serpents, are everywhere abundant; and the zebuh, or fly, one of the instruments employed by the Almighty to punish the Egyptians of old, is still the plague of the low and cultivated districts. In the interior of Africa, a venomous fly has recently been discovered, which is fatal to nearly all domestic animals. It is called tsetse (Glossina moritans), and its size is almost that of the common blue fly which settles on meat; but the wings are larger. On the existence of this insect greatly depended the success of recent explorers in that quarter, as, where it occurred, their cattle infallibly fell victims to its bite. There are large tribes which cannot keep either cattle or sheep, because the tsetse abounds in their country. Its bite is not, however, dangerous to man; wild animals, likewise, are undisturbed by it. The termites or white ants are likewise a scourge to the country where they occur in great numbers. This destructive creature devours everything in the shape of wood, leather, cloth, &c., that falls in its way; and they march together in such swarms, that the devastation they commit is almost incredible.

Of the class of zoophytes, the brilliant polypi of every Zoophyte variety, and madreporae, abound on the coasts of Africa. The shores of the Mediterranean produce the finest coral, and those of the Red Sea bristle with extensive reefs of the same mollusca.

From the shores of the Mediterranean to about the latitude of 20° north, the population of Africa consists largely of tribes not originally native to the soil, but of Arabs and Turks, planted by conquest, with a considerable number of Jews, the children of dispersion; and the recently introduced French. The Berbers of the Atlas region, the Tuaricks and Tibbus of the Sahara, and the Copts of Egypt, may be viewed as the descendants of the primitive stock, while those to whom the general name of Moors is applied, are perhaps of mixed descent, native and foreign. From the latitude stated, to the Cape colony, tribes commonly classed together under the title of the Ethiopic or negro family are found, though many depart very widely from the peculiar physiognomy of the negro, which is most apparent in the natives of the Guinea coast. In the Cape Colony, and on its borders, the Hottentots form a distinct variety in the population of Africa, most closely resembling the Mongolian races of Asia.

The Copts, or as they are correctly pronounced either Chkoobt or Chkbt, are considered to be the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. They do not now compose more than one-sixteenth part of the population of Egypt, their number not exceeding 150,000, about 10,000 of whom reside at Cairo. Conversions to the Mahometan faith, and intermarriages with the Moslems, have occasioned this decrease in their numbers; to which may be added the persecutions which they endured from their Arabic invaders and subsequent rulers. They were forced to adopt distinctions of dress, and they still wear a turban of a black or blue, or a grayish or light brown colour, in contradistinction to the red or white turban. In some parts of Upper Egypt, there are villages exclusively inhabited by the Copts. Their complexion is somewhat darker than that of the Arabs, their foreheads flat, and their hair of a soft and woolly character; their noses short, but not flat; mouths wide, and lips thick; the eyes large, and bent upwards in an angle like those of the Mongols; their cheek-bones high, and their beards thin. They are not an unmixed race, their ancestors in the earlier ages of Christianity having intermarried with Greeks, Nubians, and Abyssinians. With the exception of a small proportion, the Copts are Christians of the sect called Jacobites, Eutychians, Monophysites, and Monotheletes, whose creed was condemned by the council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451. They are extremely bigoted, and bear a bitter hatred to all other Christians; they are of a sullen temper, extremely avaricious, great dissemblers, ignorant, and faithless. They frequently indulge in excessive drinking; but in their meals, their mode of eating, and the manner in which they pass their hours of leisure, which is chiefly in smoking their pipes and drinking coffee, they resemble the other inhabitants of the country. Most of the Copts in Cairo are employed as secretaries and accountants, or tradesmen; they are chiefly engaged in the government offices; and as mer- chants, goldsmiths, silversmiths, jewellers, architects, builders, and carpenters, they are generally considered more skillful than the Moslems. The Coptic language is now understood by few persons, and the Arabic being employed in its stead, it may be considered as a dead language.

The countries above Egypt are inhabited by two tribes of people resembling each other in physical characters, but of distinct language and origin. One is, perhaps, the aboriginal or native, the other a foreign tribe. Dr Prichard terms them Eastern Nubians, or Nubians of the Red Sea, and Nubians of the Nile, or Berberines. All these tribes are people of a red-brown complexion, their colour in some instances approaching to black, but still different from the ebony hue of the Eastern negroes. Their hair is often frizzled and thick, and is described to be even woolly; yet it is not precisely similar to the hair of the negroes of Guinea. The Eastern Nubians are tribes of roving people who inhabit the country between the Nile and the Red Sea; the northern division of this race are the Ababdeh, who reach northward in the eastern desert as far as Kosseir, and towards the parallel of Deir border on the Bishari. The Bishari reach thence towards the confines of Abyssinia. The latter are extremely savage and inhospitable; they are said to drink the warm blood of living animals: they are for the most part nomadic, and live on flesh and milk. They are described as a handsome people, with beautiful features, fine expressive eyes, of slender and elegant forms; their complexion is said to be a dark brown, or a dark chocolate colour. The Barábrá or Berberines are a people well known in Egypt, whether they resort as labourers from the higher country of the Nile. They inhabit the valley of that name from the southern limit of Egypt to Sennar. They are a people distinct from the Arabs and all the surrounding nations. They live on the banks of the Nile; and wherever there is any soil, they plant date-trees, set up wheels for irrigation, and sow durra and some leguminous plants. At Cairo, whither many of this race resort, they are esteemed for their honesty. They profess Islam. The Barábrá are divided into three sections by their dialects, which are those of the Nuba, the Kenous, and the Dongolawi. According to Dr Prichard, it is probable that the Berberines may be an offset from the original stock which first peopled Egypt and Nubia.

The country of the Nubians is limited on the west by that of the Tibbus, who are spread over the eastern portions of the Sahara, as far as Fezzan and Lake Tsad. Dr Latham considers it probable that their language belongs to the Nubian class. They inhabit the locality of the ancient Libyans or Libyes. Their colour is not uniform. In some it is quite black, but many have copper-coloured faces. They are slim and well made, have high cheek-bones, the nose sometimes flat like that of the negro, and sometimes aquiline. Their mouth is, in general, large, but their teeth fine. Their lips are frequently formed like those of Europeans, their eyes are expressive, and their hair, though curled, not woolly. The females are especially distinguished by a light and elegant form, and in their walk and erect manner of carrying themselves are very striking. Their feet and ankles are delicately formed, and not loaded with a mass of brass or iron, as is the practice in other countries of Northern Africa, but have merely a light anklet of polished silver or copper, sufficient to show their jetty skin to more advantage; and they also wear neat red slippers. The Tibbus are chiefly a pastoral people. They keep horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, but camels constitute their principal riches. The villages of the Tibbus are very regularly built in a square, with a space left on the north and south faces of the quadrangle for the use of the cattle. The huts are entirely of mats, which exclude the sun, yet admit both the light and the air. The interior of these habitations is singularly neat: clean wooden bowls for the preservation of milk, each with a cover of basket-work, are hung against their walls. They are greatly exposed to the predatory incursions into their country by the enemies who surround them. They carry on a considerable traffic in slaves between Sudan, Fezzan, and Tripoli.

"All that is not Arabic in the kingdom of Morocco," says Dr Latham, "all that is not Arabic in the French provinces of Algeria, and all that is not Arabic in Tunis, Tripoli, and Fezzan, is Berber. The language, also, of the ancient Cyrenaica, indeed the whole country bordering the Mediterranean, between Tripoli and Egypt, is Berber. The extinct language of the Canary Isles was Berber; and, finally, the language of the Sahara is Berber. The Berber languages, in their present geographical localities, are essentially inland languages. As a general rule, the Arabic is the language for the whole of the sea-coast, from the Delta of the Nile to the Straits of Gibraltar, and from the Straits of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Senegal." The Berber nation is one of great antiquity, and, from the times of the earliest history, has been spread over the same extent of country as at present: the ancient Numidian and Mauritanian names of Sallust, and other writers, have a meaning in the Modern Berber. It has affinities with the Semitic languages. In the northern parts of Atlas, these people are called Berbers; in the southern tracts, they are the Shulub, or Shellas. In the hilly country belonging to Tunis, the Kabyles, in Mount Aureus, the Showiah, and in the Desert the Tuarick—all belong to the same group. The mountains of Atlas are said to be inhabited by more than twenty different tribes, carrying on perpetual warfare against each other. They are very poor, and make plundering excursions in quest of the means of supporting life. They are described as an athletic, strong-featured people, accustomed to hardships and fatigue. Their only covering is a woollen garment without sleeves, fastened round the waste by a belt.

The Shulub, who are the mountaineers of the Northern Atlas, live in villages of houses made of stone and mud, with slate roofs, occasionally in tents, and even in caves. They are chiefly huntsmen, but cultivate the ground and rear bees. They are described as lively, intelligent, well-formed athletic men, not tall, without marked features, and with light complexions. The Kabyles, or Kabaily, of the Algerian and Tunisian territories, are the most industrious inhabitants of the Barbary States, and, besides tillage, work the mines contained in their mountains, and obtain lead, iron, and copper. They live in huts made of the branches of trees, and covered with clay, which resemble the magalia of the old Numidians, spread in little groups over the sides of the mountains, and preserve the grain, the legumes, and other fruits, which are the produce of their husbandry, in maittoares, or conical excavations in the ground. They are of middle stature; their complexion is brown, and sometimes nearly black.

The Tuarick are a people spread in various tribes through the greater portion of the Sahara. The expedition under Richardson, Barth, and Overweg, who traversed and explored a great portion of the Tuarick territories, has greatly added to our knowledge of these people. The following are the names and localities of the principal tribes:

1. Tanelkum, located in Fezzan. 2. Azghers, family of Shafou, located at Ghat. 3. Emanghasatan, of Hatectah, Amana, of Jabour. 4. Aheethananar, the tribe of Janet. 5. Hagar (Ahagar), pure Hagars and Maghatah. They occupy the tract between Ghat, Tuat, and Timbuktu. 6. Sagamaram, located on the route from Aisou to Tuat. Africa.

6. Kailouees, including the Kailouees proper, the Kalta- dak, and the Kalfadai.

7. Kilgris, including the Kilgris proper, the Iteesan, and the Ashraf. These and the tribes under the preceding head inhabit the kingdom of Ahir.

8. Oulimaid, tribes surrounding Timbuktu in great num- bers. This, probably identical with the Sorghou, is the largest and most powerful tribe, while the Tanelkums are the smallest and weakest.

The various tribes are very different in their characters, but they are all fine men, tall, straight, and handsome. They exact a tribute from all the caravans traversing their country, which chiefly furnishes them with the means of subsistence. They are most abstemious, their food consisting principally of coarse brown bread, dates, olives, and water. Even on the heated desert, where the thermometer generally is from 90° to 120°, they are clothed from head to foot, and cover the face up to the eyes with a black or coloured handkerchief.

The Moors who inhabit large portions of the empire of Marocco, and are spread all along the Mediterranean coast, are a mixed race, grafted upon the ancient Mauritanian stock; whence their name. After the conquest of Africa by the Arabs, they became mixed with Arabs; and having conquered Spain in their turn, they intermarried with the natives of that country, whence, after a possession of seven centuries, they were driven back to Mauritania. They are a handsome race, having much more resemblance to Euro- peans and western Asiatics, than to Arabs or Berbers; although their language is Arabic, that is, the Mogrebin dialect, which differs considerably from the Arabic in Ara- bia, and even in Egypt. They are an intellectual people, and not altogether unlettered; but they are cruel, revenge- ful, and blood-thirsty, exhibiting but very few traces of that nobility of mind and delicacy of feeling and taste which graced their ancestors in Spain. The history of the throne of Marocco, of the dynastic revolutions at Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, is written with blood; and among the pirates who infested the Mediterranean they were the worst. Their religion is the Mahometan. They are temperate in their diet, and simple in their dress, except the richer classes in the principal towns, where the ladies literally cover themselves with silk, gold, and jewels, while the men indulge to excess their love of fine horses and splendid arms. They generally lead a settled life as merchants, mechanics, or agriculturists, but there are also many wandering tribes. They exhibit considerable skill and taste in dyeing, and in the manufacture of swords, saddlery, leathern-ware, gold and silver ornaments. At the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, the Moorish department contained several articles which were greatly admired. The Moors, along the coast of Marocco, still carry on piracy by means of armed boats.

At two different periods, separated from each other by perhaps a thousand years, Africa was invaded by Arabic tribes which took a lasting possession of the districts they conquered, and whose descendants form no inconsiderable portion of the population of North and Central Africa, while their language has superseded all others as that of civi- lisation and religion. Of the first invasion, more has been said under the head Abyssinians. The second was that effected by the first successors of Mahomet, who conquered Egypt, and subsequently the whole north of Africa as far as the shores of the Atlantic, in the course of the first century of the Hegira, or the seventh of the Christian era. As regards language, Egypt is now an entirely Arabic country, although in many other respects the Fellahs are totally different from the peasants in Arabia. But there are also several tribes of true Arabic descent scattered about from the highlands of Abyssinia down over Nubia and Egypt, and westward over the central provinces of Kordofan,

Darfur, Waday, and Bornu. Others wander in the Libyan deserts and the Great Sahara, as well as in the states of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, leading a similar life with the Kahyles, but constituting a totally distinct race. Others, again, dwell in the empire of Marocco, among whom those along the shores of the Atlantic are notorious for their predatory habits and ferocious character. In many places Arabic ad- venturers have succeeded in subduing native tribes of every nationality, over which they rule as sovereign lords; and on the coast of Zanzibar resides an Arabic royal dynasty. Many of the smaller islands to the north of Madagascar are inhabited by Arabs, and traces of them have been discovered in Madagascar itself. The African Arabs are not all alike in features and colour of skin, the differences being at- tributable to some of them having intermarried with natives, while others preserved the purity of their blood.

The early settlements of the Jews in Egypt are facts universally known. Under the Ptolemies, large numbers of them settled at Alexandria and in Cyrenaica, and after the destruction of Jerusalem they rapidly spread over the whole of the Roman possessions in Africa; many also took refuge in Abyssinia. King Philip II., having driven them out of Spain, many thousands of families took refuge on the opposite coast of Africa. They are now numerous in all the larger towns in the north, where they carry on the occupation of merchants, brokers, &c., the trade with Europe being mostly in their hands. They live in a state of great degradation, except in Algiers, where the French restored them to freedom and independence. They have acquired much wealth, and, although compelled to hide their riches from the cupidity of their rulers, they lose no opportunity of showing them whenever they can do so without risk of being plundered, fear and vanity being characteristic features of their character. The Jewesses in Marocco and Algiers are of remarkable beauty.

Ever since the conquest of Egypt by Sultan Selim, and Turks, the establishment of Turkish pashalics in Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, Turks have settled in the north of Africa; and as they were the rulers of the country, whose numbers were always on the increase, on account of the incessant arrivals of Turkish soldiers and officials, the Turkish became, and still is, the language of the different governments. Pro- perly speaking, however, they are not settled, but only en- camped in Africa, and hardly deserve a place among the African nations.

Not all the inhabitants of the country called Abyssinia are Abyssinians in ethnology; nor are the real Abyssinians all of the same origin, being a mixed race, to the formation of which several distinct nations have contributed. The primi- tive stock is of Ethiopian origin, but, as their language clearly shows, was at an early period mixed with a tribe of the Himyarites from the opposite coast of Arabia, who, in their turn, were ethnologically much more closely connected with the Hebrews than with the Joctanides, or the Arabs pro- perly speaking. In the age of the Egyptian Ptolemies, and after the destruction of Jerusalem, Jews settled in Abyssinia in such numbers, that not only their religion spread among the inhabitants, but the Hebrew language became mixed with the Abyssinian as it then was. Hence the surprising analogy between the principal Abyssinian languages, viz., the Gheez in Tigre, and the Amharic in Amhara, with the Hebrew. The uninterrupted intercourse with Arabia, and the immigration of several Arabic tribes, also contributed towards the apparently Semitic aspect of the present Aby- sinian language. A large portion of Abyssinia having been occupied by Galla and other tribes, we shall here only dwell on the original Abyssinians. They inhabit a large tract extending from the upper course of the Blue River, north as far as the Red Sea, and some isolated districts in the south Africa, and south-east. To the west of them are the Agau Abyssinians, a different tribe, whose idiom, however, is the common language of the lower classes in Tigre and Amhara also. Abyssinia was once a large and powerful kingdom, but the Galla having conquered the whole south of it, it gradually declined until the king or emperor became a mere shadow, in whose name several vassal princes exercise an unlimited power each in his own territory. Owing to their jealousy and mutual fears, war seldom ceases among the inhabitants. The Christian religion was introduced into Abyssinia in the first centuries after Christ; but whatever its condition might have been in former times, it now presents a degraded mixture of Christian dogmas and rites, Jewish observances, and heathenish superstition. Yet of Judaism, which was once so powerful, but feeble traces are extant, while the Mahometan religion is visibly on the increase. European missionaries have been and still are very active among them, but their efforts have been crowned only with partial success. The Abyssinians, the Gallas being excluded from that denomination, are a fine strong race, of a copper hue more or less dark, and altogether different from the Negroes, with whom, however, they have frequently been confounded because they were called a black people. Their noses are nearly straight, their eyes beautifully clear, yet languishing, and their hair is black and crisp, but not woolly. They are on the whole a barbarous people, addicted to the grossest sensual pleasures; and their priests, among whom marriage is customary, are little better than the common herd of the people. They live in huts, a large assemblage of which forms a so-called town, and although they possess some solid constructions of stone, such as churches and bridges, it appears that they were built by the Portuguese, the ruins at Axum and other places belonging to a much earlier period, when the country undoubtedly enjoyed a higher civilisation than at present. Owing to influence exercised upon them during the last thirty years by European missionaries and travellers, their conduct towards strangers is less rude than it used to be at the time of Bruce. It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the low state of their religion, the Christians in Abyssinia are not allowed to keep slaves, although they may purchase them for the purpose of selling them again.

This extensive race comprehends by far the greater number of African nations, extending over the whole of Middle and South Africa, except its southernmost projection towards the Cape of Good Hope. A line drawn from the mouth of the Senegal in the west to Cape Jerdaffian in the east, forms its northern limits almost with geometrical accuracy, few Ethiopic tribes being found to the north of it. All the members of this race, however, are not Negroes. The latter are only one of its numerous offshoots, but between the receding forehead, the projecting cheek-bones, the thick lips of the Negro of Guinea, and the more straight configuration of the head of a Galla in Abyssinia, there are still many striking analogies; and modern philology having traced still greater analogies, denoting a common origin, among the only apparently disconnected languages of so many thousands of tribes, whose colour presents all the hues between the deepest black and the yellow brown, it is no longer doubtful that the Negro, the Galla, the Somali and the Kaffre, all belong to the same ethnological stock. Owing to our most imperfect knowledge of the central parts inhabited by that race, a classification of all its numerous members must always remain imperfect, a circumstance which cannot fail to give interest to the following scientific classification of the Negro tribes according to their various languages.

I. North-west Atlantic Languages. 1st Group.—Fulup, Africa. Filham. 2d.—Bola, Sarar, Pepele. 3d.—Biafida, Padsale. 4th.—Bagu, Timne, Bulom, Mampua, Kisi.

II. North-west High Sudan or Mandingo Languages. 1st.—Mande or Mandingo dialects. 2d.—Bambara. 3d.—Kono. 4th.—Vel. 5th.—Soso. 6th.—Tene. 7th.—Ghandi. 8th.—Landora. 9th.—Mande. 10th.—Ghese. 11th.—Toma. 12th.—Mano. 13th.—Gio.

III. Upper Guinea Languages. A. Liberian or Kru (Kroo). 1st.—Dewoi or De. 2d.—Basu. 3.—Kra or Kru. 4th.—Krebo. 5th.—Gbe.

B. Dakomean or Slave Coast. 1st.—Adampe. 2d.—Anfure. 3d.—Hwida. 4th.—Dahomee. 5th.—Mahi.

C. Aku-Igala. 1st Group.—Aku proper, Ota, Egbu, Idesa, Yoruba, Yagba, Ki or Eki, Dsumu, Oworo, Dsebu, Ife, Ondo or Doko, Dasekiri. 2d.—Igala dialects.

IV. North-east High Sudan Languages. 1st Group.—Mose or Gurmakra or Bembe, Daelana, Guren, Gurma. 2d.—Legba, Kaure, Kiamba or Dsamba or Tem. 3d.—Koama, Pagbalan. 4th.—Kascm, Yula.

V. Niger-Delta Languages. 1st Group or Ibo dialects.—Ijama, Isiele, Abaasa, Aro, Mbofia. 2d.—Sohe, Egbele, Bini, Iweue or Isewe, Oloma. 3d.—Okuloma, Usdo.

VI. Niger-Chadda or Nupe Languages. Nupe, Kupa, Estako, Musu, Goali, Basa, Ebc, Opanda, Egbiira Hima.

VII. Central African Languages. 1st Group of Languages.—Budama, Bornu dialects. 2d.—Pika, Karekare. 3d.—Bode dialects.

South African Languages—distinguished by an initial inflection.

VIII. Atam Languages. 1st Group.—Ekamntulufo, Udom, Mbofin, Esfen. 2d.—Basu, Kamuku.

IX. Moko Languages. 1st.—Isuwu, Diwala, Orungu, Bayon, Kum or Bakum, Bagba, Balu, Mom or Bamom, Ngoala, Momanya or Bamenya, Papiah, Param. 2d.—Ngotan, Melon, Nhalemoe, Sekc.

X. Kongo-Ngola Languages (in Kongo, Angola, and further inland). 1st Group.—Kabenda, Mimbooma, Ntere or Nteke or Betera, Mutssaya, Musentandu or Besentandu, Mbamba, Kanzyika. 2d.—Babuna, Bumbete, Kasands, Nyombe, Sunde. 3d.—Ngola (Angola), Pangaia (Benguela), Lubalo, Ruunda or Luonda or Muola, Songo, Kisama.

XI. South-east Languages. Mumtu or Adsawa, Kiriman, Marawi, Meto, Matatan, Nyamban.

XII. Unclassified and isolated Languages. A. In North-western Sudan. Wolof or Yolof, Gadaaga, Bidsogo, Gura, all distinguished by final inflection; and Banyun, Nalu, Bulanda, Limba and Landoma, distinguished by initial inflection.

B. In High Sudan. Asante, Barba, Boko.

C. In Central Africa. Kandin, Timbuktu, Baghermi, Houssa, Pulo dialects.

D. In the delta of the Niger. Yala.

E. In South Africa. Anan, Dsuka, Dsarawa, Koro, Ham, Akurakura, Okam, Yasqua, Nki, Kambali, Alege, Penin, Bute, Murundo, Undaza, Ndoh, Nkele, Komnun, Mbarike, Tiwi, Abadsa, Boritsu, Afudu, Mitut, Mbe, Nso.

These divisions, however, are merely linguistic. The principal Negro nations, as we know them, are the Mandingoes, who are numerous, powerful, and not uncivilised, in Senegambia, and farther inland, around the head waters of the Kawara, where they have established a great number of kingdoms and smaller sovereignties. The inland trade is chiefly in their hands. They are black, with a mixture of yellow, and their hair is completely woolly. The Wolofs or Yolofs, whose language is totally different from those of

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Extracted from a MS. of the Rev. Mr Koelle of the Church Missionary Society, on the Negro Languages, which the author, who has just returned from his labours at Sierra Leone, kindly allowed the writer to avail himself of for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Africa, their neighbours, are the handsomest and blackest of all Negroes, although they live at a greater distance from the equator than most of the other black tribes, their principal dwelling-places being between the Senegal and the Gambia along the coast of the Atlantic. They are a mild and social people. The Foulahs or Fellatahs occupy the central parts of Sudan, situated in the crescent formed by the course of the Kawara, and also large tracts to the southeast as far as the equator west to the Senegal, and east till beyond Lake Tsad. Their colour is black, with a striking copper hue, some of them being hardly more dark than gipsies. They are one of the most remarkable nations in Africa, very industrious, live in commodious and clean habitations, and are mostly Mahometans. A distinction was formerly made between the Foulahs of Senegambia and the Fellatahs of Central Africa, but it has since been ascertained that they belong to the same stock, and speak the same language. The hair of the Foulahs is much less woolly than that of other Negroes. Of the principal nations in Guinea, among whom the true Negro type is particularly distinct, especially around the Bight of Benin, are the Feloops, near the Casamance, very black, yet handsome; and the Ashanti, of the Amina race, who surpass all their neighbours in civilisation, and the cast of whose features differs so much from the Negro type that they are said to be more like Indians than Africans; although this is perhaps only true of the higher orders. They are still in possession of a powerful kingdom. The country behind the Slave Coast is occupied by tribes akin to the Danomesh on the coast. In South Guinea we meet three principal races, namely, the Congo, the Abunda, and the Benguela Negroes, who are divided into a variety of smaller tribes, with whom we are much less acquainted than with the northern Negroes, although the Portuguese have occupied this coast for upwards of three centuries. The next great branch of the Ethiopic race comprehends the Galla, who occupy an immense tract in Eastern Africa from Abyssinia as far as the inland portions of the Portuguese possessions in Mozambique to the south of the equator. Our knowledge of them is chiefly confined to those Gallas who conquered Abyssinia. With regard to their physical conformation, they stand between the Negro of Guinea and the Arab and Berber. Their countenances are rounder than those of the Arabs, their noses are almost straight, and their hair, though strongly frizzled, is not so woolly as that of the Negro, nor are their lips quite so thick. Their eyes are small (in which they again differ from the Abyssinians), deeply set, but very lively. They are a strong, large, almost bulky people, whose colour varies between black and brownish, some of their women being remarkably fair, considering the race they belong to.

An interesting tribe of them has lately been brought to the knowledge of Europeans, the Somali, a widely-scattered nation which leads a pastoral life on the uplands, and also nearer to the coast of the Indian Ocean from Cape Jerdaffun southward for a considerable distance. They seem to be of a mild and peaceful disposition, while on the contrary the other Galla are a warlike race, which has been pressing upon its neighbours during the last three hundred years, and are much feared by all those who are obliged to come near them.

The Kaffres, who, together with the tribes most akin to them, occupy the greater portion of South Africa, especially the eastern portions, have some analogy with Europeans in their features; but they are woolly haired, and while some are almost black, others are comparatively fair, although some of their tribes might have been mixed with the Eastern Negroes. They have been very wrongly classed with the Negroes. They are a strong, muscular, active people, addicted to plunder and warfare. The Eastern Kaffres, among whom the Amakosah and Amazulah are best known to us on account of their frequent invasions of the Cape Colony, are much more savage than the western and northern, or the Bechuana and Sichuan tribes. All Kaffres are pastoral, keeping large herds of cattle, but the last-named tribes inhabit large towns, well-built houses, cultivate the ground carefully, and exhibit every appearance of being capable of entire civilisation. The word Kaffre or Kafir, as it ought to be written, is Arabic, and was first applied by the Europeans to the inhabitants of the coast of Mozambique, because they were so called by the Mahometans, in whose eyes they were Kafirs, that is infidels.

We conclude this sketch with the Hottentot race, which is entirely different from all the other races of Africa. Where they originally came from, and how they happened to be hemmed in and confined entirely to this remote corner of the earth, is a problem not likely to be ever satisfactorily solved. The only people to whom the Hottentot has been thought to bear a resemblance, are the Chinese or Malays, or their original stock the Mongols. Like these people, they have the broad forehead, the high cheek-bones, the oblique eye, the thin beard, and the dull yellow tint of complexion, resembling the colour of a dried tobacco leaf; but there is a difference with regard to the hair, which grows in small tufts, harsh, and rather wiry, covering the scalp somewhat like the hard pellets of a shoe-brush. The women, too, have a peculiarity in their physical conformation, which, though occasionally to be met with in other nations, is not universal, as among the Hottentots. Their constitutional "hustles" sometimes grow to three times the size of those artificial stuffings, with which our fashionable ladies have disfigured themselves. Even the females of the diminutive Bosjesmen Hottentots, who frequently perish of hunger in the barren mountains, and are reduced to skeletons, have the same protuberances as the Hottentots of the plains. It is not known even whence the name of Hottentot proceeds, as it is none of their own. It has been conjectured that hot and tot frequently occurring in their singular language, in which the monosyllables are enunciated with a palatine clacking with the tongue, like that of a hen, may have given rise to the name; and that the early Dutch settlers named them hot-en-tot. They call themselves qui-que, pronounced with a clack. They are a lively, cheerful, good-humoured people, and by no means wanting in intellect; but they have met with nothing but harsh treatment since their first connection with Europeans. Neither Bartholomew Diaz, who first discovered, nor Vasco de Gama, who first doubled, the Cape of Good Hope, nor any of the subsequent Portuguese navigators, down to 1509, had much communication with the natives of this southern angle of Africa; but in the year above mentioned, Francisco d'Almeida, viceroy of India, having landed on his return, at Saldanha (now Table) Bay, was killed, with about twenty of his people, in a scuffle with the natives. To avenge his death, a Portuguese captain, about three years afterwards, is said to have landed a piece of ordnance loaded with grape shot, as a pretended present to the Hottentots. Two ropes were attached to this fatal engine; the Hottentots poured down in swarms. Men, women, and children flocked round the deadly machine, as the Trojans did round the wooden horse, "funemque manu contingere gaudent." The brutal Portuguese fired off the piece, and viewed with savage delight the mangled carcasses of the deluded people. The Dutch effected their ruin by gratifying their propensity for brandy and tobacco, at the expense of their herds of cattle, on which they subsisted. Under the British sway they have received protection, and shown themselves not unworthy of it. They now possess property, and enjoy it in security. One of the most beautiful villages, and the neatest and best-cultivated gardens, Africa, belong to a large community of Hottentots, under the instruction and guidance of a few Moravian missionaries.

These forlorn people are of Hottentot origin. Of them also several tribes have been discovered much farther north, and intelligence has lately reached Europe, that between the Portuguese possessions, in the very centre of South Africa, there is a nation of dwarfish appearance who possess large herds, and who seem to belong to the original Bushmen stock.

The island of Madagascar is inhabited by a race of Malay origin, exhibiting traces of Negro and Arabic mixture.

The total population of Africa is vaguely estimated, according to the most recent researches, at 100,000,000.

Strictly nomadic habits are not extensively prevalent. The great majority of the native tribes are distributed in towns or villages, occupy permanent dwellings and cling to their rude habitations with home attachment; while even the wild tenants of the desert, who roam far and wide in search of plunder, have selected oases, or watered valleys, as the sites of permanent abode. Except in the immediate neighbourhood of the Mediterranean, and of European settlements, society has remained in a barbarian state.

Agriculture is conducted with little art. The natural fertility of the soil in the well-watered districts supersedes the need of skill, while the production of the simplest manufactures is alone requisite, where the range of personal wants embraces few objects, and those of the humblest class.

Wars, cruel and incessant, waged not for the sake of territory, but for the capture of slaves, form one of the most marked and deplorable features in the social condition of the African races. This practice, though not of foreign introduction, has been largely promoted by the cupidity of the Europeans and transatlantic nations; and, unhappily, the efforts of private philanthropy, and the political arrangements of various governments, have not availed to terminate the hideous traffic in mankind, or abate the suffering entailed upon its victims.

In Religion, Christianity is professed in Abyssinia, and in Egypt by the Copts, but its doctrines and precepts are little understood and obeyed. Mahometanism prevails in all the northern countries; but the native mind, generally, is surrendered to superstitions of indefinite number and character. The labours of Christian missionaires have, however, done much, especially in South Africa, towards turning the benighted Africans from idols to the living God.

In describing the political divisions of Africa, we shall proceed from north to south.

The country included under the general name of Barbary extends from the borders of Egypt on the east, to the Atlantic on the west, and is bounded by the Mediterranean on the north, and by the Sahara on the south. It comprises the states of Marocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli.

Marocco, the most westerly state of Barbary, is thus named by the Europeans, but by the Arabs themselves Mogr'eb-el-Aksa, or "the extreme west." The eastern boundary was determined in the treaty with the French of 18th March 1845, by a line which, in the south, commences east of the oasis Figuig, intersecting the desert of Angad, and reaching the Mediterranean at a point about 30 miles west of the French port Nemours. It comprehends an area of about 170,000 geographical square miles, and a population of 8,500,000. But for some time the power of the government of Marocco has been diminishing, and at present the greater portion of the empire may be said to be independent, particularly that to the south of the Atlas chain. See MAROCCHIO.

Algeria extends from Marocco in the west, to Tunis in the east, and closely answers in its limits to the ancient kingdom of Numidia. The eastern and southern boundaries are not very definite, falling, as they do, within the boundless plains of the desert. The area is estimated at 100,000 square miles, the population at 3,000,000. See ALGERIES.

Tunis is the smallest of the Barbary states. The area may be estimated at 40,000 square miles, and the population between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000.

The configuration of the surface is similar to that of Algeria, the northern part being mountainous, the southern and eastern consisting of lowlands and plains. The highest peaks range between 4000 and 5000 feet. The southern plains comprise the land of dates (Belad-el-Jerid), and several extensive salt lakes. Tunis possesses but few rivers and streams, and springs are plentiful only in the mountainous regions.

The climate is, upon the whole, salubrious, and is not of the same excessive character as that of Algeria; regular sea-breezes exercise an ameliorating influence both in summer and winter; frost is almost unknown, and snow never falls. During summer occasional winds from the south render the atmosphere exceedingly dry and hot.

The natural productions of the country are somewhat similar to those of the other Barbary states, but dates of the finest quality are more largely produced. The horses and camels are of excellent breed, and the former are eagerly sought for the French army in Algeria. Bees are reared in great quantity, and coral fisheries are carried on, especially at Tabarka. Of minerals, lead, salt, and saltpetre, are the most noticeable.

The population consists chiefly of Moors and Arabs; the former have attained a higher degree of industry and civilisation than their brethren elsewhere; those of the latter who inhabit the central mountainous regions are nearly independent.

The government is vested in a hereditary bey, and has been conducted in peace and security for a number of years. The present ruler, Bey Mushir Pasha, abolished the slave trade in 1842, and has otherwise endeavoured to govern the country on an enlightened system.

The commerce of Tunis is considerable, but agriculture is in a backward state. The exports consist chiefly of wool, olive-oil, wax, honey, hides, dates, grain, coral, &c.

The principal town is Tunis, situated on a shallow lake on the north coast. It is the most important commercial place on the southern shores of the Mediterranean after Alexandria, and has a population of about 100,000. The site of the ancient Carthage is thirteen miles from Tunis in the direction of Cape Bon.

Tripoli, a Turkish province, extends from Tunis to Egypt, Tripoli, along the shores of the Mediterranean. Politically, it includes the pashalics of Fezzan and Ghadamis, countries which, in a physical point of view, are included in the Sahara. The area is estimated at 200,000 square miles, and the population at 1,500,000.

Tripoli is the least favoured by nature of the Barbary states, possessing a great extent of sterile surface. Mr Richardson graphically describes the physiognomy of the country between the towns of Tripoli and Murzuk in eight zones: 1, the plain along the sea-shore, with the date-palm plantations and the sandhills; 2, the Gharian mountains, with their olive and fig plantations, more favoured with rains than the other regions; 3, the limestone hills and broad valleys between the town of Kalubah and Ghareeah, gradually assuming the aridity of the Sahara as you proceed southward; 4, the Hamada, an immense desert plateau, separating Tripoli from Fezzan; 5, the sandy valleys and limestone rocks between El-Hessi and Es-Shaty, where herbage and trees are found; 6, the sand between Shinty and El-Wady, piled in masses or heaps, and extending in undulating plains; 7, the sandy valleys of El-Wady, covered with forests of date-palms; 8, the plateau of Murzuk, consisting of shallow valleys, ridges of low sandstone hills, and naked plains. These zones extend parallel with the Mediterranean shores through the greater portion of the country. Mount Tekur, almost due south of Tripoli, 2800 feet high, is supposed to be the culminating point of the regency. Rivers exist only periodically, and springs are exceedingly scarce.

The climate is somewhat more excessive than that of Tunis, especially in the interior, where extreme heat is followed by a considerable degree of cold. As far south as Sokna, snow occasionally falls. The climate of Murzuk is very unhealthy, and frequently fatal to Europeans.

The natural products are very much like those of Tunis. Oxen and horses are small, but of good quality; the mules are of excellent breed. Locusts and scorpions are among the most noxious animals. Salt and sulphur are the chief minerals.

The population is very thin. Arabs are the prominent race, besides which are Turks, Berbers, Jews, Tibbus, and Negroes. The country is governed by a pasha, subject to the Ottoman empire. The military force by which the Turks hold possession of this vast but thinly-peopled territory amounts only to 632 men.

The commerce is not inconsiderable, and the inhabitants of Tripoli trade with almost every part of the Sahara, as well as the Sudan. At Murzuk there is a large annual market, which lasts from October to January. The exports of Tripoli are gum-arabic, wool, senna, hides, and dates.

Tripoli is the capital of the regency, and the largest town; it lies on the Mediterranean, surrounded by a fertile plain; the number of inhabitants is from 15,000 to 20,000. Benghazi is the second important town on the coast, and has about 10,000 inhabitants. Murzuk, the capital of Fezzan, has a mixed population of only 2000 souls, that of the whole pashalic being 26,000. The town of Ghadamis has about 1000 inhabitants.

Egypt occupies the north-eastern corner of Africa, and comprises about 100,000 square miles with 2,000,000 inhabitants. It is remarkable for its ancient and sacred associations, and its wonderful monuments of human art.

Egypt is a vast desert, the cultivable and fertile portions being confined to the Delta of the Nile and its narrow valley, a region celebrated in the most ancient historic documents for its singular fertility, and still pouring an annual surplus of grain into the markets of Europe. By the annual inundation of the Nile this region is laid under water, and upon its retirement the grain crops are sown in the layer of mud left behind it. Barren ranges of hills and elevated tracts occupy the land on both sides of the Nile, which is the only river of the country. The amount of its rise is a matter of extreme solicitude to the people, for should it pass its customary bounds a few feet, cattle are drowned, houses are swept away, and immense injury ensues; a falling short of the ordinary height, on the other hand, causes dearth and famine, according to its extent. The water of the Nile is renowned for its agreeable taste and wholesome quality. In connection with the Nile is the Birket-el-Kerun, a salt lake.

The climate is very hot and dry. Rain falls but seldom along the coasts, but the dews are very copious. The hot and oppressive winds called khasmim and simooms are a frequent scourge to the country; but the climate is, upon the whole, more salubrious than that of many other tropical countries.

The natural products are not of great variety. The wild plants are but few and scanty, while those cultivated include all the more important kinds adapted to tropical countries: rice, wheat, sugar, cotton, indigo, are cultivated for export; dates, figs, pomegranates, lemons, and olives, are likewise grown. The date-palm, which appears in Upper Egypt, is characteristic, as also the papyrus. The fauna is characterised by an immense number of waterfowl, flamingoes, pelicans, &c. The hippopotamus and crocodile, the two primeval inhabitants of the Nile, seem to be banished from the Delta, Africa, the latter being still sometimes seen in Upper Egypt. The cattle are of excellent breed. Large beasts of prey are wanting; but the ichneumon of the ancients still exists. Bees, silkworms, and corals are noticeable. Minerals are scarce, natron, salt, and sulphur being the principal.

Since the last century the inhabitants, then amounting to four millions, have considerably diminished in number. In 1840 their total number was calculated at 2,895,500. The native Egyptians of Arab descent amounted to 2,600,000 souls, composing the great bulk of the people. Next in number, though comparatively few (150,000) are the Copts, descended from the old inhabitants of the country, the ancient Egyptians, but far from being an unmixed race. The Arabic Bedouin tribes were calculated in 1840 at 70,000, the Negroes at 20,000, the European Christians at 9500, the Jews at 7000, and the dominant Turks at only 12,000.

Egypt is formally a Turkish pashalic, but the hereditary pasha, by whom the government is conducted, and whose authority is absolute, is practically an independent prince. The government of Nubia and Kordofan is also conducted by the Pasha of Egypt.

The agriculture of Egypt has always been considerable; there being three harvests in the year. The industry is limited; one peculiar branch is the artificial hatching of eggs in ovens heated to the requisite temperature, a process which has been handed down from antiquity, and is now chiefly carried on by the Copts. Floating bee-hives are also peculiar to the Nile. The commerce is extensive and important: the exports to Europe consist chiefly of cotton, flax, indigo, gum-arabic, ostrich-feathers, ivory, senna, and gold.

Egypt is divided into three sub-pashalics; Bahari or Lower Egypt, Vostani or Middle Egypt, and Said or Upper Egypt. Cairo, on the east bank of the Nile, is the capital of Egypt, and is the largest town of Africa, containing about 300,000 inhabitants in 40,000 houses: it has 400 mosques, and upwards of 130 minarets, some of them of rich and graceful architecture, presenting at a distance an appearance singularly imposing. Alexandria, on the coast, is the emporium of the commerce with Europe, and has 60,000 inhabitants, among whom are 12,000 Europeans. Suez, on the northern extremity of the Red Sea, is a small, ill-built town, but has assumed importance as a good port since the establishment of the overland route to India.

Nubia extends along the Red Sea, from Egypt to Abyssinia, comprising the middle course of the Nile. The total population amounts to 1,000,000 at the least.

The natural features of this country are varied; the northern portion consisting of a burning sterile wilderness, while the southern, lying within the range of the tropical rains, and watered by the Abyssinian affluents of the Nile, exhibits vegetation in its tropical glory; forests of arborescent grasses, timber-trees, and parasitical plants largely clothing the country. This latter territory, which may be called Upper Nubia, includes the region of ancient Meroe, situated in the peninsula formed by the Nile proper, the Blue River, and the Athara, and comprises, further south, the recently extinguished modern kingdom of Sennar.

Nubia forms the link between the plain of Egypt and the high table-lands of Abyssinia; its general physical character is that of a slightly ascending region. The lowest parts in Upper Nubia scarcely exceed an altitude of 1500 feet; Khartum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Rivers, being 1525 feet above the level of the sea. A chain of mountains and elevated land rises abruptly along the shores of the Red Sea, gradually sloping down to the valley of the Nile; the intermediate region being intersected by smaller ranges, groups of hills, and numerous wadies filled with sand. Jebel Olba, a prominent summit of that range, is upwards of 7000 Africa. feet high. The spurs of the Abyssinian table-land, extending within the southern confines of Nubia, reach a height of 3000 feet; Mount Akaro, in Tasoki, being 3300 feet high. Besides the Nile, the country is watered by two other large rivers, its tributaries, the Bahr-el-Azrek, or Blue River, and the Athara or Takkazie, both being much alike in magnitude, and having their head-streams on the Abyssinian table-land.

The climate of Nubia is tropical throughout, and the heat in the deserts of its central portions is not exceeded by that of any other part of the globe. The southern half of the country is within the influence of the tropical rains, the northern partakes the character of the almost rainless Sahara; and while the latter is generally very salubrious, the former is a land of dangerous fevers, particularly in the plains subject to inundations. Such is the Kolla, a marshy and swampy region of great extent, situated along the foot of the Abyssinian Mountains, between the Blue River and the Takkazie.

The northern region is poor in natural productions, but in the south the vegetation is most luxuriant; palms form a prominent feature, and the monkey bread-tree attains its most colossal dimensions. The date-tree, doura, cotton, and indigo, are cultivated. The date-palm does not extend beyond the south of Abou-Egli, in Lat. 18° 36'.

The elephant is native to this region, and is seen in herds of several hundreds; also the rhinoceros, lion, and giraffe. The waters are inhabited by crocodiles more ferocious than those of Egypt, and by huge hippopotami. The young hippopotamus brought to the zoological gardens, Regent's Park, in 1850, was captured in Nubia, in an island of the Nile, about 1800 miles above Cairo: no living specimen had been seen in Europe since the period when they were exhibited by the third Gordian in the Colosseum at Rome. Monkeys and antelopes are found in great numbers. The camel does not extend beyond the twelfth degree of latitude to the south. Ostriches roam over the deserts; and among the reptiles, besides the crocodile, are large serpents of the python species, and tortoises. Of the numerous insects, the most remarkable is the scarabaeus of the ancient Egyptians, still found in Senmaar. Of minerals, Nubia possesses gold, silver, copper, iron, salt.

In the inhabitants two principal varieties are recognised, the pure original population, and their descendants mixed with other nations. The Berberines, amounting to upwards of 100,000, inhabit the northern part, and the Basharis, to about 200,000, the desert regions; the latter are the genuine Nubiens, finely moulded and dark complected, supposed by some to agree more closely with the ancient Egyptians than the Copts, usually deemed their representatives. In the south-eastern part, the true negro element appears.

Nubia, now a province under the pashalic of Egypt, consisted formerly of a number of small and independent kingdoms. The Turkish conquest lasted from 1813 to 1822; in the latter years it was invaded and mercilessly ravaged by the army of Mahomet Ali, under his second son Ismail, whose dreadful atrocities entailed a fearful fate upon himself, having been surprised when attending a nocturnal banquet at some distance from his camp, and burned to death.

The country is favourable for agriculture, which, however, is only carried on to a limited extent, by the women. Cattle are abundant, and the camels of the Bisharin and Ababde are famous for their enduring powers. Commerce has diminished through the oppressive policy of Mahomet Ali. Salt is largely exported from the shores of the Red Sea to India, and ivory, with other products of tropical Africa, forms a principal article of trade.

Khartum, the capital of Nubia, the headquarters of the Egyptian government, and the chief seat of commerce, contains 20,000 inhabitants. It is a newly-created town, having been founded in 1821, and lies in a dry, flat, and unhealthy country.

Kordofan, on the western side of Nubia, lies between the Kordofan parallels of 12° and 16°, and between the meridians 29° and 32°, containing about 30,000 square miles. It is a flat country interspersed with a few hills, presenting in the dry season a desert with little appearance of vegetation, and in the rainy season a prairie, covered with luxuriant grass and other plants. The general elevation of the country is 2000 feet, and some of the hills attain a height of 3000. The altitude of El Obeid is 2150 feet. There are no permanent rivers in the country, and the natural products are similar to those of the adjoining regions of Nubia.

The population consists of Negroes. This country was, simultaneously with Nubia, made tributary to Egypt. The commerce consists of gum-arabic, ivory, and gold, and is not inconsiderable. El Obeid, the chief town, is composed of several villages of mud-built houses thatched with straw, containing about 20,000 inhabitants.

The boundaries of Abyssinia are somewhat uncertain; but, Abyssinia, confining it to the provinces actually under the government of Christian or Mahometan princes, it may be described as extending from about 9° to 16° north Latitude, and from 35° to 41° east Longitude, and as having a superficial area of about 150,000 square miles. The population has been estimated at from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000, which is probably too high. See Abyssinia.

The Saharan countries extend from the Atlantic in the Saharan west, to the Nilotic countries in the east, from the Barbary countries, States in the north, to the basins of the Rivers Senegal and Kawara, and Lake Tsad in the south. The area of this large space amounts to at least 2,000,000 square miles, or upwards of one-half of that of the whole of Europe. It is very scantily populated, but from our present defective knowledge of that region, the number of its inhabitants cannot even be estimated.

The physical configuration of the Sahara has already been indicated in the general introductory remarks of this article. Notwithstanding the proverbial heat, which is almost insupportable by day, there is often great cold at night, owing to the excessive radiation, promoted by the purity of the sky. Rain is nearly, though not entirely absent, in this desolate region. It appears that when nature has poured her bounty over the adjoining regions in the south, and has little more left to bestow, she sends a few smart showers of rain to the desert, parched by the long prevalence of the perpendicular rays of the sun. The prevailing winds blow during three months from the west, and nine months from the east. When the wind increases into a storm, it frequently raises the loose sand in such quantities that a layer of nearly equal portions of sand and air, and rising about 20 feet above the surface of the ground, divides the purer atmosphere from the solid earth. This sand, when agitated by whirlwinds, sometimes overwhelms caravans with destruction, and, even when not fatal, involves them in the greatest confusion and danger.

The natural products correspond with the physical features of the country. Vegetation and animal life exist only sparingly in the oases or valleys where springs occur, and where the soil is not utterly unfit to nourish certain plants. Amongst the few trees, the most important is the date-palm, which is peculiarly suited to the dryness of the climate. This useful tree flourishes best in the eastern part of the desert, inhabited by the Tibbus. The doum-palm is likewise a native of the same part, and seems entirely absent in the western Sahara; its northernmost limit is on the southern borders of Fezzan and Tegerry, in Lat. 24° 4' N. Acacias are found in the extreme west towards Senegambia, furnishing the so-called gum-arabic. In many parts of the desert, a thorny evergreen plant occurs, about Africa. 18 inches high. It is eagerly eaten by the camels, and is almost the only plant which supplies them with food while thus traversing the desert. The cultivation of grains to a small extent is limited to the western oases of Tuat and others, a little barley, rice, beans, and gussub, being there grown. In the kingdom of Air, there are some fields of maize and other grains; but upon the whole, the population depend for these products on Sudan and other regions. There are but a few specimens of wild animals in these wildernesses; lions and panthers are found only on its borders. Gazelles and antelopes are abundant, hares and foxes but scarce. Ostriches are very numerous, and vultures and ravens are also met with. In approaching Sudan, animal and vegetable life becomes more varied and abundant. Of reptiles only the smaller kinds are found, mostly harmless lizards and a few species of snakes. Of domestic animals, the most important is the camel, but horses and goats are not wanting, and in the country of the Tuaricks an excellent breed of sheep is found, while in that of the Tibbus a large and fine variety of the ass is valuable to the inhabitants. Of minerals, salt is the chief production, which occurs chiefly near Bilma.

The habitable portions of the Sahara are possessed by three different nations. In the extreme western portion are Moors and Arabs. They live in tents, which they remove from one place to another; and their residences consist of similar encampments, formed of from twenty to a hundred of such tents, where they are governed by a sheik of their own body; each encampment constituting, as it were, a particular tribe. They are a daring set of people, and not restrained by any scruple in plundering, ill-treating, and even killing persons who are not of their own faith; but to such as are, they are hospitable and benevolent. The holdest of these children of the desert are the Tuaricks, who occupy the middle of the wilderness, where it is widest. The form of their bodies, and their language, prove that they belong to the aboriginal inhabitants of Northern Africa, who are known by the name of Berbers. They are a fine race of men, tall, straight, and handsome, with an air of independence which is very imposing. They live chiefly upon the tribute they exact from all caravans traversing their country. They render themselves formidable to all their neighbours, with whom they are nearly always in a state of enmity, making predatory incursions into the neighbouring countries. The third division of Saharan people are the Tibbus, who inhabit the eastern portion, comprising one of the best parts of the desert. In some of their features they resemble the Negroes. They are an agricultural and pastoral nation, live mostly in fixed abodes, and are in this respect greatly different from their western neighbours. Their country is as yet little explored by Europeans. The Tibbus are in part Pagans, while the other inhabitants of the Sahara are Mahometans.

The commerce of the Sahara consists chiefly of gold, slaves, ivory, iron, and salt.

Western Africa comprehends the west coast of Africa, from the borders of the Sahara, in about Lat. 17, north to Nourse River, in about the same latitude south, with a considerable space of inland territory, varying in its extent from the shores, and, in fact, completely undefined in its interior limits.

Senegambia, the country of the Senegal and Gambia, extends from the Sahara in the north to Lat. 10. in the south, and may be considered as extending inland to the sources of the waters which flow through it to the Atlantic.

The western portion is very flat, and its contiguity to the great desert is frequently evidenced by dry hot winds, an atmosphere loaded with fine sand, and clouds of locusts. The eastern portion is occupied with hills and elevated land. Under the 10th parallel the hills approach quite close to the coast. There the Sangari Mountains attain an elevation of from 4000 to 5000 feet. The country possesses a great number of rivers, among which the Senegal, Gambia, and Rio Grande are the most important. Senegambia ranges, in point of heat, with the Sahara and Nubia. The atmosphere is most oppressive in the rainy season, which lasts from June to November, when an enormous amount of rain drenches the country. The prevailing winds in that period are southwest; whereas in the dry season they are from the east. The climate is, upon the whole, most unhealthy, and too generally proves fatal to Europeans.

The vegetation is most luxuriant and vigorous. The baobab (monkey bread-tree), the most enormous tree on the face of the globe, is eminently characteristic of Senegambia. It attains to no great height, but the circumference of the trunk is frequently 60 to 75 feet, and has been found to measure 112 feet; its fruit, the monkey-bread, is a principal article of food with the natives. Bombacaceae (cotton-trees) are likewise numerous, and they are among the loftiest in the world. Acacias, which furnish the gum-arabic, are most abundant, while the shores are lined with mangrove trees. The vegetation is similar to that of Nubia, as also the animal world. Gold and iron are the chief metals.

The inhabitants consist of various Negro nations, the chief of which are the Wolof.

The gum trade is the most important traffic on the Senegal; bees-wax, ivory, bark, and hides, forming the chief exports from the Gambia.

Of European settlements are: The French possessions on the Senegal; the capital of which is St Louis, built about the year 1626, on an island at the mouth of the river. The total population of the settlement amounted, in 1846, to 17,976 coloured people, and 1170 Europeans.

The British settlement is on the Gambia, and has 4851 inhabitants. Bathurst is the chief town.

The Portuguese settlement consists of small factories south of the Gambia, at Bissao, Cacheo, and some other points.

The West coast of Africa, from Senegambia to the Nourse River, is commonly comprised by the general denomination coast Guinea Coast, a term of Portuguese origin.

The coast is mostly so very low, as to be visible to navigators only within a very short distance, the trees being their only sailing marks. North of the equator, in the Bight of Benin, the coast forms an exception, being high and bold, with the Cameroon Mountains behind; as also at Sierra Leone, which has received its name (Lion Mountain) in consequence. The coast presents a dead level often for thirty to fifty miles inland. It has numerous rivers, some of which extend to the furthest recesses of Inner Africa.

The climate, notoriously fatal to European life, is rendered pestilential by the muddy creeks and inlets, the putrid swamps, and the mangrove jungles that cover the banks of the rivers. There are two seasons in the year, the rainy and the dry season. The former commences in the southern portion in March, but at Sierra Leone and other northern parts, a month later.

Vegetation is exceedingly luxuriant and varied. One of the most important trees is the Elais guineensis, a species of palm, from the covering of whose seed or nut is extracted the palm oil, so well known to English commerce and manufacture; several thousand tons are annually brought into the ports of Liverpool, London, and Bristol. The palm-oil tree is indigenous and abundant from the river Gambia to the Congo; but the oil is manufactured in large quantities chiefly in the country of the Gold and Slave Coasts. The former comprises nearly all the more remarkable of African animals: particularly abundant are elephants, hippopotami, monkeys, lions, leopards, crocodiles, serpents, parrots. The domestic Africa. animals are mostly of an inferior quality. The principal minerals are gold and iron. The population consists, besides a few European colonists, of a vast variety of Negro nations, similar in their physical qualities and prevailing customs, but differing considerably in their dispositions and morals.

The chief articles of commerce are palm-oil, ivory, gold, wax, various kinds of timber, spices, gums, and rice.

The divisions of Northern or Upper Guinea, are mostly founded on the productions characteristic of the different parts, and are still popularly retained.

The British colony of Sierra Leone extends from Rokelle River in the north, to Kater River in the south, and about twenty miles inland. The population, consisting chiefly of liberated slaves, amounted in 1847 to 41,735. Freetown, the capital, has 10,580 inhabitants, and is, after St Louis, the most considerable European town on the western coast of Africa.

The Malaghetta or Grain Coast extends from Sierra Leone to Cape Palmas. Malaghetta is a species of pepper yielded by a parasitical plant of this region. It is sometimes styled the Windy or Windward Coast, from the frequency of short but furious tornadoes, throughout the year. The republic of Liberia, a settlement of the American Colonization Society, founded in 1822, for the purpose of removing free people of colour from the United States, occupies a considerable extent of the coast, and has for its capital Monrovia, a town named after the president, Mr Monroe. The population amounts to from 10,000 to 15,000 native inhabitants, and 3200 liberated Negroes from America.

The Ivory Coast extends from Cape Palmas to Cape Three Points, and obtained its name from the quantity of the article supplied by its numerous elephants.

The Gold Coast stretches from Cape Three Points to the River Volta, and has been long frequented for gold-dust and other products. The Dutch have several trading ports, of which Elmina, a town of 12,000 inhabitants, is the principal and oldest of the European stations, founded by the Portuguese in 1411. The British possess Cape Coast Castle, a spacious fortress, and James' Fort, near Accra. The Danish settlements of Christiansburg and Friedensburg were ceded to the English in 1849.

The Slave Coast extends from the River Volta to the Calabar River, and is, as its name implies, the chief scene of the most disgraceful traffic that blots the history of mankind. Eko, or Lagos, one of the chief towns of the coast, was destroyed in 1852.

The kingdoms of Ashanti, Dahomey, Yoruba and others, occupy the interior country of the Guinea coast.

The coast from the Old Calabar River to the Portuguese possessions is inhabited by various tribes. Duke's Town, on the former river, is a large town of 30,000 to 40,000 inhabitants, with considerable trade in palm-oil, ivory, and timber.

On the Gabun river, close to the equator, are a French settlement and American missionary stations. At the equator, Southern or Lower Guinea begins, where the only European settlements are those of the Portuguese.

Loango is reckoned from the equator to the Zaire or Congo river. Its chief town is Beally, called Loango by the Europeans.

Congo extends south of the Zaire, comprising a very fertile region, with veins of copper and iron. Banza Congo or St Salvador is the capital.

Angola comprises the two districts of Angola proper and Benguela. In these regions the Portuguese settlements extend farther inland than in the two preceding districts, namely, about 200 miles. The population of the settlements is about 400,000, comprising only 1830 Europeans. The capital St Paolo de Loando, contains 1600 Europeans and 4000 native inhabitants, and has a fine harbour. St Felipe de Benguela is situated in a picturesque but very marshy and most unhealthy spot.

The coast from Benguela to the Cape Colony may, in a South African arrangement like this, be included either within West Africa, or South Africa. The whole coast is little visited or known, being of a most barren and desolate description, and possessing few harbours. From Walich Bay, as has been already stated, Mr Galton recently penetrated nearly 400 miles into the interior towards Lake Ngami, and explored the country inhabited by the Ovaherero or Damaras, and other tribes.

Under South Africa the Cape Colony only is generally comprised. It takes its name from the Cape of Good Hope, Colony, and extends from thence to the Orange River in the north, and to the Tugela River in the east. A large proportion of the territory included within these limits, especially in the north, is either unoccupied, or, excepting missionary stations, entirely in the hands of the aborigines.

Apart from the shores, the country consists of high lands, forming parallel mountainous ridges, with elevated plains or terraces of varying extent between. The loftiest range, styled in different parts of its course Sneuw-bergen, Winter-bergen, Nieuved-bergen, and Roggenveld-bergen, names originated by the Dutch, is the third and last encountered on proceeding into the interior from the south coast. The most elevated summit, Spitzkop or Compass-berg, in the district of Graafreynet, attains the height of 10,250 feet. This and the other chains are deeply cut by the transverse valleys called kloofs, which serve as passes across them, and appear as if produced by some sudden convulsion of nature, subsequently widened by the action of the atmosphere and running water.

The high plains or terraces are remarkable for their extraordinary change of aspect in the succession of the seasons. During the summer heats they are perfect deserts, answering to the term applied to them, karroos, signifying, in the Hottentot language, "dry" or "arid." But the sandy soil being pervaded with the roots and fibres of various plants, is spontaneously clothed with the richest verdure after the rains, and becomes transformed for a time into a vast garden of gorgeous flowers, yielding the most fragrant odours. Adapted thus to the support of graminivorous animals, the karroos are the resort of antelopes, zebras, quaggas, and gnus in countless herds, and of the carnivorous beasts that prey upon them, the lion, hyena, leopard, and panther. These quadrupeds, however, with the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, giraffe, buffalo, and ostrich, have been largely banished from their old haunts by the advanced footsteps of civilised man, and are only found in the more secluded parts of the interior. The country has a singular and superb flora, but it comprises few native plants useful to man; many such have been now introduced. Heaths of varied species and great beauty abound; and geraniums are treated as common weeds. Many highly productive districts occur; corn, wines, and fruit, being the chief objects of cultivation in the neighbourhood of the Cape, while the more inland settlements are grazing farms. Some fine natural forests clothe the sides of the mountains; but in general the colony is deficient in timber-trees, as well as in navigable streams, perennial springs, and regular rain. A great deposit of rich copper ore occurs near the mouth of the Gariep; and salt is obtained for consumption and sale from salt lakes.

The climate is exceedingly fine and salubrious. There are two seasons, characterised by the prevalence of certain winds. During the summer, which lasts from September to April, the winds blow from southeast, cold and dry; during the winter, namely from May to September, northwest winds prevail. In the most elevated regions the winters are occasionally severe, and snow and ice occur. The population of Cape Colony amounted in 1847 to 178,300 souls. The chief native tribes within the British territory are the Kaffres, Hottentots, and Bechuanas. No manufacture is conducted at the Cape except the making of wine, of which 8000 pipes are annually exported to England. Various articles of provision are supplied to ships sailing between Europe and the East Indies.

Cape Town is the capital of the colony, and contains 22,600 inhabitants. Its commerce is considerable, and the port is frequented by 500 to 600 vessels every year.

The Orange River sovereignty, added to the British territories in 1849, extends north of the Orange River as far as the Ky Gariep or Vaal River.

Natal, or Victoria, a district on the east coast, and separated from the Cape Colony by Kafraria, is a recently formed British settlement, containing an area of about 18,000 square miles. It is highly favoured in those respects in which the Cape is most deficient, having abundance of wood and water, with coal and various metallic ores, a fine alluvial soil, and a climate adapted to the cultivation of the products for which the home demand is large and constant—cotton, silk, and indigo. Pietermaritzburg, the capital of the settlement, lies 50 miles from the coast. Port Natal, now D'Urban, seated on a fine lake-like bay, is the only harbour.

East Africa extends from Natal northwards to the Red Sea, comprising Sofala, Mozambique, Zanzibar, and the Somali country. But little is known of that region beyond the shores. The Sofala coast, extending from Delagoa Bay to the Zambezi River, is flat, sandy, and marshy, gradually ascending towards the interior. It abounds with rivers, which cause yearly inundations. The soil is very fertile, and produces chiefly rice. In the interior, gold and other metals, as well as precious stones, are found. The Portuguese have settlements at Sofala, in an unhealthy spot, abounding with salt-marshes; it consists of only eighteen huts, a church, and a fort in ruins. Inhambane, near the Tropic of Capricorn, has an excellent harbour.

Mozambique extends from the Zambezi to Cape Delgado, and is similar, in its natural features, to the Sofala coast. The country is inhabited by the large and powerful tribe of the Macusas. The principal river is the Zambezi. The principal settlement of the Portuguese is at Quillimane, which is situated in a very unhealthy position, surrounded with mangrove trees. It has 130 free inhabitants, comprising only 12 Portuguese, and 5000 or 6000 slaves.

Zanzibar.

The Zanzibar or Sawahili coast extends from Cape Delgado to the River Jub, near the Equator. The coast is generally low, and has but few bays or harbours; its northern portion is rendered dangerous by a line of coral reefs extending along it. The region possesses a great number of rivers, but none of them attain a first-rate magnitude. The principal are the Livuma, Lufigi, Ruvu, Pangani, and Dana; the two latter rising in the snowy mountains of Kilimanjaro and Kenia. The climate is similar to that of other tropical coasts of Africa, hot and unhealthy in general; in some portions, however, the elevated ground, and with it a more temperate and healthy climate, approaches the shores to within a short distance. The vegetation is luxuriant, and cocoa-nut, palms, maize, rice, and olives, are the chief articles of cultivation. The fauna comprises all the more characteristic African species.

The chief inhabitants are the Sawahili, but the coasts are under the Arab dominion of the Imama of Muscat, by whose efforts commerce with the nations of the interior has greatly increased.

The island of Zanzibar (Unguja of the Sawahili) is the residence of the Imama of Muscat, and the seat of extensive commerce. Mombas, on a small island close to the main shore, possesses the finest harbour on that coast, and has recently become famous as the seat of an important missionary station.

The Somali country comprises the eastern horn of Africa, Somali from the equator northward to the Bay of Tadjurra, near the country entrance into the Red Sea. The coast is generally bold and rocky, in some places covered with sand; and the extensive region it encloses, presents a slightly ascending plain, traversed by large valleys of great fertility, among which the Wady Nogal is prominent. Along the Arabian Gulf the coast is very abrupt, and girded with a range of mountains, the highest summit of which, Jebel Ahl, reaches an elevation of 6500 feet. This country is not so well watered as the region to the south, and some of its rivers are periodical.

The Somali country is famous for its aromatic productions and gums of various kinds; and it is supposed that the spices and incense consumed in such large quantities by the ancient people of Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Rome, were derived from this part of Africa, and not from Arabia.

The Somali, the inhabitants of this region, belong to the Galla tribe. The commerce is considerable, and is partly in the hands of the Arabs. Zeila and Berbera, on the northern coast, are the chief trading ports: the permanent population of the former is about 750, while the latter may be said to exist only during the winter, when no less than 20,000 strangers, at an average, arrive to pitch their tents, and thus create a great market place. Hururr is the chief place in the interior, with 17,000 inhabitants, who are Ma-hometans.

Central Africa comprises the regions which extend from Central the southern borders of the Sahara in the north to Cape Africa. Colony in the south, and from Senegambia in the west to the territory of the Egyptian pashalic on the east. It comprehends the central basins of Lake Tsad, Nyassas, and others, and the greater part of the basins of the Kawara, Zaire, Nile, and Zambezi. Even the Sahara may well be included in this general denomination. So little is yet known of this vast region that the general features of some portions only can be indicated. The greater portion seems to be densely peopled with numerous tribes, and to possess inexhaustible natural resources. The portion north of the equator, under the name Sudan or Nigritia, comprises a great number of states, among which the principal are Bambarra, Timbuktu, and Houssa in the west; Bornu, Baghermi, and Waday, around Lake Tsad; Darfur in the east; and Adamana in the south. The inhabitants are Negro races, with many Arabs, Moors, and Berbers.

Bambarra occupies part of the basin of the Joliba, or Bambara, upper source of the Kawara. The dominant inhabitants are the Mandingoos and Foulahs, who have embraced Islamism, and are much more advanced in civilisation than the other negro tribes. The country comprises extensive and excellent pastures, with abundance of domestic animals, as horned cattle, sheep, goats, and horses of a fine breed. Among the vegetable products the most remarkable is the butter-tree, which furnishes an important article of agricultural industry and trade.

Sego, the capital, is situated on the Joliba, and contains 30,000 inhabitants. It was here that Mungo Park first caught sight of the long-sought river.

Timbuktu, or Jennie, comprises the basin of the Joliba Timbuktu, below Bambarra, and lies partly within the Great Sahara. Timbuktu, a few miles from the banks of the Joliba, and situated amid sands and deserts, is a celebrated centre of the North African caravan trade. It contains from 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants.

Houssa is an extensive country extending to the Sahara in Houssa, the north, to the Joliba or Kawara on the west, to Bornu on the east, and to about 10° north Lat. on the south. The dominant race are the Foulahs, but the mass of the popula- Africa. It is a very fertile and beautiful country, but the climate is insalubrious, and in many parts fatal to Europeans. The inhabitants are engaged in pastoral, as well as in agricultural and commercial pursuits.

The capital, Sakatu, is one of the largest cities in Negroland; it is situated in a fertile but marshy plain. Kano, another large town, containing 30,000 to 40,000 inhabitants, is the great emporium of trade in Houssa: there the English merchandise coming from the north through the Sahara, meets with American goods coming from the Bight of Benin. The manufactures of Kano consist chiefly of cloth, for the dyeing of which that town is famed all over Central Africa.

Bornu. Bornu is one of the most powerful states of Negroland; extending on the west to the 10th degree of Long., on the east to Lake Tsad and the kingdom of Baghermi, and on the south as far as Mandara and Adamana, in about 11. north Lat. Kanem, on the northern side of Lake Tsad, has recently been conquered and brought under Bornuese sovereignty.

The general character of Bornu is that of a plain, subject to inundations, particularly near Lake Tsad. It is very fertile, and cotton and indigo attain a high degree of excellence. The original Bornuese are an agricultural people.

Kuka, the capital and residence of the Sheik of Bornu, has only 8000 inhabitants, while Angermu, south of it, has 30,000.

Baghermi. Baghermi, another powerful kingdom, is situated east of Bornu. The boundaries, according to Dr Barth, who first visited this country and penetrated as far as Maseña, the capital, are on the west the river Logreme, a tributary of the Shary or Asu, by which it is divided from Bornu and Adamana; on the north its limits are in about 12½° north Lat., and on the east in 19¼° east Long., both lines dividing it from Waday: the southern boundary is in about 8½° north Lat. Baghermi is an extensive plain or valley formed by the river Shary or Asu and its tributaries. The inhabitants are very warlike, and frequently engage in slave marauding expeditions into the neighbouring states to the south.

Maseña, the capital, lies in 11.40. north Lat., and 17.20. east Long.

Waday. Waday, or Dar Saley, lies east of Baghermi, and reaches as far as Darfur. It comprises an extensive region, stretching as far as the basin of the Nile. Lake Fittri, situated in the western portion, forms a basin, unconnected with that of Lake Tsad, and by which the country as far as Darfur is drained. It has never been explored by Europeans. The population comprises a great variety of tribes and different languages.

Wara, the capital, is placed by Dr Barth in 14° north Lat., and 22° east Long.

Darfur. Darfur, east of Waday, extends as far as Kordofan. The country rises towards the west into a range of hills called Jebel Marrah. It is drained into the Nile. A great portion of the country is Saharan in its character, while others are fertile and diversified. Browne, in 1793, estimated the whole population at 200,000. It has an extensive trade with Egypt.

Cobbeith, the capital, is a merchant town, and contains about 6000 inhabitants.

Adamana. Fumbina or Adamana is an extensive country south of Houssa and Bornu, under Foulah dominion. It consists of a large, fertile, and highly-cultivated valley, formed by the River Benue, which is the upper course of the Tchadda. Near Yola, the capital, the Benue receives the Faro, a large tributary coming from the south-west in the direction of the Cameroon Mountains. The waters in the rainy season, namely, from June to September, rise 40 to 50 feet. This country was first visited by Dr Barth in 1851.

Yola, the capital, lies in 8.50. north Lat., and 13.30. east Longitude.

To Africa belong a considerable number of islands. The Madeiras, belonging to Portugal, lie off the north-west coast of Africa, at a distance of about 360 miles. Ma-Islands of deira, the chief island, is about 100 miles in circuit, and has Africa in long been famed for its picturesque beauty, rich fruits, and the Atlantic climate, which renders it a favourite resort of invalids. Wine is the staple produce. Funchal, the chief town, with nearly 30,000 inhabitants, is a regular station for the West India mail steam-packets from Southampton, and the Brazilian sailing-packets from Falmouth.

The Canaries, belonging to Spain, the supposed Fortunate Islands of the ancients, are situated about 300 miles south of Madeira. They are 13 in number, all of volcanic origin, Teneriffe being the largest. The latter is remarkable for its peak, which rises as a vast pyramidal mass to the height of 12,172 feet.

The Cape Verde Islands, subject to Portugal, are a numerous group about 80 miles from Cape Verde. They obtained their name from the profusion of sea-weed found by the discoverers in the neighbouring ocean, giving it the appearance of a green meadow. They are also of volcanic origin.

Fernando Po, a very mountainous island, is in the Bight of Biafra. Formerly a British settlement, it was abandoned owing to its unhealthiness, and is now only inhabited by a few negroes and mulattoes.

St Thomas, immediately under the equator, is a Portuguese settlement; as also Prince’s Island, 2° north of the line. Annobon, in 2° south Lat., belongs to the Spaniards.

Ascension, a small, arid, volcanic islet, was made a British port on the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte at St Helena, and since retained as a station, at which ships may touch for stores. Green Hill, the summit of the island, rises to the height of 2840 feet.

St Helena is a huge dark mass of rock, rising abruptly from the ocean to the height of 2692 feet. Jamestown is the only town and port, containing 5300 inhabitants.

Madagascar, the largest island of Africa, and one of the Islands of largest in the world, is separated from the Mozambique coast by a channel of that name, about 250 miles wide. The Indian area exceeds that of France, comprising 225,000 square miles, and the population is estimated at 4,000,000.

It has an atmosphere so pestilential, in particular localities, that to breathe it for a short duration is generally, and very quickly fatal. But other parts are not insalubrious. The lemurs, an interesting tribe of animals, are peculiar to Madagascar and the Comoro Archipelago.

The inhabitants are diverse races of Negro, Arab, and Malay origin. The Ovals, a people of the central provinces, are now dominant. The principal town, Tanamarivu, has 8000 inhabitants.

The Comoro isles, four in number, are in the north part of the Mozambique Channel, and inhabited by Arab tribes.

Bourbon, 400 miles east of Madagascar, is a colony of France, producing for export, coffee, sugar, cocoa, spices, and timber.

Mauritius, ceded to the British by the French in 1814, is 90 miles north-east of Bourbon. The sugar-cane is chiefly cultivated. Port Louis, the capital, beautifully situated, has 26,000 inhabitants. Within the jurisdiction of the Governor of the Mauritius, are the islands of Rodriguez, the Seychelles, and the Amirante islands.

Socotra, a large island, east of Cape Jerdaffun, with an Arab population, has been known from early times; it is now a British possession. This island was long celebrated as producing the finest aloetic drug: a few years ago this was denied; but now it is found still to produce a fine kind of aloe, though much of what passed as Socotrine aloe really came from India.