ous gloom. In some parts of the picture there are bright lights interspersed, that shine more conspicuously from the vast blanks and deep shadows with which they are surrounded. In the heart of the most dreary wastes, there emerges many a little oasis or verdant islet, which to the wanderer of the desert appears almost an earthly paradise. These spots have been painted in colours that belong not to the imperfect abodes of earth; as gardens of the gods, fairy seats, islands destined to be the mansions of the blessed. In like manner, in the bosom of its wildest woods and mountains, there lurk, in many an unsuspected retreat, scenes of the most soft and pastoral beauty. Even amid its moral darkness there shine forth virtues which would do honour to human nature in its most refined and exalted state. A tender flow of domestic affection generally pervades African society. Signal displays, too, have been made of the most generous hospitality; and travellers, who were on the point of perishing, have been befriended and saved by absolute strangers, and even by enemies. These varieties of nature and of character, these alternations of wildness and of beauty, of lawless violence and of the most generous kindness, render the progress of the European through this continent more interesting and eventful, more diversified by striking scenes and incidents, than in any other quarter of the globe.

CHAPTER II.

Knowledge of Africa among the Ancients.

Northern Africa well known-Obstacles opposed by the Desert-Description given by Herodotus-by Diodorus-by Strabo-Ancient Accounts of the Nile-of Ethiopia-of Abyssinia - Expedition sent by Necho-Journey of the Nasamones-Voyage of Sataspes-of Hanno-Voyages of Eudoxus-Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.

AFRICA, so far as it extends along the Mediterranean, was not only well known to the nations of antiquity, but constituted an integral part of their political and social system. This coast forms, indeed, only a comparatively small portion of that great continent; but while the sphere of civilisation and the geographical knowledge of the Greeks were nearly comprised within the circuit of the Mediterranean shores, Northern Africa held in their view no inconsiderable importance. This region, now covered with thick darkness, and left so far behind in all the arts and attainments which exalt and adorn human nature, had at that early period taken the lead, in these very particulars, of all other nations. It included Egypt and Carthage, which, as the first seats of government and commerce, were the admiration of the ancient world. In the patriarchal ages, when the Scripture history represents the Mesopotamian Plain, the scene of the future empires of Babylon and Assyria, as little more than a wide and open common, Egypt appears regularly organized, and forming a great and powerful kingdom; and when Greece was under the tumultuary sway of a number of petty chieftains, Homer already celebrates the Hundred Gates of Thebes, and

the mighty hosts which in warlike array issued from them to battle. The valley of the Nile was famed also among the ancients for producing the first elements of learning and abstract research; the first approach to alphabetical writing by hieroglyphic emblems; the first great works in sculpture, painting, and architecture; and travellers even now find that country covered with magnificent monuments, erected at an era when the faintest dawn of science had not yet illumined the regions of Europe. While Egypt was thus pre-eminent in knowledge and art, Carthage equally excelled in commerce and in the wealth produced by it; by means of which she rose to such a degree of power as enabled her to hold long suspended between herself and Rome the scales of universal empire. In her grand struggle with that republic she sunk amid a blaze of expiring glory; while the land of the Pharaohs, after having passed through many ages of alternate splendour and slavery, was also at length included in the extended dominion of the Cæsars. Yet, though all Northern Africa thus merged into a province of the Roman world, it was still an opulent and enlightened one; boasting equally with others its sages, its saints, its heads and fathers of the church; and exhibiting Alexandria and Carthage on a footing with the greatest cities which owned the imperial sway.

While, however, the region along the Nile and the Mediterranean was thus not only well known, but formed a regular part of the ancient civilized world, the progress of science did not extend beyond the tract bordering on the sea and the river. After proceeding a few journeys into the interior, the traveller found himself among wild and wandering tribes, who exhibited human nature under its rudest and most repulsive forms. On his advancing somewhat farther, there appeared a barrier at once vast and appalling, endless plains of moving sand, without a shrub, a blade of grass, or a single object by which life could be cheered or supported. This formidable boundary, which stopped the victorious career of Cambyses and of Alexander, arrested much more easily

every attempt at improvement and colonization. It secured to the roaming tribes of the Desert the undisturbed possession of those insulated spots of verdure, which were scattered at distant intervals amid the desolation of the interminable waste.

Meantime, although these causes prevented the civilisation, and even the knowledge of Europeans, from ever penetrating deeply beyond the Mediterranean border, yet between it and the measureless Desert there intervened a wide tract of alternate rock, valley, and plain, presenting a varied and often a picturesque landscape. This region, intermediate between the known and the unknown, between civilized and savage existence, excited in a great degree the curiosity of the ancients; to whom, however, it always appeared dimly as through a cloud, and tinged with a certain fabulous and poetical colouring.

Herodotus, the earliest and most interesting of Greek historians, when endeavouring to collect information respecting the whole of the inhabited world, was obliged, in the absence of written documents, to have recourse to travelling; and his narrative is almost entirely the record of what he saw and heard during his various peregrinations. By means of a long stay in Egypt, and an intimate communication with the native priests, he learned much that was accurate, as well as somewhat that was incorrect and exaggerated, respecting the wide region which extends from the Nile to the Atlantic. He justly describes it as much inferior in fertility to the cultivated parts of Europe and Asia, and suffering severely from drought; yet there were a few spots, as Cinyps and the high tracts of Cyrene, which, being finely irrigated, might stand a comparison with the richest portions of the globe. Generally, however, on quitting the northern coast, which he terms the forehead of Africa, the country became more and more arid. Hills of salt arose, out of which the natives constructed their houses without any fear of their melting beneath a shower, in a region where rain was unknown. The land became almost a desert,

and was filled with such multitudes of wild beasts as to be considered their proper inheritance, and scarcely disputed with them by the human race. Farther to the south the soil no longer afforded food even to these fierce tenants; there was not the trunk of a tree nor a drop of water; total silence and desolation reigned. Such is the general picture Herodotus draws of this northern boundary of the great African desert, which must be acknowledged to be extremely accurate.

In the tract westward from Egypt, behind the hilly range of Cyrene, the first object was the celebrated shrine of Ammon, dedicated to the Theban Jove, and to which the Greeks were wont to ascribe a higher prophetic power than even to their own Delphic oracle. This temple, situated in the midst of almost impassable deserts, was distinguished for a fountain which, sensibly warm at midnight, became gradually colder till noon. Ten days' journey beyond Ammon lay Ægila, occupied by the Nasamones, a numerous people, who in winter fed their flocks on the coast, and in summer repaired to collect the dates that grow here in extensive forests of palmtrees. To these wanderers are ascribed various singular customs, among which was their mode of foreseeing the future by lying down to sleep on the tombs of their ancestors, watching the dreams that arose while in this position, and treasuring them up as oracles. Bordering upon this nation had formerly been the Psylli, famous for charming serpents, an art not yet wholly lost among their successors; but that tribe, suffering once under a severe drought, had been so ill-informed as to proceed southward in hope of finding water, where, being involved in those vast and burning deserts, they entirely perished, and their place was taken by the Nasamones. Beyond them the Mace inhabited a beautiful region watered by the river Cinyps, on whose banks rose "the hill of the Graces," covered with a profusion of the finest foliage. Such is still the gay and brilliant aspect which the neighbourhood of Bengazi presents. To the south of the Nasamones, in a region almost resigned to wild