animals, which, however, engage with him in obstinate and deadly encounters.

We have not yet done with the various prodigious creatures that Africa generates. She swarms more especially with the serpent brood, which spread terror, some by their deadly poison, others by their mere bulk and strength; in which last respect her reptiles have struck the world with amazement. Ancient history records that whole provinces have been overrun by them, and that one, in particular, after disputing the passage of a river with a Roman army, was destroyed only by the use of a battering engine.

Emerging from these dank regions, where the earth, under the united influence of heat and moisture, teems with such a noxious superabundance of life, we approach the Desert. Here a change takes place equally singular and pleasing as in the vegetable world. Only light and airy forms trip along the sandy border; creatures innocent, gentle, and beautiful, the antelope, of twenty different species, all swift, with bright eyes, erect and usually elegant figures,-preying neither on men nor the other animals, but pursued by most on account of the delicate food which they afford. Here, too, roams the zebra, with its finely-striped skin, encompassing it like a robe of rich cloth; and the camelopard, the tallest and most remarkable of quadrupeds, with his long fore-legs and high-stretching neck, of singular and fantastic beauty, crops the leaves of the African forest. Though a rare species, he is seen occasionally straying over a great portion of that continent.

Nature, sporting, as it would seem, in the production of extraordinary objects, has filled Africa with a wonderful multitude of those animals which bear the closest alliance to "the human form divine." The orang-outang appears to constitute the link between man and the lower orders of living things. Standing erect, without a tail, with flat face, and arms of not greatly disproportioned length, it displays in every particular a deformed resemblance to the lord of the creation. It seems even

to make a nearer approach than any other animal to the exercise of reason. It has been taught to make its own bed, to sit at table, to eat with a knife and fork, and to pour out tea. M. Degrandpré mentions one kept on board a French vessel, which lighted and kept the oven at a due temperature, put in the bread at a given signal, and even assisted in drawing the ropes. There was a strong suspicion among the sailors that it would have spoken, but for the fear of being put to harder work.The baboons, again, are a large, brutal species, disgusting in their appearance, yet not without some kind of union and polity. The monkey tribe, now familiar in Europe, and attracting attention by their playful movements, fill with sportive cries all the forests of tropical Africa.

The insect race, which in our climate is generally harmless, presents there many singular and even formidable characteristics. The flying tribes in particular, through the action of the sun on the swampy land, rise up in terrible and destructive numbers. They fill the air and darken the sky; they annihilate the labour of nations; they drive even armies before them. The locust, when its bands issue in close and dark array from the depths of the Desert, commits ravages surpassing those of the most ferocious beasts, or even the more desolating career of human warfare. In vain do the despairing inhabitants seek with fire and other means to arrest their progress; the dense and irresistible mass continues to move onward, and soon baffles every attempt to check its course. Whole provinces which, at their entrance, display rich harvests or brilliant verdure, are left without an ear or a blade; and, when at length destroyed by famine or tempest, they cover immense tracts exhaling the most noisome stench. Yet they may be used as food, and are even relished by certain native tribes. The mosquito and its allies do not spread such a fearful desolation; though, by their poisoned and tormenting stings, they render life miserable, and not very unfrequently lead to its extinction. Even a swarm of wild bees, in the solitary woods of Western Africa, has put

a whole caravan to flight, wounding severely some of its members. But perhaps the most extraordinary of all the insect races are the termites or white ants, which display, on a greater scale, the arts and social organization for which their species are so famed in Europe. They cover the plains with their conical huts from ten to twelve feet in height, and are regularly distributed into labourers and soldiers, with others holding the rank of king and queen. This latter personage, when about to add to the numbers of the tribe, presents a most extraordinary spectacle, being swelled to many times the amount of her natural dimensions; and, at the arrival of the critical period, instead of a progeny of two or three, she produces as many thousands. These ants are far from being of the same harmless description as the corresponding insects of this quarter of the world. On finding their way into a house they devour every thing, clothes, furniture, food, not even, it is said, sparing the inmates, who are compelled to make a speedy retreat.

Such are the evils to which the people of this continent are perpetually exposed from the lower creation; and yet they experience in full force the truth of the pathetic lamentation of the poet, that "man is to man the surest, deadliest foe." Africa, from the earliest ages, has been the most conspicuous theatre of crime and of wrong; where social life has lost the traces of primitive simplicity, without rising to order, principle, or refinement; where fraud and violence are formed into national systems, and man trembles at the sight of his fellow-creature. For centuries, thousands of her unfortunate children have been dragged in chains over her deserts, and across the ocean, to spend their lives in distant bondage. In a word, superstition, tyranny, anarchy, and the opposing interests of numberless petty states, maintain a constant and destructive warfare in this suffering portion of the earth.

Nevertheless, compelled as we have thus been to describe the ills of Africa, we should err very widely did we represent her as pervaded by one deep monoton

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