tinent. This, no doubt, has been owing to the natural productions in greatest demand being confined to certain localities; and to the facilities afforded for traversing the vast deserts which intersect Africa by the aid of the numerous oases with which they are studded; and the employment of the camel, or ship of the desert. Salt and dates are the principal articles conveyed from northern to central Africa. The extensive region of Soudan, to the south of the great desert of Sahara, is completely destitute of these valuable articles. Both of them, but especially salt, are, however, in great demand in it; the latter being, in many parts, so highly prized and so scarce as to be employed to perform the functions of money. This necessary article is found in various places in the desert, while dates are found in the greatest abundance all along its north frontier, the country adjoining to it being called from this circumstance Biledulgerid, or the country of dates. But, though destitute of these important products, central Africa has others; such as gold dust, ivory, gums, palm oil, feathers, and above all slaves, for which there has always been a ready market in Barbary and Egypt. In consequence of this natural adaptation of the products of one part of the continent to supply the wants of another, an intercourse has subsisted amongst them from the remotest antiquity. Even so early as the days of Herodotus, the merchants engaged in the interior traffic had penetrated as far as the Niger, or one of the rivers flowing into lake Tchad; which the venerable father of history correctly describes as a considerable river beyond a sandy desert, which it required many days to cross, flowing eastward, and infested with crocodiles! (II. § 32.) Egypt and different towns in the N. or Barbary states have always been, and continue to be, the great seats of this trade. It is carried on at present as it was 3,CCO years ago, wholly by caravans. These consist of an indefinite number ef camels, seldom less than 500, and often as many as from 1,500 to 2,000. They do not follow a direct course across the desert from their point of departure to where they are destined, but diverge to the oases, or verdant spots, where they procure water and refresh themselves. If they be disappointed in finding water at one of these resting-places, or be overtaken by a land-storm, the consequences are often most disastrous. In 1805, a caravan proceeding from Timbuctoo to Tafilet, not having found water at a resting-place, the whole persons belonging to it, 2,000 in number, with about 1,800 camels, perished miserably!--(Jackson's Morocco, p. 339. See also the excellent chapter in Heeren, on the Land Commerce of the Carthaginians.)

Exclusive of this internal commerce, Africa has carried on a considerable commerce by sea, since the discovery of her W. coasts by the Portuguese; but the probability seems to be that she has lost more than she has gained by this commerce. Slaves have been the staple article of export from the African coast; and in some years as many as 110,000 or 120,000 have been carried across the Atlantic. It has been said, and no doubt truly, that the opening of this new and vast outlet for slaves was advantageous to Africa, by lessening the odious practice of cannibalism, and preventing the immolation of the captives taken in war. But, admitting this, it seems notwithstanding abundantly certain that the slave-trade has been productive of a far greater amount of misery than it has suppressed. Without stopping to inquire whether death might not be preferable to slavery, it has multiplied the

latter in no ordinary degree. Formerly the peace of the country was comparatively little disturbed by wars; but now a wholesale system of brigandage and robbery is organized in many extensive districts; the bulk of the people being hunted down like game by the petty princes, and by the Mohammedans, who affect to believe that they are entitled to capture and sell the "idolaters," to serve as beasts of burden in another hemisphere. Hence it is that the suppression of occasional instances of cannibalism, and of the sacrifice of human victims, has been supplanted by a widely diffused system of rapine, productive of a total want of security, and subversive of every thing like good government and good order. Until this state of things be totally changed, it would be idle to expect that civilization should make any progress in the countries where it exists. Its abolition is indispensable as a preliminary measure to give them even a chance of emerging from the barbarism in which they have been so long involved.

There seems to be a reasonable prospect that the meritorious efforts of Great Britain for the suppression of the slave-trade will, at no very distant period, be crowned with success, in so far at least as the nations of Europe and America are concerned. But it is quite otherwise with the slave-trade carried on from the interior with the Barbary states, Egypt, and Arabia. There are no grounds for supposing that it will be speedily suppressed. Probably, indeed, it is destined for a while rather to increase. Luckily, however, it is much less extensive than that carried on from the W. coast, the entire export of slaves rarely amounting to so many as 10,000 in a single year, and it is not accompanied by so many disastrous results.

Exclusive of slaves, palm oil, gold dust, ivory, gums, teak, timber, wax, hides, feathers, &c. are the principal articles imported into W. Europe and America from Africa. The most exaggerated notions seem to have been always entertained of the value of the trade and of its capacity of extension. That it may be materially increased is, no doubt, true; but the fair presumption seems to be, that the wants of the native Africans, and their industry, are much too contracted to admit of their ever becoming extensive demanders of European produce.

Carthage, the first maritime power of antiquity, though situated in northern Africa, was a Phoenician colony, and her fleets were principally manned from her colonies in the Mediterranean. Since the fall of this powerful republic, no African people has had the smallest claim to be called maritime. The most advanced nations are at this moment, and have always been, nearly ignorant of the art of ship-building. It is to European engineers and carpenters that the Pacha of Egypt is indebted for his ships; and every one knows that this was formerly the case with the deys of Algiers, Tunis, &c. In some few places the natives fit out a sort of large cutters ; not, however, for the purpose of trade or fishing, but to engage in piracy.

Besides salt, to which we have already alluded, gold dust or tibbar and cowries are the articles principally used as money in Africa. The latter, a species of small shell gathered on the shores of the Maldive islands, are used in small payments throughout Hindostan; but in the interior of Africa their value is about ten times greater than in Bengal.

X. The social condition of the people of Africa is as depressed as their industry and their science. But what else could be looked for where Fêticism,

immersed in the grossest barbarism. Surely, however, during the space of 3,000 or 4,000 years, opportunities must have been afforded to some of them to make some advances. But if so, not one has had sagacity to profit by them. Africa, in fact, does not seem to have produced a single great man. She has had no Hercules, no Minos, no Theseus, no Confucius, no Manco Capac. Among all the varieties of superstition that exist in it, we look in vain for hero-worship for the divine honours paid in rude but improving nations in other parts of the world, by the public gratitude, to departed heroes, legislators, and authors of important discoveries

in the arts.

With the exception of that of the ancient Egyptians and Ethiopians, whose descent is involved in the greatest uncertainty, almost all the civilisation that exists in Africa seems to be of foreign origin. The introduction of Mohammedanism, though in a debased form, has, as previously stated, gone far to banish cannibalism from many countries; and some of them have also adopted the letters and literature of Arabia. But the progress they have hitherto made is not such as to lead to any very sanguine anticipations as to their future advancement; and it would not, indeed, be very philosophical to suppose that those who have been wholly unable to produce any thing original should attain to much eminence in the practice of foreign arts and sciences.

may

It is unnecessary to enter into any examination of the vexata questio whether the varieties of the human race in Africa originally sprung from different sources, or whether they all belong to the same stock, but changed to the state in which we find them by the influence of circumstances in the lapse of ages. Whatever conclusion be come to on this point cannot in anywise affect the question as to the comparative intelligence of the African people. The same circumstances that are supposed by those who contend for the original identity of the races to have so greatly affected their appearance and physical capacities, could hardly fail to have an equally powerful influence over their mental faculties. This in fact is substantially admitted by Dr. Pritchard, who has ably contended for their common origin, and the equality of their intellect with that of the other races. "The tribes," says he, "in whose prevalent conformation the negro type is discernible in an exaggerated degree, are uniformly in the lowest stage of human society; they are either ferocious savages, or stupid, sensual, and indolent. Such are the Papals, Bulloms, and other rude hordes on the coast of Western Guinea, and many tribes near the Slave coast, and in the Bight of Benin; countries where the slave trade has been carried on to the greatest extent, and has exercised its usually baneful influence. On the other hand, wherever we hear of a Negro state, the inhabitants of which have attained any considerable degree of improvement in their social condition, we constantly find that their physical characters deviate considerably from the strongly marked or exaggerated type of the Negro. The Ashantee, the Sulema, the Dahomans, are exemplifications of this remark. The Negroes of Guber and Hausa, where a considerable degree of civilization has long existed, are, perhaps, the finest race of genuine Negroes in the whole continent, unless the Jolofs are to be excepted. The Jolofs have been a comparatively civilised people from the æra of their first discovery by the Portuguese.' -(Researches into the History of Man, ii. p. 338. Srd ed.)

Here we have it distinctly laid down that the

We

existence of the distinguishing features of the Negro race in a strongly marked degree is uni formly associated with the lowest state of barbarism; and that as they recede from this strongly marked type, we find a greater degree of civilization and improvement. The inevitable conclusion is, that every variety of the Negro type, which comprises the inhabitants of almost all central Africa, is indicative of mental inferiority; and that ferocity and stupidity are the characteristics of those tribes in which the peculiar Negro features are found most developed. believe that this is a perfectly correct statement; and we do not know that anything that can be said could show more conclusively the radical inferiority of the great bulk of the African people. But we do not form our opinion as to their inferiority on their configuration and appearance, but on the fact that while numberless European and Asiatic nations have attained to a high state of civilisation, they continue, with few exceptions, in nearly primeval barbarism. It is in vain to pretend that this is the result of the unfavourable circumstances under which they have been placed. An intelligent enterprising peoplecontend against unfavourable circumstances, and make them become favourable. But the Africans, with the questionable exception of the ancient inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, have never discovered any considerable degree of enterprise or invention, or any wish to distinguish themselves either in arts or arms. From the remotest antiquity down to the present day they have been hewers of wood and drawers of water for others, and have made little or no progress; and the only legitimate inference from this lengthened induction seems to be, that they are incapable of making it; that civilization will not spring up spontaneously amongst them; and that if it ever grow up it must be introduced from abroad, and fostered and matured under foreign auspices.

XII. Divisions. Africa has been variously divided, according as one standard or another has been adopted. Owing to the barbarism of the people, our ignorance of and the revolutions to which they are perpetually subject, the different states into which the continent is divided, any distribution of the country founded on its political divisions would be almost impossible; and however accurate better method would be to distribute it according to the at the time, would speedily become quite obsolete. A races of people by which it is principally occupied; but as these are in parts very much blended, and it is sometimes no easy matter to say which predominates, it seems, on the whole, the better way to distribute it On this principle, Africa may be distributed as follows, according to the great natural features of the country. beginning with the North: 1. The Barbary States, including the whole country N. of the desert of Sahara, and W. of the 25th degree of E. long. Sahara, or the Great Desert.

2.

3.

The Region of the Nile, including Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, Senaar, Kordofan, and all the country drained by its affluents.

4. Nigritia, which may be subdivided as follows, viz.: a. Soudan, or N. Nigritia, being the country to the S. of the Sahara and N. of the Kong mountains, watered by the Senegal, Gambia, Niger, and the rivers flowing into the great lake of Tchad.

5.

6.

7.

b. Central Nigritia, being the region between the Kong mountains and the N. shore of the gulph of Guinea to the Bight of Biafra.

c. Southern Nigritia, including the countries from the Bight of Biafra along the coast to Cape Negro, and inwards to the sources of the rivers flowing through it to the coast.

Southern Africa, or the region S. of Cape Negro on Eastern Africa, or the region N. of Zambese river, the W., and of the Zambesc riyer on the E. round by the sea coast to the confines of Abyssinia and the Gebel-el-Komri, or Mountains of the Moon.

The islands of Africa, including the Madeira, Canary, and Cape de Verde islands on the W. coast, with those of St. Helena, Ascension, &c.; and on the E. coast the great island of Madagascar, the isles of France and Mauritius, Socotra, &c.

D

XIII. Progress of Discovery.— Africa, among the quarters of the globe, has always been the chief object of curiosity and discovery. Her Mediterranean coast indeed was well known to the ancients, and included in their circle of civilized states. But her eastern and western limits, stretching an indefinite extent southward, long baffled the attempts to reach their termination and that of the continent; while immense deserts barred the access into the interior. A peculiar difficulty was also found in tracing the source, and sometimes the termination, of the mighty rivers by which its inland regions are watered.

Tyre, the earliest seat of a flourishing commerce, might be expected to seek a route to the distant parts of Africa. In the curious account given by Ezekiel, Tarshish is mentioned as both the most remote and most important place with which she trafficked. The learned, however, have been much divided respecting its site; but the Tarshish to which the Tyrians sailed down the Mediterranean, whence they imported iron, silver, lead, and tin, the products of Spain and Britain, was most probably either Carthage, or the S. part of Spain. Carthage made violent efforts to prevent other commercial powers from penetrating beyond Sicily, thus seeking to monopolise the exclusive trade of the remoter countries, of whose products her merchants would, of course, keep an assortment.

Mention, however, is made of another route to Tarshish, by the Red Sea, which has singularly perplexed geographers. It was opened by Solomon, during the most prosperous period of the kingdom of Judæa, and aided by an alliance with Hiram, king of Tyre. To reconcile these two voyages, M. Gosselin supposes the term to mean "the ocean" as distinguished from inland seas or gulphs: so that one voyage was to the Atlantic, the other to the Indian Ocean. But all the modes in which Tarshish is mentioned the fare of a vessel thither, its merchants, its kings seem inconsistent with so very vague a sense; nor does there appear any room to think the Jews ever viewed the Mediterranean as an inclosed sea. We are disposed therefore to prefer the suggestion of Mr. Murray, in the Encyclopedia of Geography, that the Tyrians gave the name of Tarshish to the whole continent, of which it formed for them the most important part. Tarshish, in this larger sense, becomes nearly synonimous with Africa; the one voyage was along its northern, the other along its eastern coast.

Ophir is another country much celebrated in the Jewish scriptures, particularly for its gold. Many learned men have sought it in India, though gold was not then an article of export from that country, but the contrary; and no one staple of Indian trade is mentioned as brought from Ophir. Indeed its position seems clearly fixed, when we find the Red Sea voyage to Tarshish described elsewhere as one to Ophir. The latter, then, was on the eastern coast of Africa, where gold is no where found north of the Zambeze. Here accordingly we find Sofala, long the chief emporium of that river; and it may be observed that Ophir is called in the Septuagint Soopheira, while the modern Arab term is indifferently Zofar or Zofoat.

This intercourse did not survive Solomon, whose successors, weakened by the division of the kingdoms, were unable to maintain it.

Our next information is derived from Herodotus, who, during his residence in Egypt, made very careful inquiries of the priests and learned men. He gives a very curious report of no less

an exploit than the entire circumnavigation of Africa. Necho, one of the greatest Egyptian princes, engaged for this purpose Phoenician mariners, who descended the Red Sea, and having reached the ocean, landed, sowed a crop, reaped it, and renewed their voyage. Thus they pro ceeded for two years, and in the third entered the Pillars of Hercules. They remarked that, in rounding Africa, they had the sun on the right, that is, on the south, which must have been correct. This brief relation has given rise to a mass of controversy, greater perhaps than the slight narrative can well support. The curious reader may consult Rennell in favour, Gosselin against it. On the whole, we are disposed to conclude in favour of its authenticity. The time is adequate; and, as Rennell observes, the flat-bottomed vessels of the ancients, keeping always close to the shore, might avoid dangers that arrested larger ships in the open sea. That the event should be afterwards forgotten or discredited, would be only a common occurrence in those early periods, when knowledge was very little diffused.

Herodotus has given a detailed account of the wild and wandering tribes behind the Atlas ridge, extending to and somewhat beyond Fezzan. He adds an interesting narrative of an expedition to explore the interior, undertaken by some youths from the country of the Nasamones lying inland from Cyrene. They passed, first, a verdant and cultivated territory; then a wild region filled with wild beasts; next entered into an arid dreary desert. Here, while plucking some wild fruits, a party of black men surprised and carried them along vast inarshes and lakes to a city situated on a river flowing eastward. These last features, after they were within the desert, could not be found short of central Africa; but it is doubtful whether they refer to Timbuctoo and the Niger, as supposed by Rennell and Heeren, or to the lake Tchad, and the Yeou or river of Bornou.

Another singular circumstance mentioned by Herodotus relates to a traffic for gold carried on by the Carthaginians with a people beyond the straits, and managed in a peculiar manner, without the parties seeing each other. There is no gold in Africa north of the Senegal or Niger; but whether the Carthaginians penetrated thither, or the gold was brought by natives across the desert, there seem no means of certainly determining.

The records of Carthage, which would have thrown so much light on ancient commerce and geographical knowledge, have unfortunately perished. There remains only one valuable document, the narrative of a voyage by a commander named Hanno, sent to found colonies on the western coast, and to push discovery as far as possible. He is said to have carried with him 60 vessels, and no less that 30,000 men, women, and children. After passing the straits, he founded successively four colonies in convenient situations; then sailing three days along a desert coast, came to Cerne, a small island in a bay. In its vicinity he visited a lake through which flowed a large river; and another stream full of crocodiles and hippopotami. Then, returning to Cerne, he sailed twelve days along the coast of the Ethiopians, a timid race, who fled at the approach of strangers. His party then reached and sailed for several days along a coast, where