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is the Island of Formosa, and North of the coast of China are the Islands of Japan. The remainder of the Asiatic Isles will be briefly noticed in another place.

The religion of the Turkish dominions in Asia is Mahometanism. In Georgia and Syria there are many , Christians, though their doctrines are very corrupt. In Persia are Mahometans, and in many parts of Hindoostan, but the Hindoo religion is the proper religion of Hindoostan, and consists in the idolatrous worship of a Trinity, composed of three deities Brahma, Vishna, and Shiva, or the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, together with an infinite number of subordinate and inferior deities. The Japanese, Chinese, and Tartars, are Idolaters; but the Tartars are generally Schamanians, whose religion is founded on the self-existence of matter, a world of spirits, and the general restitution of all things. The Thibetians worship the Dalai Lama, a man whom they conceive to be omnipotent and immortal, as being a great spirit embodied: their religion is intimately connected with Schamanism, as is the Brahmanism of the Hindoos, and the idolatrous polytheism of the Chinese.

CHAPTER V.

AFRICA.

AFRICA in breadth is about 4150, in length about 4200 miles.

In Africa the first Kingdom on the Western side, immediately below the Straights of Gibraltar, is Fez, and South of it Morocco; these are united into one Kingdom under the Emperor of Morocco. Next to Fez, proceeding eastward, is Algiers, and east of it Tunis; then Tripoli, where the shore has taken a Southward direction, and Barca, and still Eastward is Egypt. The whole coast from Fez to Tripoli inclusive is called the Barbary Coast; and the Governments are of a military nature, under a Governor called a Dey, or Bey, who is nominally subject to the Grand Signior, but really independent, except on his own soldiers, who, with a licentiousness resembling that of the antient prætorian guards, frequently depose and murder their Governors.

Below the whole Barbary coast is the Sahara, a great desert of immense and unexplored extent, and below it, reaching from a little above Cape Verd to the coast of Guinea, is the coast of Senegambia, so called from the rivers Senegal and Gambia, and in the interior various uncivilized Kingdoms of Negro Chiefs, the principal of which are the Foulahs and Jaloffs. Towards the Southern extremity of the coast of Senegambia is the settlement of Sierra Leone, below which is the coast of Guinea, divided into the Grain coast, Ivory coast, Gold coast, and formerly the Slave coast, till the traffic for slaves was abolished by act of parliament, A. D. 1806. Below Guinea are the Portuguese settlements of Loango, Congo, and Angola. The Southern point of Africa is called the Cape of Good Hope*, long possessed by the Dutch, but at present by the English. Here is the country of the Hottentots, who proverbially hold the lowest rank in the scale of human intellect and civilization, though, according to the accounts of the most recent and intelligent travellers, they must either have been formerly misrepresented, or have made considerable improvements within the last 20 years.

The Cape of Good Hope was first sailed round in modern times by Vasquez de Gama, a Portuguese, A. D. 1497, who thereby discovered a passage to the East Indies. It appears, however, probable, that the Phoenicians had doubled it about B. C. 607.

Ascending from the Cape, along the East side of Africa to the Red Sea, are Cafraria, and the coasts of Natal, Sofala, Mosambique, Zanguebar, and Ajan. West of these, towards the interior, are the Gallas, and still West bearing to the South, in central Africa, is Æthiopia, North of which is Nigritia or Sudan. The entrance into the Red Sea is called the Straights of Babelmandel; to the West is the Kingdom of Abyssinia, above it is Nubia, comprising Sennaar and Dongola, above which is Egypt. To the West of Abyssinia is Darfur. West of Nubia is Bornou, and North West of Bornou is Fezzan. The remainder of Africa is almost wholly unexplored

and unknown.

Among the memorable places and cities in Africa, we may reckon

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The principal Rivers of Africa are the Nile, the sources of which have been for so many ages unknown.

Mr. Bruce, however, in his Travels to Abyssinia for this express purpose, visited what the Abyssinians termed the Source of the Nile, rising from three fountains at a village called Geesh, in the territory of the Agows, November 5th, 1770. But geographers still maintain that Mr. Bruce mistook the course of the antient Astapus, now called Bahr el Azreek, or Blue River, for that of the Nile, or Bahr el Abiad, whose sources are yet undiscovered, and are probably to be searched for in those lofty Alps called the Mountains of the Moon, in Lat. 8° N. 600 miles beyond the sources of the Nile of Abyssinia. The great Cataracts of the Nile are in Nubia, about 40 feet high; those of Syene are now only rapids. On the Western side of Africa is the great river Niger, whose sources are also unknown, which was formerly thought to communicate with the Nile. It is singular, that this river, though on the Western side of Africa, runs towards the East, and most probably discharges itself into some immense lake in the central and unexplored parts of Africa. * Above the Niger is the river Senegal, and below it the Gambia, both flowing into the Atlantic.

Of the Mountains, the most memorable is Mount Atlas. The central parts of Africa may possibly contain immense mountains, as the mountains of Abyssinia are of prodigious height, and yet seem but parts of some great central chain. There is also some high land about the Cape.

See the note on p.259.

* There seems some foundation for this. Mr. Park, however, in his last journey, published in 1815, believes that it turns again to the South West, and under the name of the Zaire, or Great Congo River, enters the Atlantic.

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