EARLY EXPLORERS OF x\FRICA. 481 



immortal God, who is the author of all things, and in a mortal 

 nameless being of which nothing is known." (Strabo's actual 

 words are, I find, avfow/xov rtva koI aaa(f)fj.) 



" For the most part, they regard all things and benefactors 

 as divine." The printers have been unkind to Mr. Tooke — they 

 mistook his " K " for " th " and gave a Pantheistic tinge to tribes 

 who were probably quite innocent of anything so oriental and 

 theosophic. Mr. Tooke doubtless wrote " all kings and benefac- 

 tors ", the ^aaiXiKoiK; (rcgios) Koi evepy€Ta<; of Strabo, 

 who adds that the former are regarded as their common saviours 

 and guardians, and the latter as the private saviours of those who 

 fare well at their hands." Here we see, clear enough, the worship 

 of ancestors and departed chiefs, such as is very familiar to 

 students of the Bantu. 



Early in the Christian era we have the anonymous Periplus 

 of the Red Sea, written about go a.d., whether by Arrian, the 

 historian, and Hadrian's protege, or another. It does not really 

 affect us, more than Mela, 50 years earlier, but from Pliny 

 and Ptolemy we get the eastern coast as far south as the Prason 

 promontory, which Mr. Tooke identifies with Cape Delgado, 

 but some with Pangani. Ptolemy also mentions the Moon Moun- 

 tains and the lakes beneath which feed the Nile. \\'e pass by Mari- 

 nus and Solinus. Menuthias, which now first appears, is variously 

 fixed. Mr. Tooke does not decide between the Comoros, Zanzibar 

 and Peml)a. It is interesting that the Beheim globe of Nurem- 

 berg (1492) has Minupias above and Zanzibar below Madagas- 

 car ! And, according to Avezac's Laon globe of the next year, 

 Memitias takes the same place ; while in the Berlinghieri map of 

 1478, at Florence, the name appears as Manuthia. (For all these 

 see the facsimiles in Nordenskiold.) In the first form the 

 " P " may be a mistake for "Thorn," the Greek " Theta," as often. 

 In the second the syllable " mi " is an easy misreading for " nu " : 

 this gives an idea of the pakTographical difficulties which are 

 entailed on those who would follow the voyages of the ancients. 



The egregious Cosmas Indicopleustes notes the influence of 

 the King of Axum — the Prester John of the later West — even 

 as does the Anonymous Periplus 500 years before. This shows 

 the persistence of Abyssinian influence ; but within little more 

 than a century after Cosmas the new power of the Arab had 

 spread, and Pate dates (according to Miss Werner) as an Arab 

 settlement from 698. 



Now for Mas'udy the crown of Arab geographers, himself 

 a traveller from the China Sea to Madagascar. If we open him 

 at Chapter 33, we find his account of the blacks (es-sudan). 

 There he relates how the sons of Kush, the son of Canaan, 

 crossed the Nile and split up. The Nubians, Beja and Zeng, 

 " turned to the right between east and west," according to the 

 French version and Mr. Hammond Tooke. This had always been 

 a puzzle to me, for if you cross the Nile going west and make a 

 right wheel, you find yourself in Aboukir Bay, or somewhere else 



