xygi. discoveries in Africa. ii 



ries since the former publication ; with a sight of 

 which the Editor having been favoured, he makes 

 haste to lay before his readers an abstract of the im- 

 portant discoveries it contains. 



It seems perfectly astonilhing that Africa, the 

 northern parts of which are almost at our very door, 

 Ihould have remained for so many centuries so to- 

 tally unknown to the natives of Europe. It now 

 appears that the vast tract of country which lies 

 behind the kingdom of Morocco, that has hitherto 

 been deemed a steril and inhospitable desart, which 

 geographers had no other way of delineating but by 

 inserting figures of elephants, and other wild beasts, 

 in their maps, is, in many places, a rich and fertile 

 country, abounding with people who are no strangers 

 to industry and arts, and considerably advanced in 

 civilization and refinement of manners. 



By the former publication of this society, the pub- 

 lic were made acquainted with the singular confor- 

 mation of that extensive district in the northern parts 

 of Africa, which hath hitherto been denominated 

 Zaara, or the desert, which exhibits appearances not 

 more novel to the naturalist than interesting to the 

 philoiopher. It may be called a vast sea of sand, 

 having islands interspersed through it, which abound 

 with the richest productions of the vegetable king- 

 dom, and are inhabited by various tribes of people 

 i n different degrees of civilization, and carrying on 

 with each other an expensive and precarious traffic, 

 not by means of fliips, but hj caravans of camels, 

 which are sometimes overwhelmed in billows of sand, 

 aad sunk into e;idlefj oblivion. 



