308 Ancient Africana. 



But a close inspection convinces us that the carto- 

 grapher, while possessed of very little knowledge, 

 was favoured with a lively imagination; for 

 mountain-ranges and rivers meander over the 

 surface of the country, the latter tunnelling under 

 the former in all directions in a manner suggestive 

 of ornament rather than of geographical exacti- 

 tude. And, as is usual in old maps, names are 

 repeated and inconvenient blank spaces are filled 

 either with figures of animals or with such incon- 

 sequent notes as " In the Hill Amara the sons of 

 the Emperor of ^Ethiopia are held in ward and 

 kept by a garrison"; or, "Here is gold digged 

 up in great quantity." The Nile, we may observe, 

 is shown as rising in two large lakes Zaire and 

 Zaflan in 10 S. ; the Congo, or Zaire, river also 

 rises in Lake Zaire, as do some six or seven other 

 rivers to the south of it, through another lake, 

 Aquilunda. However, we will leave the map and 

 turn to Speed's " description of Africa." He tells 

 us in his prefatory remarks that, " give the people 

 their own asking, and they will have the glory of 

 the first inhabitants of the world and prove it too 

 both from the temperature of their Ayre, and 

 f ertiiitie of their Soyle, which breeds and nourisheth 

 not onely Plants and fruits, but sends forth of its 

 owne Vertue living creatures in such sort as 

 amaseth the beholder. We have a report (if you 

 will beleeve it) that in a ground neere the River 

 Nilus there have bene found mice halfe made up, 

 and nature taken in the very nicke, when shee 



