4 oo TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



muft have been already entitled to the rights of hofpitality 

 by having often pafTed through each other's country. 



Procopius*" mentions that two pillars were {landing in his 

 time on the coaft of Mauritania, oppofite to Gibraltar, upon 

 which were infcriptions in the Phoenician tongue : " We are 

 " Canaanites, flying from the face of Jofhua, the fon of Nun, 

 " the robber .•" A character they naturally gave him from 

 the ferocity and violence of his manners. Now, if what 

 thefe infcriptions contain is true, it is much more credible, 

 that the different nations, emigrating at that time, mould 

 feek their fafety near hand among their friends, rather than 

 go to an immenfe diftance to Mauritania, to rifk a precari- 

 ous reception among ftrangers, and perhaps that country 

 not yet inhabited. 



Upon viewing the feveral countries in which thefe 

 nations have their fettlements, it feems evident they were 

 made by mutual confent, and in peace ; they are not fepa- 

 rated from each other by chains of mountains, or large 

 and rapid rivers, but generally by fmall brooks, dry the 

 greateft part of the year ; by hillocks, or fmall mounds of 

 earth, or imaginary lines traced to the top of fome moun- 

 tain at a diftance ; thefe boundaries have never been dis- 

 puted or altered, but remain upon the old tradition to this 

 day. Thefe have all different languages, as we fee from 

 fcripture all the petty ftates of Paleftine had, but they have 

 no letters, or written character, but the Geez, the character 



of 



* Piocop. de bello vind. lib. 2. cap. 10. 

 * A Mooiifh author, Ibn el Raquique, fays, this infciiption was on a ftone on a mountain at 

 Caithage. Marmol. lib. I. cap. 25. 



