22 ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE OF AFRICA. 



and mountnins, there lurk, in many an unsuspected retreat, 

 scenes of the most soft and pastoral beauty. Even amid 

 its moral darkness there shine forth virtues which would 

 do honour to human society in its most refined and exalted 

 state. A tender flow of domestic affection generally per- 

 vades African society. Signal displays, too, have been 

 made of the most' generous hospitality; and travellers, 

 who were on the point of perishing, have been befriended 

 and saved by absolute strangers, and oven by enemies. 

 These varieties of nature and of character, these alterna- 

 tions of w ildness and of beauty, of lawless violence and of 

 the most generous kindness, render the progress of the tra- 

 veller through this continent more interesting and eventful, 

 xnore diversified by striking scenes and iiKiidents than in 

 any other quarter of the globe. 



CHAPTER II. 



On the Knoicledge of Africa among the Ancients. 



Africa, so far as it extends along the Mediterranean, 

 was not only well known to the nations of antiquity, but 

 constituted an integral part of their poUtical and social sys- 

 tem. This coast forms, indeed, only a comparatively small 

 portion of that great conthient ; but while the sphere of 

 civilization and the geographical knowledge of the Greeks 

 were nearly comprised within the circuit of the Mediterra- 

 nean shores, Northern Africa held in their view no incon- 

 6ideral)le importance. This region, which is now covered 

 with thick darkness, and left so far behind in all the arts 

 and attainments wliich exalt and adorn human natu^^ad 

 at that early period taken the lead in these very partj^Brs 

 of all other nations. It included Egypt and Canil^e, 

 which, as the first seats of government and commerce, were 

 tlie admiration of the ancient world. In the patriarchal 

 ages, when Scripture history represents the Mesopotamian 

 Plain, the scene of the future empires of Babylon and As- 

 syria, as little more than a wide and open conmion, Egj'pt 



