coultl only be looked for in ot ype new and 
“ important improvement in art of n tion, or 
‘some discovery in those sciences on which it chiefly de- 
But these circumstances were sufficient 
to prevent the Romans fiom extending in any great de- 
gree the sphere of hical: know , they were 
; Giso means inattentive to the cultivation of the sci- 
Hh  -ence in The civil and military establishments 
which they were obliged to maintain in all the conquer- 
ed provinces, and the security which trade enjoyed 
under airegulay and efficient government, gave rise to 
a closer and more regular intercourse among: all the 
countries, which composed the ep i than had ever 
een known at:any former period. — we oacentey 
int out the limits of Roman geography, we sho 
y probally not include ‘a much Ase extent than has 
' 1 already assigned to that of Strabo. But in point 
© of accuracy and minute detail, the difference is consider- 
hy’ ably im favour of the former. They were well acquaint- 
(0. ed with all the countries'on the Danube and the Vistu- 
la, nor was the Rhaor Wolga unknown to them, though 
sometimes confounded with the Tanais or Don, Of 
_ tlie\intermediate space containing Scythia, Sarmatia, 
ahd Dacia; we have accounts from various Roman wri- 
ters, though it is obvious that in many things they fol- 
low H » Their know of the ‘countries on 
the southern coasts of the Baltic, as well as Jutland, then 
called:Cimbria Chersonesus, was tolerably accurate with 
regard. to situation and extent ;) but the origin and 
‘names of the different nations were by no means well 
) i and notwithstanding the labours of modern 
geographers ities, they are still involvedin darkness 
and confusion. ‘The Romans little thought, in the me- 
ridian of their glory, that.they’ were ultimately to fall a 
sacrifice to the ravages of nations so barbarous as to be 
without the limits» of the: civilized world; and so rude 
as to be incapable of communicating to others any ac- 
countof their own origin or early history, Of the:coun+ 
tries to the north of the Baltic, the Romans knew com: 
perma The southern part of Sweden was 
iz yminated: Scandia, and was considered. as an island 
| __ of unknown extent. It seems, indeed, to have been 
__ the general opinion, that the Baltic was part of the north. 
ern ocean, containing: msn are of large islands; 
and it oe aiid te tome rom this opinion, 
_ ‘that their ical knowledge, in this direction, 
_ did not extend d the large lakes in the south of 
_ Sweden, and the entrance of the gulf of Bothnia. Pro- 
ceeding westward, the next country we meet with in 
the geography of the Romans is Britain, of which we 
_ havea very minute account, comprehending not only 
oe go England and Seotland, but also Ire- 
and, Isle of Man, the Western Islands, and the 
> Orknies. Ptolemy of Thule as situated to the 
_ ~ north-east of Britain, by which he has been understood 
ovak ing one of the Shetland islands. It cannot; 
~ however, be inferred from this, that the Romans were 
really acquainted with these islands. Of Gaul and the 
other western countries of Europe, it is hardly neces+ 
sary to take any notice, the Roman accounts of these 
being familiar to = body. 
. From the westof Europe we naturally pass to Africa, 
-and we find that the Romans were acquainted with 
about one-third of that continent. Pliny, from a states 
ment by Agri estimates the breadth from north to 
- south, gh Cyrenaica and the country of the Gara- 
_ mantes, that is from Barca towatds Bournu, at 910 Ro- 
_ man miles, a distance from the Medi 
he: iterranean which 
falls considerably short of the Niger: It appears, hows 
GEOGRAPHY. 
141 
ever, that they wete not altogether ignorant of that ri- _ History. 
ver in another direction. Pliny, on the authority of Juba, The Niger. 
king of Mauritania, mentions that the Nile rises from a 
lake in the interior of that country, and 'that, after run- 
ning under ground through ’a desert of twenty days jour- 
ney in extent, it makes its appearance again on the con- 
fines of Ethiopia, where its source is called Nigris. From 
this modern geographers have concluded, that the desert 
here mentioned is the great desert of Sahara, that what. 
Pliny calls the Nile is only a small river running along 
the south side of Mount Atlas, and that its pretended 
reappearance is no other than the source of the Niger or 
Johiba. In this our readers will recognise the opinion 
of Herodotus, expressed: in a more detailed form, that 
the Niger and the Nile are the same river, and they 
will also observe, that the Roman geographers, in the 
time of Pliny, were ‘not better acquainted with the 
western part of Africa, than their rivals the Carthagi- 
mans had been. Ptolemy, indeed, distinctly mentions 
the Niger, and enumerates some of the towns situated 
on its banks, as Tucabath, Nigira, Ta-Gana and Pana- 
gra, in which later ppinigeapubrs have discovered the 
modern towns of Tombuctoo, Cashnah, Ganah, and 
Wangara ; but even his account of the interior is very 
partial and indistinct. Of the Canaries, the Romans The Canary 
undoubtedly knew more than the Carthaginians, though islands. 
these islands were still regarded too much as the region 
of fiction. They were called in general the Fortunate 
Isles; a name famous with the poets, and perhaps too 
frequently employed in the more sober details of the 
historian. - Among the particular names, we find Ca- 
Naria‘and Nivaria, the former obviously the same with 
modern Canary, the latter, perhaps, denoting Teneriffe 
with its snowy summit. On the eastern side of Africa, 
the geography of the Romans was neither very distinct 
nor very extensive. They seem to have been acquaint The Nile. 
ed with the Nile, as far as the Automales of Herodotus, 
but not to have penetrated farther. ‘On the shores of 
the Indian ocean, their navigation terminated at the 
promontory of Prasum, a point which Ptolemy repre- 
sents.as lying to the south of the equator, but which, 
from a careful investigation of the measures employed 
by him, is found to correspond with Cape Brava, two 
ées to the north of the line. 
- When we turn to Asia, we find the geographical im- In Asia. 
provements of the Romans much more interesting in a 
scientific point of view, as well as more important in 
to commerce, These improvements may be al- Discovery 
most wholly ascribed to the discovery of the monsoons, °f the mon- 
te. 8000s in the 
by which the communication with India was comple 
ly altered, and) the trade of that rich and luxurious 
country prodigiously extended. Embarking at the 
> af So ports on the Red Sea, and passing the straits 
abel-mandel, the merchant was carried by the 
south-west monsoon, or Hippalus, so. called from its 
discoverer, directly to the peninsula of Hindostan, and 
back again by the Vulturnus, or north-east monsoon, 
in the course of the same year. This navigation was 
first undertaken during the reign of Augustus, till 
which time the route to India was either across the de- 
sert from Syria to the Euphrates, down the Persian 
gulf and along the northern coast of the Arabian sea 
to the mouth of the Indus; or farther to the north by 
the Caspian sea, and the Oxusor Jihon. Some ancient 
writers represent the latter as much more easily accorn- 
plished than it could possibly have been, by supposing 
that the Oxus fell into the ian Sea, or rather that 
Lake Aral was a gulf of that sea. But even if thishad 
been the case, the conveyance of merchandise by such 
reign of 
Augustus, 
