194 . PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



the earliest notices of Egypt that occur in profane history, we find it become the centre 

 of an extensive land commerce. The merchants of Ethiopia brought gold, and ivory, and 

 slaves ; the Pho3nicians, wine and timber ; the Arabians, incense and spice ; the Egyptians 

 giving in exchange their corn, fine linen, robes, and carpets. The company of traders 

 going down to Egypt, to whom Joseph was sold by his brethren, is the earliest recorded 

 instance of a foreign commercial transaction, and has all the genuine features of a caravan 

 crossing the desert at the present hour. Commerce likewise materially assisted to lay the 

 foundation of oceanic adventure, and gradually to improve the means of conducting it with 

 safety, the frail and simple raft that was paddled along the rivers giving place to the 

 stronger vessel fitted to encounter the perils of the sea. Tyre and Sidon communicated with 



Port of Sidon from the Sea. 



Western Europe through their mariners, and their merchant princes trafficked with India 

 on the east. Thus was obtained by the nations on'the east and south banks of the Mediter- 

 ranean, and bordering thereto the primitive seat of civilisation a general acquaintance 

 with each other's localities, and more distant regions, afterwards increased by the military 

 expeditions of Alexander, and the all-absorbing ambition of Rome. But the world, as 

 known to the ancients, was a very paltry span. Of the whole western Continent of the 

 greater part of Africa of North-eastern Europe of Northern Asia and its eastern 

 limits Ptolemy, the last and most accomplished geographer of antiquity, was entirely 

 ignorant ; and with him the cultivation of geography and astronomy may be said to have 

 terminated, till their mutual revival by the subjects of the Eastern caliphs. In those views 

 of the earth embraced by the Arabs, the Homeric notion of a circumambient ocean had a 

 place. The dry land was conceived to be bounded by a zone of waters, which was its ab- 

 solute limit ; the Atlantic receiving the title of the Sea of Darkness, and the northern ocean 

 that of the Sea of Pitchy Darkness. It is little more than three centuries and a half since 

 the shroud of mystery was removed from the western flood by the bold hand of Columbus, 

 and light was poured upon the Sea of Darkness. A course of discovery was then com- 

 menced which has now opened to our view a tolerably exact map of the world the 

 extent and configuration of its great natural divisions of land and sea, with their respec- 

 tive superficial characteristics. There yet remains however to be unveiled a considerable 

 portion of " terra incognita," chiefly situated within the arctic and antarctic circles, in 

 Central Africa, and in Australasia ; and we have still much to learn with reference to the 

 geographical character of regions which have long been known and repeatedly visited. 



