164 
MR- LUCAS'S 
fi-om he emerges at the approach of the fifth evening, and 
entering a beautiful country, as pleafnigly diverliiied with the 
natural beauties of hills and vales and v/oods, as with the rich 
rewards of the hufbandman's and the fliepherd's toil, he arrives 
in feven days more at the City of Cafnna, the capital of the 
empire of which it bears the name, and the ufual refidence of 
its powerful Sultan. 
The country to which the Geographers of Europe havegi\^en 
the name of Nigritia, is called by the Arabs Soudan, and by the 
natives Aafnou, two words of fimilar import, that, like the 
European appellation, exprefs the land of the Blacks, and like 
that too, are applied to a part only of the region to which their 
meaning fo obvioufly belongs. — Yet, even in this limited fenfe, 
the word Soudan is often varioufly employed ; for while fome of 
the Africans refl:ri8: it to the Empire of Caflina, which is fitu- 
ated to the North of the Niger, others extend it, v/ith indefinite 
comprehenfion, to the Negro States on the South of the river, 
and applying it as a means of expreffing the extended rule and 
tranfcendant power of the Emperor of Cafhna, call him, with 
extravagant compliment, the Sultan of all Soudan. 
FIls real fovereignty is bounded, on the North, by the moun- 
tains of Eyre, and by one of thofe diftricts of the great Zahara, 
that 
