ELUCIDATIONS. 
215 
Such was the tranfcendant judgement of D'Anville in combin- 
ing the fcanty notices that are furnilhed by the Nubian Geo- 
grapher! 
But the Pubhc are not to expeft, even under an improved 
fyftem of African Geography, that the Interior Part of that Con- 
tinent will exhibit an afpeft fimilar to the others ; rich in variety ; 
each region alTuming a diftind character. On the contrary, it 
will be meagre and vacant in the extreme. , The dreary expanfes 
of defart which often furround the habitable fpots, forbid the 
appearance of the ufual proportion of towns ; and the paucity 
of rivers, added to their being either abforbed or evaporated, 
inftead of being conduced in flowing lines to the ocean, will 
give a lingular caft to its hydrography ; the direction of their 
courfes being, moreover, equivocal, through the want of that 
information, which a communication with the fea ufually affords 
at a glance. Little as the Antients knew of the Interior Part 
of Africa, they appear to have underftood the character of its 
furface ; one of them comparing it to a leopard's ikin. Swift 
alfo, who lofes no opportunity of being witty at the expence of 
mathematicians, diverts himfelf and his readers both with the 
nakednejs of the land, and the abfurdityof the map-makers. 
V Geographers, 
