100 
CARNIVORA. 
different kinds, as are met with in Asia and America, 
the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and New Holland. 
The most recently discovered of these countries, in 
particular, afford many so absolutely different from 
all known before, as necessarily to be formed into 
new genera, each composed of a great number of 
species , but in the old world, and even in America, 
the same genera ordinarily prevail ; and the relation- 
ship to a common type is pbservable throughout, 
though the ramifications from it form various and 
very different species. But this apparent disparity 
between Africa and the rest of the world may pro- 
bably be, in a great measure, owing to our limited 
knowledge of its interior. 
■ It cannot but excite surprise that such extensive 
tracts of Africa, the north and north-east part of 
which was the theatre of a very interesting portion 
of ancient history, both sacred and profane, should 
have remained, for so many ages, neglected, for- 
gotten, or despised. Even long after it was ascer- 
tained that the torrid zone is habitable by mankind, 
and as populous as the more temperate parts of the 
Earth, Africa was still believed to be the same burn- 
ing desert of sand, which the ancients represented 
it : its rude inhabitants of the human race excited 
not the commiseration, but the brutal cupidity, of 
their more favoured fellow-creatures, among whom 
there are still found some, 
Who drive a loathsome traffic, gage and span. 
And buy the muscles and the bones of man ! 
