14 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
perhaps a bookseller in Alexandria, who collected and 
put together the information he obtained from travellers. 
His text and maps are invaluable for a knowledge of the 
geography of the period. 
After this, so far as exploration goes, darkness seemed 
to shroud the continent until the Middle Ages, by 
which time vast changes had taken place in North 
Africa. Mohammed had risen up and founded a new 
religion. His Arab followers had penetrated into North 
Africa, carrying their religion with them, obliterating 
Egyptian and Roman constitutions, and founding 
states of their own. Deserts were no hindrance to 
them, and they rapidly pushed their religion into the 
heart of the continent. These Arabs were famed for 
their learning, and, among other things, were great 
geographers. Writers like Edrisi, Abulfeda, Ibn-al- 
Vardi, and others, have left us descriptions of Africa in 
their time ; and it is evident that, even in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, some knowledge of Central 
Africa and its lakes existed. The most celebrated of 
them was one to whom we are indebted for a narrative of 
actual exploration undertaken by himself; this was Ibn 
Batuta, a learned theologian, a native of Tangiers, who 
set out on his travels about 1324 a.d. Two centuries 
after Ibn, Leo Africanus wrote his celebrated work, giving 
