We Shall Next Direct Our Attention To The North Of Africa.
The hostility of the Mahometans, who possessed the north of Africa, to
Christians, presented as serious an obstacle to travels in that quarter as
the barbarism and ferocity of the native tribes on the west coast did to
discoveries into the interior in that direction.
In the sixteenth century,
Leo Africanus gave an ample description of the northern parts; and in the
same century, Alvarez, who visited Abyssinia, published an account of that
country. In the subsequent century, this part of Africa was illustrated by
Lobo, Tellea, and Poncet; the latter was a chemist and apothecary, sent by
Louis XIV to the reigning monarch of Abyssinia; the former were
missionaries. From their accounts, and those of the Portuguese, all our
information respecting this country was derived, previously to the travels
of Mr. Bruce.
Pocock and Norden are the most celebrated travellers in Egypt in the
beginning of the seventeenth century; but as their object was rather the
discovery and description of the antiquities of this country, what they
published did not much extend our geographical knowledge: the former spent
five years in his travels. The latter is the first writer who published a
picturesque description of Egypt; every subsequent traveller has borne
evidence to the accuracy and fidelity of his researches and descriptions.
He was the first European who ventured above the cataracts.
The great ambition and object of Mr. Bruce was to discover the source of
the Nile; for this purpose he left Britain in 1762, and after visiting
Algiers, Balbec, and Palmyra, he prepared for his journey into Abyssinia.
He sailed up the Nile a considerable way, and afterwards joined a caravan
to Cosseir on the Red Sea. After visiting part of the sea coast of Arabia,
he sailed for Massoucut, by which route alone an entrance into Abyssinia
was practicable. In this country he encountered many obstacles, and
difficulties, and after all, in consequence of wrong information he
received from the inhabitants, visited only the Blue River, one of the
inferior streams of the Nile, instead of the White River, its real source.
This, however, is of trifling moment, when contrasted with the accessions
to our geographical knowledge of Abyssinia, the coast of the Red Sea, &c.,
for which we are indebted to this most zealous and persevering traveller.
Since Mr. Bruce's time, Abyssinia has been visited by Mr. Salt, who has
likewise added considerably to our knowledge of this country, though on
many points he differs from Mr. Bruce.
The most important and interesting accession to our knowledge of the north
of Africa was made between the years 1792 and 1795, by Mr. Browne. This
gentleman seems to have equalled Mr. Bruce in his zeal and ardour, but to
have surpassed him in the soundness and utility of his views; for while the
former was principally ambitious of discovering the sources of the Nile, - a
point of little real moment in any point of view, - the latter wished to
penetrate into those parts of the north of Africa which were unknown to
Europeans, but which, from all accounts of them, promised to interest and
benefit, not only commerce, but science.
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