4. AFRICA PROPRIA, between the Syrtis minor and the river Tusca, and extending southward to Mount Atlas.10 On the coast, Tacăpe, Thapsus, Leptis Parva, Adrumētum; Hermæum v. Mercurii Promontorium, Cape Bona; Tunes, Tunis; Clupea v. Aspis; CARTHAGO;11 mouth of the Bagrăda, Mejerda; Castra Cornelia: Utica; Promontorium Pulchrum, and Prom. Apollinis; Hippo Diarrhytos v. Zarytos; Tabrăca, a town and an island at the mouth of the Tusca. 11 5. NUMIDIA, a country between the Tusca and the Mulucha, which separates it from Mauritania, was subdivided by the river Ampsåga, Wad-al-Keveer, into the country of the Massyli, and that of the Massasÿli. In NUMIDIA Massylorum, the river Rubricatus; Hippo Regius; Rusicada, and in the interior, CIRTA, the capital, and royal residence of Syphax, Masinissa, Micipsa, &c.; on an eastern tributary of the Ampsǎga, Sicca Venerea ; on the Bagrădas, Telepte, which Sallust calls Thala: Capsa, said to have been founded by the Libyan Hercules, (Sall. Jug. 94); ZAMA Regia, and another Zama, near a western tributary of the Bagrădas, where Hannibal was defeated by Scipio Africanus major, A. U. 10 Cervicemque polo suppositurus Atlas.-OV. FAST. v. 180. cœlifer Atlas.-ST. THEB, v. 430. jamque volans apicem et latera ardua cernit Atlantis duri, cælum qui vertice fulcit: Atlantis, cinctum assidue cui nubibus atris Piniferum caput et vento pulsatur et imbri : Præcipitant senis, et glacie riget horrida barba.—Æn. iv. 246. 11 Urbs antiqua fuit, Tyrii tenuere coloni, 552. IN NUMIDIA Massasylorum, was Rusucurium, near the modern Algiers. South of Numidia lived the Gætuli. 6. In MAURITANIA, now Fez and MOROCCO, Abyla, the Rock of Ceuta, one of the pillars of Hercules, opposite to Calpe, Gibraltar, the other. NOTES ON THE NORTHERN COAST OF AFRICA. Physical Geography.-The two most remarkable features of this country are, the Great Desert, and the mountain range of Atlas, The former, the largest continuity of barren surface in the known world, extends, under different names, from the shores of the Atlantic to the banks of the Nile, interrupted only by a few oases or patches of habitable land, the most considerable of which is the kingdom of Fezzan, 300 miles long, by 200 broad. The whole length of this sandy desert may be stated at 3000 miles, and the average breadth at 700. To the east of the Fezzan, it is traversed by mountainous elevations of naked rock, in particular by the black and dreary Haratch, the Mons Ater of Pliny, and a calcareous ridge extending from the Natron Lakes of Egypt to the oasis called Augela,* and dividing the Desert of Barca from that of Libya. The former of these approaches near to the Mediterranean; but in both, Horneman found many petrified trees and seashells. ATLAS, the northern boundary of the Desert, "called Sahara or Zaara, to the west of Fezzan, seems to rise in successive terraces of mountains from the most northern, which does not exceed 500 or 600 yards in height, to the farthest south, which, if it be covered with perpetual snow in Lat. 32°, as some travellers assert, cannot be less than 11,000 feet high. The lower elevations are calcareous; and among them was found the Numidian marble, an article of luxury in great request among the Romans, (Hor. Od. 11. 18, 4.) * Augila, or Augela, has retained its ancient name from the time of Herodotus, vid. B. IV. c. 172 and 182. The successive ranges are connected by transverse branches running north and south, among which are plains and vallies, watered by streams without issue, and constituting the Country of Dates. ATLAS Stretches east and west from the Ocean to the Regio Syrtica, forming a bulwark against the moving sands of the southern Desert. The streams that descend from its northern sides water that belt of land, from 60 to 160 miles broad, which was long the granary of the Roman empire, and is now the country of Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco. Historical Epochs.-There is little in the history of this country worth mentioning here, except what relates to CARTHAGE, whose empire, at the height of her prosperity, comprised, if not the whole, by far the most valuable part of North Africa. The city is thought to have been founded by a colony of Phoenicians, before the building of Rome; how long before, it is uncertain. It was taken, and the Carthaginian empire destroyed, by Scipio Africanus minor, (A. U. 609, b. C. 145.) The most memorable epochs in African Ancient History, after the fall of Carthage, are, the unsuccessful attempts of Jugurtha (A. U. 643,) against the power of Rome, and of Juba against that of Cæsar. Its modern history, since the fall of the Caliphat in 982, affords a melancholy proof how much the bounty of nature may be defeated by barbarism and misgovernment. With the exception of a few scattered marble ornaments with Roman inscriptions, scarcely any thing remains to attest the former existence of Carthage, and the many flourishing and highly embellished cities along the African coast :-etiam periêre ruins. Books of Travels.—Herodotus, Shaw, Horneman, Brown. BRIEF NOTICE OF INSULE BRITANNICE, BRITANNIA, vel ALBION,-GREAT BRITAIN, AND HIBERNIA, JUVERNA, vel IERNE,-IRELAND. THE ancient Geography of the British Isles, as far as regards the times of classical antiquity, lies within a very narrow compass. The whole apparatus of divisions and subdivisions of the soil, and of tribes dwelling therein, which is commonly put forth as the ancient geography of BRITAIN, refers to a period long subsequent to what is called the golden, and even to the silver age of Roman literature, and consequently serves in no way to throw light upon any Greek or Latin author that deserves to be read. Among all the classical writers who flourished in Greece from the days of Homer to those of Alexander the Great, Aristotle alone makes any allusion to the British Isles, and even he only once, and very briefly.' Julius Cæsar (b. C. 38,) made two hostile incursions into Britain; but they were short in duration, and confined to the country between the straits of Dover and 1 Ε, Ωκεανῳ νησοι μεγισται δε τυγχανουσιν ουσαι δυο, Βρεταννικαι λεγομεναι, Αλβιον και Ιερνη.—ARIST. DE MUNDO, c. 3. the Thames. The only localities he particularizes are Tamǎsis, which he merely names as the river that bounds the territories of the British prince Cassivellaunus; and Cantium, (Kent,) of which he says no more than that it is regio maritima omnis. Once, also, he enumerates six British tribes, but without any data for fixing their localities. This, with a few general and incorrect notices of the form and situation of the island, and of the manners of its inhabitants, is the whole amount of geographical knowledge of Britain which we can glean from Cæsar's Commentaries. Strabo, who lived under Augustus and Tiberius, does little more than repeat the vague generalities of Cæsar. So scanty, indeed, was the Greek geographer's knowledge of our island, that in his great work, in which he has collected all the geographical knowledge of his own and of all former times, his chapter on Britain, which is a short and meagre one, concludes, after some incorrect general description, without the mention of a single mountain, river, town, district, or people. He declares that the island is not worth the trouble of conquering, (B. I. p. 115.). He could not, indeed, know much more of it than Cæsar; for no expedition was undertaken to Britain during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. There is reason to believe, however, from several passages of Strabo himself, that long before the time even of Julius Cæsar, probably about the epoch of Alexander's Persian expedition, or a little after, one Pytheas, a mercantile adventurer of Massilia, but, it would appear, a good mathematician and astronomer, had explored the south and east coast of Britain, and had even reached Thule,' (Iceland,) driven thither, it may be supposed, by stress of weather. We gather, also, ratibusque impervia Thule.-CLAUD. CONS. HON. 53. |