Page 221 - Third Book of Reading Lessons
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THIRD BOOK OF
towns than the other States, owing to its higher degree of civili sation. A.N. of Tripoli, Tripolitana, and of Barca, Lybia, in which was the city of" Cyrene."
E' YPT, Nu'BrA, and Am·ssm'IA, or the "Region of the Nile,"·is called N. Eastern A ica, and comprises the countries bordering on the Re Sea. Egypt is supposed to have been rst peopled by the immediate descendants of Cham, son of Noah. In lower Egypt was Alexandria, unded by Alexander the Great. In Upper Egypt was Thcb or Diospolis, said to have 100 gates. Egypt contains 150,000 sq. m., the habitable part of which lies along the Delta, or valley of the Nile, an is 4,500 sq. m. in area, with a . pop. Gf 2 mil. A.N. gyptu-. NGBIA contains 360,000 sq. m. ; pop. 2 mil. ABYSSINIA is twice the area of Egypt, with more than double its pop. Nubia and Abyssinia were the ancient_ t iopia.
NILE, a celebrated river of N. Eastern A ica, rmed by the junc tion of two great streams-the· Ba r-el-Azrek, or Blue River, om the S.E., and the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White River, om the S. W. At the point of junction, the rmer is 1,300 feet in breadth, the latter 1,800. The Delta is rmed by these two branches.
SENEGAM1BIA, a country of Western A ica, so called om the rivers Senegal and Gambia-the rmer 950, the latter 690 miles in. length-which ow through it into the Atlantic.
CAFFRA1RIA, a country of Southern A ica. Ca raria signi es the country of the Ca res or In dels; the natives call themselves the Koussis, and will not recognise any other name.
OASIS or Auasis (o'-a-sis), a Coptic or Egyptian word, preserved by the Arabs, signifying a small. inhabited tract, surrounded by vasi deserts, like an island in the ocean.
1. AFRICA, considered in relation to its place on the map of the world, rms an extensive continent, situated nearly in the centre of the earth. It is bounded, north, by the Mediterranean Sea; west, by the Atlantic Ocean; soutli, by the Southern Ocean; and east, by the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Isthmus of Suez. Its length om the fediterranean Sea to the Cape of Good Hope, is nearly 5,000 miles; and its greatest breadth, om Cape Verde to Cape Guardafui, about 4,500. It contains eleven millions of square miles, and a population of seventy millions. Its principal divisions are, Barbary, comprehending Barca, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, Fez, and Morocco; Sahara, or the Great Desert, Senegambia, Upper Guinea, and Lower Guinea; e lony, Caffraria,