Page 222 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

EADING LESSONS. 221
and the country of the Hottentots ; ocarctnga, fo­ zambique, Zanguebar, Ajan, Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt; and Negroland or Nigritia, or (as the Arabs call it) Soitdan, comprehending Timbuctoo, Bam­ barra, Houssa, Bonrnou, and Dar r. . The interior and the southern part of A ica were totally unknown to the great nations of antiquity. There is no reason to suppose, that they thought of extending their con­ quests to regions which, on account of the intense heat of the sun, they deemed uninhabitable. To the Portuguese, who, in the close of the fteenth century, discovered and sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, are we indebted r our rst knowledge of the shape and extent of this continent. They remained stran­ gers, however, to the interior of the country, and notwithstanding the enterprise of modern travellers, we are yet comparatively unacquainted with these vast regions; the excessive heat of the climate, the burning sands of the deserts, and the total absence of interior communication by water, presenting insuper­ able obstacles to our inquiries. One peculiarity of A ica is, that it is situated almost entirely within the torrid zone, and thus placed under the immedi­ ate dominion of the sun, the consequence of which is, that at least one half of this vast continent is con­ verted into hot and sandy dese1;ts.
2. The Sa4ara, or Great Desert, with the exception of the long and narrow valley of the Nile, extends across the entire continent, presenting a dry and arid waste, in which, r several days, the traveller meets not a single drop of water, nor the slightest trace of li or vegetation. The sands are occasion­ ally raised in large masses, which roll along like the waves of the ocean, and beneath which, it is said,
large caravans, and even whole tribes, have been.
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