country, the Province of Canara, the diftricts of Coimbatoor and Daraporam, the forts forming the heads of all the paffes above the Ghauts on the Table land, and Seringapatam, with the neighbouring territory.

The country of India in general is rich in mines, which produce gold, diamonds, rubies, topazes, amethyfts, &c. The foil is fruitful in wheat, rice, and pepper. The principal fruit trees are the cocoa, palm, tamarind, guaya, mango, plantain, orange, lemon, pomegranate, and the most de licious pine-apples, and melons. The woods abound in lions, tigers, and buffaloes, and all places are greatly infefted with ferpents, fcorpions, mufketoes, and locufts. The chief articles of commerce exported by the company from their fettlements, and from China, are porcelain, Bengal and China filk, tea, quickfilver, canes, pepper, calicoes, mullins, nankeens, chintzes, rhubarb, and various other drugs, and filligree work in gold, filver, and ivory.

The territories which belong to the English East India Company, prefent the fingular political phenomenon of a rich, fertile, and populous tract of country, larger than the United Kingdom of England and Ireland; fituated at a dittance of half the circumference of the globe from England, and governed by a chartered company of merchants in London, under the direction of the Board of Controul. Thefe merchants, although the feat of govern

ment

ment is fo remote, and they are frequently at war with the native Princes of India, continue, under the aufpices of their parent ftate, to extend their dominions and increase the various branches of their commerce,

AFRICA is feparated from Europe by the Mediterranean fea, and is united to Afia by the Ifthmus of Suez. It is much larger than Europe, but lefs than either Afia or America. It is not broken, like Europe and the fouth of Afia, into feveral irregular tracts of land by the interpofition of the sea, but has the appearance of a uniform and vaft peninfula, The once populous and commercial coaft of the Mediterranean, formerly the feat of the powerful empire of Carthage, now contains only the finall piratical ftates of Barbary. A very large portion of Africa lies between the Tropies, and is exposed to exceffive heat. This is the part which produces moft gold and aromatic drugs, and where Lions, Tigers, and Elephants abound. The inhabitants are either tawny Moors, or Negroes of different fhades and features. The interior of Africa is no otherwife known, than from the accounts of a few travellers, or the vague reports of the tribes that live near the coafts. On furveying thefe fultry and inhofpitable regions, the mind feels repofe and fatisfaction to remark the British fettlements of Sierra Leone, and Bulama, established for the purpofe of raifing the productions of the West Indies, without the aid of Slaves.

Egypt,

Egypt, lately recalled to our notice as the fcene of British naval and military glory, was the firft civilized country in the world. Hence of old beamed the light of science and arts; and there still remain, in defiance of the ravages of time, the ftupendous pyramids, the moft antient monuments of human labour and magnificence extant. Mummies, preferved from remote times, hieroglyphics engraved upon pillars and farcophagi, and curious obelifks ftill exift as memorials of the skill and ingenuity of the antient Egyptians. The prefent inhabitants, flothful, ignorant, and unwarlike, the complete reverse of their remote ancestors, remain in that degraded and enslaved ftate predicted by the Jewish Prophets. Egypt is about 600 miles in length, and 250 in breadth; bounded on the north the Mediterranean fea, on the fouth by Abyffinia, on the east by the Red Sea, and on the weft by the deferts of Lybia. The principal towns of lower Egypt are Grand Cairo, Alexandria, Rofetta, and Damietta; and of upper Egypt, Sayd or Thebes, and Coffier. The Nile has its fource in the mountains of Abyffinia; purfues its progress through Nubia into Egypt, which it divides into two parts, and empties itfelf by feven mouths into the Mediterranean, after a progress of 1500 miles. Increased by the torrents of rain which fall in Abyffinia, it overflows its banks every year, and gradually rifes from May to September. When the river fubfides, the mud left behind is fo rich, that the hufbandmen are frequently obliged to temper it with fand, left the corn fhould grow too rank. Of the productions fuitable to the climate, they have three

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crops in a year; the firft of lettuces and cucumbers, the fecond of corn, and the third of melons. the plague rages once in fix or seven years; but it abates when the Nile rifes. Almost every fpecies of noxious animal is to be found in Egypt, particularly the Tiger, the Hyena, and the Crocodile. The fultry wind conveys from the parched deferts thofe clouds of fand which caufe the Opthalmia, a diforder found highly injurious to our army, in their late glorious campaign,

AMERICA, or the New World, is between eight and nine thousand miles in length, and, in fome parts, nearly 3690 miles in breadth; it enjoys all the variety of climates, and occupies a confiderable part of both hemifpheres, and is not much inferior in dimenfions to a third part of the habitable globe. The eaftern fhores are washed by the Atlantic and Southern Oceans, and the western by the Pacific Ocean. It confifts of two great continents, diftinguished by the names of North and South America. Thefe are connected by the ifthmus of Darien, nearly 360 miles in length, but not more than 16 miles broad in the narroweft part. In the gulph bounded by the northern and fouthern continents, lie numerous iflands, which are called the Weft Indies, to diftinguish them from the countries on the eastern coafts of Afia, which are called the Eaft Indies.

In America, the works of creation are formed upon a fcale of magnificence unknown to us in the eaftern

eastern hemisphere. The river St. Laurence to the north, which receives the Miffouri, the Illinois, and the Ohio in its courfe; and the Miffiffipi to the fouth, in North America;-the Maragnon, the Oronoco, the Plata, and Amazon, in South Ame→ rica, roll their waters in such spacious channels as to resemble arms of the fea. The lakes, Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michegan, and Superior, the boundaries of the United States in North America, form inland feas of fresh and tranfparent water, and are navigable for fhips of any burthen. The mountains from which these rivers rife, are far fuperior in height to thofe in the other divifions of the globe. The Andes, forming a ftupendous ridge, extend 5000 miles, and rife in different places more than one third above the Pike of Teneriffe, which is three miles above the level of the fea, and is the highest land in the antient hemifphere. Their heads are concealed in the clouds, the ftorms roll, and the thunders burft, far below. their fummits, which, although exposed to the rays of the fun in the midst of the torrid zone, are covered with perpetual fnows. In this fuperiority in the appearances of nature, neither man nor the inferior animals partake. The American natives were found to be favage, indolent, cruel, and remarkably deficient in the powers of the mind. America, both North

Robertfon's Hiftory of America. Comparative heights of mountains according to different authors. Skiddaw, 3000 feet above the level of the fea; Snowden, in North Wales, 3,568 feet; Ben Nevis, in Scotland, 4,387 feet; Mount Gemmi, in the Canton of Berne, 10,110 feet; Pike of Teneriffe, 13,178 feet; Chimborazo, the bigheft of the Apdes, 20,280 feet.

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