roar. Yet both his courage and fierceness have, it is said, been overrated; and the man who can undauntedly face him, or evade his first dreadful spring, rarely falls his victim. Wider ravages are committed by the hyena, not the strongest, but the most ferocious and untameable of all the beasts of prey. These creatures, by moving in numerous bands, achieve what is beyond the single strength of the greater animals; they burst with mighty inroad into the cities, and have even carried by storm fortified enclosures. The elephant roams in vast herds through the densely-wooded tracts of the interior, disputing with the lion the rank of king of the lower creation; matchless in bulk and strength, yet tranquil, majestic, peaceful, led in troops under the guidance of the most ancient of the number, having a social and almost moral existence. He attacks neither man nor beast. The human being is more frequently the aggressor, not only with the view of protecting the fruits of the earth, but also in order to obtain the bony substance composing his tusks, which, under the name of ivory, forms one of the most valued articles of African trade. The prodigious strength of the elephant, his almost impenetrable hide, his rapid though unwieldy movements, render him a most perilous object of attack, even to the boldest hunters; so that pits and snares of various kinds are the usual modes by which his capture is effected. Instead of the tiger, Africa has the leopard and the panther; belonging, however, only to certain of its districts. In the large and broad rivers of Africa, and through the immense forests which overshadow them, a race of amphibious animals of monstrous form and size display their unwieldy figures. The rhinoceros, though not strictly amphi, bious, slowly traverses marshes and swampy grounds, and almost equals the elephant in strength and defensive powers, but wants his stature, his dignity, and his wisdom, The single or double horn with which he defends himself is an article of commerce in the East, though not valued in Europe. A still huger shape is that of the hippopotamus, or river-horse, fitted alike to stalk on land, to march along the bottom of the waters, or to swim on their surface. He is slow, ponderous, gentle; yet when annoyed, either by design or accident, his wrath is terrible; he rushes up from his watery retreat, and by merely striking with his enor But the mous tusks, can overset or sink a loaded canoe. most dreaded of all the inhabitants of the African rivers is the crocodile, the largest and fiercest of the lizard tribe. He lies like a log upon the waters watching for his prey, attacking men, and even the strongest animals, which, however, engage with him in obstinate and deadly encounters. We have not yet done with all the monstrous and prodigious forms which Africa generates. She swarms with the serpent brood, which spread terror, some by their deadly poison, others by their mere bulk and strength. In this last respect the African serpents have struck the world with amazement; ancient history records that whole provinces were overrun by them, and that one, after disputing the passage of a river with a Roman army, was destroyed only by the use of a battering engine. Emerging from these dank regions, where the earth, under the united influence of heat and moisture, teems with such a noxious superabundance of life, we approach the Desert. Here a change takes place equally singular and pleasing as in the vegetable world. Only light, airy, and fantastic forms trip along the sandy border; creatures innocent, gentle, and beautiful,—the antelope of twenty different species, all swift, with bright eyes, erect, and usually elegant figures, preying neither on men nor animals, but pursued by all on account of the delicate food which they afford. Here, too, roams the zebra, with its finely-striped skin wrapped around it like a robe of rich cloth; and the camelopard, the tallest and most remarkable of animal forms, with its long fore-legs and high-stretching neck of singular and fantastic beauty, crops the leaves of the African forest. Though a rare species, he is seen occasionally straying over a great proportion of that continent. Nature, sporting as it would seem in the production of extraordinary objects, has filled Africa with a wonderful multitude of those animals which bear the closest alliance to "the human form divine." The orang-outang appears to constitute the link between man and the lower orders of living things. Standing erect, without a tail, with flat face, and arms of not greatly disproportioned length, it displays in every particular a deformed resemblance to the lord of the creation. It seems even to make a nearer approach than any other animal to the exercise of reason. It has been taught to make its own bed, to sit at table, to eat with a knife and fork, and to pour out tea. M. Degrandpré mentions one kept on board a French vessel, which lighted and kept the oven at a due temperature, put in the bread at a given signal, and even assisted in drawing the ropes. There was a strong suspicion among the sailors that it would have spoken, but for the fear of being put to harder work. The baboons, again, are a large, shapeless, brutal species, ugly and disgusting in their appearance, yet not without some kind of union and polity. The monkey tribe, now familiar in Europe, and attracting attention by their playful movements, fill with sportive cries all the foresis of tropical Africa. The insect race, which in our climate is generally harmless, presents here many singular and even formidable characteristics. The flying tribes, in particular, through the action of the sun on the swampy forests, rise up in terrible and destructive numbers. They fill the air and darken the sky; they annihilate the labour of nations; they drive even armies before them. The locust, when its hands issue in close and dark array from the depths of the Desert, commits ravages surpassing those of the most ferocious wild beasts, or even the more desolating career of human warfare. In vain do the despairing inhabitants seek with fire and other means to arrest their progress; the dense and irresistible mass continues to move onward, and soon baffles every attempt to check its course. Whole provinces, which at at their entrance are covered with rich harvests and brilliant verdure, are left without a leaf or a blade. Even when destroyed by famine or tempest, they cover immense tracts, exhaling the most noxious stench. Yet they may be used as fool, and are even relished by certain native tribes. The mosquito and its allies do not spread such a fearful desolation; yet by their poisoned and tormenting stings they render life miserable, and not very unfrequently lead to its extinction. Even a swarm of wild bees, in the solitary woods of Western Africa, has put a whole caravan to flight. wounding severely some of its members. But perhaps the most extraordinary of all the insect races are the termites, or white ants, which display on a greater scale the arts and social organization for which their species have been so famed in Europe. They cover the plains with their conical huts from ten to twelve feet in height; they are regularly distributed into labourers and soldiers, with others holding the rank of king and queen. This latter personage, when she is about to add to the numbers of the tribe, presents a most extraordinary spectacle, being then swelled to many times the amount of her natural dimensions; and when the critical period arrives, instead of a progeny of two or three, she produces as many thousands. These ants are far from being of the same harmless description as the corresponding insects of this quarter of the world. On finding their way into a house, they devour every thing, clothes, furniture, food, not even it is said sparing the inmates, who are compelled to make a speedy retreat. Such are the evils to which the people of this continent are perpetually exposed from the lower creation; and yet they experience in full force the truth of the pathetic lamentation of the poet, that "man is to man the surest, deadliest foe." Africa from the earliest ages has been the most conspicuous theatre of crime and of wrong; where social life has lost the traces of primitive simplicity, without rising to order, principle, or refinement; where fraud and violence are formed into national systems, and man trembles at the sight of his fellow-man. For centuries this continent has seen thousands of her unfortunate children dragged in chains over its deserts and across the ocean, to spend their lives in foreign and distant bondage. Superstition, tyranny, anarchy, and the opposing interests of numberless petty states, maintain a constant and destructive warfare in this suffering portion of the earth. In the Nevertheless, compelled as we have thus been to describe the ills of Africa, we should err very widely did we represent her as pervaded by one deep monotonous gloom. Throughout the picture there are bright lights interspersed, which shine more conspicuously from the vast blanks and deep shadows with which they are surrounded. heart of the most dreary and sandy wastes, there emerges many a little oasis, or verdant islet, which to the wanderer of the desert appears almost an earthly paradise. These spots have been painted in colours that belong not to the imperfect abodes of earth; as gardens of the gods, fairyseats, islands destined to be the future mansions of the blessed. In like manner, in the bosom of its wildest woods and mountains, there lurk, in many an unsuspected retreat, scenes of the most soft and pastoral beauty. Even amid its moral darkness there shine forth virtues which would do honour to human society in its most refined and exalted state. A tender flow of domestic affection generally pervades African society. Signal displays, too, have been made of the most generous hospitality; and travellers, who were on the point of perishing, have been befriended and saved by absolute strangers, and even by enemies. These varieties of nature and of character, these alternations of wildness and of beauty, of lawless violence and of the most generous kindness, render the progress of the traveller through this continent more interesting and eventful, more diversified by striking scenes and incidents than in any other quarter of the globe. CHAPTER II. On the Knowledge of Africa among the Ancients. AFRICA, So far as it extends along the Mediterranean, was not only well known to the nations of antiquity, but constituted an integral part of their political and social system. This coast forms, indeed, only a comparatively small portion of that great continent; but while the sphere of civilization and the geographical knowledge of the Greeks were nearly comprised within the circuit of the Mediterranean shores, Northern Africa held in their view no inconsiderable importance. This region, which is now covered with thick darkness, and left so far behind' in all the arts and attainments which exalt and adorn human nature, had at that early period taken the lead in these very particulars of all other nations. It included Egypt and Carthage, which, as the first seats of government and commerce, were the admiration of the ancient world. In the patriarchal ages, when Scripture history represents the Mesopotamian Plain, the scene of the future empires of Babylon and Assyria, as little more than a wide and open common, Egypt |