who had two towns called Issedon. Among the Seres the most interesting town is Sera, the metropolis, now Kantcheou, in the Chinese province of Shefi-si, without the great wall of China. This city has been erroneously confounded with Pekin, the capital of China, 300 leagues distant; but some think that the antients had no immediate knowledge of China properly so called. They knew, indeed, by name, a nation called Sinæ, east of Serica, who were probably settled in the province of Shensi, the most westerly province of China, immediately adjoining the great wall, in which there was a kingdom called Tsin, which probably gave name to these northern Sina, who are not to be confounded with the Sinæ already mentioned in the description of India.*

* But we learn from the Chinese Historians, on the authority of M. de Guignes, that An-toun, i. e. Antoninus, Emperor of the west, sent a commercial Embassy to Oan-ti, who reigned in China about A. D. 150, and this is confirmed by later researches. See Mr. Murray's Memoir, published in the Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions, Vol. VIII. p. 171.

CHAPTER XV.

AFRICA.

A. G. Plate I. XX. XXI. XXII.

AFRICA (Pl. I. and XX.) was called Libya by the Greek and Roman poets, the name which we give to the whole continent being more generally, though not absolutely, confined by the Romans to a particular province. Very little of this division of the globe was known to the antients, except the parts adjacent to the coast of the Mediterranean; the interior of Africa they thought uninhabitable from the excessive heat, or peopled it with fabulous monsters, of which Africa was proverbially the nurse.* The first province of Africa, on the western side, below the Fretum Gaditanum, or Herculeum, now the Straits of Gibraltar, was Mauritania, now Morocco and Fez. East of it was Numidia, now Algiers, and east of Numidia was Africa Propria, or the province of Africa properly so called, now Tunis, lying along that part of the coast which bends from north to south. The bay formed by the southern part of this bend was the Syrtis Minor, a dangerous quicksand,

* Plin. VIII. 16.

and in that formed by another sweep of the sea, after which the coast again takes a north-easterly direction, was the Syrtis Major: between the two Syrtes was Tripolitana, now Tripoli. East of the Syrtis Major was Cyrenaica, now Barca, and east of it Marmarica ; and still east of the mouths of the Nile, was Ægyptus, or Egypt, divided into Ægyptus Inferior, or Lower Egypt, on the coast, Ægyptus Superior, or Upper Egypt, towards the interior of Africa. Below Numidia was Gætulia, now Beledulgerid: below Cyrenaica and Marmarica was Libya properly so called; below Egypt was Ethiopia; the whole interior of Africa west of this was called Ethiopia interior, or Nigritia.

Mauritania (Pl. XXI.), now the empire of Fez and Morocco, was bounded on the north by the Fretum Herculeum and the Mediterranean, on the east by Numidia, on the south it was separated from Gætulia by the chain of Mount Atlas, and on the west was bounded by the Atlantic Ocean. It was, properly speaking, in the time of Bocchus, the ally and betrayer of Jugurtha, bounded by the river Mulucha, or Molochath, now Malwa, and corresponded nearly to the present kingdom of Fez; but in the time of the Emperor Claudius, the western part of Numidia was added to this province, under the name Mauritania Casariensis, the antient kingdom of Mauritania being called Tingitana, from its principal city, Tingis, or Old Tangier, on the west of the Straits. Opposite to Calpe, or Gibraltar, in Spain, is the other column of Hercules, Mount_Abyla*, near Ceuta in Mauritania. The remotest Roman city on

* Maura Abyla, et dorso consurgit Iberica Calpe.

Avien. Orbis Descr. 111.

the western shore of the Atlantic was Sala, now Sallee, a well-known piratical port. In the south of Mauritania is the celebrated Mount Atlas, which gives name to the Atlantic Ocean. Mauritania Cæsariensis, was subsequently divided by the Emperor Diocletian into two provinces, the name Cæsariensis being restricted to the western, while the eastern province was called Mauritania Sitifiensis. They contained many Roman colonies; but it may be sufficient for us to notice Siga, which was the antient residence of Syphax, before he invaded the dominions of Masinissa: it is situated north-east of the river Mulucha. The river Chinalaph was the principal river of the country after the Mulucha. It is now the Shellif. In Mauritania Sitifiensis, we may mention Sitifis, the capital, and Igilgilis on the coast, the principal port of the district.

Numidia is bounded by Mauritania on the west, the Mediterranean on the north, Africa Propria on the east, and Gætulia on the south, corresponding nearly to the present state of Algiers. It was occupied by two principal nations, the Massyli, towards Africa Propria, in the eastern part, and the Massæsili, west of them, in that part of Numidia which was afterwards given to Mauritania. They were separated by the promontory of Tretum, now Sebda-Raz, or the Seven Capes. The Massyli were the subjects of Masinissa, the Massæsili of Syphax. This latter prince, having invaded the kingdom of Masinissa, the ally of the Romans in the second Punic war, was overcome and taken prisoner by Masinissa and the Romans, and was carried to Rome by Scipio, to adorn his triumph, where he died in prison, B. C. 202, A. U. c. 552. The Romans confirmed Masinissa in the possession of the kingdom of Syphax, and the history of those transactions, together with an account of the heroic death of Sophonisba, is to be found in the 24th book of Livy. After the death of Masinissa and his

son Micipsa, it was divided between his grandsons Hiempsal and Atherbal, who were successively murdered by Jugurtha, and thus Numidia became again united under one sovereign, and the Romans having resolved to punish the crimes of Jugurtha, gave occasion to the Jugurthine war, the history of which is written by Sallust. Jugurtha was taken, having been betrayed by Bocchus, to whom he had fled for rufuge, and carried to Rome to adorn the triumph of Marius, B. C. 106, A. U. c. 648, after which he was starved to death in prison. Numidia was subsequently under the dominion of Juba, who took part with Pompey and his adherents against Cæsar, but was conquered in the battle of Thapsus, and Numidia was reduced to a Roman province; but a part of it was restored by Augustus to the son of Juba, who bore his father's name, and who also received in marriage from Augustus, Cleopatra, the daughter of Antony. The capital of Numidia was Cirta, on a branch of the river Ampsagas, or Wad-il-Kiber: it was afterwards called Sittianorum Colonia, from a general of the name of Sittius, who greatly assisted Cæsar in the African war, and was rewarded with this district; but subsequently it took the name of Constantina, which it still retains. North-east of Cirta, on the coast, was Hippo Regius, of which St. Augustine was bishop; it was near the present town of Bona; and in a bay, north-west of Hippo, was the mountain of Pappua, now Edoug, to which Gelimas, the last king of the Vandals, retreated after his fatal defeat by the great Belisarius, A. D. 534. South-east of this, in the interior, was Tajaste, or Tajelt, the birth-place of St. Augustine, and below it Mædoura, the birth-place of Apuleius.

Africa Propria, or the province of Africa properly so called, was bounded by Numidia on the west, by the Mediterranean on the north and east, and by Gætulia and the extremity of Tripolis on the south. It corresponds to the