sole proprietor of the land. Insurrections are frequent, and petty wars are continually carrying on with the neighbouring states, especially with the Gallas, a numerous and savage tribe to the south of Abyssinia. The ancient custom, recorded in poetry and romance, of bringing up the princes of the royal family in a sort of confinement upon a solitary and inaccessible mountain, has long been disused.

The habitations of the Abyssinians are mean, and all the arts are at present in a low condition among them. The manufac tures are inconsiderable, and the commerce small: the latter is chiefly carried on with the port of Masua, on the Red sea. Gondar, the capital of the country, and the royal residence, is said to contain a population of 50000 persons. The other towns are not entitled to notice. Axum, the ancient capital, is distinguished by extensive ruins, among which are obelisks of granite.

EASTERN COAST OF AFRICA.

THE long range of sea-coast from cape Guardafui, at the entrance of the Red sea, to the cape of Good Hope at the southern extremity of Africa, is possessed by a number of separate states or tribes, of which we have very little knowledge. When this coast was first visited by the Portuguese navigators, near the close of the 15th century, many flourishing settlements were found which had been originally established by Moors or mahometans from the shores of Arabia. Some of these were great marts of commerce, and held a correspondence with other settlements made by the same people on the western coast of Hindostan. The towns were well built, and displayed considerable opulence and civilization. The inland country was inhabited by the aboriginal natives, who were nearly in the savage state. The Portuguese, by their superior military skill and valour, expelled the Moors from their towns and harbours, and took possession of such as they did not entirely destroy; and this coast was reckoned an important member of their eastern empire. Its trade and consequence appear to have been long upon the decline; and so little have the Portuguese of late times contributed to the advancement of geographical information, that they have suffered this extensive and interesting country to remain a kind of blank in our maps. A slight sketch of it is all that we are at present enabled to give.

ADEL is a kingdom dependant on Abyssinia. It is a fertile country, and its port, named Zeila, at the mouth of the Red sea, is a place of considerable traffic.

The coast of AJAN, chiefly inhabited by mahometans, exports gold, ivory, and ambergris. Brava is a small state which pays tribute to the Portuguese. Melinda appears to have been the finest of the mahometan settlements at the period of the discovery, and is still possessed by people of that religion, who

are, however, partly dependant on the Portuguese. This nation holds a fortress and several churches in Melinda. Mombaza is another of their dependencies, together with Quiloa, once the chief and central settlement of the Moors in these parts. The country of ZANGUEBAR, which includes all the last-mentioned places, is low, marshy, and unhealthy, covered with thick forests, which give shelter to large herds of elephants. Its inland inhabitants are pagans, extremely superstitious, and savage in their manners. Gold is said to abound in it.

The coast of MOZAMBIC succeeds, regarded as subject to the Portuguese, who have, or had, a considerable town of that name, esteemed one of the best harbours on the eastern coast of Africa, but rendered unhealthy by its low situation.

The most powerful and civilized kingdom in this part of Africa is that of MOCARANGA, Commonly called Monomotapa, which is properly the appellation of its sovereign. Sofala and Sabia are reckoned dependencies of it. It is a fertile country, extending far inwards along the course of the river Zambezi, and backed by a chain of mountains so lofty, that even in this latitude they are covered with perpetual snow. Great quantities of gold are procured from a mountain called Fura, and silver mines are opened near the source of the Zambezi. The Portuguese had two fortresses in this country, and a military station near the gold mines.

Further south is the bay of Delagoa, which is frequented by the European and American whale-fishers. Around it, and upon the streams that flow into it, different tribes of natives dwell, who are a harmless race of savages. The country is fertile, producing rice, maize, sugar-cane, with cattle and poultry in abundance. A petty trade for provisions is carried on with the natives by the occasional maritime visitors.

After the coast of Natal, of which little is known, occurs the country of the KAFFERS, or, more properly, Koussis. With this people European travellers have become acquainted in their expeditions from the colony of the Cape, and have found them a remarkably strong and well-made race, brave, not unacquainted with the arts of life, and much superior in appearance to the neighbouring African tribes.

SOUTHERN AFRICA.

ALL the southern extremity of Africa, which, though seeming little more than a point in comparison with the broad part of the peninsula, spreads into an extent from east to west of nearly 550 miles, is occupied by the territory of the Dutch colony of the cape of Good Hope. This territory extends inland about 230 miles, and contains a great tract of country, thinly peopled, and for the most part uncultivated, and much diversified in soil and surface. Mountainous ridges running chiefly east and west in parallel ranges, overspread the whole; between which, in several parts, are high level plains, consisting of hard clay sprinkled with sand, and doomed to irremediable sterility. Many rivers cross these ridges at intervals, in their way to the sea; but of these the greater number lose their water in the dry season, and drought is the prevailing evil of the country. Where the streams are perennial there is a rich vegetation; and in no part of the world are there finer pastures, capable of rearing the domestic animals to the greatest bulk and fatness.

It is, perhaps, rather owing to the easier access of naturalists, than to any peculiarity in the soil and climate, that the Cape territory has of late years contributed more to enrich the catalogues, and descriptions of botanists and zoologists than almost any other equal tract. With respect to the vegetable kingdom, its contributions have very much consisted of those succulent plants which nature has adapted to arid and stony regions, and also of the families of heaths and geraniums, which naturally clothe the sides of hills. Of the bulbous-rooted plants which spring in the marshy grounds at the foot of mountains, there is also a vast variety. These different sources have been so well explored, that the Cape plants constitute at present the chief

splendour of our green-houses. In their cultivated product's the colonists have chiefly followed the European system of farming, and attended to the growth of corn, especially wheat, and the feeding of sheep and oxen. They have likewise planted vineyards, and with such success, that the choice wine called Constantia maintains a place among the most valued products of the grape.

The zoology of the country about the cape of Good Hope has afforded matter for much curious and entertaining description. The forests and wilds still remote from human culture are filled with beasts of prey and their game, and with those stately herbivorous quadrupeds, which pass their lives in tranquil security from all enemies but man. The lion, the most terrible of the carnivorous tribe in Africa, as the tiger is in Asia, here "makes the night hideous" by his tremendous roar, at which the draught cattle are represented as shrinking in convulsive tremors and cold sweats, and the dogs as cowering in silence round their masters. The elephant, the rhinoceros, and that rare and singular quadruped the camelopard, are inmates of the retired forests; and not unfrequently the wild buffalo starts from the reedy thicket upon the unsuspecting traveller, and with amazing strength and ferocity overthrows man and horse, destroying through mere wantonness of rage. Of the antelope tribe there are many species, some of singular elegance and agility. Their migrations from one district to another in search of pasture are in such vast flocks that the foremost are said to leave only a bare desert to the hindmost. The hippopotamus abounds in some of the rivers, and the ostrich is frequent on the sandy plains.

The mineralogy of these parts has been little examined; but the Copper mountains, between the 29th and 30th degrees of S. latitude, are known to yield great quantities of copper to a Kaffer tribe in the vicinity, who possess skill enough to smelt the ore.

The natives of this southern part of Africa are principally comprehended under the name of Hottentots, and are almost proverbially ranked among the lowest of the races of mankind in intellect and civilization. In form they are middle-sized