We shall next direct our attention to the north of Africa.
The hostility of the Mahometans, who possessed the north of Africa, to
Christians, presented as serious an obstacle to travels in that quarter as
the barbarism and ferocity of the native tribes on the west coast did to
discoveries into the interior in that direction. In the sixteenth century,
Leo Africanus gave an ample description of the northern parts; and in the
same century, Alvarez, who visited Abyssinia, published an account of that
country. In the subsequent century, this part of Africa was illustrated by
Lobo, Tellea, and Poncet; the latter was a chemist and apothecary, sent by
Louis XIV to the reigning monarch of Abyssinia; the former were
missionaries. From their accounts, and those of the Portuguese, all our
information respecting this country was derived, previously to the travels
of Mr. Bruce.
Pocock and Norden are the most celebrated travellers in Egypt in the
beginning of the seventeenth century; but as their object was rather the
discovery and description of the antiquities of this country, what they
published did not much extend our geographical knowledge: the former spent
five years in his travels. The latter is the first writer who published a
picturesque description of Egypt; every subsequent traveller has borne
evidence to the accuracy and fidelity of his researches and descriptions.
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