the mouth of the Scheldt to that of the Elbe and from the point of
Jutland to the Harz, may be regarded as one connected _tract of
vegetation_,--so the seas of sand may be traced through Africa and
Asia, from Cape Blanco to beyond the Indus, or through an extent of
5600 geographical miles. Herodotus’s Sandy Region interrupted by Oases,
called by the Arabs the Desert of Sahara, traverses almost the whole of
Africa, which it intersects like a dried-up arm of the sea. The valley
of the Nile is the eastern limit of the Lybian Desert. Beyond the
Isthmus of Suez, beyond the porphyritic, syenitic, and basaltic rocks
of Sinai, begins the Desert mountain plateau of Nedjid, which occupies
the whole of the interior of the Arabian Peninsula, and is bounded to
the west and south by the fertile and happier coast lands of Hedjaz
and Hadhramaut. The Euphrates bounds the Arabian and Syrian Deserts
towards the east. Immense seas of sand, (bejaban), cross Persia from
the Caspian to the Indian Sea. Among them are the salt and soda Deserts
of Kerman, Seistan, Beloochistan, and Mekran. The latter is separated
from the Desert of Moultan by the Indus.
[22] p. 11.--“_The western part of the Atlas._”
The question respecting the position of the ancient Atlas has been
much discussed in modern times, but the oldest Phœnician legends have
been confounded in this discussion with the later fables of the Greeks
and the Romans. A man who combined deep philological with thorough
mathematical and astronomical knowledge, Professor Ideler, (the
father,) was the first person who explained and dispelled the confusion
of ideas which had previously existed on this subject. I permit myself
to introduce here the remarks that clear-sighted and highly-informed
writer has communicated to me on this important subject.
“At a very early period of the world the Phœnicians ventured beyond the
Straits of Gibraltar. They built Gades and Tartessus on the Spanish,
and Lixus and several other towns on the Mauritanian coasts of the
Atlantic. They sailed along those coasts northwards to the Cassiterides
where they obtained tin, and to the Prussian coast from whence they
brought amber; and southwards, past Madeira, to the Cape de Verde
Islands. They visited, among other places, the Canaries, and were
struck by the appearance of the lofty Peak of Teneriffe, enhanced by
its rising immediately from the sea. Through the colonies which they
sent to Greece, and especially through that which came under Cadmus
to Bœotia, the notice of this mountain rising high above the region
of clouds, and of the “Fortunate Islands,” adorned with fruits of
every kind, and especially with the golden orange, spread into Greece.
Here the tradition was propagated by the songs of the bards, and thus
reached Homer. He speaks in the Odyssey (i. 52) of an “Atlas who knows
all the depths of the sea, and who supports the great pillars which
divide heaven and earth from each other.” He speaks, too, in the
Iliad, of the Elysian fields, which he describes as a lovely land in
the west. (Il. iv. 561.) Hesiod expresses himself in a similar manner
respecting Atlas, who he makes a neighbour of the nymphs the daughters
of Hesperus. (Theog. V. 517.) He calls the Elysian fields, which he
places at the western limit of the earth, the islands of the Blest.
(Op. et dies, v. 167.) Later poets have added further embellishments to
these myths of Atlas, of the Hesperides, their golden apples, and the
Islands of the Blest, assigned as the dwelling-place of the virtuous
after death; and have combined with them the expeditions of the Tyrian
god of trade, Melicertes (the Grecian Hercules).
“The Greeks only began at a very late date to rival the Phœnicians and
Carthaginians in navigation. They visited the coasts of the Atlantic
it is true, but never appear to have penetrated far into the ocean. I
doubt whether they ever saw the Canaries and the Peak of Teneriffe.
They believed that Atlas, which their poets and legends described as a
very high mountain placed at the western limit of the earth, must be
sought on the west coast of Africa. It was placed there also by their
later geographers, Strabo, Ptolemy, and others. As there is not any
single mountain distinguished by its elevation in north-western Africa,
the true situation of Mount Atlas has been a subject of perplexity; and
it has been sought, sometimes on the coast, sometimes in the interior,
sometimes near the Mediterranean, and sometimes further towards the
south. It became the custom (in the first century of our era, when the
Roman arms penetrated into the interior of Mauritania and Numidia,) to
give the name of Atlas to the African chain of mountains which runs
from west to east almost parallel with the coast of the Mediterranean.
Pliny and Solinus were, however, very sensible that the descriptions
of Mount Atlas given by the Greek and Roman poets were not applicable
to this long mountain chain; and they therefore thought it necessary
to transfer the Atlas, of which they gave a picturesque description in
accordance with the poetic legends, to the terra incognita of Central
Africa. According to what has been said, the Atlas of Homer and Hesiod
can only be the Peak of Teneriffe; and the Atlas of the Greek and Roman
geographers must be in Northern Africa.”
I will only add the following remarks to this instructive discussion
by Professor Ideler. According to Pliny and Solinus, Atlas rises from
a sandy plain (e medio arenarum); and elephants (which certainly were
never known in Teneriffe) feed on its declivity. What we now term
Atlas is a long ridge. How came the Romans to recognise in this long
ridge the isolated conical mountain of Herodotus? May not the reason
be found in the optical delusion by which every mountain chain seen in
profile, in the prolongation of its direction, has the appearance of a
narrow cone? I have often seen in this manner, from the sea, the ends
of long chains or ridges, which might be taken for isolated mountains.
According to Höst the Atlas is covered near Morocco with perpetual
snow, which implies an elevation of above 1800 toises, or 11510 English
feet. It is also remarkable that, according to Pliny, the “Barbarians,”
_i. e._ the ancient Mauritanians, called the Atlas “Dyris.” The chain
of the Atlas is still called by the Arabs Daran, a word which has
almost the same consonants as Dyris. Hornius, on the other hand (de
Originibus Americanorum, p. 195), thinks that he recognises the word
Dyris in the Guanche name of the Peak of Teneriffe, Aya-Dyrma. On the
connection between purely mythical ideas and geographical traditions,
and on the way in which the Titan Atlas gave occasion to the image of
a mountain supporting the heavens, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, see
Letronne’s “Essai sur les Idées cosmographiques qui se rattachent au
nom d’Atlas,” in Férussac’s Bulletin universel des Sciences, Mars 1831,
p. 10.
Considering that our present (it is true, very limited) geological
knowledge of the mountainous parts of North Africa does not make us
acquainted with any trace of volcanic eruptions within historic times,
it is very remarkable to find among the ancients so many indications
of a belief in the existence of this class of phenomena, in the
Western Atlas, and in the neighbouring west coast of the continent.
The streams of fire, so often mentioned in Hanno’s ship-journal, may
indeed have only been strips of burning grass, or signal fires kindled
by the wild inhabitants of the coasts to give to each other notice of
the danger threatened by the appearance of the hostile vessels. The
lofty flame-enlightened summit of the “chariot of the gods” (θεῶν
ὅχημα), may recall obscurely the Peak of Teneriffe; but farther on
Hanno describes a singular conformation of ground. He finds in the
Gulf near the Western Horn, a large island, and in it a salt lake
which again contains a smaller island. South of the bay of the Gorilla
Apes, the same conformation is repeated. Is this a description of
coral productions, of “lagoon islands, (Atolls)” or volcanic “crater
lakes” in the middle of which a cone has been upheaved? The Triton
lake was not in the neighbourhood of the lesser Syrtis, but near the
Atlantic coast. (Asie Cent. T. i. p. 179.) The lake disappeared in
consequence of earthquakes which were accompanied by great outbursts
of fire. Diodorus (Lib. iii. 53, 55) says expressly, πυρὸς ἐκφυσήματα
μεγάλα. But the most wonderful conformation is ascribed to the “hollow
Atlas” in a passage hitherto little noticed, occurring in one of the
philosophic Dialexes of Maximus Tyrius. This Platonic philosopher
lived in Rome, under Commodus. The situation of his Atlas is “on the
continent, where the Western Lybians inhabit a projecting peninsula.
The mountain has in it towards the sea a semicircular deep abyss.”
The precipices are so steep that they cannot be descended; the abyss
below is filled with trees, and “one looks down upon their summits,
and on the fruits which they bear, as if one was looking into a well.”
(Maximus Tyrius, viii., 7, ed. Markland.) The description is so graphic
and so individually marked, that it doubtless conveys the recollections
impressed by a real prospect.
[23] p. 11.--“_The Mountains of the Moon, Djebel al Komr._”
The Mountains of the Moon of Ptolemy (Lib. iv. cap. 9,) (σελήνης
ὅρος) form on our older maps an immense uninterrupted mountain zone,
traversing Africa from east to west. The existence of these mountains
appears certain; but their extent, their distance from the Equator,
and their general direction, are all unsolved problems. I have already
alluded in another work, (Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 191, and note 297,
Engl. ed.) to the manner in which a closer acquaintance with Indian
languages, and with the ancient Persian idiom, the Zend, teaches us
that part of the geographical nomenclature of Ptolemy forms an historic
monument of the commercial connection of the west with the most distant
regions of Southern Asia and Eastern Africa. The same direction of
ideas shews itself in a question very recently brought forward. It is
asked, whether the great geographer and astronomer of Pelusium meant
in the name of “Mountains of the Moon,” as in that of the “Island
of Barley” (Jabadiu, Java), merely to give the Greek translation of
a native name;--whether (as is most probable) El Istachri, Edrisi,
Ibn-al-Vardi, and other early Arabian geographers, only transferred
the nomenclature of Ptolemy into their own language;--or whether they
were misled by similarity in the sound of the words and the manner of
writing. In the notes to the translation of Abd-Allatif’s celebrated
description of Egypt, my great instructor, Silvestre de Sacy, (éd. de
1810, p. 7 and 353,) says expressly: “On traduit ordinairement le nom
de ces montagnes que Léon Africain regarde comme les sources du Nil,
par _montagnes de la lune_, et j’ai suivi cet usage. Je ne sais si les
Arabes ont pris originairement cette dénomination de Ptolémée. On peut
croire qu’ils entendent effectivement aujourd’hui le mot قمر dans le
sens de la _lune_ en le prononçant ‘Kamar’; je ne crois pas cependant
que ç’ait été l’opinion des anciens écrivains arabes qui prononcent,
comme le prouve Makrizi, Komr. Aboulféda rejette positivement l’opinion
de ceux qui prononcent kamar, et qui dérivent ce nom de celui de la
lune. Comme le mot komr, considéré comme pluriel de اقمر, signifie un
objet d’une _couleur verdâtre_ ou d’un blanc sale, suivant l’auteur du
Kamous, il paroit que quelques écrivains ont cru que cette montagne
tiroit son nom de sa couleur.”
The learned Reinaud, in his recent excellent translation of Abulfeda
(T. ii., P. i., p. 81-82), considers it probable that the Ptolemaic
interpretation of the name, by “Mountains of the Moon” (ὅρη σεληναῖα),
was that originally adopted by the Arabian writers. He remarks that in
the Moschtarek of Yakut, and in Ibn-Said, the mountains are written
al-Komr, and that Yakut writes in the same way the name of the island
of Zendj (Zanguebar). The Abyssinian traveller Beke, in his learned
critical memoir on the Nile and its tributaries (Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society of London, vol. xvii. 1847, p. 74-76), seeks to
prove that Ptolemy had merely formed his σελήνης ὅρος from a native
name, for which he was indebted to intelligence received through the
medium of the extensive commercial intercourse which prevailed. He
says, “Ptolemy knew that the Nile rises in the mountainous country
of Moezi; and in the languages which extend over a great portion of
South Africa (for example, in the languages of Congo, Monjou, and
Mozambique), the word Moezi signifies the moon. A great south-western
country was called Mono-Muezi, or Mani-Moezi, _i. e._ the land of the
king of Moezi (of the king of the Moon country), for in the same family
of languages in which Moezi or Muezi signifies the Moon, Mono or Mani
signifies a king. Alvarez, in the Viaggio nella Ethiopia (Ramusio, vol.
i, p. 249,) speaks of the ‘regne di Manicongo,’ the kingdom of the king
of Congo.” Beke’s opponent, Ayrton, seeks the origin of the White Nile
(Bahr el Abiad), not as do Arnaud, Werne, and Beke, near the equator,
or even south of it (and in 29° E. long. from Paris, or 31° 22′ from
Greenwich), but with Antoine d’Abbadie far to the north-east, in the
Godjeb and Gibbe of Eneara (Iniara); therefore in the high mountains
of Habesch, in 7° 20′ N. latitude, and 33° E. long. from Paris, or 35°
22′ from Greenwich. He conjectures that the Arabs, from a similarity
of sound, may have interpreted the native name Gamaro belonging to the
Abyssinian mountains, in the south-west of Gaka in which the Godjeb (or
White Nile?) has its source, to mean Moon Mountains (Djebel al-Kamar);
so that Ptolemy himself, familiar with the intercourse between
Abyssinia and the Indian Ocean, may have taken the Semitic version,
given by early Arab immigrants. (Compare Ayrton in the Journal of the
Royal Geogr. Soc. vol. xviii. 1848, p. 53, 55, and 59-63, with Fred.
Werne’s instructive expedition for the discovery of the sources of the
Nile, Exped. zur Entd. der Nil-Quellen, 1848, S. 534-536.)
The lively interest which has again been excited in England for the
discovery of the most southern sources of the Nile, induced the
above-named Abyssinian traveller, Charles Beke, at the recent meeting
of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at
Swansea, August 1848, to develop more in detail his ideas respecting
the connection between the Mountains of the Moon and the Mountains of
Habesch. He says:--“The Abyssinian elevated plain, generally above 8000
feet high, extends towards the south to nearly 9° or 10° N. latitude.
The eastern declivity of the highlands has to the inhabitants of the
coast the appearance of a mountain chain. The plateau at its southern
extremity passes into the Mountains of the Moon, which run, not east
and west, but parallel to the coast, or from NNE. to SSW.; extending
from 10° N. to 5° S. latitude. The sources of the White Nile are
situated in the Mono-Moezi country, probably in 2-1/2° S., not far from
where the river Sabaki, on the eastern side of the Mountains of the
Moon, falls into the Indian Ocean near Melindeh, north of Mombaza. Last
autumn (1847) the two Abyssinian missionaries Rebmann and Krapf were
still on the coast of Mombaza. They have established in the vicinity,
among the Wakamba tribe, a missionary station called Rabbay Empie,
which promises to be very useful also for geographical discovery.
Families belonging to the Wakamba tribe have advanced to the west five
or six hundred miles into the interior of the country, as far as the
upper course of the river Lusidji, the great lake Nyassi or Zambeze
(5° S. lat.?), and the sources of the Nile which are not far distant.
An expedition to these sources, which Herr Friedrich Bialloblotzky,
of Hanover, is preparing to undertake, (by the advice of Beke), is to
set out from Mombaza. The Nile coming from the west referred to by the
ancients is probably the Bahr-el-Ghazal, or Keilah, which falls into
the Nile in 9° N. lat., above the mouth of the Godjeb or Sobat.”
Russegger’s scientific expedition,--which by Mehemet Ali’s desire
was sent to the gold-washings of Fazokl on the Blue (Green) Nile,
Bahr-el-Azrek, in 1837 and 1838,--had made the existence of the
“Mountains of the Moon” appear very doubtful. The Blue Nile, the
Astapus of Ptolemy, issuing from the lake of Coloe (now called lake
Tzana) winds from amongst the colossal Abyssinian mountains; but
towards the south-west an extensive low tract of country appears. The
three exploring expeditions sent by the Egyptian government, (one in
November 1839 from Chartum to the confluence of the Blue and the White
Nile, under the command of Selim Bimbashi; another in the autumn of
1840, which was accompanied by the French engineers Arnaud, Sabatier,
and Thibaud; and a third in August 1841), first unveiled the high
mountains which, between the parallels of 6°-4°, and probably still
farther to the south, run at first from west to east, and afterwards
from north-west to south-east, and approach the left bank of the
Bahr-el-Abiad. The second of Mehemet Ali’s expeditions first saw the
mountain chain, according to Werne’s account, in lat. 11-1/3° where
Gebel Abul and Gebel Kutak rise to 3400 (3623 Eng.) feet. The high land
continued and approached nearer to the river more to the south, between
4-3/4° lat., to the parallel of the island of Tschenker in 4° 4′, where
the expedition of Commander Selim and Feizulla Effendi terminated. The
shallow river makes its way between rocks, and detached mountains rise
again in the country of Bari to 3000 (3197 Eng.) feet. These probably
belong to the Mountains of the Moon as represented in our most recent
maps, although they are not indeed mountains covered with perpetual
snow such as Ptolemy had described (lib. iv. cap. 9). The limit of
perpetual snow in these latitudes would not certainly be found below
an elevation of 14500 (15450 Eng.) feet. Perhaps Ptolemy transferred
to the country of the sources of the White Nile the knowledge which
he may have had of the high mountains of Habesch, which are nearer to
Upper Egypt and to the Red Sea. In Godiam, Kaffa, Miecha, and Sami,
the Abyssinian mountains rise to 10000 and 14000 (10657 and 14920
Eng.) feet, according to exact measurements; not according to Bruce,
who gives the elevation of Chartum exceedingly wide of the truth,
_i. e._, 4730 (5041 Eng.) feet, instead of 1430 (1524 Eng.) feet!
Rüppell, one of the most accurate observers of the present day, found
Abba Jaret, in 13° 10′ of latitude, only 66 (70 Eng.) feet lower than
Mont Blanc. (Compare Rüppell, Reise in Abyssinien, Bd. i. S. 414, and
Bd. ii. S. 443). Rüppell found, adjoining the Buahat, an elevated
plain 13080 (13939 Eng.) feet above the Red Sea, barely covered with
a small quantity of fresh fallen snow (Humboldt, Asie Centrale, T.
iii. p. 272). The celebrated inscription of Adulis, which Niebuhr
considers to be somewhat later than Juba and than Augustus, also speaks
of Abyssinian snow “that reaches to the knees.” This is, I believe,
the earliest mention in antiquity of snow within the tropics (Asie
Centrale, T. iii. p. 235); as the Paropanisus is 12° of latitude north
of the northern limit of the torrid zone.
Zimmermann’s map of the countries about the Upper Nile shews the
dividing line which determines the basin of the Great River, and
separates it on the south-east from the domain of the rivers which flow
into the Indian Ocean;--that is to say, from the Doara, which enters
the sea north of Magadoxo; from the Teb, which has its embouchure
on the Amber coast, near Ogda; and from the Goschop, whose abundant
stream is formed by the confluence of the Gibu and the Zebi, and which
he distinguishes from the Godjeb, rendered celebrated since 1839 by
Antoine d’Abbadie, the missionary Krapf, and Beke. These results of
the travels of Beke, Krapf, Isenberg, Russegger, Rüppell, Abbadie,
and Werne, brought together and shewn in the most comprehensive and
convenient manner by Zimmermann, were hailed by me on their appearance
in 1843 with the most lively joy, as expressed in a letter to Carl
Ritter. “If,” I wrote to him, “a life prolonged to an advanced period
brings with it several inconveniences to the individual, and perhaps
some even to those who live with him, there is a compensation in the
delight of being able to compare older states of knowledge with that
which now exists, and to see great advances in knowledge grow and
develope themselves under our eyes in departments where all had long
slumbered in inactivity, with the exception, perhaps, of attempts
by hypercriticism to render previous acquisitions doubtful. This
enjoyment has from time to time fallen to our share, yours and mine,
in our geographical studies, and this particularly in reference to
those very parts of the world which formerly could only be treated of
with timid hesitating uncertainty. The conformation of a continent
depends in its leading traits on several plastic relations which are
usually among the latest to be discovered and unravelled. A new and
excellent work of our friend Carl Zimmermann, on the upper country of
the Nile and the eastern parts of central Africa, has again brought
these considerations very vividly before me. His new map shews in the
clearest manner to the eye, by means of a particular method of shading,
what is still unknown, and what, by the courage and perseverance of
travellers of all nations,--among whom our own countrymen happily
hold an important place,--has been already disclosed to us. It is a
valuable service, and one which opens the way for farther advances and
more comprehensive inferences, when persons, thoroughly acquainted
with the existing, often widely scattered, materials,--men who do not
merely draw and compile, but compare, select, and, wherever it is
possible, check and control the routes of travellers by astronomical
determinations of position,--undertake to represent graphically the
results of the elements of knowledge possessed at the time. Those who
have themselves given to the world so much as you have done, have an
especial right to expect much; since their combinations have largely
augmented the number of connecting points; yet I believe that when
you executed your great work on Africa in 1822 you could hardly have
expected so many accessions as we have now received.” The knowledge
acquired is, indeed, often only that of rivers, their direction, their
branches, and the various synonyms by which they are called in dialects
belonging to different families of languages; but rivers reveal to us
by their course the form of the surface of the earth, and are at once
the nourishers of vegetation, the channels of intercourse between men,
and pregnant with unknown influences on the future.