It is therefore with a considerable degree of confidence that we place the Apocopa Magna of the Periplus at Hopia, and Sarapion at Merka, whilst identifying the Pyralai islands, Menuthias, and Rhapta, respectively, with Manda, Pemba, and Bagamoyo.1

Ptolemy's map and text present far greater difficulties. According to the details given by him (1. 17), a voyage from Opone, or the Zingis promontory, to Rhapta occupied 24 "courses"; and as the development of his coast-line only amounts to 756 miles, each course would average only 30 miles. This distance, measured off on a modern map, would carry us no farther than the Wubushi or Durnford River, to the south of the Jub; and this induced Mr. Cooley (Ptolemy and the Nile, 1854) to assume the existence of two Rhaptas, that of Ptolemy on the river Jub, and that of the Periplus at Kilwa. It seems unlikely, however, that the Greeks should have bestowed the same name upon two ports lying on the same coast; and I am content to leave Rhapta somewhere on the coast facing Zanzibar Island, where nearly all authorities place it.

And now I come to the Nile lakes and the Mountains of the Moon. If Rhapta is now represented by Bagamoyo, these lakes and mountains should have been discovered in the positions assigned to them upon the map I place before you. Lakes have been discovered, but not in the absolute or relative positions which the Nile lakes occupy on Ptolemy's map; whilst as to a range of snow-clad Lunar Mountains, stretching for nine degrees from east to west, it would be difficult to discover anything corresponding to them upon a modern map of Africa.

Fortunately, Ptolemy himself discloses to us the slender authority upon which his delineation of these lakes is founded (I. 9, 17). It is evident that he found depicted upon the map of Marinus a number of lakes lying near the coast, such, for instance, as are referred to by Artemidoros, who even mentions a river "Nile" as rising in northern Somal Land, which later geographers connected with the Nile of Egypt. Diogenes is reported by Marinus to have been abreast of these lakes when a little to the north of the promontory of Rhapta. No details of the voyage of Diogenes are given, except that it lasted 25 days, and the lakes referred to by him may have been farther north-for instance, near the Jub-where the Leopard River actually loses itself in a lake not far from the coast.

To a man of Ptolemy's intelligence, the idea that a river like the Nile, traversing half a continent, should rise in a coast lake on the Indian Ocean, was utterly repugnant; and it must have been with much satisfaction that he learnt from traders of Muza that these lakes were not on the coast itself, but "much farther inland." But how much farther350 miles, or only a few days' journey? Most likely the latter. Ptolemy's map affords no indication at all that its author had itineraries connecting these lakes with the coast, nor does he hint at any itinerary in his text. He associates, however, the "cinnamon region" with his lakes; and as this region extended eastward to Aromata and Zingis, we may fairly assume that on the map of Marinus the lakes occupied a position

1 For a discussion of this question, see Dr. Müller's editions of Ptolemy and the Minor Greek Geographers.

VOL. VII.

Y

somewhere in the northern Somal country. It is there Ptolemy found his "Nile Lakes"; but instead of leaving them where they had been correctly placed by his predecessor, contenting himself with severing all connection between them and the Nile, he chose to do otherwise. He retained the lakes as heads of the Nile, but swept them far into the Interior. The same process was applied by Ptolemy to the lake in the Myrrh country, which figures upon his map as Coloe." The "Mastitae," who are stated to dwell between this Coloe and the Nile lakes, cannot therefore be the Masai," as suggested by M. Berlioux, but are more likely a tribe which dwelt to the eastward of the Hawash. Perhaps our modern Harar occupies the site of their capital, Maste.

As to the "Mountains of the Moon," it may safely be asserted that, in the locality indicated by Ptolemy-that is, in the country at the back of the Anthropophagi-there are no mountains answering their description. The only snow-clad mountains of Africa known to the ancients were those of the Atlas and of Abyssinia (Semen), and only the latter can have fed the Nile. To expect us to believe that the remote Ruwenzori was one of them is really asking too much. Mr. Cooley, who has devoted considerable attention to this subject, suggests that the whole passage referring to these mountains is an interpolation of later date, and forms no part of the genuine text of Ptolemy. This, however, is probably going too far: for, although many of the immediate followers of Ptolemy are silent with regard to these mountains, and even advance hypotheses of the origin of the Nile quite inconsistent with their existence, there remains the fact that Philostorgius (died, 430) speaks of a country in Eastern Africa named after the moon; that a "geographical fragment" of the fifth century, or of a later date, describes them; that nearly all the Arab geographers have something to say about a Jebel el Komr, or el Kamar (Green or Lunar Mountains), feeding the head-streams of the Nile; and lastly, that there actually does exist a country in Eastern Africa named "Land of the Moon," or Unyamwezi. This vast region is now split up into numerous rich communities, but may well have formed a powerful empire in a former age, whose name and reputation were carried by caravans down to the coast, just as in a subsequent age “Monemugi” became known to the Portuguese, without their learning anything about the vast lakes that lay beyond it. Indeed, Unyamwezi may have extended at one time to the very coast itself.

PTOLEMY'S SUCCESSORS.-The centuries following Ptolemy's great achievement added next to nothing to our knowledge of the sources of the Nile. Orosius (410) and his follower, the Istrian Ethicus, know nothing of Ptolemy's lakes, but connect the great African river with the Nile of Artemidoros, in Somal Land, and make it pass through a large lake, on issuing from which it is described as forming cataracts, and then flows on to Meroe. This is clearly a resuscitation of the ideas of Marinus. The "great lake" may possibly be identical with Lake Tsana in Abyssinia.

Of quite a different character is the information of a "Geographical Fragment" of the fifth or a later century, which has been published in

Hudson's Minor Greek Geographers. I have embodied its information in a small map, on examining which you will at once perceive that we have before us merely an amplified reproduction of Ptolemy's lakes, the unknown author having affixed names to various objects, some of them to all appearance of his own invention. The "Crocodile Lake" reminds us of the fresh-water lake referred to by Artemidoros, which is said to contain crocodiles; the "Lake of the Cataracts" may be meant for Lake Tsana, whilst the "Great River" to which these lakes give rise is represented as flowing through the country of the Champesidae—that is, Abyssinia for Mr. W. D. Cooley points out that Khampesia is the modern Greek mode of writing Habesh.

THE ARABS. This map, therefore, throws no fresh light upon the question of the Equatorial Lakes of Africa. Nor do we obtain more comfort by consulting the writings of the Arabs. Whatever the Arabs may have done in enlarging our knowledge of the Sahara and the Western Sudan, they have added little to what we knew previously about Abyssinia and the sources of the Nile; and if their knowledge of the eastern coast of Africa extended farther south than did Ptolemy's, their maps are very inferior to that of the Alexandrian geographer. They accepted, in fact, Ptolemy's Mountains of the Moon and the Nile Lakes, but placed a third lake at the junction of the two head-streams, from which they derived not only the true Nile but also the river of Ganah, or the Nile of the Sudan (i.e. Niger-Senegal), and the Nile of Magdashu, or Leopard River. This great source-lake is named "Kura," or Kawar, and is undoubtedly the Tsad. Shems-ed-Din (c. 1331) has these same lakes, only with more elaboration. His eastern Nile lake is clearly the Fitri, on whose shores dwell the Kuka; his western lake may be represented by the swamps of the Tuburi; his many parallel rivers seem to stand for the arms of the Shari; whilst the northern lake, said to be named Kuri by the Sudanese, is undoubtedly Lake Tsad, for a tribe named Kuri still dwells upon some of its islands. The Nile of Nubia flows out of this lake to the northward, the river of Ghana flows west, and that of Magidshu (Makhdeshu or Madisha) into the Eastern Ocean. Of course, if the great lake of the Arabs represents Lake Tsad, their Mountains of the Moon must be looked for to the south of Bornu, in Mandara. That some of the details mentioned by Arab writers in connection with these lakes may refer to Abyssinia and Lake Tsana, is not impossible.

MEDIEVAL MAPS.-Our medieval cartographers were content for a time to copy Ptolemy and the Arabs, but when the great enterprise of the circumnavigation of Africa, set on foot by Prince Henry, began to bear fruit, and closer connections had been established with Abyssinia, authentic information of what was then considered the country giving birth to the Nile was received in Europe. The oldest map which bears evidence of these acquisitions, and one of the most remarkable cartographical documents in existence, is that prepared by Fra Mauro, a learned monk of Murano (1457). His Abyssinia, as we are told in one of the

numerous legends inscribed upon the map, is based upon information received from priests of that country. It exhibits its features far more correctly than does any other map up to the time of Tellez, who was able to avail himself of the labours of the Portuguese missionaries. The copy of this famous map, which I place before you, clearly reveals this fact, but it also shows that Fra Mauro enormously exaggerated the distances. His map has neither degree-lines nor a scale, but, taking the length of the Mediterranean for a unit of length, it will be found that the central lake of Abassia (Abyssinia) lies as far north as 2° S., whilst all Southern Africa, almost to its farthest extremities in lat. 33° S., is filled up with features belonging to Abyssinia. On this map may be traced not only the Abai, rising in Lake Tsana, and its tributary the Tagaz (TakazzeAtbara), considered by Fra Mauro to be the main Nile, but also the Hawash (Auasi), Lake Zuua (Zuway), and the Upper Xibe (Gibbe), or river of the Gallas, which is made to debouch in the Indian Ocean, as on nearly all but our most recent maps. The principal places along the eastern coast of Africa, as far as Sofala, can be identified. Fra Mauro, at all events in this part of the map, has quite abandoned Ptolemaic hypotheses, but he identifies Abassia with Ptolemy's Agysimba, and places in its centre the "Giebelchamir" (Jebel Kamar), or Mountains of the Moon, just as W. D. Cooley did four hundred years afterwards. Had Fra Mauro's materials been properly utilised, our old maps of Africa would have shown, long before Ludolphus drew attention to that fact in 1687, that next to nothing was known about the Interior.

Unfortunately, Fra Mauro's successors had so high a respect for the authority of Ptolemy that they felt restrained to retain his Nile lakes. upon their maps, and to combine them with information obtained through Abyssinian sources. Martin Behaim's globe (1492) is an instance of the kind, for upon it features clearly belonging to Abyssinia, though apparently not derived from Frau Mauro's map, are made to occupy nearly the whole of South Africa. His large lake, in latitude 10° S., in the very centre of Africa, is clearly an expanded and embellished version of one of Ptolemy's Nile lakes, for the Mountains of the Moon lie to the south of it. But having crossed these mountains, we still find ourselves in "Abasia," as is proved by such names as Gafat (a well-known district in Gojam), Gama (Jemma), and others. Behaim was content to drain his lakes through the Nile. To Juan de la Cosa (1500), a Spanish pilot, who had, however, at his command the information collected by Portuguese explorers and discovers, belongs the doubtful merit of having introduced a South African central lake, giving rise at the same time to the Nile, the Zaire, and to a river flowing to the north-east, evidently a modification of the notions entertained by the Arab geographers with reference to Lake Kura. Ruysch (1507), and Schöner on his globe preserved at Frankfurt (1521), retained all Ptolemy's lakes in their integrity, but they introduced an independent river, having no outlet into the ocean, and apparently represented by Fra Mauro's Auasi (Hawash). Hylacomilus, who is best known as having bestowed the name of America upon the New World, revised an old map of Africa for a new edition of Ptolemy in 1521, and placed upon it a huge lake in

the very centre of South Africa (in 15° S.). He calls this lake "Saphat," a name anciently given by pilgrims to Lake Tsana. The nomenclature of his map proves distinctly that this lake occupies the centre of Abyssinia. Bali, the southernmost province inserted upon it, is a district to the southeast of Shoa, still known by that name. On the globe, which Gerhard Mercator made in 1541, the great central lake of Hylacomilus bears the name of Sachaf―a corruption, I should say, of Saphat, or Caphat (Cafates) -and is joined by a river flowing to the Indian Ocean, to the south of Zephala (Sofala). Subsequent compilers of maps retained this lake; but they connected it, at their good pleasure, with the Nile, the Zaire, or any other river reaching the coast, until, at length, on such maps as those of Lazaro Luiz (1563) and Ortelius (1570), we find it sending forth emissaries in all directions.

A map of quite a different type is that by Giacomo Gastaldo, a Piedmontese (1548), who consulted De Barros, apparently, with little profit. He retains Ptolemy's lakes, as also the "Mountains of the Moon," but adds thereto several others, all of which, as can be gathered from the nomenclature, ought to be removed far to the north, into Abyssinia. The southernmost countries mentioned by him are Adia (Hadia) and Damot, well-known provinces of Abyssinia; and these he places in latitudes 20° and 25° S. on a river called "Rio de Linfante," which is the Great Fish River!

The last map which I shall refer to is that which accompanies Lopez's famous work on Congo, edited by Pigafetta (1591). This map has received much indiscriminate praise, but, as far as the interior of Africa is concerned, it is, in truth, a most extraordinary hotch-potch of ill-digested information derived from Ptolemy, the Arabs, and later writers and map-makers. A great Central Lake is situated between latitudes 10° and 14° S., and sends forth the Cuama (Zambezi), and the Manhice (which enters Delagoa Bay). The names "Minas do Cafates" (Gafat), Bagamidrj (Begameder), and Tacuy (a misprint in De Barros for Tacaz or Takazze), which are written near it, show that we are in Abyssinia. A huge river flows northward from this lake into an Equatorial "Lagoa do Nilo," from which issue the Zaire and the Nile. The people living near this lake are said to have stone houses like the Portuguese. Near this lake are Amara (Amhara), Ambian (Dembea), and Chedalasta (Lasta), and it is, therefore, clearly meant for Lake Tsana. From this lake the Nile flows to the island of Meroe, before reaching which it is joined by a river issuing from Lake Colue (Ptolemy's Coloe), to the west of which are placed the Fungi (that is, the Funj, who dwell to the west of the Blue Nile) and Beleganze, a compound made up of "Bali " and "Ganz," the names of two districts of Shoa. The river Golues, which issues from this lake, receives the Tacasj (Takaze) as a tributary. Again, to the north-east of this lake there is depicted a Lake Barcena, which is the veritable Tsana. Two rivers issue from it, one reaching the sea at Zeila, another joining the Nile at Meroe. The confusion in the

1 M. Wauters (L'Afrique Centrale en 1522) published a facsimile of this map. The legend, which he failed to decipher, should be read: "Hic est magna copia auri." This is said of Damut, also a province of Abyssinia.