From Observations Made On The Spot By
Mr. Bruguiere In The Former State Of Algiers, The Great Chain Which
Several Geographers Traced Beyond The Little Atlas Under The Name Of
Great Atlas Does Not Exist.
The inhabitants of Mediah who were
questioned on the subject by this traveller, told him positively, that
the way from that town to the Sahara was through a ground more or less
elevated, and slopes more or less steep, and without having any chain of
mountains to cross.
The Pass of Teniah which leads from Algiers to
Mediah is, therefore, included in the principal chain of that part of
the Regency.
[16] Xenophon, in his Anabasis, speaks of ostriches in Mesopotamia being
run down by fleet horses.
[17] Mount Atlas was called Dyris by the ancient aborigines, or Derem,
its name amongst the modern aborigines. This word has been compared to
the Hebrew, signifying the place or aspect of the sun at noon-day, as if
Mount Atlas was the back of the world, or the cultivated parts of the
globe, and over which the sun was seen at full noon, in all his fierce
and glorious splendour. Bochart connects the term with the Hebrew
meaning 'great' or 'mighty,' which epithet would be naturally applied to
the Atlas, and all mountains, by either a savage or civilized people. We
have, also, on the northern coast, Russadirum, the name given by the
Moors to Cape Bon, which is evidently a compound of _Ras_, head, and
_dirum_, mountain, or the head of the mountain.
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