In This Island Women
Reigned In Ancient Times, And, According To Josephus, It Was Some Time
Called _Sabea_, Whence The Queen Of Saba Went To Jerusalem To Listen To
The Wisdom Of Solomon.
From thence, towards the east and south, reigneth
the Christian emperor called Prester John, by some named Papa Johannes,
or as others say _Pean Juan_, signifying Great John, whose empire
reaches far beyond the Nile, and extends to the coasts of the Red Sea
and of the Indian ocean.
The middle of this region is almost in 66
degrees of E. longitude, and 12 degrees of N. lat.[216] About this
region dwell the people called _Clodi, Risophagi, Axiuntiae, Babylonii,
Molili_, and _Molibae_. After these is the region called _Trogloditica_,
the inhabitants of which dwell in caves and dens, instead of houses, and
feed upon the flesh of serpents, as is reported by Pliny and Diodorus
Siculus, who allege, that instead of language, they have only a kind of
grinning and chattering. There are also people without heads, called
_Blemines_, having their eyes and mouths in their breast. Likewise
_Strucophagi_, and naked _Gamphasantes_; _satyrs_ also, who have nothing
of human nature except the shape. _Oripei_ likewise, who are great
hunters, and _Mennones_. Here also is _Smyrnophora_, or the region of
myrrh; after which is _Azania_, producing many elephants.[217] A great
portion of the eastern part of Africa beyond the equinoctial line is in
the kingdom of _Melinda_, the inhabitants of which have long been in use
to trade with the nations of Arabia, and whose king is now allied to the
king of Portugal, and pays tribute to Prester John.
[Footnote 216: Reckoning the longitude from the island of Ferro, the
middle of Abyssinia is only in about 52 deg. 30' E. and as Ferro is 18 deg. W.
from Greenwich, that coincides with 34 deg. 30' E. as the longitude is now
reckoned by British geographers. - E.]
[Footnote 217: It is impossible, in the compass of a note, to enter into
any commentary on this slight sketch of the ancient geography of eastern
Africa. - E.]
The other, or interior Ethiopia, being a region of vast extent, is now
only somewhat known upon the sea-coast, but may be described as follows.
In the first place, towards the south of the equator, is a great region
of Ethiopians, in which are white elephants, _tigers_, (lions) and
rhinoceroses. Also a region producing plenty of cinnamon, which lies
between the branches of the Nile. Also the kingdom of Habesch or
Habasia,[218] a region inhabited by Christians, on both sides of the
Nile. Likewise those Ethiopians called _Ichthyophagi_, or who live only
on fish, who were subdued in the wars of Alexander the Great[219]. Also
the Ethiopians called _Rapsii_ and _Anthropophagi_, who are in use to
eat human flesh, and inhabit the regions near the mountains of the moon.
_Gazatia_ is under the tropic of Capricorn; after which comes the
_front_ of Africa, and the Cape of Good Hope, past which they sail from
Lisbon to Calicut: But as the capes and gulfs, with their names, are to
be found on every globe and chart, it were superfluous to enumerate them
here.
[Footnote 218: It is strange that Habasia or Abyssinia, inhabited by
Christians, should thus be divided from the empire of Prester John. - E.]
[Footnote 219: The Icthyophagi of Alexander dwelt on the oceanic coast
of Persia, now Mekran, between the river Indus and the Persian gulf, not
in Ethiopia. - E.]
Some allege that Africa was so named by the Greeks, as being without
cold; the Greek letter _alpha_ signifying privation, void of, or
without, and _phrice_ signifying cold; as, although it has a cloudy and
tempestuous season instead of winter, it is yet never cold, but rather
smothering hot, with hot showers, and such scorching winds, that at
certain times the inhabitants seem as if living in furnaces, and in a
manner half ready for purgatory or hell. According to Gemma Phrisius, in
certain parts of Africa, as in the greater Atlas, the air in the night
is seen shining with many strange fires and flames, rising as it were as
high as the moon, and strange noises are heard in the air, as of pipes,
trumpets, and drums, which are caused perhaps by the vehement motions of
these fiery exhalations, as we see in many experiments wrought by fire,
air, and wind. The hollowness also, and various reflections and
breakings of the clouds, may be great causes thereof, besides the great
coldness of the middle region of the air, by which these fiery
exhalations, when they ascend there, are suddenly driven back with great
force. Daily experience teaches us, by the whizzing of a burning torch,
what a noise fire occasions in the air, and much more so when it strives
and is inclosed with air, as seen in guns; and even when air alone is
inclosed, as in organ pipes and other wind instruments: For wind,
according to philosophers, is nothing but air vehemently moved, as when
propelled by a pair of bellows, and the like.
Some credible persons affirm that, in this voyage to Guinea, they felt a
sensible heat in the night from the beams of the moon; which, though it
seem strange to us who inhabit a cold region, may yet reasonably have
been the case, as Pliny writes that the nature of stars and planets
consists of fire, containing a spirit of life, and cannot therefore be
without heat. That the moon gives heat to the earth seems confirmed by
David, in the 121st psalm, where, speaking of such men as are defended
from evils by the protection of God, he says, "The sun shall not burn
thee by day, neither the moon by night[220]." They said likewise, that
in some parts of the sea they saw streams of water, which they call
_spouts_, falling out of the air into the sea, some of them being as
large as the pillars of churches; insomuch that, when these fall into
ships, they are in great danger of being sunk.
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