- 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.

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