Note 115 — WEST AND SOUTH BARBARY,

Footnote 115: (return) In reply to those learned sceptics who have studied books; but not men, and the manners of different countries; who believe nothing but what they have seen; and who say that Pharaoh never came so far west; I reply, that our knowledge of African history is extremely imperfect. In fact, we now know as certainties, various articles of which no record is to be found in any ancient writer; for the affairs of Africa, which, of late, have so deservedly excited the attention of the learned, were as little known to the ancients as they are to the moderns; insomuch that not a word is to be found in any ancient record or history extant, of those curious astronomical representations, the Zodiacs, which adorn the ceilings of the temples in Egypt, nor of the paintings which cover the silent and solemn repositories of their dead. Even the royal sepulchres, surpassing all the efforts of art hitherto known, in brilliancy of colours and decorative sculptures, are recorded by no historian! Neither in any history, known to Europe, is there any allusion to the Egyptian custom of placing books, i.e. rolls of manuscript, in the mummy coffins with the bodies of the deceased. For much of the knowledge collected respecting Africa, we are indebted to the catacombs of Egypt, and we must not hope to know much more, whilst our ignorance of the Arabic language is so manifest; we must travel far out of the precincts of Greek and Latin lore, before we shall procure correct histories of African affairs! Our knowledge of Hebrew, in Europe I apprehend, is almost as much confined and as imperfect as that of Arabic! By the assistance, however, of the latter, what store of learning might we not expect from complete Arabic translations of many of the Greek and Latin authors, viz. of the complete works of Livy, Tacitus, and many others. I recollect conversing with Abdrahaman ben Nassar, bashaw of Abda, (a gentleman deeply versed in Arabian literature,) about the close of the last century, who mentioned circumstances, which gave me reason to suppose that there is extant a complete Arabic translation of Livy as well as of Tacitus, as the bashaw assured me there was, and that he had read them, and they were to be found in the recondite chests of the Imperial library at Fas, in which it is more than probable that there are many valuable transcripts in Arabic of ancient authors, quite lost to erudite Europe! A knowledge of the Arabic language in this country is so indispensable, and is held in such high estimation, that every one who does not understand it, is denominated ajemmy, i.e. barbarian or European.--St. Paul in the same spirit says, I Corinth. ch. xiv. v. 11., "He that speaketh unintelligibly, is unto us a barbarian."