Note 156 — IBN BAṬÚṬAH’S JOURNEY.

In like manner the supposed Christian King named Ogané, of whom the early Portuguese navigators received intelligence at Benin, was at once assumed to be the King of Abyssinia. The fable of an intercourse between Abyssinia and Western Africa has been gravely repeated by a recent writer (M‘Queen’s Survey of Africa, p. 5). Fernandez de Enciso (Suma de Geografia, 1518) says, that in the Bight of Benin are the Blacks who trade with Libya and Meroe. Lalande (Mémoires de Paris, 1795, p. 15) has collected with equal industry and credulity the stories of an overland commerce between the eastern and western coasts of Africa.