[79]The Moors, and Arabs call the country of the Negroes, which was designed by the Romans under the name of Nigritia, Soudan. Abulfeda includes all the known part of Africa, south of the Great Desert, in Belad Soudan, or the country of Soudan. (The word Souda or Suda, in Arabic, signifies black.)
Mr. Browne, who had visited a part of Soudan, namely Darfoor, agrees that Soudan corresponds to our Nigritia; being “a general term for the country of the Blacks.” (page 182.) In his preface, page xxv. he says that “nothing can be more vague, than the use of the word Soudan, or Sudan. Among the Egyptians and Arabs, Ber-es-Soudan is the place where the caravans arrive, when they reach the first habitable part of Dar-Fûr: but that country seems its eastern extremity; for I never heard it applied to Kordofân or Sennaar. It is used equally in Dar-Fûr to express the country to the west; but on the whole, seems ordinarily applied to signify that part of the land of the Blacks nearest Egypt.”
It has been seen, however, that the people of Tunis and Fezzan, reckon Houssa, that is, Kashna, and the adjacent countries, to Soudan; whence it must be extended westward to Tombuctoo, at least. Whether it ought to be extended farther west, I know not. The term, which is of Arabic origin, may possibly have in its application, a limited range, and may not embrace the entire country of the Negroes.
[80]The following information occurs in a letter from Mr. Jackson of Santa Cruz, to Mr. Willis, dated 1st of July, 1797.
“I have informed myself particularly concerning Houssa, and I find there is no such place. The environs of all great towns are called in the Arabic of this country, El Huz, or Huza.”
[81]The reader is requested to compare the description of this Mound in Herodotus, (Euterpe, 137, 138,) with that in the Voyage on the Tanitic branch of the Nile, in the Mémoires sur L’Egypte, p. 215, et seq. See also the Geog. System of Herodotus, p. 513, for the application.
OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
LANGUAGE OF SIWAH.
By WILLIAM MARSDEN, Esq. F. R. S.
To the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Banks, Bart.