[3471] Or “White Æthiopians,” men though of dark complexion, not negroes. Marcus is of opinion that the words “intervenientibus desertis” refer to the tract of desert country lying between the Leucæthiopians and the Liby-Egyptians, and not to that between the Gætulians on the one hand and the Liby-Egyptians and the Leucæthiopians on the other.
[3472] Meaning to the south and the south-east of these three nations, according to Marcus. Rennel takes the Leucæthiopians to be the present Mandingos of higher Senegambia: Marcus however thinks that they are the Azanaghis, who dwell on the edge of the Great Desert, and are not of so black a complexion as the Mandingos.
[3473] Probably the people of the present Nigritia or Soudan.
[3474] Marcus is of opinion that Pliny does not here refer to the Joliba of Park and other travellers, as other commentators have supposed; but that he speaks of the river called Zis by the modern geographers, and which Jackson speaks of as flowing from the south-east towards north-west. The whole subject of the Niger is however enwrapped in almost impenetrable obscurity, and as the most recent inquirers have not come to any conclusion on the subject, it would be little more than a waste of time and space to enter upon an investigation of the notions which Pliny and Mela entertained on the subject.
[3475] From γυμνὸς, “naked.”
[3476] Mentioned in C. [1] of the present Book.
[3477] He refers to the words in the Odyssey, B. i. l. 23, 24.—
Αἰθίοπας τοὶ δίχθα δεδαιάται, ἔσχατοι ἄνδρων·
Οἱ μὲν δυσομένου Ὑπερίονος, οἱ δ’ ἀνιόντος.
“The Æthiopians, the most remote of mankind, are divided into two parts, the one at the setting of Hyperion, the other at his rising.”