Heroes of North African Discovery Author:N. D'Anvers Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IL EARLY TRAVELS OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. Expeditions to the Western Coast and Great Sahara—To Morocco and the Northern Coast—To Abyssinia, Nubia, and... more » Egypt. AS early as the eighth and twelfth centuries A.D., Arab K caravans had penetrated to the very heart of the continent of North Africa, and down the western coast as far as the Senegal and Gambia rivers; and from the account given of their discoveries in the works of Leo Africanus, a great writer of the sixteenth century, we gather that many important kingdoms existed in the districts watered by the Niger, then called the "Nile of the negroes," and that an extensive trade in gold and ivory was carried on between the Mahommedan settlers and the natives. Towards the beginning of the thirteenth century the various sovereignties of North Africa seem to have become absorbed into the important kingdom of Tombuctoo, which gave its name to the modern city of Timbuktu, so long the El Dorado of adventurers. It was reserved to the Portuguese to open the interior of the north of Africa to modern European commerce. Having driven the Moors from their strongholds along the Mediterranean coast, they made them the starting-point for expeditions into the interior, partly with a view toPrester John. 17 obtaining gold, partly with a desire to discover the abode of " Priest John," or " Prester John/' that mysterious aud mythical Christian monarch whose home was sometimes supposed to be in Asia and sometimes in Africa. The search for Prester John was not rewarded with the success deserved by the eagerness with which it was carried on. But vessels sent out by John I. of Portugal, to explore the western coast, rounded Cape Nun (N. lat. 26 48', W. long. 11 10'), and made their way as far north as Cape Bojador (N. lat. 26 7', W. long...« less