d near a
thousand years ago, we have given the first sentence of this geographical
chapter in the ordinary Roman letters, with a literal translation.

_Anglo-Saxon_.

Ure yldran calne thysne ymbhwyrft
thyses middangeardes, cwaeth
Orosius, swa swa Oceanus ymbligeth
utan, wone man garsecg hatath, on
threo todaeldon.

_Literal Translation_

Our elders have divided all of
this middle-earth, quoth Orosius,
which Oceanus surrounds, which
men calleth _garsecg_ into three
deals.

_Geography of Alfred_.

Sec. 1. According to Orosius, our ancestors divided the whole world which is
surrounded by the ocean, which we call _garsecg_[2], into three parts,
and they named these divisions Asia, Europe, and Africa; though some
authors only admit of two parts, Asia and Europe. Asia is bounded to the
southward, northward, and eastward by the ocean, and thus divides all our
part of this earth from that which is to the east. On the north, Europe and
Asia are separated by the Tanais or Don; and in the south, after passing
the Mediterranean[3] sea, Asia and Africa join to the westward of
Alexandria[4].

Sec. 2. Europe begins, as I have said before, at the Tanais, which has its
source in the northern parts of the Riphean mountains[5], which are near
the Sarmatic[6] ocean; and this river then runs directly south, on the west
side of Alexander's temples, to the nation of the Russians[7], where it
runs into the fen called Maeotis, and thence it issues eastwards with a
great stream, near the town called Theodosia, into the Euxine. Then
becoming narrow for a considerable track, it passes by Constantinople, and
thence into the Wendel sea, or Mediterranean. The south-west end of Europe
is in Ispania or Spain, where it is bounded by the ocean; but the
Mediterranean almost closes at the _islands_ called Gades, where stand
the pillars of Hercules. To the westward of this same Mediterranean is
_Scotland_[8].

Sec. 3. Asia and Africa are divided by Alexandria, a city of Egypt; and that
country is bounded on the west by the river Nile, and then by Ethiopia to
the south, which reaches quite to the southern ocean. The northern boundary
of Africa is the Mediterranean sea all the way westwards, to where it is
divided from the ocean by the pillars of Hercules; and the true western
boundaries of Africa are the mountains called Atlas and the Fortunate
Islands. Having thus shortly mentioned the three divisions of this earth, I
sh