; _satyrs_ also, who have nothing
of human nature except the shape. _Oripei_ likewise, who are great
hunters, and _Mennones_. Here also is _Smyrnophora_, or the region of
myrrh; after which is _Azania_, producing many elephants.[217] A great
portion of the eastern part of Africa beyond the equinoctial line is in
the kingdom of _Melinda_, the inhabitants of which have long been in use
to trade with the nations of Arabia, and whose king is now allied to the
king of Portugal, and pays tribute to Prester John.

[Footnote 216: Reckoning the longitude from the island of Ferro, the
middle of Abyssinia is only in about 52 deg. 30' E. and as Ferro is 18 deg. W.
from Greenwich, that coincides with 34 deg. 30' E. as the longitude is now
reckoned by British geographers.--E.]

[Footnote 217: It is impossible, in the compass of a note, to enter into
any commentary on this slight sketch of the ancient geography of eastern
Africa.--E.]

The other, or interior Ethiopia, being a region of vast extent, is now
only somewhat known upon the sea-coast, but may be described as follows.
In the first place, towards the south of the equator, is a great region
of Ethiopians, in which are white elephants, _tigers_, (lions) and
rhinoceroses. Also a region producing plenty of cinnamon, which lies
between the branches of the Nile. Also the kingdom of Habesch or
Habasia,[218] a region inhabited by Christians, on both sides of the
Nile. Likewise those Ethiopians called _Ichthyophagi_, or who live only
on fish, who were subdued in the wars of Alexander the Great[219]. Also
the Ethiopians called _Rapsii_ and _Anthropophagi_, who are in use to
eat human flesh, and inhabit the regions near the mountains of the moon.
_Gazatia_ is under the tropic of Capricorn; after which comes the
_front_ of Africa, and the Cape of Good Hope, past which they sail from
Lisbon to Calicut: But as the capes and gulfs, with their names, are to
be found on every globe and chart, it were superfluous to enumerate them
here.

[Footnote 218: It is strange that Habasia or Abyssinia, inhabited by
Christians, should thus be divided from the empire of Prester John.--E.]

[Footnote 219: The Icthyophagi of Alexander dwelt on the oceanic coast
of Persia, now Mekran, between the river Indus and the Persian gulf, not
in Ethiopia.--E.]

Some allege that Africa was so named by the Greeks, as being without
cold; the Greek letter _alpha_ signifying privation, void of, or
without, and _phri