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The First American Geography 335
affigns the creation of the world. Poan Kou is faid by them to have been the firft man ; and the interval of time betwixt him and the death of the celebrated Confucius, which was in the year before Chrift, 479, has been reckoned from 276,000 to 96,961,740 years.
The descriptions of Africa in Morse's book lack definiteness, except as regards Egypt and the north coast. The rest of the continent, " from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope," is handled in a single lump. Of the inland countries Abyssinia receives most attention, and we are told that —
The religion of the Abyffinians is a mixture of Christianity, Judaifm and Paganifm; the two latter of which are by far the moft predominant. There are here more churches than in any other country, and though it is very mountainous, and confequently the view much obftructed, it is very feldom you fee lefs than 5 or 6 churches. Every great man when he dies, thinks he has atoned for all his wickednefs, if he leaves a fund to build a church, or has one built in his life-time.
The churches are full of pictures flovenly painted on parchment, and nailed upon the walls. There is no choice in their faints, they are both of the Old and New Teftament, and thofe that might be difpenfed with from both. There is St. Pontius Pilate and his wife; there is St. Baalam and his afs; Sampfon and his jaw bone, and fo of the reft.
It makes the beginning of the nineteenth century seem very barbaric when we read a few pages farther on that —
In the Guinea or weftern coaft, the Englifh exchange their woolen and linen manufactures, their hard ware and |
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