CHAPTER I. Of the Kingdom of ALGIERS in general. THE kingdom of Algiers, since it became subject to the Turks, has been one of the most considerable districts of that part of Africa, which the latter ages have known by the name of Barbary*. It is bounded to the west, with Twunt and the neighbouring mountains of Trara; to the south, with the Sahara, or desert; to the east, with the river Zaine, the ancient Tusca; and to the north, with the Mediterranean sea. Sanson †, in bounding this kingdom with the rivers Mulvia and Barbar, as he calls the Mullooiah and the Zaine, makes it DCCCC M. from east to west; De la Croix +, DCCXX; Luyts §, VOL. I. E by *Africa veteribus proprie dicta, hodie Barbaria quibusdam vocatur, aliis Barbariæ pars. Thuan. Hist. 1. vii. Moros, Alarbes, Cabayles, y algunos Turcos, todos gente puerca, suzia, torpe, indomita, inauil, inhumana, bestial: y por tanto tuuo porcierto razon, el que da pocos anos aca acostumbro llamar a esta terra, BARBARIA pues, &c. D. Haedo de la captiuidad en su Topogr. e Histor. de Argel. p. 126. Vallad. 1612. + L'Afrique en plusieurs Cartes nouvelles, &c. p. 23. a Paris 1683. Nouvelle Methode pour apprendre le Georg. Univers. Tom. v. p. 280. a Paris 1705. Introd. ad Geographiam, p. 669. Traj. ad Rhenum, 1692. * by reckoning XLVIII M. for one degree of longitude, allows it to be about DCXXX: whereas others make it of a less extent. But according to the exactest observations which I could make myself, or receive from others, I find the true length of this kingdom, from Twunt, (which lies XLM. to the eastward of the Mullooiah) to the river Zaine, to be, a little more or less, CCCCLXXX M. the first lying in 0° 16′ W. longit. from London; and the latter, upon whose western banks Tabarka is situated, in 9° 16′ to the east. There is not the like disagreement among these geographers, in relation to the breadth of this kingdom, though none of them † make it less than CL M. where it is the narrowest; nor more than CCXL where it is the broadest. The breadth indeed, though much short of these accounts, is not every where the same: for near Tlem-san it is not above XL M. from the Sahara to the sea coast; near the sources of the rivers Sigg, and Shelliff, it is about LX; which, in the western part of this kingdom, may be taken at a medium for the extent of what the Arabs call Tell, i. e. land proper for tillage. But, to the eastward of Algiers, the breadth is more considerable; particularly in the meridians of Boujejah, Jijel, and Bona, where it is never less than c M. With * Moll's Geography, Part ii. p. 146. Lond. 1722. Atlas Geograph. Vol. iv. p. 182. The Geographical and Roman miles differ, as 60 is to 75 i. e. 60 Geogr. and 75 Roman miles are equal to 1° of a great circle. Vide Danville's Introd. to Geogr. |