Listed 10 sub titles with search on: Various locations for destination: "LIBYA Country NORTH AFRICA".
Tritonian Lake in Libya.
(Kinups). The modern Wad-Khakan or Kinifo; a small river on the northern coast of Africa, between the Syrtes, and forming the eastern boundary of the proper territory of the African Tripolis. The district about it was called by the same name, and was famous for its fine-haired goats. The Roman poets use the adjective Cinyphius in the general sense of Libycus or Africus.
Cinyps: Perseus Encyclopedia
a date-growing place in Libya, on the caravan route from Egypt to the west
Mandrus Mons (to Madron, e Mandrou oros), one of the chief mountains of Libya, from whence flow all the streams from Salathus to Massa; the middle of the mountain has a position of 14° E. long. and 19° N. lat., assigned to it by Ptolemy (iv. 6. § 8). Afterwards (§ 14) he describes the river Nigeir as uniting, or yoking together (epizeugnuon), Mount Mandrus with Mount Thala. (Comp. London Geogr. Journ. vol. ii. p. 19; Donkin, Dissertation on the Niger, p. 81.) Ptolemy (§ 17) places the following tribes in the neighbourhood of this mountain: the Rabii (Pabioi), the Malcoae(Malkoai), and the Mandori (Mandoroi).
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Massitholus (Massitholos), a river of Libya, the source of which Ptolemy (iv. 6. § 8), places in the mountain called Theon Ochema, and its embouchure (§ 9) in the Hesperian bay, between Hesperium Ceras and the Hypodromus of Aethiopia, in E. long. 14° 30‘, N. lat. 6° 20‘. It has been identified with the Gambia, which can be no other than the ancient Stachir or Trachir; one of the rivers which flow into the Atlantic, between the Kamaranca and the Mesurado, is the probable representative of the Massitholus.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Nigeir or Nigir (Nigeir, Ptol. iv. 6. § 14; Nigir, Agathem. ii. 10;
Niger, gen. Nigris, Plin. v. 4, 8, viii. 32), a great river of interior Libya,
flowing from W. to E. It has long been a moot point among geographers whether
the Nigeir of the ancients should be identified with the river now known as the
Djoliba or Quorra, which, after taking its course through the vast plains or lowlands
of Central Africa, turns southwards towards the Bight of Benin, where it enters
the sea. For instance, Gosselin (Geographie des Anciens, vol. i. pp. 125-135)
came to the conclusion that the ancients possessed no knowledge of NW. Africa
to the S. of the river Nun. Walckenaer (Recherches Geographiques sur l'Interieur
de l'Afrique Septentrionale, Paris, 1821) also, who has carefully discussed this
point, sums up the result of his inquiries by asserting that none of Ptolemy's
rivers can be the same as the Djoliba or any other stream of the Biledu-l-Sudan,
as that region was quite unknown to antiquity, and was, in reality, discovered
by the Arabs. Following in the same track, Mr. Cooley (Claudius Ptolemy and the
Nile, London, 1854) regards the Nigeir as a hypothetical river, representing collectively
the waters of the Biledu-l-Jerid. On the other hand, Colonel Leake (Journ. Geog.
Soc. vol. ii. pp. 1-28), whose views are adopted in the present article, considers
that Ptolemy's information on the Djoliba or Quorra, although extremely imperfect,
was real. There seems, indeed, to be reason for believing that its discovery may
be placed at a much earlier period, and that its banks were reached by the young
Nasamones. Ptolemy's statements (l. c.) are annexed, from which it will be seen
that the arguments in favour of the identity of his Nigeir with the Quorra are
very strong. He believed that the earth was spherical; he divided the great circle
into 360°; of these degrees he placed the same number in the breadth of N. Africa,
that modern observations confirm; in the length of the same country he erred only
one-tenth in excess. While in the interior, proceeding from a point of the W.
coast, where his positions approximate to modern geography, he placed a great
river, flowing from W. to E., exactly in the latitude where the Quorra flows in
that direction.1
In considering the exact meaning of this passage, it should be remembered
that the word ektrope, translated divergent, simply indicates the point of junction
of two streams, without any reference to the course of their waters. At present,
our acquaintance with the Quorra is too limited to identify any of its divergents;
and even were there data, by which to institute a comparison, the imperfection
of Ptolemy's information will probably leave these particulars in obscurity. After
having stated that the Geir and Nigeir are the two principal rivers of the interior,
he describes the one, as yoking together (epizeugnuon the Garamantic Pharanx with
Mt. Usargala; and the latter, as uniting in the same way Mt. Mandrus with Mt.
Thala. It is plain that he considers them to be rivers beginning and ending in
the interior, without any connection with the sea. If two opposite branches of
a river, rising in two very distant mountains, flow to a common receptacle, the
whole may be described as joining the two mountains. Of the general direction
of the current of the Nigeir there can be no doubt, as the latitudes and longitudes
of the towns on its banks (§§ 24-28) prove a general bearing of E. and W.; and
from its not being named among the rivers of the W. coast (§ 7), it must have
been supposed to flow from W. to E. The lake Libye, to which there was an E. divergent,
though its position falls 300 geog. miles to the NW. of Lake Tschad, may be presumed
to represent this, the principal lake of the interior; it was natural that Ptolemy,
like many of the moderns, should have been misinformed as to its position, and
communication of the river with the lake. It is now, indeed, known that the river
does not communicate with Lake Tschad, and that it is not a river of the interior
in Ptolemy's sense; that its sources are in a very different latitude from that
which he has given; and its course varies considerably from the enormous extent
of direction to the E., which results from his position of the towns on its banks.
But recent investigations have shown that the difference of longitude between
his source of the river and the W. coast is the same as that given by modern observations,--that
Thamondacana (Thamondakana, § 28), one of his towns on the Nigeir, coincides with
Timbuktu, as laid down by M. Jomard from Caillie, - that the length of the course
of the river is nearly equal to that of the Querra, as far as the mountain of
Kong, with the addition of the Shadda or Shary of Funda, - while Mt. Thala is
very near that in which it may be supposed that the Shadda has its origin. In
the imperfect state of our information upon the countries between Bornu and Darfur,
it would be hazardous to identify the lakes Chelonides and Nuba. In comparing
Ptolemy's description of the central country between the Nile and Nigeir, there
are reasons for concluding that he had acquired an obscure knowledge of it, similar
to that which had reached Europe before the discoveries of Denham, Clapperton,
and Lander. The other great river, the Geir or Gir (Teir, § 13), is the same as
the river called Misselad by Browne, and Om Teymain, in Arabic, by Burckhardt;
while the indigenous name Djyr recalls that of Ptolemy, and which takes a general
course from SE. to NW. Burckhardt adds, that this country produces ebony, which
agrees with what is stated by Claudian (Idyll. in Nilum, 19), who, as an African,
ought to be an authority, though, like an African, he confounds all the rivers
of his country with the Nile; but, in another passage (I. Consul. Stilich. i.
252), he represents the Gir as a separate river, rivalling the Nile in size. Claudian
could not have intended by this river, the Ger of Pliny (v. 1), at the foot of
Mt. Atlas, and a desert of black sand and burnt rocks (Nun?), at which Paullinus
arrived in a few days' journey from the maritime part of Mauretania; though it
is probable that he may have intended, not the Geir of Ptolemy, but the Nigeir.
The termination Ger was probably a generic word, applied to all rivers and waters
in N. Africa, as well as the prefix Ni; both were probably derived from the Semitic,
and came through the Phoenicians to the Greeks. By a not unnatural error, the
word became connected with the epithet Niger, and thus the name Nigritae or Nigretes
was synonymous with Sudan (the Blacks); the real etymology of the name tends to
explain the common belief of the Africans, that all the waters of their country
flow to the Nile. It is from this notion of the identity of all the waters of
N. Africa that Pliny received the absurd account of the Nile and Niger, from the
second Juba of Numidia. He reported that the Nile had its origin in a mountain
of Lower Mauretania, not far from the Ocean, in a stagnant lake called Nilis;
that it flowed from thence through sandy deserts, in which it was concealed for
several days; that it reappeared in a great lake in Mauretania Caesariensis; that
it was again hidden for twenty days in deserts; and that it rose again in the
sources of the Nigris, which river, after having separated Africa from Aethiopia,
and then flowed through the middle of Aethiopia, at length became the branch of
the Nile called Astapus. The same fable, though without the Nigeir being mentioned,
is alluded to by Strabo (xvii p. 826; comp. Vitruv. viii. 2. § 16); while Mela
(iii. 9. § 8) adds that the river at its source was also called Dara, so that
the river which now bears the name El-Dhara would seem to be the stream which
was the reputed commencement of the Nile. The Niger of Pliny was obviously a different
river, both in its nature and position, from the Ger of the same author. It was
situated to the S. of the great desert on the line separating Africa from Aethiopia;
and its magnitude and productions, such as the hippopotamus and crocodile, cannot
be made to correspond to any of the small rivers of the Atlas. Neither do these
swell at the same season as the Nile, being fed, not by tropical rain, falling
in greatest quantity near the summer solstice, but by the waters of the maritime
ridges, which are most abundant in winter. The Niger is not mentioned by the Geographer
of Ravenna, nor the Arabs, until the work of Joannes Leo Africanus - a Spanish
Moor - which was written at Rome, and published in Latin, A.D. 1556. Though his
work is most valuable, in being the only account extant of the foundation of the
Negro empires of Sudan, yet he is in error upon this point, as though he had sailed
on the river near Timbuktu; he declares that the stream does not flow to the E.,
as it is known to do, but to the W. to Genia or Jenne. This mistake led Europeans
to look for its estuary in the Senegal, Gambia, and Rio Grande. The true course
of the river, which has now been traced to its mouth, confirms the statements
of the ancients as to the great river which they uniformly describe as flowing
from W. to E.
1 In the interior of Libya, says Ptolemy, the two greatest rivers
are the Geir and the Nigeir.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Nuius (Nouiou ekbolai, Ptol. iv. 6. § 6; in the Latin translation, Nunii ostia ), a river of Interior Libya, which discharged itself into the sea to the S. of Mauretania Tingitana. It has been identified with that which is called in the Ship-journal of Hanno, Lixus (Lixos, Geog. Graec. Min., p. 5, ed. Muller), and by Scylax of Caryanda (if the present text be correct), Xion (Xion, p. 53), and by Polybius (ap. Plin. v. 1), Cosenus. The Lybian river must not be confounded with the Mauretanian river, and town of the same name, mentioned by Scylax (I. c.; comp. Artemidorus, ap. Strab. xvii. p. 829; Steph. B. s. v. Linx; Liza,, Hecat. Fr. 328; Lix, Ptol. iv. 1. § § 2, 13; Pomp. Mela, iii. 10. § 6; Plin. v. 1), and which is now represented by the river called by the Arabs Wady-el-Khos, falling into the sea at El-‘Arisch, where Barth (Wanderungen, pp. 23-25) found ruins of the ancient Lixus. The Lixus of Hanno, or Nuius of Ptolemy, is the Quad-Dra (Wady-Dra), which the S. declivity of the Atlas of Marocco sends to the Sahara in lat. 32°: a river for the greater part of the year nearly dry, and which Renou (Explor. de l'Alg. Hist. et Geogr. vol. viii. pp. 65-78) considers to be a. sixth longer than the Rhine. It flows at first from N. to S., until, in N. lat. 29° and W. long. 5°, it turns almost at right angles to its former course, runs to the W., and after passing through the great fresh-water lake of Debaid, enters the sea at Cape Nun. The name of this cape, so celebrated in the Portuguese discoveries of the 15th century, appears to have a much older origin than has been supposed, and goes back to the time of Ptolemy. Edrisi speaks of a town, Nul or Wadi Nun, somewhat more to the S., and three days' journey in the interior: Leo Africanus calls it Belad de Non. (Humboldt, Aspects of Nature, vol. i. pp. 118-120, trans.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Ryssadium (Rhussadion oros, Ptol. iv. 6. § 8), a mountain of Interior Libya, from which flows the Stacheir (Gambia), making near it the lake Clonia; the middle of the mountain (or lake?) 17° E. long., 11° N. lat. (Ptol. l. c.) This mountain terminated in the headland also called Ryssadium (Rhussadion akron), the position of which is fixed by Ptolemy (iv. 6. § 6) at 8° 30? E. long., and 11° 30? N. lat. We assume, with Rennell and Leake, that Arsinarium is C. Verde, a conjecture which can be made with more confidence because it is found that Ptolemy's difference of longitude between Arsinarium and Carthage is very nearly correct, -according to that assumption this promontory must be looked for to the N. of the mouth of the Gambia. The mountain and lake must be assigned to that elevated region in which the Senegal and the Gambia take their rise, forming an appendage to the central highlands of Africa from which it projects northwards, like a vast promontory, into the Great Sahara.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Usargala (Ousargala, Ptol. iv. 6. § 7, &c.), a very extensive mountain chain in
the country of the Garamantae on the N. border of Libya Interior, and S. of Numidia
and Mauretania, stretching in a NW. direction as far as Atlas. It is in this mountain
that the river Bagradas has its source.
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