ABSTRACT
The account of Negroland contained in the foregoing pages is drawn altogether from El Bekrí. So much does his description of Ghánah and the adjoining countries excel in copiousness of detail as well as in clearness, that in all the Arab writers succeeding him, there is hardly a single new particular worth adding to it. Some of these writers, nevertheless, are much better known than El Bekrí; and one of them, El Idrísí, whose work, entitled ‘The Amusement of one desirous of knowing all the Countries of the World,’ was composed about the year 1153, has been long regarded as the first authority on questions relating to the geography of Central Africa. It will be worth while, therefore, to set these two authors side by side, and to compare them carefully, so that we may be able to choose between them when they disagree, and to determine whether the later of the two improved on his precursor.
