The ignorance of those ages, on the subject of the navigation around Africa, will appear perhaps less singular than the silence of the editor of this ancient relation on the subject of the passages of Herodotus, Pliny, &c. which we have quoted, and which proves the ancients had made the tour of Africa. Be it as it may, the African coasts are now well known; but whatever attempts have been made to penetrate into the inner parts of the country, we have not been able to attain sufficient knowledge of it to give exact relations[177:A]. It might, nevertheless, be of great advantage, if we were, by Senegal, or some other river, to get farther up the country and establish settlements, as we should find, according to all appearances, a country as rich in precious mines as Peru or the Brazils. It is perfectly known that the African rivers abound with gold, and as this country is very mountainous, and situated under the equator, it is not to be doubted but it contains, as well as America, mines of heavy metals, and of the most compact and hard stones. The vast extent of north and east Tartary has only been discovered in these latter times. If the Muscovite maps are just, we are at present acquainted with the coasts of all this part of Asia; and it appears that from the point of eastern Tartary to North America, it is not more than four or five hundred leagues: it has even been pretended that this tract was much shorter, for in the Amsterdam Gazette, of the 24th of January, 1747, it is said, under the article of Petersburgh, that Mr. Stalleravoit had discovered one of these American islands beyond Kamschatca, and demonstrated that we might go thither from Russia by a shorter tract. The Jesuits, and other missionaries, have also pretended to have discovered savages in Tartary, whom they had catechised in America, which should in fact suppose that passage to be still shorter[178:A]. This author even pretends, that the two continents of the old and new world join by the north, and says, that the last navigations of the Japanese afford room to judge, that the tract of which we have spoken is only a bay, above which we may pass by land from Asia to America. But this requires confirmation, for hitherto it has been thought that the continent of the north pole is separated from the other continents, as well as that of the south pole.