We have surveyed its coasts; we are acquainted with part of the Nile; and, in a very few directions, we have attempted to penetrate into the interior of the country; but it must be confessed that Africa is an immense blank in geography which remains yet to be filled up. Instead, therefore, of presuming to offer a map of this continent, we propose to attempt nothing more than a short verbal description of its general features, with a few observations thereon; and as Bruce's memoranda on the topography and history of Abyssinia are, with little attention to arrangement, scattered over the seven volumes of his travels, and would alone fill three or four times as many pages as the whole of this little book contains, we shall merely add to our sketch of Africa a slight descriptive outline of the kingdom of Abyssinia, and an abstract of its history up to the time when Bruce landed in that country. We are but indifferently prepared to do justice to these subjects; but we feel that it is impossible for the general reader, going merely step by step, like a man walking in the dark with a lantern, to judge of Bruce's life in Abyssinia, unless he previously takes into consideration the general character and history of that country, and the character of the continent of which it forms a part. SKETCH OF THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA. That vast portion of the globe which we call Africa is in length about five thousand miles, which is about the distance from the line to Iceland, or from Calcutta to the North Pole: in short, it is about one thousand miles more than the distance from the earth's centre to its circumference. The greatest breadth of Africa is very nearly equal to its length. This immense expanse of country is situated in exactly the hottest region of the globe; for, from the equator, it is two thousand five hundred miles to its northern boundary, the Mediterranean Sea, and about the same distance to its southern extremity, the Cape of Good Hope. The burning heat of both the torrid zones forms, therefore, the scorching climate of the middle portion of this continent; and the northern and southern extremities, its coldest regions, are, as we all know, nearer to the line than the most southern or hottest parts of Europe. To describe the climate, it may therefore, in general terms, not unjustly be observed, that what is marked by Nature upon our European scale of climate as excess of heat, is all that the African knows of the luxury of cold, excepting that which is produced by elevation or evaporation.