_Thrice-great Hermes_, a translation of Hermes Trismegistus, a fabulous king of Egypt, held to be the inventor of Alchemy and Astronomy. _Unsphere_, draw from his sphere or station. _The immortal mind_. Plato treats of the immortality of the soul chiefly in the _Phaedo_. The _demon_, with Socrates, is the attendant genius of an individual; with Plato it is more general; and the assigning the demons to the four elements is a notion of the later Platonists. _Sceptered pall_ = royal robe. _Presenting Thebes_, &c. These lines represent the subjects of tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the great tragic poets of Athens. _Musaeus_, here for some bard of the distant past, generally. Musaeus, in mythology, is a bard of Thrace, and son of Orpheus. _Half-told the story of Cambuscan bold_. The Squire's Tale in Chaucer, which is broken off in the middle. _Camball_, Cambuscan's son. _Algarsife and Canacé_, his wife and daughter. _Frounced_. Used of hair twisted and curled. _The Attic Boy_ = _Cephalus_, loved by _Eos_, the Morning. _A shower still_ = a soft shower. _Sylvan_ = Pan or Sylvanus. _Cloister's pale_ = cloister's enclosure. _Massy proof_. Massive and proof against the weight above them.] * * * * * AFRICAN HOSPITALITY. As we approached the town, I was fortunate enough to overtake the fugitive Kaartans to whose kindness I had been so much indebted in my journey through Bambarra. They readily agreed to introduce me to the King; and we rode together through some marshy ground where, as I was anxiously looking around for the river, one of them called out, _geo affili_ (see the water), and looking forwards, I saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission--the long sought for majestic Niger, glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly _to the eastward_. I hastened to the brink, and having drank of the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things, for having thus far crowned my endeavours with success. The circumstance of the Niger's flowing towards the east, and its collateral points, did not, however, excite my surprise; for although I had left Europe in great hesitation on this subject, and rather believed that it ran in the contrary direction, I had made such frequent inquiries during my progress concerning this river, and received from negroes of different nations such clear and decisive assurance that its general course was _towards the rising sun_, as scarce left any doubt on my mind; and more especially as I knew that Major Houghton had collected similar information in the same manner.