a league. These islets form an
outer shore, with a winding channel within, and are in some places a
league from the coast of the continent, though very apt to be mistaken
for the real coast. Within this range the boats or almadias of the
country ply backwards and forwards in great safety, in the intervening
channel.

"Ptolemy places the _Prasum promontorium_, or Green Cape, the extreme
southern boundary of ancient knowledge of the east coast of Africa, in
lat. 15" 30' S. and the Portuguese universally assume Mozambique as
Prasum, by which classical name it is distinguished in the Lusiad of
Camoens, in reference to the voyage of De Gama, and the near coincidence
of situation gives great probability to this supposition. [Greek:
prason] signifies a leek, and is also used to denote a sea-weed of a
similar green colour, and the name may either have been derived from the
verdure of the point, or from the sea-weeds found in its neighbourhood.
At all events, Prasum cannot be farther south than Cape Corientes, or
farther north than Quiloa or the Zanguebar islands. The harbour of
Mozambique has seldom less than eight or ten fathom water, which is so
clear, that every bank, rock, or shallow can be easily seen.

"The Moors, so often mentioned, are supposed by Bruce to have been
merchants expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, who first fixed
their residence on the western coast of Africa, and extending themselves
eastwards, formed settlements in Arabia and Egypt, till the oppressions
of Selim and Soliman, the Turkish emperors, interrupted their commerce,
and obliged them to disperse along the coast of Abyssinia and eastern
Africa. Besides the impossibility, chronologically, for the assigned
causes having produced the supposed effect, there is no necessity for
having recourse to this improbable hypothesis. From being best acquainted
with their Moorish conquerors, the Spaniards and Portuguese have always
been accustomed to name all the Arabians Moors, wherever they found them,
and even gave at first the name of _black_ Moors to the Negroes, whence
our old English term _Black-a-moors_. It is well known that the Arabs,
especially after their conversion to Mahometanism, were great colonizers
or conquerors; even the now half-christian kingdom of Abyssinia was an
early colony and conquest of the pagan Arabs, and its inhabitants are
consequently _white_ Moors in the most extended Portuguese sense. The
Arab, or Moorish kingdoms al