duce of the
country, which afforded plenty of roots, game, and honey. That ambition
or avarice never drove them into foreign countries to subdue or cheat
their neighbours. Thus they lived without toil or superfluities." "The
antient inhabitants of Morocco, who wore coats of mail, and used swords
and spears headed with iron, coming amongst these harmless and naked
people, soon brought them under subjection, and divided that part of
Guinea which lies on the rivers Senegal and Gambia into fifteen parts;
those were the fifteen kingdoms of the Negroes, over which the Moors
presided, and the common people were Negroes. These Moors taught the
Negroes the Mahometan religion, and arts of life; particularly the use
of iron, before unknown to them. About the 14th century, a native Negro,
called Heli Ischia, expelled the Moorish conquerors; but tho' the
Negroes threw off the yoke of a foreign nation, they only changed a
Libyan for a Negroe master. Heli Ischia himself becoming King, led the
Negroes on to foreign wars, and established himself in power over a very
large extent of country." Since Leo's time, the Europeans have had very
little knowledge of those parts of Africa, nor do they know what became
of his great empire. It is highly probable that it broke into pieces,
and that the natives again resumed many of their antient customs; for in
the account published by William Moor, in his travels on the river
Gambia, we find a mixture of the Moorish and Mahometan customs, joined
with the original simplicity of the Negroes. It appears by accounts of
antient voyages, collected by Hackluit, Purchas, and others, that it was
about fifty years before the discovery of America, that the Portugueze
attempted to sail round Cape Bojador, which lies between their country
and Guinea; this, after divers repulses occasioned by the violent
currents, they effected; when landing on the western coasts of Africa,
they soon began to make incursions into the country, and to seize and
carry off the native inhabitants. As early as the year 1434, Alonzo
Gonzales, the first who is recorded to have met with the natives, being
on that coast, pursued and attacked a number of them, when some were
wounded, as was also one of the Portugueze; which the author records as
the first blood spilt by christians in those parts. Six years after, the
same Gonzales again attacked the natives, and took twelve prisoners,
with whom he returned to his vessels; he afterwards put a