Volume 1

Travels, or observations relating to several parts of Barbary and the Levant / By Thomas Shaw.

  • Thomas Shaw
Date:
1738
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels, or observations relating to several parts of Barbary and the Levant / By Thomas Shaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    54/608 page 20
    IflTer, the Assara. Exc. p. 9. C Geographical Ohfervations upon the Sea Coajl sikack, ward of the Harjh-goone. The Sik-ack is a rapid Stream five Miles to the Northward of Tlem-fan, in the Way to Tackum- breet. One of the Fountains is lukewarm, and well ftored with Fifh, from whence it has the Name of [^®Jl Ain elHoute] The Fountain of Fifhes. The Iffer has It's Fountains, to the SE, among the Mountains of the Beni-Sme-al, a Tribe of Afri¬ cans bordering upon the Sahara. Abulfeda1 takes Notice of It as a conliderable River; which, by the Situation, and Affi¬ nity in the Word, fhould be the Affara of Ptolemy, and the - Ifaris perhaps of the Anonymous Geographer. All thefe Branch¬ es unite at a fmall Diftance from the Sea, and form a River as broad as the Ifis, where It pafleth by Oxford. ?reet w If then we compare the Places and Rivers, I have juft now siG^citi defcribed, with the old Geography; the Tafna will be the Ri- ver gjga 0f 'Ptolemy, and Tachum-breet the City of that Name. 9- c. Hunneine, if it be not rather the Portus Ccecili of the Itinerary, grARIA* will be likewife His Gypfaria\ for All Thefe Places are lituated betwixt His Great Promontory and the River Affara. Pliny agrees with Ptolemy in placing Siga, to the Eaftward of the Mafoana, in the Mauritania Ccefarienfis; but it will be diffi¬ cult to account for His fixing It at the fame Time over againft fu*eTbfm-Malachay the Malaga, as It is now called, in Spain. For This glinfmi a- City,lying feventy Leagues to the W.N. W. only oiTackum-breet, ffEExc‘p’ cannot have fuch an oppofite Situation. Moreover, if Siga fhould be in the fame Meridian with Malaga, (for fo I conjecture Pliny’s ex adverfo will be generally interpreted) the Tingita- nia, fhort as He hath already made It, would, upon this Sup- pofition, be much more contracted; and the Mahana or Mai- <va, the eaftern Boundary of It, could not be twenty five Leagues diftant from the Atlantic Ocean. The Contrapofition therefore mentioned by Pliny, muft have fome other ConftruCtion put up¬ on It, as I fhall have Occafion to obferve in another Place. DifiaMeffm However, that Siga was fituated in This Pofition, at fome Di- ftance from the Maha, befides the Authority of the Anony- p.iT. f.a. mow Geographer, we have That likewife of the Itinerary, par¬ ticularly where Siga is placed twenty feven Miles to the Weft- ward of the Flumen Salfum, or in the very fame Situation, that Tackum-breet hath,with RefpeCt to the Wed-el-Mailah. If This River then be the Flumen Salfum of the Antients, as will 1 E monte Tijfer fcaturit fl. Iffer in iftis parti bus Celebris. Abulf. ut fupra. not 1
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