ON AFRICA. 489 respecting the derivation of the word Misr (a corruption of Massar) ; the word Massar is compounded of the two Arabic words Ma and Sar ; i. e. Mother of Walls. Possibly some Arabic professor versed in bibliographic lore, to favor a darling hypothesis, has transmuted Massar into Misr, to strengthen the plausibility of the etymology of Misr from Misraem !

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Note, page 05. Bahar bela ma is an Arabic expression, importing it to be a country once covered with water, but now no longer so. In the note in this page, I recognise the word Sooess to designate the Isthmus of Suez. The Bahar Malee, and the Sebaha Bahoori, are Negro corruptions of the Arabic words Bahar El Maleh, and Seba Baharet : the former does not apply particularly to the Mediterranean, but is a term applicable to any sea or ocean that is salt (as all seas and oceans assuredly are) 5 the latter term signifies literally, the Seven Seas or Waters : neither is this a term applicable to the Mediterranean, but to any sea supplied by seven rivers, as the Red Sea : these, therefore, are evidently other inaccuracies of Mr. Hutchison, I apprehend Mr. Hutchison's Arabic tutor at Ashantee was not an erudite scholar. The term, and the only term in Africa, applicable to the Mediterranean Sea, is the Bahar Segrer (literally the Small Sea) j and El Bahar El Kabeer (is the Atlantic Ocean, or literally the Great Sea) ; the latter is sometimes figuratively called the Bahar Addolum, i. e. the Unknown Sea, or the Sea of Darkness.