The World and Its People: Book VII

contour of a country, we wish to consider its general features, that we may call up a mental picture of it. You know how quickly you can recall an absent friend, if you are familiar enough with his form and features to make a clear mental photograph.

The best authors divide Africa, for convenience, into five different sections: first, the triangular-shaped region south of the Gulf of Guinea and Cape Guardafui; second, the great tract called Soudan, which lies north and northwest of this triangular plateau; third, the Sahara, or Great Desert, which stretches between the Soudan and the cultivated tract that borders the Mediterranean Sea; fourth, the Atlas region, which includes the mountainous countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli; fifth, the region which borders on the Red Sea, and comprises Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt.

The first section is mostly a high table-land, with mountains fringing its edges. The Lupata range, which runs parallel wi