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Show 128 STEPPES AND DESERTS. (ro) p. 32.-" The Mountains of the Moon, Djebel-al-Komr." The Mountains of the Moon of Ptolemy (lib. iv. cap. 9), ( rJE"A.~""i~ opo~) form on our older maps an immense, uninterrupted mountain zone, traversing Africa from east to west. The existence of these mountains appears certain; but their extent, their distance from the Equator, and their general direction, are all unsolved problems. I have already alluded in another work (Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 191, and note 297, Engl. ed.), to the manner in which a closer acquaintance with Indian languages, and with the ancient Persian idiom, the Zend, teaches us that part of the geographical nomenclature of Ptolemy forms an historic monument of the commercial connection of the west with the most distant regions of Southern Asia and Eastern Africa. The same direction of ideas shows itself in a question very recently brought forward. It is asked, whether the great geographer and astronomer of Pelusium meant, in the name of "Mountains of the Moon," as in that of the "Island of Barley" (Jabadiu, Java), merely to give the Greek translation of a native name ;-whether (as is most probable) El Istachri, Edrisi, Ibn-al-Vardi, and other early Arabian geographers, only transferred the nomenclature of Ptolemy into their own language ;-or whether they were misled by similarity in the sound of the words and the manner of writing. In the notes to the translation of Abd-Allatif's celebrated description of Egypt, my great instructor, Silvestre de Sacy (ed. de 1810, pp. 7 and 353), says expressly: "On traduit ordinairement le nom de ces montagnes que Leon African regardc comme les sources du Nil, par montagnes de la lttne, et j'ai suivi cet usage. J e ne sais si les A rubes out pris originairement cette denomination de Ptolemee. On peut croire qu'ils entendent cffectivement aujourd'hui le mot r--.:J dans le sens de la lune en Ie jj.ronongant 'Kamar;' je ne crois pas cependant que g'ait 6t6 !'opinion de anciens ecrivains arabes qui prononccnt, commc lc prouve Makrizi, Komr. Aboulfcda rejctte positivement !'opinion de ceux qui prononcent kamar, et qui dcrivent ce nom de cclui de la lunc. Comme le mot komr, considere comme pluriel de ~1, signifie un objet d'unc coulew· verdatre ou d'un blanc sale, suivant |
