This Piece, it would seem, was translated sixteen years ago; some four or five years before any part of the present HISTORY OF FRIEDRICH got to paper. The intercalated bits of Commentary were, as is evident, all or mostly written at the same time:—these also, though they are now become, in parts. The maps then existing afforded them no information. Of the Mountains of the Moon they knew about as much as of the mountains in the moon. The Nile was not explored—its sources unknown—the course of the Niger was a mystery.
