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The Countries of the World

T HE oldest of the four great divisions of the world received its modern designation Asia from the Sanskrit Ushas, signifying "land of the dawn." Africa traces its origin to the Phœnician afer, a black man, and the Sanskrit ac, the earth, a country. Europe owes its name to the Greek eurus, broad, and op, to see, or ops, the face, in allusion to "the broad face of the earth." America honours the memory of Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine navigator, who landed on the New Continent south of the Equator, the year after Columbus discovered the northern mainland in 1498. The name of America first appeared in a work published by Waldsemüller at St. Die, in Lorraine, in the year 1507. It is worthy of note that when Columbus landed in America he imagined he had set foot on part of that vast territory east of the Ganges vaguely known as India; therefore he gave the name of Indians to the aborigines. This also accounts for the islands in the Caribbean Sea being styled the West Indies.

The cradle of the human race bears the name of Palestine, or in Hebrew Palestina, meaning "the land of strangers," agreeably to the native word palash, to wander. Palestine is usually denominated the Holy Land, because it was the scene of the birth, life, and death of the Redeemer. Asia Minor is, of course, Lesser Asia. دو For the title of Persia we are indebted to the Greeks, who gave the name of Persis to the region (of which the capital was Persipolis) originally overrun by a wild branch of the Ayrian race called the Parsa, meaning, in the native tongue, "the Tigers [see PARSEES). The suffix ia, wherever it occurs in a geographical sense, expresses the Celtic for land or territory. Hence, Persia signifies the territory of the Parsa or Parsees; Arabia, the country of the Arabs, "men of the desert"; Abyssinia, that of the Abassins, or "mixed races"; Kaffraria, that of the Kaffirs, or "unbelievers"; and Ethiopia, the "land of the blacks," according to the two Greek words aithein, to burn, and ops, the face. India denotes the country traversed by the Indus, or rather the Hindu, which name is a Persicized form of the Sanskrit Sindhu, " a great river," rendered Hindus in the Greek. Synonymous with the Celtic suffix just discussed is the Persian stan: consequently Hindustan signifies the territory traversed by the river Hindu, and peopled by the Hindoos; Turkestan, the country of the Turks; Afghanistan, that of the Afghans; Beloochistan, that of the Belooches; and Kurdestan, properly Koordistan, that of the Koords. The term China is a western corruption of Tsina, so called in honour of Tsin, the founder of the great dynasty which commenced in the third The Countries of the World. century B.c., when a knowledge of this country was first conveyed to the Western nations. It was this Tsin who built the Great Wall of China (or Tsin) to keep out the Barbarians. The Chinese Empire bears the description of the Celestial Empire because its early rulers were all celestial deities. Siberia is a term indicative of Siber, the residence of Kutsheen Khan, the celebrated Tartar prince, recognized as the ancient capital of the Tartars, the ruins of which may still be seen. Here again the Celtic suffix ia has reference to the surrounding territory. Russia constituted the country of the Russ, a tribe who overran it at a very early period. The Russian Empire was founded by Ruric, or Rourik, a Scandinavian chief whose death took place in the year A.D., 879. Circassia denotes the country of the Tcherkes, a Tartar tribe who settled in the neighbourhood of the river Terck. The Crimea received its name from a small town established in the peninsula by the Kimri, or Cymri, and known to the Greeks as Kimmerikon. Finland is properly Fenland, "the land of marshes." Sweden is a modern term made up of the Latin Suedia, signifying the land of the Suevi, a warlike tribe of the Goths, and the Anglo- Saxon den, testifying to its occupation by the Danes. Norway shows the result of a gradual modification of the Anglo-Saxon Norea, and the original Nordoe, being the Scandinavian for "north island." It is easy to understand in this connection how the old Norsemen, deterred by the intense cold of the Arctic Sea, took it for granted that the great northern peninsula was surrounded by water, without actually determining the fact. The native name of this country in modern times is Nordrike, i.e., the north kingdom.

Britain was known to the Phoenicians as Barat- Anac, or "the land of tin," as far back as the year 1037 B.C.