=Servia= was styled by the Romans _Suedia_, the district peopled by the Suevi before they were driven northwards to their final settlement in the territory now called Sweden. =Montenegro= literally indicates “black mountain.” =Bosnia= is the country traversed by the river Bosna; =Moldavia=, that traversed by the Moldau; and =Moravia=, that traversed by the Morava. =Bulgaria= is a modern corruption of _Volgaria_, meaning the country peopled by the Volsci; while =Roumania= was anciently a Roman province. =Turkey= is more correctly written _Turkia_, the country of the Turks. This country also bears the style of the =Ottoman Empire=, in honour of Othman I., who assumed the government of the empire about the year 1300. =Greece= is the modern form of the Latin _Græcia_, from the Greek _Graikoi_, a name originally bestowed upon the inhabitants of Hellas.
=Austria= is our mode of describing the _Oesterreich_, literally the Eastern Empire, in contradistinction to the Western Empire founded by Charlemagne. =Italy= was so called after Italus, one of the early kings of that country. =Switzerland= is an Anglicized form of the native Schweitz, the name of the three forest cantons whose people asserted their independence of Austria, afterwards applied to the whole country. =Spain= expresses the English of _Hispania_, a designation founded upon the Punic _span_, a rabbit, owing to the number of wild rabbits found in this peninsula by the Carthaginians. The ancient name of the country was _Iberia_, so styled from the Iberi, a tribe who settled in the vicinity of the river Ebro =Portugal= was the _Portus Cale_, literally “the port Cale” of the Romans, the ancient name of the city of Oporto.
=Algiers= is a modified spelling of the Arabic _Al Jezair_, meaning “the peninsula.” =Tunis= was anciently known as Tunentum, the land of the Tunes; =Morocco= signifies the territory of the Moors; and =Barbary= that of the Berbers. The term =Sahara= is Arabic for “desert”; while the =Soudan= denotes, according to the Arabic _Belad-ez-Suden_, the “district of the blacks.” =Egypt= expresses the Hebrew for “the land of oppression,” alluding to the bondage of the Israelites. =Senegambia= was originally so named owing to its situation between the Senegal and Gambia rivers. The =Gold Coast= is that portion of Guinea on the West Coast of Africa where gold is found. =Guinea= is a native West African term meaning “abounding in gold.” In =Zanzibar=, properly written _Zanguebar_, we have an inversion of the Arabic _Ber-ez-Zing_, the “coast of the negroes.” =Zululand= is the country of the Zulus. By the =Transvaal= is meant the territory beyond the river Vaal; just as in Europe the Hungarians call a portion of their country TRANSYLVANIA, from its situation “beyond the wood.” =Natal= received its name from Vasco di Gama because he discovered it on the Feast of the Nativity. The settlements of the Dutch Boers in South Africa are designated the =Orange Free States= from the circumstance that their original settlers were emigrants from the Principality of Orange, in Holland. =Cape Colony= is the British colony in South Africa, so called after the Dutch settlement at Cape Town, which dates from the year 1652. The =Cape of Good Hope=, discovered by Bartholomew de Diaz in 1487, was so named (_Cabo de Bon Esperance_) by John II., King of Portugal, who, finding that Diaz had reached the extremity of Africa, regarded it as a favourable augury for future maritime enterprises.