The inhabitants of Dahalac seemed to be a simple, fearful, and inoffensive people. It is the only part of Africa, or Arabia, (call it which you please) where you see no one carry arms of any kind; neither gun, knife, nor sword, is to be seen in the hands of any one. Whereas, at Loheia, and on all the coast of Arabia, and more particularly at Yambo, every person goes armed; even the porters, naked, and groaning under the weight of their burden, and heat of the day, have yet a leather belt, in which they carry a crooked knife, so monstrously long, that it needs a particular motion and address in walking, not to lame the bearer. This was not always the case at Dahalac; several of the Portuguese, on their first arrival here, were murdered, and the island often treated ill, in revenge, by the armaments of that nation. The men seem healthy. They told me they had no diseases among them, unless sometimes in Spring, when the boats of Yemen and Jidda bring the small-pox among them, and very few escape with life that are infected. I could not observe a man among them that seemed to be sixty years old, from which I infer, they are not long livers, though the air should be healthy, as being near the channel, and as they have the north wind all summer, which moderates the heat.

Of all the islands we had passed on this side the channel, Dahalac alone is inhabited. It depends, as do all the rest, upon Masuah, and is conferred by a firman from the Grand Signior, on the Basha of Jidda; and, from him, on Metical Aga, then on the Naybe and his servants. The present governor’s name was Hagi Mahomet Abdel cader, of whom I have before spoken, as having sailed from Jidda to Masuah before me, where he did me all the dis-service in his power, and nearly procured my assassination. The revenue of this governor consists in a goat brought to him monthly by each of the twelve villages. Every vessel, that puts in there for Masuah, pays him also a pound of coffee, and every one from Arabia, a dollar or pataka. No sort of small money is current at Dahalac, excepting Venetian glass-beads, old and new, of all sizes and colours, broken and whole.

Although this is the miserable state of Dahalac at present, matters were widely different in former times. The pearl fishery flourished greatly here, under the Ptolemies; and even long after, in the time of the Caliphs, it produced a great revenue, and, till the sovereigns of Cairo, of the present miserable race of slaves, began to withdraw themselves from their dependency on the port (for even after the reign of Selim, and the conquests of Arabia, under Sinan Basha, the Turkish gallies were still kept up at Suez, whilst Masuah and Suakem had Bashas) Dahalac was the principal island that furnished the pearl fishers, or divers. It was, indeed, the chief port for the fishery on the southern part of the Red Sea, as Suakem was on the north; and the Basha of Masuah passed part of every summer here, to avoid the heat at his place of residence on the Continent.

The fishery extended from Dahalac and its islands nearly to lat. 20°. The inhabited islands furnished each a bark, and so many divers, and they were paid in wheat, flour, &c. such a portion to each bark, for their use, and so much to leave with their family, for their subsistence; so that a few months employment furnished them with every thing necessary for the rest of the year. The fishery was rented, in latter times, to the Basha of Suakem, but there was a place between Suakem, and the supposed river Frat, in lat. 21° 28´ north, called Gungunnah, which was reserved to the Grand Signior in particular, and a special officer was appointed to receive the pearls on the spot, and send them to Constantinople. The pearls found there were of the largest size, and inferior to none in water, or roundness. Tradition says, that this was, exclusively, the property of the Pharaohs, by which is meant, in Arabian manuscrip’s, the old kings of Egypt before Mahomet.

In the same extent, between Dahalac and Suakem, was another very valuable fishery, that of207 tortoises, from which the finest shells of that kind were produced, and a great trade was carried on with the East Indies, (China especially) at little expence, and with very considerable profits. The animal itself (the turtle) was in great plenty, between lat. 18° and 20°, in the neighbourhood of those low sandy islands, laid down in my chart.

The India trade flourished exceedingly at Suakem and Masuah, as it had done in the prosperous time of the Caliphs. The Banians, (then the only traders from the East Indies) being prohibited by the Mahometans to enter the Holy Land of the Hejaz, carried all their vessels to Konfodah in Yemen, and from these two ports had, in return, at the first hand, pearls, tortoise-shell, which sold for its weight of gold, in China; Tibbar, or pure gold of Sennaar, (that from Abyssinia being less so) elephant’s teeth, rhinoceros horns for turning, plenty of gum Arabic, cassia, myrrh, frankincense, and many other precious articles; these were all bartered, at Masuah and Suakem, for India goods. But nothing which violence and injustice can ruin, ever can subsist under Turkish government. The Bashas paying dearly for their confirmation at Constantinople, and uncertain if they should hold this office long enough to make reimbursements for the money they had already advanced, had not patience to stay till the course of trade gradually indemnified them, but proceeding from extortion to extortion, they at last became downright robbers, seizing the cargo of the ships wherever they could find them, and exercising the most shocking cruelties on the person they belonged to, slaying the factors alive, and impaling those that remained in their hands, to obtain, by terror, remittances from India. The trade was thus abandoned, and the revenue ceased. There were no bidders at Constantinople for the farm, nobody had trade in their heads when their lives were every hour in danger. Dahalac became therefore dependent on the Basha of Jidda, and he appointed an208 Aga, who paid him a moderate sum, and appropriated to himself the provisions and salary allowed for the pearl fishery, or the greatest part of them.

The Aga at Suakem endeavoured, in vain, to make the Arabs and people near him work without salary, so they abandoned an employment which produced nothing but punishment; and, in time, they grew ignorant of the fishery in which they once were so well skilled and had been educated. This great nursery of seamen therefore was lost, and the gallies, being no longer properly manned, were either given up to rot, or turned into merchant-ships for carrying the coffee between Yemen and Suez, these vessels were unarmed, and indeed incapable of armament, and unserviceable by their construction; besides, they were ill-manned, and so carelessly and ignorantly navigated, that there was not a year, that one or more did not founder, not from stress of weather, (for they were sailing in a pond) or from any thing, but ignorance, or inattention.

Trade took again its ancient course towards Jidda. The Sherriffe of Mecca, and all the Arabs, were interested to get it back to Arabia, and with it the government of their own countries. That the pearl fishing might, moreover, no longer be an allurement for the Turkish power to maintain itself here, and oppress them, they discouraged the practice of diving, till it grew into desuetude; this brought insensibly all the people of the islands to the continent, where they were employed in coasting vessels, which continues their only occupation to this day. This policy succeeded; the princes of Arabia became again free from the Turkish power, now but a shadow, and Dahalac, Masuah, and Suakem, returned to their ancient masters, to which they are subject at this instant, governed indeed by Shekhs of their own country, and preserving only the name of Turkish government, each being under the command of a robber and assassin.

The immense treasures in the bottom of the Red Sea, have thus been abandoned for near two hundred years, though they never were richer in all probability than at present. No nation can now turn them to any profit, but the English East India Company, more intent on multiplying the number of their enemies, and weakening themselves by spreading their inconsiderable force over new conquests, than creating additional profit by engaging in new articles of commerce. A settlement upon the river Frat, which never yet has belonged to any one but wandering Arabs, would open them a market both for coarse and fine goods from the southern frontiers of Morocco, to Congo and Angola, and set the commerce of pearls and tortoise shell on foot again. All this section of the Gulf from Suez, as I am told, is in their charter, and twenty ships might be employed on the Red Sea, without any violation of territorial claims. The myrrh, the frankincense, some cinnamon, and variety of drugs, are all in the possession of the weak king of Adel, an usurper, tyrant, and Pagan, without protection, and willing to trade with any superior power, that only would secure him a miserable livelihood.

If this does not take place, I am persuaded the time is not far off, when these countries shall, in some shape or other, be subjects of a new master. Were another Peter, another Elizabeth, or, better than either, another Catharine to succeed the present, in an empire already extended to China;—were such a sovereign, unfettered by European politics, to prosecute that easy task of pushing those mountebanks of sovereigns and statesmen, these stage-players of government, the Turks, into Asia, the inhabitants of the whole country, who in their hearts look upon her already as their sovereign, because she is the head of their religion, would, I am persuaded, submit without a blow that instant the Turks were removed on the other side of the Hellespont.

There are neither horses, dogs, sheep, cows, nor any sort of quadruped, but goats, asses, a few half-starved camels and antelopes at Dahalac, which last are very numerous. The inhabitants have no knowledge of fire-arms, and there are no dogs, nor beasts of prey in the island to kill them; they catch indeed some few of them in traps.

On our arrival at Dahalac, on the 14th, we saw swallows there, and, on the 16th, they were all gone. On our landing at Masuah, on the 19th, we saw a few; the 21st and 22d they were in great flocks; on the 2d of October they were all gone. It was the blue long-tailed swallow, with the flat head; but there was, likewise, the English martin, black, and darkish grey in the body, with a white breast.

The language at Dahalac is that of the Shepherds; Arabic too is spoken by most of them. From this island we see the high mountains of Habesh, running in an even ridge like a wall, parallel to the coast, and down to Suakem.

Before I leave Dahalac, I must observe, that, in a wretched chart, in the hands of some of the English gentlemen at Jidda, there were soundings marked all along the east-coast of Dahalac, from thirteen to thirty fathoms, within two leagues of the shore. Now, the islands I have mentioned occupy a much larger space than that; yet none of them are set down in the chart; and, where the soundings are marked thirty, forty, and even ninety fathom, all is full of shoals under water, with islands and sunken coral rocks, some of them near the surface, though the breakers do not appear upon them, partly owing to the waves being steadied by the violence of the current, and somewhat kept off by the island. This dangerous error is, probably, owing to the draughts being composed from different journals, where the pilot has had different ways of measuring his distance; some using forty-two feet to a thirty-second glass, and some twenty-eight, both of them being considered as one competent division of a degree; the distances are all too short, and the soundings, and every thing else, consequently out of their places.

Whoever has to navigate in the Abyssinian side of the channel, will do well to pass the island Dahalac on the east side, or, at least, not approach the outmost island, Wowcan, nearer than ten leagues; but, keeping about twelve leagues meridian distance west of Jibbel Teir, or near mid-channel between that and the island, they will then be out of danger; being between lat. 15° 20´ and 15° 40´, which last is the latitude, as I observed, of Saiel Noora, and which is the northern island, we saw, three leagues off Ras Antalou, the northmost cape of Dahalac.

Both at our entering into the port of Dobelew on the 14th, and our going out of it on the 17th, we found a tide running like a sluice, which we apprehended, in spite of our sails being full, would force us out of our course upon the rocks. I imagine it was then at its greatest strength, it now being near the equinoctial full moon. The channel between Terra Firma and the island being very narrow, and the influence of the sun and moon then nearly in the equator, had occasioned this unusual violence of the tide, by forcing a large column of water through so narrow a space.

On the 17th, after we had examined our vessel, and found she had received no damage, and provided water (bad as it was) for the remainder of our voyage, we sailed from Dobelew, but, the wind being contrary, we were obliged to come to an anchor, at three quarters past four o’clock, in ten fathom water, about three leagues from that port, which was to the south-west of us; the bearings and distances are as follow:—

On the 18th, we sailed, standing off and on, with a contrary wind at north-west, and a strong current in the same direction. At half past four in the morning we were forced to come to an anchor. There is here a very shallow and narrow passage, which I sounded myself in the boat, barely one and a half fathom, or nine feet of water, and we were obliged to wait the filling of the tide. This is called the Bogaz, which signifies, as I have before observed, the narrow and shallow passage. It is between the island Dahalac and the south point of the island of Noora, about forty fathom broad, and, on each side full of dangerous rocks. The islands then bore,

The tide now entered with an unusual force, and ran more like the Nile, or a torrent, or stream conducted to turn a mill, than the sea, or the effects of a tide. At half past one o’clock, there was water enough to pass, and we soon were hurried through it by the violence of the current, driving us in a manner truly tremendous.

At half after three, we passed between Ras Antalou, the North Cape of Dahalac, and the small island Dahalottom, which has some trees upon it. On this island is the tomb of Shekh209 Abou Gafar, mentioned by Poncet, in his voyage, who mistakes the name of the saint for that of the island. The strait between the Cape and the island is a mile and a half broad. At four in the afternoon, we anchored near a small island called Surat. All between this and Dahalac, there is no water exceeding seven fathom, till you are near Dahalac Kibeer, whose port has water for large vessels, but is open to every point, from south-west to north-west, and has a great swell.

All ships coming to the westward of Dahalac had better keep within the island Drugerut, between that and the main, where there is plenty of water, and room enough to work, tho’, even here, there are islands a-head; and clear weather, as well as a good look-out, will always be necessary.

On the 19th of September, at three quarters past six in the morning, we sailed from our anchorage near Surat. At a quarter past nine, Dargeli, an island with trees upon it, bore N. W. by W. two miles and a half distant; and Drugerut three leagues and a half north and by east, when it fell calm.

At eleven o’clock, we passed the island of Dergaiham, bearing N. by East, three miles distant, and at five in the afternoon we came to an anchor in the harbour of Masuah, having been210 seventeen days on our passage, including the day we first went on board, though this voyage, with a favourable wind, is generally made in three days; it often has, indeed, been sailed in less.

The reader will observe, that many of the islands begin with Dahal, and some with Del, which last is only an abbreviation of the former, and both of them signify island in the language of Beja, otherwise called Geez, or the language of the shepherds. Massowa, too, though generally spelled in the manner I have here expressed it, should properly be written Masuah, which is the harbour or water of the Shepherds. Of this nation, so often mentioned already in this work, as well as the many other people less powerful and numerous than they that inhabit the countries between the tropics, or frontiers of Egypt and the Line, it will be necessary now to speak in some detail, although the connection they all have with the trade of the Red Sea, and with each other, will oblige me to go back to very early times, to the invention of letters, and all the useful arts, which had their beginning here, were carefully nourished, and came probably to as great a perfection as they did ever since arrive at any other period.

TRAVELS
TO DISCOVER
THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.
BOOK II.
ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST AGES OF THE INDIAN AND AFRICAN TRADE—THE FIRST PEOPLING OF ABYSSINIA AND ATBARA—SOME CONJECTURES CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE THERE.

CHAP. I.

Of the India trade in its earliest ages—Settlement of Ethiopia—Troglodytes—Building of the first Cities.

The farther back we go into the history of Eastern nations, the more reason we have to be surprised at the accounts of their immense riches and magnificence. One who reads the history of Egypt is like a traveller walking through its ancient, ruined, and deserted towns, where all are palaces and temples, without any trace of private or ordinary habitation. So in the earliest though now mutilated, accounts which we have of them, all is power, splendour, and riches, attended by the luxury which was the necessary consequence, without any clue or thread left us by which we can remount, or be conducted, to the source or fountain whence this variety of wealth had flowed; without ever being able to arrive at a period, when these people were poor and mean, or even in a state of mediocrity, or upon a footing with European nations.

The sacred scriptures, the most ancient, as well as the most credible of all histories, represent Palestine, of which they particularly treat, in the earliest ages, as not only full of polished, powerful, and orderly states, but abounding also in silver and gold211, in a greater proportion than is to be found this day in any state in Europe, though immensely rich dominions in a new world have been added to the possession of that territory, which furnished the greatest quantity of gold and silver to the old. Palestine, however, is a poor country, left to its own resources and produce merely. It must have been always a poor country, without some extraordinary connection with foreign nations. It never contained either mines of gold or silver, and though, at most periods of its history, it appears to have been but thinly inhabited, it never of itself produced wherewithal to support and maintain the few that dwelt in it.

Mr de Montesquieu212, speaking of the wealth of Semiramis, imagines that the great riches of the Assyrian empire in her reign, arose from this queen’s having plundered some more ancient and richer nation, as they, in their turn, fell afterwards a prey to a poorer, but more warlike enemy. But however true this fact may be with regard to Semiramis, it does not solve the general difficulty, as still the same question recurs, concerning the wealth of that prior nation, which the Assyrians plundered, and from which they received their treasure. I believe the example is rare, that a large kingdom has been enriched by war. Alexander conquered all Asia, part of Africa, and a considerable portion of Europe; he plundered Semiramis’s kingdom, and all those that were tributary to her; he went farther into the Indies than ever she did, though her territories bordered upon the river Indus itself; yet neither Macedon, nor any of the neighbouring provinces of Greece, could ever compare with the small districts of Tyre and Sidon for riches.

War disperses wealth in the very instant it acquires it; but commerce, well regulated, constantly and honestly supported, carried on with œconomy and punctuality, is the only thing that ever did enrich extensive kingdoms; and one hundred hands employed at the loom will bring to a country more riches and abundance, than ten thousand bearing spears and shields. We need not go far to produce an example that will confirm this. The subjects and neighbours of Semiramis had brought spices by land into Assyria. The Ishmaelites and Midianites, the merchants and carriers of gold from Ethiopia, and more immediately from Palestine, met in her dominions; and there was, for a time, the mart of the East India trade. But, by an absurd expedition with an army into India, in hopes to enrich herself all at once, she effectually ruined that commerce, and her kingdom fell immediately afterwards.

Whoever reads the history of the most ancient nations, will find the origin of wealth and power to have risen in the east; then to have gradually advanced westward, spreading itself at the same time north and south. They will find the riches and population of those nations decay in proportion as this trade forsakes them; which cannot but suggest to a good understanding, this truth constantly to be found in the disposition of all things in this universe, that God makes use of the smallest means and causes to operate the greatest and most powerful effects. In his hand a pepper-corn is the foundation of the power, glory, and riches of India; he makes an acorn, and by it communicates power and riches to nations divided from India by thousands of leagues of sea.

Let us pursue our consideration of Egypt. Sesostris, before the time we have been just speaking of, passed with a fleet of large ships from the Arabian Gulf into the Indian Ocean; he conquered part of India, and opened to Egypt the commerce of that country by sea. I enter not into the credibility of the number of his fleet, as there is scarce any thing credible left us about the shipping and navigation of the ancients, or, at least, that is not full of difficulties and contradictions; my business is with the expedition, not with the number of the ships. It would appear he revived, rather than first discovered, this way of carrying on the trade to the East Indies, which, though it was at times intermitted, (perhaps forgot by the Princes who were contending for the Sovereignty of the continent of Asia), was, nevertheless, perpetually kept up by the trading nations themselves, from the ports of India and Africa, and on the Red Sea from Edom.

The pilots from these ports alone, of all the world, had a secret confined to their own knowledge, upon which the success of these voyages depended. This was the phænomena of the trade-winds213 and monsoons, which the pilots of Sesostris knew; and which those of Nearchus seem to have taught him only in part, in his voyage afterwards, and of which we are to speak in the sequel. History says further of Sesostris, that the Egyptians considered him as their greatest benefactor, for having laid open to them the trade both of India and Arabia, for having overturned the dominion of the Shepherd kings; and, lastly, for having restored to the Egyptian individuals each their own lands, which had been wrested from them by the violent hands of the Ethiopian Shepherds, during the first usurpation of these princes.

In memory of his having happily accomplished these events, Sesostris is said to have built a ship of cedar of a hundred and twenty yards in length, the outside of which he covered with plates of gold, and the inside with plates of silver, and this he dedicated in the temple of Isis. I will not enter into the defence of the probability of his reasons for having built a ship of this size, and for such a purpose, as one of ten yards would have sufficiently answered. The use it was made for, was apparently to serve for a hieroglyphic, of what he had accomplished, viz. that he had laid open the gold and silver trade from the mines in Ethiopia, and had navigated the ocean in ships made of wood, which were the only ones, he thereby insinuated, that could be employed in that trade. The Egyptian ships, at that time, were all made of the reed papyrus214, covered with skins or leather, a construction which no people could venture to present to the ocean.

There is much to be learned from a proper understanding of these last benefits conferred by Sesostris upon his Egyptian subjects. When we understand these, which is very easy to any that have travelled in the countries we are speaking of, (for nations and causes have changed very little in these countries to this day), it will not be difficult to find a solution of this problem, What was the commerce that, progressively, laid the foundation of all that immense grandeur of the east; what polished them, and cloathed them with silk, scarlet, and gold; and what carried the arts and sciences among them, to a pitch, perhaps, never yet surpassed, and this some thousands of years before the nations in Europe had any other habitation than their native woods, or cloathing than the skins of beasts, wild and domestic, or government, but that first, innate one, which nature had given to the strongest?

Let us inquire what was the connection Sesostris brought about between Egypt and India; what was that commerce of Ethiopia and Arabia, by which he enriched Egypt, and what was their connection with the peninsula of India; who were those kings who bore so opposite an office, as to be at the same time Shepherds; and who were those Shepherds, near, and powerful enough to wrest the property of their lands from four million of inhabitants.

To explain this, it will be necessary to enter into some detail, without which no person dipping into the ancient or modern history of this part of Africa, can have any precise idea of it, nor of the different nations inhabiting the peninsula, the source of whose wealth consisted entirely in the early, but well-established commerce between Africa and India. What will make this subject of more easy explanation is, that the ancient employment and occupations of these people in the first ages, were still the same that subsist at this day. The people have altered a little by colonies of strangers being introduced among them, but their manners and employments are the same as they originally were. What does not relate to the ancient history of these people, I shall only mention in the course of my travels when passing through, or sojourning amongst them.

Providence had created the inhabitants of the peninsula of India under many disadvantages in point of climate. The high and wholesome part of the country was covered with barren and rugged mountains; and, at different times of the year, violent rains fell in large currents down the sides of these, which overflowed all the fertile land below; and these rains were no sooner over, than they were succeeded by a scorching sun, the effect of which upon the human body, was to render it feeble, enervated, and incapable of the efforts necessary for agriculture. In this flat country, large rivers, that scarce had declivity enough to run, crept slowly along, through meadows of fat black earth, stagnating in many places as they went, rolling an abundance of decayed vegetables, and filling the whole air with exhalations of the most corrupt and putrid kind. Even rice, the general food of man, the safest and most friendly to the inhabitants of that country, could not grow but by laying under water the places where it was sown, and thereby rendering them, for several months, absolutely improper for man’s dwelling. Providence had done this, but, never failing in its wisdom, had made to the natives a great deal more than a sufficient amends.

Their bodies were unfit for the fatigues of agriculture, nor was the land proper for common cultivation. But this country produced spices of great variety, especially a small berry called Pepper, supposed, of all others, and with reason, to be the greatest friend to the health of man. This grew spontaneously, and was gathered without toil. It was, at once, a perfect remedy for the inclemencies and diseases of the country, as well as the source of its riches, from the demand of foreigners. This species of spice is no where known but in India, though equally useful in every putrid region, where, unhappily, these diseases reign. Providence has not, as in India, placed remedies so near them, thus wisely providing for the welfare of mankind in general, by the dependency it has forced one man to have upon another. In India, and similar climates, this spice is not used in small quantities, but in such, as to be nearly equal to that of bread.

In cloathing, Providence had not been less kind to India. The silk worm, with little fatigue and trouble to man, almost without his interference, provided for him a stuff, at once the softest, the most light and brilliant, and consequently the best adapted to warm countries; and cotton, a vegetable production, growing every where in great abundance, without care, which may be considered as almost equal to silk, in many of its qualities, and superior to it in some, afforded a variety still cheaper for more general use. Every tree without culture produced them fruit of the most excellent kind; every tree afforded them shade, under which, with a very light and portable loom of cane, they could pass their lives delightfully in a calm and rational enjoyment, by the gentle exercise of weaving, at once providing for the health of their bodies, the necessities of their families, and the riches of their country.

But however plentifully their spices grew, in whatever quantity the Indians consumed them, and however generally they wore their own manufactures, the superabundance of both was such, as naturally led them to look out for articles against which they might barter their superfluities. This became necessary to supply the wants of those things that had been with-held from them, for wise ends, or which, from wantonness, luxury, or slender necessity, they had created in their own imaginations.

Far to the westward of them, but part of the same continent, connected by a long desert, and dangerous coast, was the peninsula of Arabia, which produced no spices, tho’ the necessities of its climate subjected its inhabitants to the same diseases as those in India. In fact, the country and climate were exactly similar, and, consequently, the plentiful use of these warm productions was as necessary there, as in India, the country where they grew.

It is true, Arabia was not abandoned wholly to the inclemency of its climate, as it produced myrrh and frankincense, which, when used as perfumes or fumigations, were powerful antiseptics of their kind, but administered rather as preventatives, than to remove the disorder when it once prevailed. These were kept up at a price, of which, at this day, we have no conception, but which never diminished from any circumstance, under which the country where they grew, laboured.

The silk and cotton of India were white and colourless, liable to soil, and without any variety; but Arabia produced gum and dyes of various colours, which were highly agreeable to the taste of the Asiatics. We find the sacred scriptures speak of the party-coloured garment as the mark of the greatest honour215. Solomon, in his proverbs, too, says, that he decked his bed with coverings of tapestry of Egypt216. But Egypt had neither silk nor cotton manufactory, no, nor even wool. Solomon’s coverings, though he had them from Egypt, were therefore an article of barter with India.

Balm, or Balsam217, was a commodity produced in Arabia, sold at a very high price, which it kept up till within these few centuries in the east; when the Venetians carried on the India trade by Alexandria, this Balsam then sold for its weight in gold; it grows in the same place, and, I believe, nearly in the same quantity as ever, but, for very obvious reasons218, it is now of little value.

The basis of trade, or a connection between these two countries, was laid, then, from the beginning, by the hand of Providence. The wants and necessities of the one found a supply, or balance from the other. Heaven had placed them not far distant, could the passage be made by sea; but violent, steady, and unconquerable winds presented themselves to make that passage of the ocean impossible, and we are not to doubt, but, for a very considerable time, this was the reason why the commerce of India was diffused through the continent, by land only, and from this arose the riches of Semiramis.

But, however precious the merchandise of Arabia was, it was neither in quantity, nor quality, capable of balancing the imports from India. Perhaps they might have paid for as much as was used in the peninsula of Arabia itself, but, beyond this there was a vast continent called Africa, capable of consuming many hundred fold more than Arabia; which lying under the same parallel with India, part of it still farther south, the diseases of the climate, and the wants of its numerous inhabitants, were, in many parts of it, the same as those of Arabia and India; besides which there was the Red Sea, and divers communications to the northward.

Neither their luxuries nor necessaries were the same as those of Europe. And indeed Europe, at this time, was probably inhabited by shepherds, hunters, and fishers, who had no luxury at all, or such as could not be supplied from India; they lived in woods and marshes, with the animals which made their sport, food, and cloathing.

The inhabitants of Africa then, this vast Continent, were to be supplied with the necessaries, as well as the luxuries of life, but they had neither the articles Arabia wanted, nor those required in India, at least, for a time they thought so; and so long they were not a trading people.

It is a tradition among the Abyssinians, which they say they have had from time immemorial, and which is equally received among the Jews and Christians, that almost immediately after the flood, Cush, grandson of Noah, with his family, passing through Atbara from the low country of Egypt, then without inhabitants, came to the ridge of mountains which still separates the flat country of Atbara from the more mountainous high-land of Abyssinia.

By casting his eye upon the map, the reader will see a chain of mountains, beginning at the Isthmus of Suez, that runs all along like a wall, about forty miles from the Red Sea, till it divides in lat. 13°, into two branches. The one goes along the northern frontiers of Abyssinia, crosses the Nile, and then proceeds westward, through Africa towards the Atlantic Ocean. The other branch goes southward, and then east, taking the form of the Arabian Gulf; after which, it continues southward all along the Indian Ocean, in the same manner as it did in the beginning all along, the Red Sea, that is parallel to the coast.

Their tradition says, that, terrified with the late dreadful event the flood, still recent in their minds, and apprehensive of being again involved in a similar calamity, they chose for their habitation caves in the sides of these mountains, rather than trust themselves again on the plain. It is more than probable, that, soon after their arrival, meeting here with the tropical rains, which, for duration, still exceed the days that occasioned the flood, and observing, that going through Atbara, that part of Nubia between the Nile and Astaboras, afterwards called Meroë, from a dry climate at first, they had after fallen in with rains, and as those rains increased in proportion to their advancing southward, they chose to stop at the first mountains, where the country was fertile and pleasant, rather than proceed farther at the risk of involving themselves, perhaps in a land of floods, that might prove as fatal to their posterity as that of Noah had been to their ancestors.

This is a conjecture from probability, only mentioned for illustration, for the motives that guided them cannot certainly be known; but it is an undoubted fact, that here the Cushites, with unparalleled industry, and with instruments utterly unknown to us, formed for themselves commodious, yet wonderful habitations in the heart of mountains of granite and marble, which remain entire in great numbers to this day, and promise to do so till the consummation of all things. This original kind of dwellings soon extended themselves through the neighbouring mountains. As the Cushites grew populous, they occupied those that were next them, spreading the industry and arts which they cultivated, as well to the eastern as to the western ocean, but, content with their first choice, they never descended from their caves, nor chose to reside at a distance on the plain.

It is very singular that St Jerome does not know where to look for this family, or descendents of Cush; though they are as plainly pointed out, and as often alluded to by scripture, as any nation in the Old Testament. They are described, moreover, by the particular circumstances of their country, which have never varied, to be in the very place where I now fix them, and where, ever since, they have remained, and still do to this present hour, in the same mountains, and the same houses of stone they formed for themselves in the beginning. And yet Bochart219, professedly treating this subject, as it were industriously, involves it in more than Egyptian darkness. I rather refer the reader to his work, to judge for himself, than, quoting it by extracts, communicate the confusion of his ideas to my narrative.

The Abyssinian tradition further says, they built the city of Axum some time early in the days of Abraham. Soon after this, they pushed their colony down to Atbara, where we know from Herodotus220, they early and successfully pursued their studies, from which, Josephus says221, they were called Meroëtes, or inhabitants of the island of Meroë.

The prodigious fragments of colossal statues of the dog-star, still to be seen at Axum, sufficiently shew what a material object of their attention they considered him to be; and Seir, which in the language of the Troglodytes, and in that of the low country of Meroë, exactly corresponding to it, signifies a dog, instructs us in the reason why this province was called Sirè, and the large river which bounds it, Siris.

I apprehend the reason why, without forsaking their ancient domiciles in the mountains, they chose this situation for another city, Meroë, was owing to an imperfection they had discovered (both in Sirè and in their caves below it) to result from their climate. They were within the tropical rains; and, consequently, were impeded and interrupted in the necessary observations of the heavenly bodies, and the progress of astronomy which they so warmly cultivated. They must have seen, likewise, a necessity of building Meroë farther from them than perhaps they wished, for the same reason they built Axum in the high country of Abyssinia in order to avoid the fly (a phænomenon of which I shall afterwards speak) which pursued them everywhere within the limits of the rains, and which must have given an absolute law in those first times to the regulations of the Cushite settlements. They therefore went the length of lat. 16°, where I saw the ruins supposed to be those of Meroë222, and caves in the mountains immediately above that situation, which I cannot doubt were the temporary habitation of the builders of that first seminary of learning.

It is probable that, immediately upon their success at Meroë, they lost no time in stretching on to Thebes. We know that it was a colony of Ethiopians, and probably from Meroë, but whether directly, or not, we are not certain. A very short time might have passed between the two establishments, for we find above Thebes, as there are above Meroë, a vast number of caves, which the colony made provisionally, upon its first arrival, and which are very near the top of the mountain, all inhabited to this day.

Hence we may infer, that their ancient apprehensions of a deluge had not left them whilst, they saw the whole land of Egypt could be overflowed every year without rain falling upon it; that they did not absolutely, as yet, trust to the liability of towns like those of Sirè and Meroë, placed upon columns or stones, one laid upon the other, or otherwise, that they found their excavations in the mountains were finished with less trouble, and more comfortable when complete, than the houses that were built. It was not long before they assumed a greater degree of courage.

CHAP. II.

Saba and the South of Africa peopled—Shepherds, their particular Employment and Circumstances—Abyssinia occupied by seven stranger Nations—Specimens of their several Languages—Conjectures concerning them.

While these improvements were going on so prosperously in the central and northern territory of the descendents of Cush, their brethren to the south were not idle, they had extended themselves along the mountains that run parallel to the Arabian Gulf; which was in all times called Saba, or Azabo, both which signify South, not because Saba was south of Jerusalem, but because it was on the south coast of the Arabian Gulf, and, from Arabia and Egypt, was the first land to the southward which bounded the African Continent, then richer, more important, and better known, than the rest of the world. By that acquisition, they enjoyed all the perfumes and aromatics in the east, myrrh, and frankincense, and cassia; all which grow spontaneously in that stripe of ground, from the Bay of Bilur west of Azab, to Cape Gardefan, and then southward up in the Indian Ocean, to near the coast of Melinda, where there is cinnamon, but of an inferior kind.

Arabia probably had not then set itself up as a rival to this side of the Red Sea, nor had it introduced from Abyssinia the myrrh and frankincense, as it did afterwards, for there is no doubt that the principal mart, and growth of these gums, were always near Saba. Upon the consumption increasing, they, however, were transplanted thence into Arabia, where the myrrh has not succeeded.

The Troglodyte extended himself still farther south. As an astronomer, he was to disengage himself from the tropical rains and cloudy skies that hindered his correspondent observations with his countrymen at Meroë and Thebes. As he advanced within the southern tropic, he, however, still found rains, and made his houses such as the fears of a deluge had instructed him to do. He found there solid and high mountains, in a fine climate; but, luckier than his countrymen to the northward, he found gold and silver in large quantities, which determined his occupation, and made the riches and consequence of his country. In these mountains, called the Mountains of Sofala, large quantities of both metals were discovered in their pure unmixed state, lying in globules without alloy, or any necessity of preparation or separation.

The balance of trade, so long against the Arabian and African continents, turned now in their favour from the immense influx of these precious metals, found in the mountains of Sofala, just on the verge of the southern tropical rains.

Gold and silver had been fixed upon in India as proper returns for their manufactures and produce. It is impossible to say whether it was from their hardness or beauty, or what other reason governed the mind of man in making this standard of barter. The history of the particular transactions of those times is lost, if, indeed, there ever was such history, and, therefore, all further inquiries are in vain. The choice, it seems, was a proper one, since it has continued unaltered so many ages in India, and has been universally adopted by all nations pretty much in the proportion or value as in India, into which continent gold and silver, from this very early period, began to flow, have continued so to do to this day, and in all probability will do to the end of time. What has become of that immense quantity of bullion, how it is consumed, or where it is deposited, and which way, if ever it returns, are doubts which I never yet found a person that could satisfactorily solve.

The Cushite then inhabited the mountains, whilst the northern colonies advanced from Meroë to Thebes, busy and intent upon the improvement of architecture, and building of towns, which they began to substitute for their caves; they thus became traders, farmers, artificers of all kinds, and even practical astronomers, from having a meridian night and day free from clouds, for such was that of the Thebaid. As this was impossible to their brethren, and six months continual rain confined them to these caves, we cannot doubt but that their sedentary life made them useful in reducing the many observations daily made by those of their countrymen who lived under a purer sky. Letters too, at least one sort of them, and arithmetical characters, we are told, were invented by this middle part of the Cushites, while trade and astronomy, the natural history of the winds and seasons, were what necessarily employed the part of the colony established at Sofala most to the southward.

The very nature of the Cushites commerce, the collecting of gold, the gathering and preparing his spices, necessarily fixed him perpetually at home; but his profit lay in the dispersing of these spices through the continent, otherwise his mines, and the trade produced by the possession of them, were to him of little avail.

A carrier was absolutely necessary to the Cushite, and Providence had provided him one in a nation which were his neighbours. These were in most respects different, as they had long hair, European features, very dusky and dark complexion, but nothing like the black-moor or negro; they lived in plains, having moveable huts or habitations, attended their numerous cattle, and wandered from the necessities and particular circumstances of their country. These people were in the Hebrew called Phut, and, in all other languages, Shepherds; they are so still, for they still exist; they subsist by the same occupation, never had another, and therefore cannot be mistaken; they are called Balous, Bagla, Belowee, Berberi, Barabra, Zilla and Habab223, which all signify but one thing, namely that of Shepherd. From their place of habitation, the territory has been called Barbaria by the Greeks and Romans, from Berber, in the original signifying shepherd. The authors that speak of the Shepherds seem to know little of those of the Thebaid, and still less of those of Ethiopia, whilst they fall immediately upon the shepherds of the Delta, that they may get the sooner rid of them, and thrust them into Assyria, Palestine, and Arabia. They never say what their origin was; how they came to be so powerful; what was their occupation; or, properly, the land they inhabited; or what is become of them now, though they seem inclined to think the race extinct.

The whole employment of the shepherds had been the dispersing of the Arabian and African goods all over the continent; they had, by that employment, risen to be a great people: as that trade increased, their quantity of cattle increased also, and consequently their numbers, and the extent of their territory.

Upon looking at the map, the reader will see a chain of mountains which I have described, and which run in a high ridge nearly straight north, along the Indian Ocean, in a direction parallel to the coast, where they end at Cape Gardefan. They then take the direction of the coast, and run west from Cape Gardefan to the Straits of Babelmandeb, inclosing the frankincense and myrrh country, which extends considerably to the west of Azab. From Babelmandeb they run northward, parallel to the Red Sea, till they end in the sandy plain at the Isthmus of Suez, a name probably derived from Suah, Shepherds.

Although this stripe of land along the Indian Ocean, and afterwards along the Red Sea, was necessary to the shepherds, because they carried their merchandise to the ports there, and thence to Thebes and Memphis upon the Nile, yet the principal seat of their residence and power was that flat part of Africa between the northern tropic and the mountains of Abyssinia. This is divided into various districts; it reaches from Masuah along the sea-coast to Suakem, then turns westward, and continues in that direction, having the Nile on the south, the tropic on the north, to the deserts of Selima, and the confines of Libya on the west. This large extent of country is called Beja. The next is that district224 in form of a shield, as Meroë is said to have been; this name was given it by Cambyses. It is between the Nile and Astaboras, and is now called Atbara. Between the river Mareb, the ancient Astusaspes on the east, and Atbara on the west, is the small plain territory of Derkin, another district of the shepherds. All that range of mountains running east and west, inclosing Derkin and Atbara on the south, and which begins the mountainous country of Abyssinia, is inhabited by the negro woolly-headed Cushite, or Shangalla, living as formerly in caves, who, from having been the most cultivated and instructed people in the world, have, by a strange reverse of fortune, relapsed into brutal ignorance, and are hunted by their neighbours like wild beasts in those forests, where they used to reign in the utmost luxury, liberty, and splendour. But the noblest, and most warlike of all the shepherds, were those that inhabited the mountains of the Habab, a considerable ridge reaching from the neighbourhood of Masuah to Suakem, and who, still dwell there.

In the ancient language of this country, So, or Suah, signified shepherd, or shepherds; though we do not know any particular rank or degrees among them, yet we may suppose these called simply shepherds were the common sort that attended the flocks. Another denomination, part of them bore, was Hycsos, sounded by us Agsos, which signifies armed shepherds, or such as wore harness, which may be supposed the soldiers, or armed force of that nation. The third we see mentioned is Ag-ag, which is thought to be the nobles or chiefs of those armed shepherds, whence came their title King of Kings225. The plural of this is Agagi, or, as it is written in the Ethiopic, Agaazi.

This term has very much puzzled both Scaliger and Ludolf; for, finding in the Abyssinian books that they are called Agaazi, they torment themselves about finding the etymology of that word. They imagine them to be Arabs from near the Red Sea, and Mr Ludolf226 thinks the term signifies banished men. Scaliger, too, has various guesses about them nearly to the same import. All this, however, is without foundation; the people assert themselves at this day to be Agaazi, that is, a race of Shepherds inhabiting the mountains of the Habab, and have by degrees extended themselves through the whole province of Tigré, whose capital is called Axum, from Ag and Suah, the metropolis, or principal city of the shepherds that wore arms.

Nothing was more opposite than the manners and life of the Cushite, and his carrier the shepherd. The first, though he had forsaken his caves, and now lived in cities which he had built, was necessarily confined at home by his commerce, amassing gold, arranging the invoices of his spices, hunting in the season to provide himself with ivory, and food throughout the winter. His mountains, and the cities he built afterwards, were situated upon a loomy, black earth, so that as soon as the tropical rains began to fall, a wonderful phænomenon deprived him of his cattle. Large swarms of flies appeared wherever that loomy earth was, which made him absolutely dependent in this respect upon the shepherd, but this affected the shepherd also.

This insect is called Zimb; it has not been described by any naturalist. It is in size very little larger than a bee, of a thicker proportion, and his wings, which are broader than those of a bee, placed separate like those of a fly; they are of pure gauze, without colour or spot upon them; the head is large, the upper jaw or lip is sharp, and has at the end of it a strong-pointed hair of about a quarter of an inch long; the lower jaw has two of these pointed hairs, and this pencil of hairs, when joined together, makes a resistance to the finger nearly equal to that of a strong hog’s bristle. Its legs are serrated in the inside, and the whole covered with brown hair or down. As soon as this plague appears, and their buzzing is heard, all the cattle forsake their food, and run wildly about the plain, till they die, worn out with fatigue, fright, and hunger. No remedy remains, but to leave the black earth, and hasten down to the sands of Atbara, and there they remain while the rains last, this cruel enemy never daring to pursue them farther.

What enables the shepherd to perform the long and toilsome journies across Africa is the camel, emphatically called by the Arabs, the ship of the desert. He seems to have been created for this very trade, endued with parts and qualities adapted to the office he is employed to discharge. The driest thistle, and the barest thorn, is all the food this useful quadruped requires, and even these, to save time, he eats while advancing on his journey, without stopping, or occasioning a moment of delay. As it is his lot to cross immense deserts, where no water is found, and countries not even moistened by the dew of heaven, he is endued with the power at one watering-place to lay in a store, with which he supplies himself for thirty days to come. To contain this enormous quantity of fluid, Nature has formed large cisterns within him, from which, once filled, he draws at pleasure the quantity he wants, and pours it into his stomach with the same effect as if he then drew it from a spring, and with this he travels, patiently and vigorously, all day long, carrying a prodigious load upon him, through countries infected with poisonous winds, and glowing with parching and never-cooling sands. Though his size is immense, as is his strength, and his body covered with a thick skin, defended with strong hair, yet still he is not capable to sustain the violent punctures the fly makes with his pointed proboscis. He must lose no time in removing to the sands of Atbara; for, when once attacked by this fly, his body, head, and legs break out into large bosses, which swell, break, and putrify, to the certain destruction of the creature.

Even the elephant and rhinoceros, who, by reason of their enormous bulk, and the vast quantity of food and water they daily need, cannot shift to desert and dry places as the season may require, are obliged to roll themselves in mud and mire, which, when dry, coats them over like armour, and enables them to stand their ground against this winged assassin; yet I have found some of these tubercles upon almost every elephant and rhinoceros that I have seen, and attribute them to this cause.

All the inhabitants of the sea-coast of Melinda, down to Cape Gardefan, to Saba, and the south coast of the Red Sea, are obliged to put themselves in motion, and remove to the next sand in the beginning of the rainy season, to prevent all their stock of cattle from being destroyed. This is not a partial emigration; the inhabitants of all the countries from the mountains of Abyssinia northward, to the confluence of the Nile and Astaboras, are once a-year obliged to change their abode, and seek protection in the sands of Beja; nor is there any alternative, or means of avoiding this, though a hostile band was in their way, capable of spoiling them of half their substance; and this is now actually the case, as we shall see when we come to speak of Sennaar.

Of all those that have written upon these countries, the prophet Isaiah alone has given an account of this animal, and the manner of its operation. Isa. vii. ch. 18. and 19. ver. “And it shall come to pass, in that day, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt,”—“And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate vallies227, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.”

The mountains that I have already spoken of, as running through the country of the Shepherds, divide the seasons by a line drawn along their summit, so exactly, that, while the eastern side, towards the Red Sea, is deluged with rain for the six months that constitute our winter in Europe, the western side toward Atbara enjoys a perpetual sun, and active vegetation. Again, the six months, when it is our summer in Europe, Atbara, or the western side of these mountains, is constantly covered with clouds and rain, while, for the same time, the shepherd on the eastern side, towards the Red Sea, feeds his flocks in the most exuberant foliage and luxuriant verdure, enjoying the fair weather, free from the fly or any other molestation. These great advantages have very naturally occasioned these countries of Atbara and Beja to be the principal residence of the shepherd and his cattle, and have entailed upon him the necessity of a perpetual change of places. Yet so little is this inconvenience, so short the peregrination, that, from the rain on the west side, a man, in the space of four hours, will change to the opposite season, and find himself in sun-shine to the eastward.

When Carthage was built, the carriage of this commercial city fell into the hands of Lehabim, or Lubim, the Libyan peasants, and became a great accession to the trade, power, and number of the shepherds. In countries to which there was no access by shipping, the end of navigation was nearly answered by the immense increase of camels; and this trade, we find, was carried on in the very earliest ages on the Arabian side, by the Ishmaelite merchants trading to Palestine and Syria, from the south end of the peninsula, with camels. This we learn particularly from Genesis, they brought myrrh and spices, or pepper, and sold them for silver; they had also balm, or balsam, but this it seems, in those days, they brought from Gilead.

We are sorry, in reading this curious anecdote preserved to us in scripture, to find, in those early ages of the India trade, that another species of commerce was closely connected with it, which modern philanthropy has branded as the disgrace of human nature. It is plain, from the passage, the commerce of selling men was then universally established. Joseph228 is bought as readily, and sold as currently immediately after, as any ox or camel could be at this day. Three nations, Javan, Tubal, and Meshech229, are mentioned as having their principal trade at Tyre in the selling of men; and, as late as St John’s time230, this is mentioned as a principal part of the trade of Babylon; notwithstanding which, no prohibition from God, or censure from the prophets, have ever stigmatized it either as irreligious or immoral; on the contrary, it is always spoken of as favourably as any species of commerce whatever. For this, and many other reasons which I could mention, I cannot think, that purchasing slaves is, in itself, either cruel or unnatural. To purchase any living creature to abuse it afterwards, is certainly both base and criminal; and the crime becomes still of a deeper dye, when our fellow-creatures come to be the sufferers. But, although this is an abuse which accidentally follow the trade, it is no necessary part of the trade itself; and, it is against this abuse the wisdom of the legislature should be directed, not against the trade itself.

On the eastern side of the peninsula of Africa, many thousand slaves are sold to Asia, perfectly in the same manner as those on the west side are sent to the West Indies; but no one, that ever I heard, has as yet opened his mouth against the sale of Africans to the East Indies; and yet there is an aggravation in this last sale of slaves that should touch us much more than the other, where no such additional grievance can be pretended. The slaves sold into Asia are most of them Christians; they are sold to Mahometans, and, with their liberty, they are certainly deprived of their religion likewise. But the treatment of the Asiatics being much more humane than what the Africans, sold to the West Indies, meet with, no clamour has yet been raised against this commerce in Asia, because its only bad consequence is apostacy; a proof to me that religion has no part in the present dispute, or, as I have said, it is the abuse that accidentally follows the purchasing of slaves, not the trade itself, that should be considered as the grievance.

It is plain from all history, that two abominable practices, the one the eating of men, the other of sacrificing them to the devil, prevailed all over Africa. The India trade, as we have seen in very early ages, first established the buying and selling of slaves; since that time, the eating of men, or sacrificing them, has so greatly decreased on the eastern side of the peninsula, that now we scarcely hear of an instance of either of these that can be properly vouched. On the western part, towards the Atlantic Ocean, where the sale of slaves began a considerable time later, after the discovery of America and the West Indies, both of these horrid practices are, as it were, general, though, I am told, less so to the northward since that event.

There is still alive a man of the name of Matthews, who was present at one of those bloody banquets on the west of Africa, to the northward of Senega. It is probable the continuation of the slave-trade would have abolished these, in time, on the west side also. Many other reasons could be alledged, did my plan permit it. But I shall content myself at present, with saying, that I very much fear that a relaxation and effeminacy of manners, rather than genuine tenderness of heart, has been the cause of this violent paroxysm of philanthropy, and of some other measures adopted of late to the discouragement of discipline, which I do not doubt will soon be felt to contribute their mite to the decay both of trade and navigation that will necessarily follow.

The Ethiopian shepherds at first carried on the trade on their own side of the Red Sea; they carried their India commodities to Thebes, likewise to the different black nations to the south-west; in return, they brought back gold, probably at a cheaper rate, because certainly by a shorter carriage than by that from Ophir.

Thebes became exceedingly rich and proud, though, by the most extensive area that ever was assigned to it, it never could be either large or populous. Thebes is not mentioned in scripture by that name; it was destroyed before the days of Moses by Salatis prince of the Agaazi, or Ethiopian shepherds; at this day it has assumed a name very like the ancient one. The first signification of its name, Medinet Tabu, I thought was the Town of our Father. This, history says, was given it by Sesostris in honour of his father; in the ancient language, its name was Ammon No. The next that presented itself was Theba, which was the Hebrew name for the Ark when Noah was ordered to build it—Thou shalt “make thee an Ark (Theba) of gopher-wood231.”

The figure of the temples in Thebes do not seem to be far removed from the idea given us of the Ark. The third conjecture is, that being the first city built and supported on pillars, and, on different and separate pieces of stone, it got its name from the architects first expression of approbation or surprise, Tabu, that it stood insulated and alone, and this seems to me to be the most conformable both to the Hebrew and Ethiopic.

The shepherds, for the most part, friends and allies of the Egyptians, or Cushite, at times were enemies to them. We need not, at this time of day, seek the cause; there are many very apparent, from opposite manners, and, above all, the difference in the dietetique regimen. The Egyptians worshipped the cow, the Shepherds killed and ate her. The Shepherds were Sabeans, worshipping the host of heaven—the sun, moon, and stars. Immediately upon the building of Thebes and the perfection of sculpture, idolatry and the grossest materialism greatly corrupted the more pure and speculative religion of the Sabeans. Soon after the building of Thebes, we see that Rachel, Abraham’s wife, had idols232; we need seek no other probable cause of the devastation that followed, than difference of religion.

Thebes was destroyed by Salatis, who overturned the first Dynasty of Cushite, or Egyptian kings, begun by Menes, in what is called the second age of the world, and founded the first Dynasty of the Shepherds, who behaved very cruelly, and wrested the lands from their first owners; and it was this Dynasty that Sesostris destroyed, after calling Thebes by his father’s name, Ammon No, making those decorations that we have seen of the harp in the sepulchres on the west, and building Diospolis on the opposite side of the river. The second conquest of Egypt by the Shepherds was that under Sabaco, by whom it has been imagined Thebes was destroyed, in the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah, who is said to have made peace with So233 king of Egypt, as the translator has called him, mistaking So for the name of the king, whereas it only denoted his quality of shepherd.

From this it is plain, all that the scripture mentions about Ammon No, applies to Diospolis on the other side of the river. Ammon No and Diospolis, though they were on different sides of the river, were considered as one city, thro’ which the Nile flowed, dividing it into two parts. This is plain from profane history, as well as from the prophet Nahum234, who describes it very exactly, if in place of the word sea was substituted river, as it ought to be.

There was a third invasion of the Shepherds after the building of Memphis, where a 235king of Egypt236 is said to have inclosed two hundred and forty thousand of them in a city called Abaris; they surrendered upon capitulation, and were banished the country into the land of Canaan. That two hundred and forty thousand men should be inclosed in one city, so as to bear a siege, seems to me extremely improbable; but be it so, all that it can mean is, that Memphis, built in Lower Egypt near the Delta, had war with the Shepherds of the Isthmus of Suez, or the districts near them, as those of Thebes had before with the Shepherds of the Thebaid. But, however much has been written upon the subject, the total expulsion of the Shepherds at any one time by any King of Egypt, or at any one place, must be fabulous, as they have remained in their ancient seats, and do remain to this day; perhaps in not so great a number as when the India trade was carried on by the Arabian Gulf, yet still in greater numbers than any other nation of the Continent.

The mountains which the Agaazi inhabit, are called Habab, from which it comes, that they themselves have got that name. Habab, in their language, and in Arabic likewise, signifies a serpent, and this I suppose explains that historical fable in the book of Axum, which says, a serpent conquered the province of Tigré, and reigned there.

It may be asked, Is there no other people that inhabit Abyssinia, but these two nations, the Cushites and the Shepherds? Are there no other nations, whiter or fairer than them, living to the southward of the Agaazi? Whence did these come? At what time, and by what name are they called? To this I answer, That there are various nations which agree with this description, who have each a particular name, and who are all known by that of Habesh, in Latin Convenæ, signifying a number of distinct people meeting accidentally in one place. The word has been greatly misunderstood, and misapplied, both by Scaliger and Ludolf, and a number of others; but nothing is more consonant to the history of the country than the translation I have given it, nor will the word itself bear any other.