Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 1/Book 2/Chapter 2

by James Bruce

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 fouth. 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 impossi ble 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 Habab *^[1] 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 Tbebaid, 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 weft from Cape Gardefan to the Straits of Babelmandeb, inclosing the frankincense and myrrh country, which extends considerably to the weft 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-coaft 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 district *^[2] 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 weft, is the small plain territory of Derkin, another diftrict 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 Kings *^[3]. 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 Ludolf †^[4] 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 eity 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 resistence to the finger nearly equal to that of a strong hog's bristle. Its legs are serratcd in the inside, and the whole covered with brown hair or down. As soon as this plague appears, and their buzzing is heard, ail 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 moistencd 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 tubercules 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 vallies *^[5], 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 towards 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. Joseph *^[6] 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 Meshech †^[7], are mentioned as having their principal trade at Tyre in the selling of men; and, as late as St John's time ‡^[8], 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 like-wise. 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 Weft 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-wood *^[9]."

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 idols †^[10]; 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 So *^[11] 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 Nahum †^[12], 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 ‡^[13] king of Egypt § ^[14] 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 Tigre, 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.

The Chronicle of Axum, the most ancient repository of the antiquities of that country, a book esteemed, I shall not say how properly, as the first in authority after the holy scriptures, says, that between the creation of the world and the birth of our Saviour there were 5500 years *^[15]; that Abyssinia had never been inhabited till 1808 years before Christ *^[16]; and 200 years after that, which was in the 1600, it was laid waste by a flood, the face of the country much changed and deformed, so that it was denominated at that time Ourè Midre, or, the country laid waste, or, as it is called in scripture itself, a land which the waters or floods had spoiled ‡^[17]; that about the 1400 year before Christ it was taken possession of by a variety of people speaking different languages, who, as they were in friendship with the Agaazi, or Shepherds, possessing the high country of Tigrè, came and sat down beside them in a peaceable manner, each occupying the lands that were before him. This settlement is what the Chronicle of Axum calls Angaba, the entry and establishment of these nations, which finished the peopling of Abyssinia .

Tradition further says, that they came from Palestine. All this seems to me to wear the face of truth. Some time after the year 1500, we know there happened a flood which occasioned great devastation. Pausanius says, that this flood happened in Ethiopia in the reign of Cecrops; and, about the 1490 before Christ, the Israelites entered the land of promise, under Caleb and Joshua. We are not to wonder at the great impression that invasion made upon the minds of the inhabitants of Palestine. We see by the history of the harlot, that the different nations had been long informed by prophecies, current and credited among themselves, that they were to be extirpated before the face of the Israelites who for some time had been hovering about their frontiers. But now when Joshua had passed the Jordan, after having miraculously dried up the river *^[18] before his army had invaded Canaan, and had taken and destroyed Jericho, a panic seized the whole people of Syria and Palestine.

These petty states, many in number, and who had all different languages, seeing a conqueror with an immense army already in possession of part of their country, and who did not conduct himself according to the laws of other conquerors, but put the vanquished under saws and harrows of iron, and destroyed the men, women, and children; and sometimes even the cattle, by the sword, no longer could think of waiting the arrival of such an enemy, but sought for safety by speedy flight or emigration. The Shepherds in Abyssinia and Atbara were the most natural refuge these fugitives could seek; commerce must have long made them acquainted with each others manners, and they must have been already entitled to the rights of hospitality by having often passed through each other's country.

Procopius*^[19] mentions that two pillars were standing in his time on the coast of Mauritania, opposite to Gibraltar, upon which were inscriptions in the Phoenician tongue: "We are Canaanites, flying from the face of Joshua, the son of Nun, the robber:" A character they naturally gave him from the ferocity and violence of his manners. Now, if what these inscriptions contain is true, it is much more credible, that the different nations, emigrating at that time, should seek their safety near hand among their friends, rather than go to an immense distance to Mauritania, to risk a precarious reception among strangers, and perhaps that country not yet inhabited.

Upon viewing the several countries in which these nations have their settlements, it seems evident they were made by mutual consent, and in peace; they are not separated from each other by chains of mountains, or large and rapid rivers, but generally by small brooks, dry the greatest part of the year; by hillocks, or small mounds of earth, or imaginary lines traced to the top of some mountain at a distance; these boundaries have never been disputed or altered, but remain upon the old tradition to this day. These have all different languages, as we see from scripture all the petty states of Palestine had, but they have no letters, or written character, but the Geez, the character (Amharic characters) <iee?

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■PgvJ,:: AA: tftiVfc: th TiM- W^: Pdtf/>*: fitfAi; of the Cushite shepherd by whom they were first invented and used, as we shall see hereafter. I may add in further proof of their origin, that the curse *^[20]of Canaan seems to have followed them, they have obtained no principality, but served the kings of the Agaazi or Shepherds, have been hewers of wood and drawers of water, and so they still continue.

The first and most considerable of these nations settled in a province called Amhara; it was, at first coming, as little known as the others; but, upon a revolution in the country, the king fled to that province, and there the court staid many years, so that the Geez, or language of the Shepherds, was dropt, and retained only in writing, and as a dead language; the sacred scriptures being in that language only, saved the Geez from going totally into disuse. The second were the Agows of Damot, one of the southern provinces of Abyssinia, where they are settled immediately upon the sources of the Nile. The third are the Agows of Lasta, or Tcheratz Agow, from Tchera, their principal habitation; theirs too is a separate language; they are Troglodytes that live in caverns, and seem to pay nearly the same worship to the Siris, or Tacazzè, that those of Damot pay to the Nile.

I take the old names of these two last-mentioned nations, to be sunk in the circumstances of this their new settlement, and to be a compound of two words Ag-oha, the Shepherds of the River, and I also imagine, that the idolatry they introduced in the worship of the Nile, is a further proof that they came from Canaan, where they imbibed materialism in place of the pure Sabean worship of the Shepherds, then the only religion of this part of Africa.

The fourth is a nation bordering upon the southern banks of the Nile near Damot. It calls itself Gafat, which signifies oppressed by violence,torn, expelled, or chaced away by force. If we were to follow the idea arising merely from this name, we might be led to imagine, that these were part of the tribes torn from Solomon's son and successor, Rehoboam. This, however, we cannot do consistent with the faith to be kept by a historian with his reader. The evidence of the people themselves, and the tradition of the country, deny they ever were Jews, or ever concerned with that colony, brought with Menilek and the queen of Saba, which established the Jewish hierarchy. They declare, that they are now Pagans, and ever were so; that they are partakers with their neighbours the Agows in the worship of the river Nile, the extent or particulars of which I cannot pretend to explain. — The fifth is a tribe, which, if we were to pay any attention to similarity of names, we should be apt to imagine we had found here in Africa a part of that great Gaulish nation so widely extended in Europe and Asia. A comparison of their languages, with what we know exists of the former, cannot but be very curious. — These are the Galla, the most considerable of these nations, specimens of whose language I have cited. This word, in their own language, signifies Shepherd*^[21]; they say that for merly they lived on the borders of the southern rains, within the southern tropic; and that, like these in Atbara, they were carriers between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, and supplied the interior part of the peninsula with Indian commodities.

The history of this trade is unknown; it must have been little less ancient, and nearly as extensive, as the trade to Egypt and Arabia. It probably suffered diminution, when the mines of Sofala were given up, soon after the discovery of the new world. The Portuguese found it still flourishing, when they made their first conquests upon that coast; and they carry it on still in an obscure manner, but in the same tract to their settlements near Cape Negro on the western ocean. From these settlements would be the proper place to begin to explore the interior parts of the peninsula, on both sides of the southern tropic, as protection and assistance could probably be got through the whole course of it, and very little skill in language would be necessary.

When no employment was found for this multitude of men and cattle, they left their homes, and proceeding northward, they found themselves involved near the Line, in rainy, cold, and cloudy weather, where they scarcely ever saw the sun. Impatient of such a climate, they advanced still farther, till about the year 1537, they appeared in great numbers in the province of Bali, abandoning the care of camels for the breeding of horses. At present they are all cavalry. I avoid to say more of them in this place, as I shall be obliged to make frequent mention of them in the course of my narrative. The Falasha, too, are a people of Abyssinia, having a particular language of their own; a specimen of which I have also published, as the history of the people seems to be curious. I do not, however, mean to say of them, more than of the Galla, that this was any part of those nations who fled from Palestine on the invasion of Joshua. For they are now, and ever were, Jews, and have traditions of their own as to their origin, and what reduced them to the present state of separation, as we shall fee hereafter, when I come to speak of the translation of the holy scripture.

In order to gratify such as are curious in the study and history of language, I, with great pains and difficulty, got the whole book of the Canticles translated into each of these languages, by priests esteemed the most versant in the language of each nation. As this barbarous polyglot is of too large a size to print, I have contented myself with copying six verses of the first chapter in each language; but the whole book is at the service of any person of learning that will bestow his time in studying it, and, for this purpose, I left it in the British Museum, under the direction of Sir Joseph Banks, and the Bishop of Carlisle.

These Convenæ, as we have observed, were called Habesh, a number of distinct nations meeting in one place. Scripture has given them a name, which, though it has been ill translated, is precisely Convenæ, both in the Ethiopic and Hebrew. Our English translation calls them the mingled people*^[22], whereas it should be the separate nations, who, though met and settled together, did not mingle, which is strictly Convenæ. The inhabitants then who possessed Abyssinia, from its southern boundary to the tropic of Cancer, or frontiers of Egypt, were the Cushites, or polished people, living in towns, first Troglodytes, having their habitations in caves. The next were the Shepherds; after these were the nations who, as we apprehend, came from Palestine — Amhara, Agow of Damot, Agow of Tchera, and Gafat.

Interpreters, much less acquainted with the historical circumstances of these countries than the prophets, have, either from ignorance or inattention, occasioned an obscurity which otherwise did not arise from the text. All these people are alluded to in scripture by descriptions that cannot be mistaken. If they have occasioned doubts or difficulties, they are all to be laid at the door of the translators, chiefly the Septuagint. When Moses returned with his wife Zipporah, daughter of the sovereign of the Shepherds of Midian, carriers of the India trade from Saba into Palestine, and established near their principal mart Edom, in Idumea or Arabia, Aaron, and Miriam his sister, quarrelled with Moses, because he had married one who was, as the translator says, an Ethiopian *^[23]. There is no sense in this cause; Moses was a fugitive when he married Zipporah; she was a noble-woman, daughter of the priest of Midian, head of a people. She likewise, as it would seem, was a Jewess †^[24], and more attentive, at that time, to the preservation of the precepts of the law, than Moses was himself; no exception, then, could lie against Zipporah, as she was surely, in every view, Moses's superior. But if the translator had rendered it, that Aaron and Miriam had quarrelled with Moses, because he had married a negro, or black-moor, the reproach was evident; whatever intrinsic merit Zipporah might have been found to have possessed afterwards, she must have appeared before the people, at first sight, as a strange woman, or Gentile, whom it was prohibited to marry. Besides, the innate deformity of the complexion, negroes were, at all times, rather coveted for companions of men of luxury or pleasure, than sought after for wives of sober legislators, and governors of a people.

The next instance I shall give is, Zerah of Gerar *^[25], who came out to fight Asa king of Israel with an army of a million of men, and three hundred chariots, whilst both the quarrel and the decision are represented as immediate.

Gerar was a small district, producing only the Acacia or gum-arabic trees, from which it had its name; it had no water but what came from a few wells, part of which had been dug by Abraham †^[26], after much strife with the people of the country, who sought to deprive him of them, as of a treasure.

Abraham and his brother Lot returning from Egypt, though poor shepherds, could not subsist there for want of food, and water, and they separated accordingly, by consent ‡^[27]. Now it must be confessed, as it is not pretended there was any miracle here, that there is not a more unlikely tale in all Herodotus, than this must be allowed to be upon the footing of the translation. The translator calls Zerah an Ethiopian, which should either mean he dwelt in Arabia, as he really did, and this gave him no advantage, or else that he was a stranger, who originally came from the country above Egypt; and, either way, it would have been impossible, during his whole life-time, to have collected a million of men, one of the greatest armies that ever stood upon the face of the earth, nor could he have fed them though they had ate the whole trees that grew in his country, nor could he have given every hundredth man one drink of water in a day from all the wells he had in his country. .

Here, then, is an obvious triumph for infidelity, because, as I have said, no supernatural means are pretended. But had it been translated, that Zerah was a black-moor, a Cushite-negro, and prince of the Cushites, that were carriers in the Isthmus, an Ethiopian shepherd, then the wonder ceased. Twenty camels, employed to carry couriers upon them, might have procured that number of men to meet in a short space of time, and, as Zerah was the aggressor, he had time to choose when he should attack his enemy; every one of these shepherds carrying with them their provision of flour and water, as is their invariable custom, might have fought with Asa at Gerar, without eating a loaf of Zerah's bread, or drinking a pint of his water.

The next passage I shall mention is the following: "The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia, and of the "Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine *^[28]." Here the several nations are distinctly and separately mentioned in their places, but the whole meaning of the passage would have been lost, had not the situation of these nations been perfectly known; or, had not the Sabeans been mentioned separately, for both the Sabeans and the Cushite were certainly Ethiopians. Now, the meaning of the verse is, that the fruit of the agriculture of Egypt, which is wheat, the commodities of the negro, gold, silver, ivory, and perfumes, would be brought by the Sabean shepherds, their carriers, a nation of great power, which should join themselves with you.

Again, Ezekiel says, †^[29] "And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have set a fire in Egypt, and when all her helpers shall be destroyed." — "In that day shall messengers go forth from me in ships, to make the careless Ethiopians afraid." Now, Nebuchadnezzar was to destroy Egypt ‡^[30], from the frontiers of Palestine, to the mountains above Atbara, where the Cushite dwelt. Between this and Egypt is a great desert; the country beyond it, and on both sides, was possessed by half a million of men. The Cushite, or negro merchant, was secure under these circumstances from any insult by land, but they were open to the sea, and had no defender, and messengers, therefore, in ships or a fleet had easy access to them, to alarm and keep them at home, that they did not fall into danger by marching into Egypt against Nebuchadnezzar, or interrupting the service upon which God had sent him. But this does not appear from transla ting Cush, Ethiopian; the nearest Ethiopian to Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful and capable of opposing him, were the Ethiopian shepherds of the Thebaid, and these were not accessible to ships; and the shepherds, so posted near to the scene of destruction to be committed by Nebuchadnezzar, were enemies to the Cushites living in towns, and they had repeatedly themselves destroyed them, and therefore had no temptation to be other than spectators.

In several other places, the same prophet speaks of Cush as the commercial nation, sympathising with their countrymen dwelling in the towns in Egypt, independent of the shepherds, who were really their enemies, both in civil and religious matters. "And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt *^[31]." Now Ethiopia, as I have before said, that is, the low country of the shepherds, nearest Egypt, had no common cause with the Cushites that lived in towns there; it was their countrymen, the Cushites in Ethiopia, who mourned for those that fell in Egypt, who were merchants, traders, and dwelt in cities like themselves.

I shall mention but one instance more: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? †^[32]" Here Cush is rendered Ethiopian, and many Ethiopians being white, it does not appear why they should be fixed upon, or chosen for the question more than other people. But had Cush been translated Negro, or Black-moor, the question would have been very easily understood, Can the negro change his skin, or the leopard his spots ?

Jeremiah *^[33] speaks of the chiefs of the mingled people that dwell in the deserts. And Ezekiel †^[34] also mentions them independent of all the others, whether Shepherds, or Cushites, or Libyans their neighbours, by the name of the Mingled People. Isaiah ‡^[35] calls them "a nation scattered and peeled; a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled:" which is a sufficient description of them, as having been expelled their own country, and settled in one that had suffered greatly by a deluge a short time before.

 

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1. * It is very probable, some of these words signified different degrees among them, as we shall see in the sequel.
2. Diod. Sic. lib. I. cap.
3. * This was the name of the king of Amalek; he was an Arab shepherd, slain by Samuel, 1 Sam. xv. 33.
4. † Ludolf lib. 1 cap. 4.
5. * That is, they shall cut off from the cattle their usual retreat to the desert, by taking possession of those places, and meeting them there where ordinarily they never come, and which therefore re the refuge of the cattle.
6. * Gen. chap, xxxvii. ver. 25. 28.
7. † Ezek. chap, xxvii. ver. 13.
8. ‡ Rev. chap. xviii. ver. 13.
9. * Gen. vi. 14.
10. † Gen. xxxv. 4.
11. * 2 Kings, xvii. 4.
12. * † Nahum, chap. iii. 8.
13. ‡ Misphragmuthosis.
14. § Manethon, Apud. Josephum Apion. lib. I. p. 460.
15. * Eight years less than the Greeks and other followers of the Septuagint.
16. * Eight years less than the Greeks and other followers of the Septuagint.
17. ‡ Isaiah, chap. xviii. ver. 2.
18. * Joshua, iii. 16.
19. * Procop. de bello vind. lib. 2. cap. 10. * A Moorish author, Ibn el Raquique, says, this inscription was on a stone on a mountain at Carthage. Marmol. lib. I. cap. 25.
20. * Gen. ix, 25, 26, and 27. verses.
21. * These people likewise call themselves Agaazi, or Agagi, they have over-run the kingdom of Congo south of the Line, and on the Atlantic Ocean, as the Galla have done that part of the kingdom of Add and Abyssinia, on the Eastern, or Indian Ocean. Purch. lib. ii. chap. 4. Sect. 8.
22. Jerem. chap, xiii. ver. 23.— id. xxv. 24.— Ezek. chap. xxx. ver. 5.
23. * Numb. chap. xii. ver. I.
24. † Exod. chap. iv. ver. 25.
25. *2 Chron. chap. xiv. ver. 9.
26. *† Gen chap. 21. ver. 30.
27. ‡ Gen. chap. 13 ver. 6. and 9.
28. * Isa. chap. xlv. ver. 14.
29. † Ezek. chap. xxx. ver. 8.
30. ‡ Ezek. chap. xxix. ver. 10
31. Ezek. chap. xxx. ver. 4.
32. † Jerem. chap. xiii. ver. 23.
33. * Jerem. chap. xxv. ver. 24.
34. † Ezek. chap. xsx. ver. 5.
35. ‡ Isa. chap. xviii. ver. 2.