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 mutila-
ted
