Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/270

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248
TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

CHAP. X.

Geographical Division of Abyssinia into Provinces.

At Masuah, that is, on the coast of the Red Sea, begins an imaginary division of Abyssinia into two, which is rather a division of language than strictly to be understood as territorial. The first division is called Tigré, between the Red Sea and the river Tacazzé. Between that river and the Nile, westward, where it bounds the Galla, it is called Amhara.

Whatever convenience there maybe from this division, there is neither geographical nor historical precision in it, for there are many little provinces included in the first that do not belong to Tigré; and, in the second division, which is Amhara, that which gives the name is but a very small part of it.

Again,