mease ponds, which ace covered with large shady trees whose
leaves never fall, and which become the resort óf elephants and
rhinoceroses, as well as of the black savages, termed Shangalla.
The latter, until the rainy season arrives, dwelltinder
trees, and prepare their food for the approaching winter, when
they retire into caves in the mountains, and pass the inclement
season in confinement, but in security.
“ The Sh^gall»,” says Mr. Bruce, “ were formerly a very
numerous people, divided into distinct tribes or nations, each
living separately in districts of their own. Their most considerable
settlement' is between the Mareb and the Tacazze.
They are accurately described by Ptolemy, who classifies
them by the varieties of their food; there are still among
them Rhizophagi, Elephantophagi, Acridophagi, Str-uthio-
phagi, and Agriophagi, people who live upon Vmpts, upon
elephants, locusts, ostriches, and other wild animals, among
which is a,beautiful species of lizard. During the fair half
of the year, when the Shangalla live under the shade of trees*,
they bend the branches downwards, and cover them with
skins of beasts. Every tree is then a house, under which
dwell a multitude of black inhabitants till the tropical tains
begin. It is then they hunt the elephant, which they kill by
various devices, as well as the rhinoceros and other large
creatures. Where water and the river-horse abound, ;they
kill them with the same industry.—^ Where the trees arè
thickest, and the water in the largest pools,. there the^molt
populous nations live, who have often defeated, the royal army
of Abyssinia. The Dobenah are the most powerful of the
Shangalla; they live near to the Tacazze, and feed upon the
elephant and the rhinoceros ; in other districts, their food is
more promiscuous; it is the flesh of buffaloes, deer, boars,
lions,.and serpents; in the valley of Waldubba is a tribe,
who live upon the crocodiles, the river-horse, and on fish, and
in the summer on locusts, which they boil and keep dry in
baskets. Ostriches, which abound upon the Mareb, as well
as lizards, are the food of the eastern Shangalla. These people
are pagans, and those tribes who are near the river worship
it and a certain tree. They are woolly-headed, and of the
deepest black, very tall and strong, and better made in their
limbs than other Negroes;, theiroforeheads are narrow, their
cheek-bones high, and their noses flat, with wide mouths and
small!.:eyes, They haveian air of ?gaiety which renders them
agreeable, and the women sell at a greater price than other
blacks.” •_
- It thus, appears, that thmurgh nearly the whole breadth of
the African continent; to-the southward of the more level countries
wafereduby the great rivers and Occupied by'^ohamme-
dan states; there are chains or m-asseS; of - -high mountains,
the sides, of whibh^as wellcas,the adjacent? valleys; abounding:
with the luxmiant.^^iEd^tionfo^U'nterfirc^ical climates, and
covered with, vasrifbrests, furnish an -abode*'to numerous tribes
of jVdolly-headed blacks, who arehriqsjfyrin the lowest stage of
barbarism., The nature |j || the country .favours* theidivi^idh’of
people into petty hordes-; OK; instated i companies,4 and
their statelet-existene|£ which is that of. b^-petualieonflicfcs
Against their/neighbours for -captivity nr mutual extermination.;
We shall observe, in a mofiC-ctact survey of particular
countries;' that where the mountains.-of intertropical Africa
risjel.or are continued into high plains, or int€Hs^ppes*of considerable
elevation, the physical charaeters. of the inhabitants
are«'generally those! which are termed Ethiopian, and the
continuity of surface being favourable . a nomadic life;
such nations, as for example the mountaineers' of - Caffa and
Enarea and the hordes termed Gal la, approximate; dH^their
habits and manner of life, to-‘the? pastoral tribes of northern
Asia. In the :Negro countries, ^properly \so-termed, thema-
tives of higher districts are observed t©;bephysically superior
to those of low and swampy valleys^ andsthere is, perhaps,
an equal difference in their manifestation of intellect and
mental vigour. In some inland countries, indeed, in Western
Africa, as in Dahome, Ashanti, and Sulimana, where the
people are still heathens, they possess so much skill in husbandry
and in some of the useful arts, but especially, in those
of war, though still displaying- all the ferocity ©£ pagans and
savages, that-many persons have been disposed to attribute
these indications im partial improvement'to soMC^external
but now scarcely discoverable* source.' • Similar -phenomena
are observed, even on a greater scale, among the tribes to the