hum braneo exangue y sem nenhuna graga.” Their ordinary
colours are black, brown, and olive, and this is what
they mostv esteem.i Others-arc red|||| vermilliotil Others
white, but their whiteness is exsangueous and without any
beauty.”
A question which here presents itself is, whether differences
of complexion exist among the Abyssinians bearing
any relation to climate or the elevation of countries.
The low and hot tracts which extend round Abyssinia to
the west and north-west, covered with forests, and containing
the plants and animals of tropical climates, are inhabited,
as we have already observed, by Shangalla Negroes. To the
eastward the low countries are occupied by Hazorta br Shiho,
who are almost equally black, though not woolly-haired like
the Negroes. The physical characters of these races will be
described in a following section.
Dixan, although situated at a considerable elevation above
the coast, is a comparatively low region, governed by the
Bahamegash. Mr. Salt informs us that the people here *are
of very dark hue, few of them having any claim to the term of
copper-coloured, which Mr. Bruce bestowed on them. This
remark Mr. Salt expressly applies to the inhabitants of all
the lower parts of Abyssinia which he had traversed previously
to his arrival at Dixan.*
Father Tellez reported that the natives of the high region
of Narea or Enarea are allowed by the Abyssinians themselves
to excel all the other people of the empire, as^well in
physical as in moral qualities,i* Mr. Bruce declares “ that
the Nareans of the high country are the lightest in complexion
of any people in ^Abyssinia.” He adds, that “.those
who live by the borders of the marshes below are perfect
blacks, and have the features and wool of Negroes, whereas
all the people in the high country of Narea, and still more
so in the stupendous mountains of Kaffa, are not so dark as
Neapolitans or Sicilians.”^ Brace-makes a parallel observation
respecting the tribes of Galla, who will be described in
the sequel.
* Lord Valentia’s Travels, vol. ii. ' + P. Tellez, cited by Ludolf.
{ Bruce’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 313.
I shall leave my readers, to draw their, own inferences from
these;-fact$Mfr.f
S e c t io n \Y .—Observations on the History of the Abys-
sinians, and their different Rades and Languages.
If 1. Of the Gheez,■ or Ethiopia, £$be Amharic and the
other' languages of Abyssinia.
It is well known that the^Gkeez- pr Ethiopic language, the
idiom off the* so termed Ethiopic version pferthe .Scriptures,
and the other books which constitute the literature pf Abysr
sinia, is a Semitic dialect: akin to the Arabic and Hebrew.
There is no reason to doubt, that the; peopley^or .whose, .use
these books were written, and. whose?.vernacular ..language
was the Gheez/were a Semitic ;racej";. How, and at what
era the highlands of Abyssinia came to -he inhabited by
a Semitic people, and what relation the modern Abyssinians
bear to the family of nations, of which that people were a
branch, are questions of too much importance, in African
ethnography to be passed by without examination.-'
Gheez was the language of Axum, and the subjects»of the
.^.xumite sovereign at the period of their conversion to .Christianity.
Frumentius, the apostle of Abyssinia, was consecrated.
bishop by Athanasius of Alexandria, and begam the work of
converting the.Abyssins to the Christian faith soon after the
335th year of our era. It may be concluded that there was
at that period a flourishing and powerful,kingdom ip Habesh,
the people being of Semitic origin.’
The genuine Gheez is now extant merely;as a dead lan-
’ guage, consecrated to literature and religious uses;, it is no
longer the national idiom of Abyssinia; the revolution in
consequence of which it ceased to be. such, is el early ^ traced
in the annals of the empire, which»: up to that period, and
perhaps for some time beyond it, are generally thought worthy
of credit.
The .old royal. family which reigned at Axum, at the era
of the conversion of the people, was, several hundred years