sical mythology amid the Troglodytes of Ethiopia, are likely
to remain enveloped in obscurity.
5. Abyssinians, a colony from Arabia.-—Historical proofs,
■v Inquiry into the History of the Hamyarite Arabs.
It was supposed by Ludolf and by Professor Murray, that
the kingdom of Abyssinia was founded by a colony of Arabians.
This opinion receives some support from a passage of
Uranius, an ancient writer on the geography of Arabia; who
has been cited by Eustathius, by Stephanus of Byzantium,
and by 'Tzefzes. Uranius placed a people whom he termed
A£a<T7)voi or Abaseni on the coast of Arabia next to the
Sabeans, and reported that in their country myrrh and frankincense
wereproduced.*
The supposition that the Abyssins are a people of Arabian
origin has been strongly opposed by Mr. Salt, whose
opinion has been adopted by a writer of no less authority them
Professor Hitter. Mr. Salt has pointed out a variety of particulars
in the customs and: habits of the Abyssins, which
display a nearer resemblance to the manners of the aneient
Hebrews than to those of the modem Arabs. The Abyssinians
appear to retain, in many respects, the ancient
character of the Israeiitish people and even recal the state
of society which existed among the nations of Palestine,
before their primitive and nomadic habits had become modified
by conquest or by the institutions of the Mosaic law.
On this argument, supported by many striking facts, it has
been contended by Mr. Salt, that the Abyssinians are an ancient
people of Ethiopia, of kindred origin with the Arabs as
well as with the Hebrews, but not immediately derived from the
population of Yemen or of any part of the Arabian peninsula.
If we allow their full weight to all the arguments brought
forward by Mr. Salt and others in opposition to the opinion
of Ludolf, they afford no proof that Abyssinia was not colonized
from Arabia, which indeed affords the only possible
way of ingress to a Semitic people into this part of Africa.
Although the Abyssins may resemble the ancient Hebrews
in many particulars more nearly than the Arabs, of mo-
* Stephan. By zant. voce A taofjvou
dermi<apief;iit may still be Opposed,thatin all these respects
their manners amPcustoffis are equally like those,gjhthe ancient
Arabs, the children of Midian o#of' Amalek, ,or the sons
of the East-in the time of Job. If w^wem^feetter ^liain ted
with the histbfyan^ehaMctefDfthe Hofft^te^or the Arabs
of Hamyar, sQqtCre^Pturies before;,v||^ej^hristian-,^t^it •?is extremely
probable.:,that wqshould' di,s.cpvexv an^gAg £hem proof*
of near affinity t© the; AxRmit.es.,, Hamyar,;;in the, spixthern
region of the Yfpqfen,.» nearly ip.the, sitg^tion ^ h e ^ ^ r a -
nius placed the Abaseni. It l^a^th^nespsst loca^f relations to
Abyssinia. The Homejites are-meritiqpqd in t^ ie s c rip tia ^ ,^
Axum, among the nations subdued by that
eity ; but this must have been by subsequent conques^d^11-
vasions / made by the Axumites in the land of their^p^fr?;
nitors. Ptolemy places the Homeritesin the ^^lthern part of
Arabia, between the promontory ,©f , ^psidium^fojiRing.tbe
narrow;strait-of tlie Red Sea—rd <rrsva rnpftpvOpas ,0dAd<r<r>?c
-_iLHnd the “ Regio Adramitarum” or Hadramaut;* and; mentions
in their'coast a place termed “ Arabise emporium,supposed
to fbb Aden. The capital of the Hamyarit^ according
to M. Marcel, was Difhr, near Sana^a, the aneient capital
of Yemen if They profess to derive* their name and . desbent
from Hemyar, son of Saba,’great grandson of Kahtan,^ the
Joktan of the Toldoth Beni Noaleh.uThe Kahtanitc, Arabs
are, as this learned writer observes, a distinct- race from the
Koreish, who are descended from Ishmael. He says; that
z they were at first Pagans or Sabeans, then became Jews,*afterwards
Christians, and lastly, Mohammedans*?*»,These two
Arabian nations are said to have had different languages, but
it is most probable that the diversity in their idioms amounted
only to variation of dialect. According to Sale, the Hamya-’
ritic1 dialect spoken by the Kahtanite Arabs approached more
nearly to the Syriac than the idiom of the Eoreish or Isb-
• Claud. Ptolem. Geograph. lib* Vi. p. 153. ,
+ Mémoire sur les Inscriptions Koufiques recueillies en Egypte, par J. J.
Marcel. Descr. dé l’Egypte. Etàt Moderne, tom. i. p. 525.
$ Marcel ubi supra. See also the genealogical tables of the Arabs in the Preface
to Sale’s Koran. Hemyar stands in the genealogy of Kahtan, as the son of
Ahd Shems, surnamed Saha.