dued the neighbouring nations, who from being barbarous
Troglodytes became partially civilized. Even the savage Am-
haras adopted, in their southern provinces, much of the culture
of Axum, and in the course of ages became more powerful
and subverted the throne of the negush, which they transplanted
to Shoa and afterwards to Gondar.
The phenomenon of a tribe of Arabian origin, transplanted
at an early period, which we may date with great probability
at some centuries before the Christian era, into an inland
region of Africa, is interesting in a physiological point of view.
The natives .of Tigré, though Arabs by remote descent, having
yet for their vernacular speech an idiom which may be considered
as1 a Semitic dialect, have become assimilated in their
complexion- and physical characters to the native Abyssins.
It is an obvious conjecture that the resemblance of these
races in the present day may have resulted from intermixture
of stock or frequent intermarriages ; but it is perhaps
more probable that the change whichrhas taken place in the
Asiatic people who originally founded the kingdom .of the
Axumites has been the effect of their abode in am African
climate. In countries situated as are Tigré and Amhara, dear
together indeed, but separated by barriers with difficulty
passed, such as the lofty mountains of Samen, and the deep
valley of the Tacazze, itself occupied by a particular tribe
distinct from both races, the masses of population could
hardly have been intermixed in such a manner as to have
become completely blended, and to have given origin to a
third stock of intermediate physical character. Intermarriages
take place among nations living in j uxta-position and
under one government, and mixed families-are formed; but
in some parts at least of either country the original type
of each stock can hardly fail to be .preserved. That the two
races are not in fact thus intimately blended is proved by the
difference of their languages, which is still preserved, and we
may conclude, that if no other influence had interfered, the
Arabian colony in Tigré would have preserved their Asiatic
'character of person with as much constancy as they have
maintained the purity, or at least the distinctness of their
speech.
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