Imatges de pàgina
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and delicate food throughout the year. For the rest, this province abounds in large fine cattle, and breeds some indifferent horses.

Upon the mountains above Maitsha is the country of the Agows; the richest province still in Abyssinia, notwithstanding the multitude of devastations it has suffered. They lie round the country above described, from Aformasha to Quaquera, where are the heads of two large rivers, the Kelti and Branti. These are called the Agows of Damot, from their nearness to that province, in contradistinction to the Agows of Lasta, who are called Tcheratz-Agow, from Tchera, a principal town, tribe, and district near Lasta and Begemder.

The Gafats, inhabiting a small district adjoining to the Galla, have also distinct languages; so have the Galla themselves, of whom we have often spoken; they are a large nation.

From Dingleber, all along the lake, below the mountains bounding Guesgue and Kuara, is called Dembea. This low province on the south of Gondar, and Woggora, the small high province on the east, are all sown with wheat, and are the granaries of Abyssinia. Dembea seems once to have been occupied entirely by the lake, and we see all over it marks that cannot be mistaken; so that this large extent of water is visibly upon the decrease: and this agrees with what is observed of stagnant pools in general, throughout the world. Dembea is called Atte-Kolla, the king's food, or maintenance; its produce being assigned for the supplying of the king's household. It is governed by an officer called Cantiba: it is a lucrative post; but he is not reckoned one of the great officers of the empire, and has no place in council.

South from Dembea is Kuara, a very mountainous province, confining upon the Pagan blacks, or Shan

galla, called Gongas and Guba, the Macrobii of the ancients. It is a very unwholesome province, but abounding in gold, not of its own produce, but that of its neighbourhood; these are Pagans-Guba, Nuba, and Shangalla. Kuara signifies the sun, and Beja (that is, Atbara, and the low parts of Sennaar, the country of the Shepherds, adjoining) signifies the moon, in the language of these Shangalla. These names are some remains of their ancient superstitions. Kuara was the native country of the Iteghe, or queen-regent, of Kasmati Eshte, Welled de l'Oul, Gueta Eusebius, and Palambaras Mammo.

In the low country of Kuara, near to Sennaar, there is a settlement of Pagan blacks called Ganjar. They are mostly cavalry, and live entirely by hunting and plundering the Arabs of Atbara and Fazuclo. Their origin is this: Upon the invasion of the Arabs, after the coming of Mahomet, the black slaves deserted from their masters, the Shepherds, and took up their habitation; where they have not considerably multiplied, otherwise than by the accession of vagrants and fugitives, whom they get from both kingdoms. They are generally under the command of the governor of Kuara, and were so when I was in Abyssinia; though they refused to follow their governor Coque Abou Barea, to fight against Michael; but whether from fear or affection, I know not; I believe the former.

The governor of Kuara is one of the great officers of state, and, being the king's lieutenant-general, has absolute power in his province, and carries sendick and nagareet. His kettle-drums are silver, and his privilege is to beat these drums even in marching through the capital, which no governor of a province is permitted to do; none but the king's nagareets, or kettle drums, being suffered to be beat there, or any where in a town where the king is; but the governor of Kuara is entitled to continue beating his drums till he

comes to the foot of the outer stair of the king's palace. This privilege, from some good behaviour of the first officer to whom the command was given, was conferred upon the post by David II., called Degami Daid, who conquered the province from the Shepherds, its old inhabitants.

Nara, and Ras el Feel, Tchelga, and on to Tcherkin, is a frontier wholly inhabited by Mahometans. Its government is generally given to a stranger, often to a Mahometan; but one of that faith is always deputy-governor. The use of keeping troops here is to defend the friendly Arabs and Shepherds, who remain in their allegiance to Abyssinia, from the resentment of the Arabs of Sennaar, their neighbours; and, by means of these friendly Arabs and Shepherds, secure a constant supply of horses for the king's troops. It is a barren stripe, of a very hot unwholesome country, full of thick woods, and fit only for hunting. The inhabitants, fugitives from all nations, are chiefly Mahometans, but very bold and expert horsemen, using no other weapon but the broad sword, with which they attack the elephant and rhinoceros.

There are many other small provinces, which occasionally are annexed, and sometimes are separated; such as Guesgue, to the eastward of Kuara; Waldubba, between the rivers Guangue and Angrab; Tzegade and Walkayt, on the west side of Weldubba ; Abergale and Salawa, in the neighbourhood of Begemder; Temben, Dobas, Giannamora, Bur, and Engana, in the neighbourhood of Tigre; and many others: Such, at least, was the state of the country in my time, very different, in all respects, from what it has been represented. As to the precedency of these provinces, we shall further speak, when we come to mention the officers of state, and internal government in this country.

CHAP. XI.

Various Customs in Abyssinia similar to those in Persia, c.-A bloody Banquet described, &c.

For the sake of regularity, I shall here notice what might clearly be inferred from what is gone before. The crown of Abyssinia is hereditary, and has always been so, in one particular family, supposed to be that of Solomon by the queen of Saba, Negesta Azab, or queen of the south. It is, nevertheless, elective in this line; and there is no law of the land, nor custom, which gives the eldest son an exclusive title to succeed to his father.

The practice has, indeed, been quite the contrary. When, at the death of a king, his sons are old enough to govern, and, by some accident, not yet sent prisoners to the mountain, then the eldest, or he that is next, and not confined, generally takes possession of the

The royal family of Abyssinia is probably sprung from that of Hamyar, or Saba, in Yemen. The Agaazi are a very ancient colony of the Hamyarites; and hence the name Assab was transferred to the African side of the gulf. We find, in the Greek writers who treat of the Sabeans in Yemen, that they had many customs which are still found in Abyssinia. Many of the Hamyarites were converted to Judaism a considerable time before the era of Christianity. E.

throne by the strength of his father's friends; but if no heir is then in the low country, the choice of the king is always according to the will of the minister, which passes for that of the people; and, his inclination and interest being to govern, he never fails to choose an infant, whom afterwards he directs, ruling the kingdom absolutely during the minority, which generally exhausts, or is equal to, the term of his life.

From that flow all the misfortunes of this unhappy country. This very defect arises from a desire to institute a more than ordinary perfect form of government; for the first position of the Abyssinians was, "Woe be to the kingdom whose king is a child!" and this they know must often happen, when succession is left to the course of nature, But when there

was a choice to be made out of two hundred persons, all of the same family, all capable of reigning, it was t their own fault, they thought, if they had not always a prince of proper age and qualification to rule the kingdom, according to the necessities of the times, and to preserve the succession of the family in the house of Solomon, agreeable to the laws of the land. And, indeed, it has been this manner of reasoning, good at first view, though found afterwards but too fallacious, which has ruined their kingdom in part, and often brought the whole into the utmost hazard and jeopardy.

The king is anointed with plain oil of olives, which, being poured upon the crown of his head, he rubs into his long hair, indecently enough, with both his hands, pretty much as his soldiers do with theirs when they get access to plenty of butter.

The crown is made in the shape of a priest's mitre, or head-piece; it is a kind of helmet, covering the king's forehead, checks, and neck. It is lined with

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