402 A SPORTING TRIP THROUGH ABYSSINIA 



Operated in favour of the Greek inscription, which, having 

 thus wholh' escaped the destructive action of the torrential 

 rains, is in a wonderful state of preservation for a monu- 

 ment nearly sixteen centuries old. It seems a strange 

 thing that Bruce, in his account of Axum, should have 

 omitted all mention of this remarkable stone, an omission 

 on which Salt does not fail to comment, with his usual 

 unfairness to the older and more distinguished traveller. 

 Not so strange perhaps is the fact that the Jesuit fathers ^ 

 of the sixteenth century, who were acquainted with this 

 monument, should have been unable to make anything 

 of the Greek inscription, and have erroneously described 

 it as a mixture of Greek and Latin letters : for even in 

 the middle of that century a knowledge of Greek was 

 by no means a common accomplishment among the 

 Catholic clergy of Western Europe. I shall return to 

 the subject of these inscriptions at the end of this 

 chapter, when speaking of the coins found at Axum. 



In immediate proximity to the stone of Aeizanas 

 lie a number of mounds consisting of debris, which 

 would certainly repay a thorough search. In one of 

 these, so Rtippell tells us, were found a few years before 

 his arrival, and quite by chance, three slabs of limestone, 

 each about 4 ft. by i ft. 8 in. and 5 in. thick, covered 

 with more or less imperfect inscriptions in Sabaean char- 

 acters. These stones were, at his instance, removed to 

 an outhouse in the abode of one of the priests, where 

 he copied the inscriptions. 



Making our way along the foot of the eastern hill, 



1 e.g. Padre Telloz in Ludolf, p. 251. Salt inadvertently speaks of them as 

 being in Abyssinia in the fifteenth century. 



