376 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



the Red Sea, and divers communications to the north- 

 ward. 



Neither their luxuries nor neceffaries were the fame 

 as thofe of Europe. And indeed Europe, at this time, was 

 probably inhabited by ihepherds, hunters, and fifhers, who 

 had no luxury at all, or fuch as could not be fupplied from 

 India ; they lived in woods and marfhes, with the animals 

 which made their fport, food, and cloathing. 



The inhabitants of Africa then, this vaft Continent, were to 

 be fupplied with the neceffaries, as well as the luxuries of 

 life, but they had neither the articles Arabia wanted, nor 

 thofe required in India, at leaft, for a time they thought 

 fo ; and fo long they were not a trading people. 



It is a tradition among the AbyiTinians, which they fay 

 they have had from time immemorial, and which is equally 

 received among the Jews and Chriftians, that almoft imme- 

 diately after the flood, Cufh, grandfon of Noah, with his 

 family, pairing through Atbara from the low country of 

 Egypt, then without inhabitants, came to the ridge of 

 mountains which ftill feparates the flat country of Atbara 

 from the more mountainous high-land of Abyiiinia. 



By calling his eye upon the map, the reader will fee a 

 chain of mountains, beginning at the Ifhhmus of Suez, that 

 runs all along like a wall, about forty miles from the Red 

 Sea, till it divides in lat. 1 3 , into two branches. The one 

 goes along the northern frontiers of Abyflinia, crofTes the 

 Nile, and then proceeds weftward, through Africa towards 

 the Atlantic Ocean. The other branch goes fouthward, and 



then 



