3 9 S TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



a number of others ; but nothing is more confonant to the 

 hiftory of the country than the tranilation I have given it, 

 nor will the word itfelf bear any other. 



The Chronicle of Axum, the moll ancient repofitory of 

 the antiquities of that country, a book efteemed, I fhall not 

 fay how properly, as the firll in authority after the holy 

 fcriptures, fays, that between the creation of the world and 

 the birth of our Saviour there were 5500 years *; that A- 

 byflinia had never been inhabited till 1808 years before 

 Chrift * ; and 200 years after that, which was in the 1600, it 

 was laid wafte by a flood, the face of the country much 

 changed and deformed, fo that it was denominated at that 

 time Oure Midre, or, the country laid wafte, or, as it is called 

 in fcripturc itfelf, a land which the waters or floods had 

 fpoiled f ; that about the 1400 year before Chrift it was 

 taken poneflion of by a variety of people fpeaking different 

 languages, who, as they were in friendfhip with the Agaazi, 

 or Shepherds, poflefling the high country of Tigre, came 

 and fat down befide them in a peaceable manner, each occu- 

 pying the lands that were before him. This fettlement is 

 what the Chronicle of Axum calls Angaba, the entry and e- 

 ftablifhment of thefe nations, which finifhed the peopling 

 of Aby lli nia . 



Tradition further fays, that they came from Paleftine, 

 All this feems to me to wear the face of truth. Some time 

 .after the year 1500, we know there happened a flood which 



occafioned 



* Eight years lefs than the Greeks and other followers of the Septuagint, 

 + Ifaiah, chap, .-yviii. vtr. 2. 



