THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 405 



The inhabitants then who poffeffed Abyfiinia, from its 

 fouthern boundary to the tropic of Cancer, or frontiers of 

 Egypt, were the Cufhites, or polifhed people, living in. 

 towns, firft Troglodytes, having their habitations in caves. 

 The next were the Shepherds ; after thefe were the na- 

 tions who, as we apprehend, came from Paleftine — Amhara, 

 Agow of Damot, Agow of Tchera, and Gafat. 



Interpreters, much lefs acquainted with the hiftorical 

 circumftances of thefe countries than the prophets, have, 

 either from ignorance or inattention, occalioned an obfeu- 

 rity which otherwife did not arife from the text. All thefe 

 people are alluded to in fcripture by defcriptions that can- 

 not be miftaken. If they have occafioned doubts or dif- 

 ficulties, they are all to be laid at thedoor of the tranflators^ 

 chiefly the Septuagint. When Mofes returned with his wife 

 Zipporah, daughter of the fovereign of the Shepherds of 

 Midian, carriers of the India trade from Saba into Paleftine, 

 and eftablifhed near their principal mart Edom, in Idumea 

 or Arabia, Aaron, and Miriam his filler, quarrelled with Mo- 

 fes, becaufe he had married one who was, as the tranflator 

 fays, an Ethiopian*. There is no fenfe in this caufe ; Mo- 

 fes was a fugitive when he married Zipporah ; fhe was a 

 noble-woman, daughter of the prieft of Midian, head of a 

 people. She likewife, as it would feem, was a Jewefs f , and 

 more attentive, at that time, to the prefervation of the pre- 

 cepts of the law, than Mofes was himfelf ; no exception, 

 then, could lie againft Zipporah, as fhe was furely, in every 

 view, Mofes's fuperior. But if the tranflator had rendered 



it> 



* Numb, chap. xii. yer. i. f Exod. chap. iv. vcr» 2J> 



