488 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



way, the Ifhmaelite Arabs had accefs through Arabia td 

 Jerufaleni and Syria, and carried on a great trade thither 

 by land. They profeffed very candidly they could not give 

 a fatisfactory anfwer to that, as the time was very diftant, 

 and war had deftroyed all the memorials of thefe tranfac- 

 tions. I afked if they really ever had any memorials of 

 their own country, or hiftory of any other. They anfwer- 

 ed, with fome hefitation, they had no reafon to fay they e- 

 ver had any ; if they had, they were all deftroyed in the 

 war with Gragne. This is all that I could ever learn from 

 this people, and it required great patience and prudence in 

 making the interrogations, and feparating truth from falie- 

 hood ; for many of them, (as is invariably the cafe with 

 barbarians) if they once divine the reafon of your inquiry, 

 will fay whatever they think will pleafe you. 



They deny the fceptre has ever departed from Judah, as 

 they have a prince of that houfe reigning, and underftand 

 the prophecy of the gathering of the Gentiles at the coming 

 of Shiloh, is to be fulfilled on the appearance of the Meftiah, 

 who is not yet come, when all the inhabitants of the world 

 are to be Jews. But I muft confefs they did not give an ex- 

 planation of this either clearly or readily, or feem to have 

 ever confidered it before. They were not at all heated by 

 the fubjecT:, nor interefted, as far as I could difcern, in the 

 difference between us, nor fond of talking upon their reli- 

 gion at all, though very ready at all quotations, when a 

 •perfon was prefent who fpoke Amharic, with the barbarous 

 accent that they do; and this makes me conceive that their 

 anceftors were not in PaleflJne, or prefent in thofe difputes 

 or tranfactions that attended the death of our Saviour, and 

 have fubfifted ever after. They pretend that the book of 



2 Enoch 



