12 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



ed, though, when tranfported to India, they have conflantly 

 turned out men of confidence and truft, and the befl troops 

 thofe eallern nations have. 



There is a fixth, ftill lefs in number than even thefe, and' 

 not known on this Continent till a few years before. Thefe 

 were the Turks who came from Greece and Syria, and who 

 were under Selim, and Soliman his fon, the inftruments of 

 the conqueft of Egypt and Arabia; fmall garrifons of whom 

 were everywhere left by the Turks in all the fortreffes and^ 

 confiderable towns they conquered. They are an heredi- 

 tary kind of militia, who, marrying each others daughters, 

 or with the women of the country, continue from fathei' 

 to fon to receive from Conllantinople the fame pay their 

 forefathers had from Selim. Thefe, though degenerate in 

 figure and manners into an exadl refemblance to the na* 

 lives of the countries in which they fince lived, do ftill con- 

 tinue to maintain their fuperiority by a conllant fkill and 

 attention to fire-arms, which were, at the time of their firfl 

 appearance here, little known or in ufe among either Abyf- 

 finians or Arabians, and the means of firft eflablifliing this- 

 pi-eference.. 



It has been already obferved, that the Mahometan MoorS' 

 and Arabs poffeffed all the low country on the Indian Ocean, 

 and oppofite to Arabia Felix ; and being, by their religion, 

 obliged to go in pilgrimage to Mecca^ as alfo by their fole 

 profeffion, which was trade, they became, by confcquence, 

 the only carriers and directors of the commerce of Abyf- 

 fmia. All the country to the eaft and north of Shoa v/as 

 pQiTeircd and commanded diiefly by Mahometan merchants 



appointed. 



