I04 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



qualified for the undertaking. He had feveral times been 

 employed by the late king in very delicate affairs, out of 

 which he extricated himfelf»with great credit by his addrefs 

 and fecrecy. He was, befides this, in the vigour of his a^<e, 

 bold, adive, and perfedly mailer of all forts of arms; modeft 

 and chearful in converfation, and, what crowned all, had 

 happily a great readinefs in acquiring languages, which 

 enabled him to explain himfelf wherever he went, with- 

 out an interpreter; an advantage to which, above all others, 

 we are to afcribe the fuccefs of fuch a journey. 



It was at the court of Bemoy that the firil certain ac- 

 count of the exiftence of this Chriftian prince was procured. 

 This people, on the weft coaft of Africa, reported, that, in- 

 land to the eaftward, were many powerful nations and 

 cities, governed by princes totally independent of each o- 

 ther ; that the eaftermoft of thefe princes was called prince 

 of the Mofaical people, who were neither Pagans nor Idola- 

 ters, but profeffed a religion compounded of the Chriftian 

 and Jewifli. 



It feems plain that this intelligence muft have been 

 brought by the caravans ; or, indeed, tlie cafe may have 

 been that the language of the Negroes had, of old, been a 

 diale6l of Abyffinian. The black Ethiopians above Thebes 

 are reported to have beftowed much care upon letters ; and 

 they certainly reformed the hieroglyphics, and probably in- 

 vented the Syllabic alphabet, which w^e know is ufed in A- 

 byffinia to this day, and which was probably the firft among 

 the nations. Be that as it will, the various names which 

 the Senega went by were all AbyiTmian words. Senega 

 comes from Afenagi, which is Abyflinian, and fignifies car- 

 riers y 



