*5o TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



Besides the dignity attending this office, it was alfo one 

 of the moil lucrative. Frankincenfe, myrrh, and a fpecies 

 of cinnamon, called by the Italians Cannella, with feveral 

 kinds of gums and dyes, all very precious, from Cape 

 Gardefan to Bilur, were the valuable produce of this coun- 

 try : but this territory, though confiderable in length, is not 

 of any great breadth ; for, from fouth of Hadea to Mafuah, 

 it confiits in a belt feldom above forty miles from the fea, 

 which is bounded by a ridge of very high mountains, run- 

 ning parallel to the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, as far 

 as Mafuah. 



^fter Azab begin the mines of foflile fait, which, cut 

 into fquare, folid bricks of about a foot long, fcrve in 

 place of the filver currency in Abyflinia ; and from this, 

 as from a kind of mint, great benefit accrues alfo. 



From Mafuah the fame narrow belt continues to Suakem ; 

 nay, indeed, though the rains do not reach fo far, the 

 mountains continue to the Ifthmus of Suez. This northern 

 province of the Baharnagafh is called the Habab, or the 

 land of the Agaazi, or Shepherds ; they fpeak one language, 

 which they call Geez, or the language of the Agaazi. From 

 the earliefl times, they have had letters and writing among 

 them ; and no other has ever been introduced into Abyffinia, 

 to this day, as we have already obferved. 



Since the expulfion of the Turks from Dobarwa and the 

 continent of Abyflinia, Mafuah has been governed by a 

 Naybe, himfelf one of the Shepherds, but Mahometan. A 

 treaty formerly fubfifted,that the king fhould receive half of 



the 



