23o TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



kingdom*, and by Yafous the Great in the other, fo late as 

 the beginning of the laft century. 



The kings of Abyffinia arc above all laws. They are 

 fupreme in all caufes ecclefiaftical and civil ; the land and 

 perfons of their fubjedts are equally their property, and 

 every inhabitant of their kingdom is born their flave ; if 

 lie bears a higher rank it is by the king's gift; for his near- 

 eft relations are accounted nothing better. The fame ob- 

 tained in Perfia. Ariflotle calls the Perfian generals and 

 nobles, Haves of the great kingf. Xerxes; reproving Pytheus 

 the Lydian when feeking to excufe one of his fons from 

 going to war, fays, " You that are my flave, and bound to 

 follow me with your wife and all your family^." — And Go- 

 bryas§ fays to Cyrus, " I deliver myfelf to you, at once your 

 companion and your flave." 



There are feveral kinds of bread in Abyffinia, fome of 

 different forts of teff, and fome of tocuflb, which alfo vary 

 in quality. The king of Abyffinia eats of wheat bread, 

 though not of every wheat, but of that only that grows in 

 the province of Dembea, therefore called the king's food. It 

 was fo with the kings of Perfia, who ate wheat bread, He- 

 rodotus fays, but only of a particular kind, as we learn from 

 Strabo ||. 



I have fhewn, in the courfe of the foregoing hiftory, that 

 it always has been, and ftill is the cultom of the kings of 



2 Abyffinia 



PJutarch, in Appthegmat. f De Mundo. J Herod lib. vii. § Xenoplu lib. iv. || Strabo Jib. XT. 



