THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 345 



fclfed • and, therefore, if this nation left Palestine upon To- 

 fhua paffing Jordan, circumcifion was not known there, for 

 the Agows to this day are uneircumcifed. The fame may be 

 faid of the Agows of Damot, who are fettled at the head of 

 the Nile It will be feen by the two fpecimens of their dif- 

 ferent language's that they arc different nations, as I have 

 allcdeM Next to thefe are the Gafat, in a plain open coun- 

 try who do not life circumcifion; none of them were ever 

 converted to Judaifm, and but few of them to Chrifhamty. 

 The next are the people of Amhara who did not ufe circum- 

 cifion, at lead few of them, till after the maffacre of the 

 princes by Judith in the year 900, when the remaining prin- 

 ces of the line of Solomon fled to Shoa, and the court was 

 eftablimcd there. The laft of thefe nations that I (hall 

 mention are the Galla, who are not circumcifed ; of this na- 

 tion we have faid enough. 



On the north, a black, woolly-headed nation, called the 

 Shangalla, already often mentioned, bounds Abyffinia, and 

 ferves like a firing to the bow made by thefe nations of Gal- 

 la. Who they are we know perfectly, being the Cufhite 

 Troglodytes of Sofala, Saba, Axum and Meroe ; fliut up, as I 

 have already mentioned, in thofe caves, the firft habitations 

 of their more polifhed anceftors. Neither do thefe circum- 

 cife, though they immediately bordered upon Egypt, while 

 the' Cufhite, adjoining to the peninfula of Africa certainly 

 did. As then fo many nations contiguous to Egypt never 

 received circumcifion from it, it feems an invincible argu- 

 ment, that this was no endemial rite or cuftom among the 

 Egyptians, and I have before obferved, that it was of no ufe 

 to this nation, as the reafons mentioned by Philo, and the 

 reft of cleanlinefs and climate, are abfolute dreams, and 

 Vol. III. X x 



