2 5 o RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



Solomon was careful to give him a very good edu- 

 cation, and he was anointed king of Ethiopia in the 

 Temple, taking henceforth the name of Solomon's 

 father David (Daoud). He then returned to Azab 

 with a colony of Jews, among them many doctors of 

 the Mosaic law, including one of each tribe. He 

 made these doctors judges in his kingdom, and from 

 them are said to be descended the present judges 

 (umbares), three of whom always accompany the king. 

 With Menilek was Azarias, son of the high priest 

 Sadoc, bearing a copy of the law ; and he, too, was 

 given the title of Nebrit, or high priest, while, 

 although the book of the law was burnt in the church 

 at Axoum, when the Arabs despoiled the province of 

 Adel, the functions of Azarias were preserved in his 

 family, his descendants being still nebrits, or priests, 

 of the church of Axoum. 



The whole of Abyssinia was thus converted to the 

 Jewish faith, and the government of the state as well 

 as of the church was modelled upon that of Jeru- 

 salem. The last use which the Queen of Sheba made 

 of her power was to order that no woman should in 

 future reign, and that the crown should go to the 

 nearest heir male. In the later histoiy of Abyssinia 

 we find that if no woman wore the crown, many 

 queen-regents have left a great name behind them, 

 and it may even be said that the most prosperous 

 and peaceful epochs of Abyssinian history have been 

 when a queen was regent. The Queen of Sheba died 



