248 BIMANA. 



Of the Ethiopic language of antiquity little is accurately known ; pro- 

 bably it was intimately related to tbe ancient Egyptian ;* the same system 

 of hieroglyphics was used by both ; both people practised the art of em- 

 balming the dead, were divided into castes, and had similar institutions, 

 political and religious, and analogous festivals and ceremonies. It would 

 seem that the ancient Ethiopians were much darker than the Egyptians, 

 if not black ; and Hamilton, with others, inclines to the opinion, that the 

 groups of black figures, in the delineations extant on the temples of 

 Upper Egypt, where they often appear led in bonds by groups of red 

 figures, or Egyptians, are intended for Ethiopians ; in other instances it 

 would seem as if the design were to commemorate the relationship between 

 the black and red castes, or the transmission of religious observances from 

 one to the other ; for, in many cases, black figures are represented as 

 conferring on the red the symbols and instruments of the sacerdotal 

 office, both sets having the habiliments of the priesthood ; but the 

 distinction of colour is very decided. Representations, indicating the 

 affinity between the red and black castes, are given in the plates of 

 the Description de VEgypte.^ 



For an account of the sculptures of the ancient Ethiopians, and the 

 differences between those of Upper Nubia, or the kingdom of Meroe, 

 and of Lower Nubia, from Assouam southward to Solib, the reader is 

 referred to K. Ottfried Miiller, and to Dr. Prichard, who follows Miiller 

 in his opinions. The subject is not within the immediate province of the 

 naturalist. 



Setting aside the Arabs, the present inhabitants of Ethiopia, or Nubia, 



both are probably identical with Tarakos, who is set down by Manetho as an Ethiopian King of 

 Egypt. In the earlier ages the term Cush belonged to the same nation, or race ; though it would 

 appear that the Cush, or Ethiopians, of those times occupied both sides of the Red Sea. The Cush 

 mentioned by Moses are pointed out by him to be a nation of kindred origin with the Egyptians. 

 In the Toldoth Beni-Noach, or archives of the sons of Noah, it is said that the Cush and the Mizraim 

 were brothers, which means, as is generally allowed, nations nearly allied by kindred." 



* The Gheez, commonly called the Ethiopic language, into which the Scriptures were translated, 

 and which was spoken in Tigre as late as 1300 years after the Christian era, is a Semitic dialect, 

 allied to Arabic and Hebrew, and is now a dead language, no longer in ordinary use, but consecrated 

 to religion and literature. Gheez is supplanted by the Amharic, or modern Abyssinian, an ancient 

 African language, into which many Gheez words, and some grammatical forms, have been ingrafted ; 

 but the Gheez was not the language of the ancient Ethiopians, it was only that of an Abyssinian 

 people of remote Arab descent, who formerly ruled in Abyssinia, Axum being the seat of government. 



t M. Pugnet, in reference to the ideas conveyed by some of these delineations, says, " Quoique 

 je ne veuille me livrer ici a aucune conjecture sur leur origine (celle des Egyptiens), je crois devoir 

 retracer un tableau que m'a oifert Tun des tombeaux des Rois, Bab-el-Melouk. Stant plures virorum 

 effigies, a quibus plane ostendit pictor, gigni Homines e terra. Qui gignuntur colore rubro sunt, 

 parentes nigerrimi. Ce language hieroglyphique n'exprime-t-il pas ce que pensaient les anciens 

 que 1'Homme rouge est ne de 1'Homme noir ? L'Homme noir est certainement un Ethiopien, et 

 1'Egyptien s'est peint toutes parts sous la couleur rougeatre qu'il retient encore aujourd'hui. On 

 voit ailleurs des groupes de 1'une et de 1'autre couleur se rendre au meme hommage a des divinites 

 noirs, mais bientot les Hommes rouges se separent des autres pour se rendre, non loin d'eux, apres 

 d'une divinite qui leur ressemble. Ailleurs, enfin, on reconnait 1'Heliotrapeze d'ecrite par Homere : 

 des Hommes rouges transportent leurs dieux sur les confins des Hommes noirs et y celebrent un 

 festin commun." Memoires sur les Fievres, fyc. 



