TOPOGRAPHY, EA.CES, EELIGIONS^ LANGUAGES AND CUSTOMS. 31 



Stern in his book about them, is that the Queen of Sheba 

 had "heard from merchants and traders of the magnificence 

 and wisdom of the Jewish monarch. Curiosity, not unmixed 

 Avith a touch of pardonable vanity, prompted her to visit the 

 court of the wise and famous Solomon. Her faultless beauty 

 and intellectual sagacity, won for her the favour and assidu- 

 ous attentions of the gifted king ; and after a lengthened 

 sojourn at Jerusalem, she returned to her own dominions, 

 laden with munificeat presents, and, what greatly enhanced 

 her happiness, with a youthful heir and prince, in the person 

 of her son Menelilc. The bond of friendship and union 

 between the two mighty rulers, initiated by mutual regard 

 and cemented by the tenderest affection, was made still 

 more lasting and secure by religious sympathy. In the 

 train of the illustrious princess, besides a number of distin- 

 guished Jews from every tribe, was Azaraiah, the son of the 

 High Priest Zadock, to whom the pious parent had specially 

 intrusted the education of Menelik, and the guardianship of 

 the tahot, or transcript of the law. The impetuous zeal of 

 the emigrants found ample scope for its loftiest inspiration 

 in the new world to which they were transplanted, and in 

 the course of a few years the worship of the God of Israel 

 extensively supplanted the idolatries of Ethiopia. 



" From these vague traditions, in which truth and fiction 

 are inextricably jumbled together, the inquirer does not gain 

 much trustworthy information on the history of Ethiopia, 

 and the settlement of the Jews in that country. The most 

 probable conjecture is, that at a very early period — perhaps 

 when Solomon's fleet navigated the Red Sea — some adven- 

 turous Jews, impelled by love of gain, settled among the 

 pleasant hills of Arabia Felix ; whilst others of a more daring 

 and enterpiising spirit were induced to try their fortune in 

 the more remote, though not less salubrious, mountain 

 scenes of Ethiopia. The Queen of Sheba's visit to Solo- 

 mon, whether she reigned over both or only one of those 

 countries is an incontestable proof that the wise king's fame 

 had spread far beyond his own empire. To subjects of a 

 monarch so renowned for wisdom, wealth, and power, a 

 gracious reception was, no doubt, everywhere accorded, and 

 the new settlers, in their prosperity abroad, probably soon 

 forgot the attractions of their home in Judea. Subsequent 

 troubles in Palestine and the final overthrow of the Jewish 

 monarch by Nebuchadnezzar, increased the number of the 

 emigrants, and in the lapse of a few centuries the JeAvs 



