32 HOEMUZD EASSAM, ESQ., ON BIBLICAL LANDS, THEIK 



formed a powerful state in Arabia, and a formidable and 

 turbulent people in the Alpine regions betwen Tigre and 

 Amhara in Ethiopia. 



" The legend of Menelih, and the supposed descent of the 

 Abyssinian sovereign from the line of Solomon, unquestion- 

 ably exercised a salutary influence in favour of the Jews, 

 and contributed more than anything else towards the spread 

 of those Mosaical rites and ceremonies which to this day 

 are still so extensively engrafted on the Christianity of the 

 country. On the promulgation of the Gospel the Jews, who 

 had now become scattered all over the western plains of 

 Tschelga and Demhea, retired again to their mountain fast- 

 nesses of Semien and Bellesa^ where, under their own kings 

 and queens, called Gideon and Judith, they maintained till 

 the beginning of the seventeenth century a chequered and 

 independent existence. With the fall of their last ruler, and 

 the capture of their strongholds, the Falashas were driven 

 from their rocky homes, and forced to seek a refuge in the 

 midst of then' enemies, the detested Amliaras. The provinces 

 whore they at present reside are Demhea, Quara, Woggera^ 

 Tschelga, and Godjam, where their settlements are strikingly 

 distinguished from the Christian villages by the red earthen 

 pot on the apex of their Mesqidd, or place of worship, which 

 towers from the centre of the thatched huts by which it is 

 invariably environed. 



" Claiming a lineal descent from Abraham, Isaac, and 

 Jacob, the Falashas pride themselves on the fame of their 

 progenitors, and the purity of the blood that circulates in 

 their own veins. Intermarriages with those of another tribe 

 or creed are strictly interdicted, nay, even the visit to an 

 unbeliever's house is a sin, and subjects the transgressor to 

 the penance of a thorough lustration and a complete change 

 of dress before he can return to his own home. Their stern 

 uncompromising sectarian spirit has been highly beneficial in 

 excluding from their community that licentious profligacy in 

 which all the other inhabitants of Ethiopia riot ; and it is 

 generally admitted that Falasha men and women seldom, if 

 ever, stray from the path of virtue, or transgress the solemn 

 law of the decalogue."* 



It seems from the allusion made in the 8th chapter of Acts, 

 verse 28, that there were believers in the Jews' revealed 

 religion in Ethiopia, as it is mentioned that the Treasurer of 



* Stern's Wanderings among the Falashas in Abgssinia, ch. xiv, p. 184. 



