JULV 12, 1906] 



NA TURE 



247 



WESTERN AND CENTRAL ABYSSINIA. 



IP is wiih no desire to depreciate the work under 

 nvicu , or any other of the books published on 

 liic subject of Abyssinia since the great work of 

 James Bruce (more than a hundred years a.tco), if the 

 |)rc>ciu reviewer ventures to remark that no modern 

 work on the subject of Abyssinia has yet been written 

 which is at all conmiensurate with the iinportance ot 

 thai marvellously interesting- African State. Possibly 

 such a work mig:ht have been finally comjiiled had 

 Baron Carlo von Erianger lived to write it. In his 

 posthumous " Forschungsreise diirch Siid-Schoa, 

 (lalla und die Somali-Liinder," he treats of a frag- 

 mint of Abyssinia in a way which, if 

 it had been applied to the whole of r— 

 that region, would have illustrated 

 effectively for the first time to the 

 man of science, as well as to the more 

 general reader, tlie most interesting 

 part of Africa. 



A little reflection will convince those 

 who have not thought on the subject 

 that Abyssinia i's from every point of 

 view the most interesting portion of 

 the Dark Continent. Here the fauna 

 and llora of the Mediterranean region 

 meet those of tropical Africa. Here 

 the lofty, snow-capped mountains re- 

 tain a wild goat (the most southerly 

 occurrence of the Caprine subfamily 

 in the .African continent). Here also 

 is a peculiar and aberrant dog — Cants 

 si)>ie)isis. In the western lowlands of 

 Abvssinia there is a true wild boar — 

 -Siii- seiinaarensis. Several of the ante- 

 lopes and two or three species of 

 monkeys are peculiar to Abyssinia in 

 their range, as are numerous birds, a 

 few fish, two or three reptiles, and a 

 great many plants. Some of the fish 

 are closelv related to species in North 

 Africa or Syria. The human races 

 are of varied types and widely different 

 origins, speaking a v'ariety of lan- 

 guages, some of which are unclassified. 

 In the extreme south-west of Abys- 

 sinia there are Negro types which have 

 been classified as Bantu, and others 

 which resemble either the Congo or 

 the Bushman pygmies. In the south- 

 east and south, and thence almost to 

 the centre of the country, the popula- 

 tion is mainly of the handsome Gala- 

 Hamitic type or of the kindred Somali 

 stock. In the west there are Nilotic 

 Negroes, and in the north, centre, 

 and east races that are compounded 

 of Hamite and Semite, with traces 

 here and there of ancient Greek or p,^ 



Egvptian colonies, while there are 

 dark-skinned Jews whose origin would 

 seem to antedate by many centuries the destruction of 

 Jerusalem. 



In this countrv has been developed the strangest 

 and inost debased type of Christianity, and there arc 

 forms of devil worsfiip or belief in demoniac possession 

 of great interest to the student of religions. Abyssinia 

 has a history, more or less credible, going back to a 

 thousand years before Christ, while its records from 



' "The Sourcf of the Rluf 

 Sudan to Lake Tsatia in Western Abysi 

 by the Valley of the Atbara, with a note 01 

 Abyssinia " By Arthur J. Hayes ; and 

 Prof. E. B. Poulton, F.R.S. Pp. .\i+3i5. 

 Co., 1905.) Price 10s. M. net. 



NO. 19 I 5, VOL. 74] 



the first impact of the Portuguese in the sixteenth 

 century down to the present day have been part of 

 the world's history, linked on to the records of 

 civilised Europe, .Asia, and North Africa. Whereas 

 nearly all Africa south of the Sahara, with the excep- 

 tion of the Upper Niger and a narrow fringe along 

 the west and cast coasts, only came within the domain 

 of written history a hundred years ago, Abyssinia 

 has as much formed part of the record of Caucasian 

 civilisation as Britain or Morocco. 



The author of the book under review gives within 

 the compass of 315 pages an excellent general de- 

 scription of western and central Abyssinia, and the 



-Market day ; 



•The Source of the Blue Nil 



A Record of a Journey througl 

 , and of the Return lo E 

 he Religion. Customs, &c 

 Entomological Appendi: 

 (London: Smith, Elder 



book contains a number of good photographic illus- 

 trations. In his preface, and in one or two passages 

 in the body of the book, the author hints with some 

 oniinousness at future trouble which is coming on the 

 Sudan from the direction of Abyssinia. It would be 

 out of place in N.vruRE to discuss international 

 politics, nor do the readers of this Journal tend to 

 take the point of view that what is quite permissible 

 to Great Britain in the way of political pushfulness is 

 almost criminal when forming part of the policy of 

 ,1 sister European or American nation. But apart fronr 

 the warnings which are given by Mr. Hayes as to- 

 the growth of German or American influence in 



