30 DISTINCT FROM THE AGOWS. 



Shoa, and which has been singularly confirmed by 

 a comparison of the reports and prejudices I noted 

 down while in that country, with recorded circum- 

 stances of the earlier history of Egypt, and of other 

 powerful empires that once existed along the 

 course of the Nile. 



Amhara, which word is at present only used to 

 designate the Christian population of Abyssinia, 

 w r as, previous to the introduction of the Mahomedan 

 religion, the descriptive appellation of an extensive 

 red people, who principally occupied the eastern bor- 

 der of the Abyssinian table land, from the latitude 

 of Massoah in the north to that qj lake Zui in the 

 south. To the west of these, and occupying the 

 portion of the table land in that direction, lived 

 a people decidedly different in their complexion, 

 their features, their language, their religion, and 

 their customs. These were the Gongas, or Agows, 

 who I believe to have been the original possessors 

 of the whole plateau, until a period remarkable 

 in history, when the Emperor of Meroe or Ethiopia 

 located upon a portion of their country, those 

 disaffected soldiers of Psammeticus who had sought 

 an asylum in his kingdom. Were I not convinced 

 that the Amhara population of Abyssinia, at the 

 present day, can be physically demonstrated to be the 

 descendants of these fugitives from Egypt, I w 7 ould 

 not venture to advance such an innovation upon 

 the generally received opinion, that the Amhara 

 are aborigines of the country they now inhabit. 



