AND OF AMU Alt A. »'$5 



places in Abyssinia, are all referable to the same 

 language. To return, however, to Esar, and its con- 

 nexion with the colour red, for it is the same with 

 Esau, and that it is the same as Edom in Hebrew, 

 I advance the testimony of Dr. Stukeley, who, 

 speaking of the Red Sea, remarks, " That sea had 

 its name from Erythras, as the Greeks and the 

 same Pliny write ; who is Edom, or Esau, brother of 

 Jacob . The words are synonymous, signifying red. ' ' * 

 Amhara, also bears the same interpretation in 

 Amharic, and although it has another meaning, that 

 of beautiful, this is only because of the national 

 taste directing the name of the favourite com- 

 plexion among them, to be employed as the term 

 for beauty itself. The Dankalli slave-merchant 

 well understands this, for a light-red Abyssinian 

 girl is the Circassian of oriental harems. In 

 Arabia, where the original word still conveys the 

 more common idea, we find " 'hamah" employed to 

 express the colour red. 



In this manner, I connect the " Asmach " of 

 Herodotus, with Gurague of modern travellers, 

 and the Esar of Pliny, with the Amhara of the 

 present day, and from these two mutually corrobo- 

 rating correspondencies, the identity of the modern 

 Abyssinians of Dr. Prichard with the Automali of 

 Herodotus may perhaps be deduced, and the 

 difficulty of accounting for a Hebrew people, 

 situated on the Abyssinian plateau only requires 



* Dr. Stukeley. " Stonehenge, a British Temple," page 53. 

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