OF THE AMHARA FEATURES. 37 



would be very interesting, if future discoveries in 

 hieroglyphics, or other cotemporary histories, which, 

 I believe, do exist in central Africa, should prove 

 that the appearance of the Jews as a family of man, 

 under the patriarch Abraham, marks the disrup- 

 tion of an African community of castes, where the 

 Priest class, excited by the ambition of a Psam- 

 meticus, should determine upon the expulsion of 

 the soldiers, who thereupon fled to Ethiopia ; and, 

 also, that after a tyrannical and cruel oppression 

 should ultimately occasion the flight of the workmen, 

 or Israelites, into Palestine. I leave the. question, 

 however, now, to more profound ethnologists, and 

 shall conclude this, I am afraid, very uninteresting 

 subject, with a short but necessary description of 

 the features and physical characteristics of the 

 present Amhara population of Abyssinia. 



In the British Museum are many Egyptian 

 statues that possess exactly the features of the 

 genuine Amhara race. One more, especially of 

 a woman in the lower saloon marked 16, I will 

 particularize, to enable those who have the oppor- 

 tunity of examining these relics of an extinct nation 

 to form a proper idea of the physiognomy of the 

 people I am speaking of. 



Their general complexion cannot be better 

 described by reference to a familiar object than 

 comparing it with that of red unpolished copper. 

 Their skin is soft and delicate ; the general stature 

 is below the middle height of Europeans. Their 



