114 COLOUR OF THE NATIONS 



for my presumption in advancing views so contrary 

 to generally received accounts. Be it so, I feel 

 quite assured there is some portion of the reviewing 

 press, who will scorn to be made the instruments 

 of unfair attacks upon any one, contending only for 

 what he believes to be true, and for no other 

 motive, but the instruction of himself and others. 



Around his rude outline of Abyssinia, my native 

 informant Ibrahim placed representatives of the 

 Shankalli, who surrounded that country, except 

 upon its eastern side, where another black race, the 

 Dankalli, testify by their skins, to a similar low 

 elevation of the country they inhabit. Ibrahim 

 thus undesignedly proved the correctness of his 

 information, for it struck me, that no physical 

 feature is so conclusive as to the character of a 

 country, whether high or low land, than the com- 

 plexion of its inhabitants. An exception, however, 

 to thus entirely surrounding the high land of 

 Abyssinia with the two nations of blacks was 

 made to the north and south of the country of 

 Adal, where two oppositely situated water-sheds are 

 drained by the two rivers, the Tacazza and the 

 Whabbee, the former flowing into the Nile, the 

 latter into the Indian Ocean at Jubah. The 

 character of both the countries through which 

 these rivers flow are, in one respect, similar ; their 

 elevation being intermediate between the low plains 

 of Adal, and the table land of Abyssinia, or about six 

 thousand feet hisrh above the level of the sea. The 



