120 ORIGINAL OF " SERAPIS.' 



tice seems also to point to a connexion between the 

 sacred character of the Gibbee and that of the Nile. 

 Another ceremony also, in which, on the election of a 

 king, the inhabitants of Zingero collect upon the 

 banks of the Gibbee, until upon some one's head 

 a bee should rest, who is immediately proclaimed to 

 be the sovereign, I have some idea was the reason 

 of that little insect being made the hieroglyphical 

 representative of king or chief among the ancient 

 Egyptians, and perhaps at one period of their 

 history a similar custom prevailed among them. 



The Gibbee is at the present time a holy river, as 

 was the Assabi among the Ethiopians, and which 

 was also the original of the Egyptian god, Serapis. 

 This latter supposition is confirmed by the fact that, 

 in some parts of its course, the Abi of Northern 

 Abyssinia at the present day is similarly worshipped, 

 and that its sources, in the time of the Portuguese 

 missionaries, were actually the scene of Pagan sacri- 

 fices. The ancient Apis I consider to have been no 

 other ; for the Grecian terminal being rejected, the 

 identity of the two names Abi and Api is manifest, 

 whilst that of Assabi and Serapi is equally evident. 



That the river Gibbee cannot be the earlier tri- 

 butary of the Gochob of Dr. Beke, is proved by 

 what we are told by Major Harris, of a river so 

 called, entering the sea at Jubah. If this be the 

 case there can no longer be any doubt of the identity 

 of the Gochob with the Whabbee, and which I 

 feel more assured of, from the information I have 



