RELIGION OF THE GALEA. 395 



will it prove less important when we possess fuller 

 information respecting the religion they profess. 

 It is such a field for conjecture that I decline to 

 enter upon the subject, except to note that they 

 worship a limited number of principal deities, but 

 recognising also a numerous host of demigods, 

 whose influence upon man and his affairs are 

 exerted most malevolently, and who can only be 

 propitiated by sacrifices and entreaties. Waak, 

 however, appears to be the supreme god who made 

 the world and every inferior deity. Waak has no 

 visible representative, but is everywhere, and exists 

 in everything. He is the limit of all knowledge ; 

 for " Waak segallo" (God knows) invariably ex- 

 presses ignorance of a fact, and the best definition 

 of him I could get from the most informed Galla I 

 ever conversed with upon the subject was, that he 

 was the " unknown God." Waak is, I think, the 

 only deity proper to the Galla people, although 

 long intercourse with the Gongas has made them 

 acquainted with a mythology which would show, 

 had I only space to enter into the subject, a most 

 extraordinary connexion with that of the ancient 

 Egyptians. They have also derived some knowledge 

 of one or two of the principal saints tvoi'shipjjed by 

 the Greek Church, and according to their situa- 

 tion with respect to the Christians of Abyssinia or 

 the Pagans of Zingero, so is their religion modified 

 by the errors or absurdities of their neighbours, 

 and which is another reason why I suspect that 



