396 OF ANCIENT DEITIES. 



originally the unknown god Waak, was alone the 

 object of pure Galla worship. It is singular that 

 very ancient travellers, Cosmas Inclicopleustes, for 

 example, surround the then known world by a 

 terra incognita which is inscribed as Wak-wak ; 

 whilst Edrisi, the old Arabian geographer, makes 

 this the name also by which he describes the present 

 Galla countries, and which d'Lisle, by an interest- 

 ing Gascon provincialism, as it aids me in my inter- 

 pretation, makes this word Bake-bake, and places it 

 to the south of Abyssinia, I have been led therefore to 

 believe that the worship of the most ancient god of 

 India, which European nations in the classic ages 

 adopted under the name of Bacchus, was sup- 

 posed to characterize the inhabitants of the 

 regions that were so designated, and hence the 

 reason of describing unknown countries as lands 

 of Wak-wak. If so, and Waak can be by future 

 travellers identified by other particulars with the 

 Bacchus of the ancients, it will be a most 

 important corroboration of the origin of the Galla 

 with an Asiatic people who invaded Africa at a 

 very early period. It is not one volume that would 

 exhaust this subject; nor is it one journey that 

 can give a traveller a just right to impose his 

 opinions upon his readers. The dissipation of a 

 deal of obscurity respecting the earlier history of 

 man, and, in fact, of his original nature, and of his 

 primeval institutions, will be the glorious reward of 

 future enterprise ; and since the days of Columbus, 



