428 OF THE A DAL WAR, 



considerable portions of the ancient empire. To 

 the distractions and misfortunes that then harassed 

 the Christian Court the Gallas contributed, led on 

 by sheer destiny, I believe, for they quietly took 

 possession with their herds of the countries that had 

 been devastated during the long civil sectarian war 

 which, at the time of Grahne, had assumed a 

 national character from the divisions of the Chris- 

 tian and Mahomeclan Amhara, being then under two 

 distinct monarchial governments. These two kindred 

 people mutually destroying each other, Avere unable 

 to offer any resistance to the lawless and barbarous 

 intruders who were alone benefited by the struggle 

 for supremacy between the professors of these two 

 faiths. 



The Adal conquerors, however, lost a great 

 deal more by the war than the defeated Christians 

 of the table land ; for occupying a country of much 

 less elevation than Abyssinia, the Gallas naturally 

 located themselves first upon the lands so much 

 more suited to their habits and constitutions, and 

 accordingly, the Dankalli, closing from the north, 

 whilst the Shankalli came up from the south, their 

 progeny soon swept from the face of the country their 

 Amhara predecessors ; and the red man of America 

 retreats no faster before civilization, than on this 

 coast of Africa, the latter has been extinguished by 

 the advance of the barbarian Gallas. Only one 

 town remains of the once mighty kingdom of 

 Adal, the city of Hurrah, the former capital of 



