436 WORSHIP OF THE GONGAS. 



sacred Nile. The Abi, or Nile of Bruce, is wor- 

 shipped by the modern Adjows, whilst the Gibbee, 

 or Abiah, is the object of a similar devotion among 

 the Pagan Gongas of Zingero, and of Kuffah. 

 We are enabled from our knowledge of the former 

 river to presume, that its singular course determined 

 in the first instance, a reverence, which, when the 

 increasing encroachments of foreign foes had made 

 this river a convenient defence to the pressed 

 Gongas, was soon elevated to the character of a 

 protecting deity. That its singular course should 

 have thus attracted attention arises, I believe, from 

 the circumstance of its encircling an extensive 

 province, and going around it, as the sun was sup- 

 posed to revolve around the earth. The zodiac, or 

 track of the sun through the heavens, was typified 

 by the form of a serpent, and this I have always 

 understood to have been the source of that serpent- 

 worship which characterized so many of the earlier 

 and more civilized nations of the earth. In no 

 country, was this idolatry more prevalent than upon 

 the plateau of Abyssinia, and Arive, the great 

 serpent, it will be recollected figures considerably 

 in the earlier history of the Amhara, who appear 

 to have in some measure adopted the religion of 

 the Gongas, when they took possession of the 

 countries upon the left hand of their father, their 

 king, their sun, by all of which names, it is usual, 

 even at the present day, to designate the river Abi. 

 The great serpents of classic mythological history, 



