39 $ TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



a number of others ; but nothing is more confonant to the 

 hiftory of the, country than the tranflation I have given it, 

 nor will the word itfelf bear any other. 



The Chronicle of Axum, the moil ancient repofitory of 

 the antiquities of that country, a book efteemed, I fhall not 

 fay how properly, as the firft in authority after the holy 

 fcriptures, fays, that between the creation of the world and 

 the birth of our Saviour there were 5500 years *; that A- 

 byffinia had never been inhabited till 1808 years before 

 Chrift*; and 200 years after that, which was in the 1600, it 

 was laid wafte by a flood, the face of the country much 

 changed and deformed, fo that it was denominated at that 

 time Oure Midre, or, the country laid wajk, or, as it is called 

 in fcripture itfelf, a land which the waters or floods had 

 fpoiled f ; that about the 1400 year before Chrilt it was 

 taken pofieffion of by a variety of people fpeaking different 

 languages, who, as they were in friendfhip with the Agaazi, 

 or Shepherds, pollening the high country of Tigre, eame 

 and fat down befide them in a peaceable manner, each occu- 

 pying the lands that were before him. This fettlement is 

 what the Chronicle of Axum calls Angaba, the entry and e- 

 flablifhment of thefe nations, which nnifhed the peopling 



of Abyflinia . 



1 



Tradition further fays, that they came from Paleftine. 

 All this feems to me to wear the face of truth. Some time 

 after the year 1500, we know there happened a flood which 



occafioned 



* Eight years lefs than the Greeks and other followers of the Septuagint. 

 f Ifaiah, chap, xviii. ver. 2. 



