THE SOURCE OF THE NILE, 401 



of the Cufhite fhepherd by whom they were firll invented 

 and ufed, as we mall fee hereafter. I may add in further 

 proof of their origin, that the curfe * of Canaan feems to 

 have followed them, they have obtained no principality, but 

 ferved the kings of the Agaazi or Shepherds, have been 

 hewers of wood and drawers of water, and fo they flill 

 continue. 



The firll and moll considerable of thefe nations fettled in 

 a province called Amhara ; it was, at firll coining, as little 

 known as the others ; but, upon a revolution in the country, 

 the king fled to that province, and there the court flaid 

 many years, fo that the Geez, or language of the Shepherds, 

 was dropt, and retained only in writing, and as a dead lan- 

 guage ; the facred fcriptures being in that language only, 

 faved the Geez from going totally into difufe. The fecond 

 were the Agows of Damot, one of the fouthern provinces of 

 Abyflinia, where they are fettled immediately upon the 

 fources of the Nile. The third are the Agows of Lafla, or 

 Tcheratz Agow, from Tchera, their principal habitation ; 

 theirs too is a feparate language ; they are Troglodytes that 

 live in caverns, and feem to pay nearly the fame worfhip to 

 the Siris, or Tacazze, that thofe of Damot pay to the Nile. 



I take trie old names of thefe two lall-mentioned na- 

 tions, to be funk in the circumflances of this their new fet- 

 tlement, and to be a compound of two words Ag-oha, the 

 Shepherds of the River, and I alfo imagine, that the idolatry 



Vol. I. 3 E they 



* Gen. ix. 253 26, and 27. veries. 



