4^4 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



that and the Samaritan, yet I have a very great fufpicion 

 the languages were once much nearer a-kin than this difa- 

 greement of their alphabet promifes, and, for this reafon, 

 that a very great number of words are found throughout 

 the Old Teflament that have really no root, nor can be de- 

 rived from any Hebrew origin, and yet all have, in the Ethio- 

 pic, a plain, clear, unequivocal origin, to and from which 

 they can be traced without force or difficulty. 



I shall now finifh what I have to fay upon this fubject, 

 by obferving, that the Ethiopic alphabet confifls of twenty- 

 fix letters, each of thefe, by a virgula, or point annexed, 

 varying in found, fo as to become, in effect, forty-two di- 

 ftinct letters. But I mull further add, that at firft they had 

 but twenty-five of thefe original letters, the Latin P being 

 wanting, fo that they were obliged tofubilitute another letter 

 in the place of it. Paulus, for example, they called Taulus, 

 Oulus, or Caulus. Petros they pronounced Ketros. At laft 

 they fubftituted T, and added this to the end of their alpha- 

 bet, giving ir the force of P, though it was really a repeti- 

 tion of a character, rather than invention. Befides thefe 

 there are twenty others of the nature of dipththongs, but I 

 fhould fuppofe fome of thefe are not of the fame antiquity 

 with the letters of the alphabet, but have been invented in 

 later times by the fcribes for convenience. 



The reader will underftand, that, fpeaking of the Ethio- 

 pic at prefent, I mean only the Geez language, the language 

 of the Shepherds, and of the books. None of the other 

 many languages fpoken in Abyflinia have characters for 

 writing. But when the Amharic became fubftituted, in 

 common ufe and converfation, to the Geez, after the refto- 



3 ration 



