4 88 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



tway, the Ifhmaelite Arabs had accefs through Arabia to 

 ^erufalem and Syria, and carried on a great trade thither 

 by land. They profefled very candidly they could not give 

 a fatisfactory anfwer to that, as the time was very diftant, 

 and war had deilroyed all the memorials of thefe tranfac- 

 tions. I afked if they really ever had any memorials of 

 -their own country, or hiftory of any other. They anfwer- 

 ed\ with fome helitation, they had no reafon to fay they e- 

 ver had any ; if they had, they were all deilroyed in the 

 war with Gragne. This is ail that I could ever learn from 

 this people, and it required great patience and prudence in 

 making the interrogations, and feparating truth from falfe- 

 hood ; for many of them, (as is invariably the cafe with 

 barbarians) if they once divine the reafon of your inquiry, 

 will fay whatever they think will pleafe you. 



They deny the fceptre has ever departed from Judah, as 

 they have a prince of that houfe reigning, and underftand 

 the prophecy of the gathering of the Gentiles at the coming 

 of Shiloh, is to be fulfilled on the appearance of the Melliah, 

 who is not yet come, when all the inhabitants of the world 

 are to be Jews. But I muft confefs they did not give an ex- 

 planation of this either clearly or readily, or feem to have 

 ever confidered it before. They were not at all heated by 

 the fubjecl, nor interefted, as far as I could difcern, in the 

 jt'lifFerence between us, nor fond of talking upon their reli- 

 gion at all, though very ready at all quotations, when a 

 perfon was prefent who fpoke Amharic, with the barbarous 

 accent that they doj and this makes me .conceive that their 

 anceflors were not in Palefline, or prefent in thofe difputes 

 .or tranfactions that attended the death of our Saviour, and 

 Ixave fubfifted ever after. They pretend that the book of 



2 Enoch 



