THE SOURCE OF ‘THE NILE. 4a 
cifed; and, therefore, if this nation left Paleftine upon Jo- 
fhua pafling Jordan, circumcifion was not known there, for 
the Agows to this day are uncircumcifed. The fame may be 
faid of the Agows of Damot, who are fettled at the head of 
the Nile. It will be feen by the two fpecimens of their dif 
ferent languages that they are different nations, as | have 
alledged. Next to thefe are the Gafat, in a plain open coun- 
try, who do not ufe circumcifion; none of them were ever 
converted to Judaifm, and but few of them to Chriftianicy. © 
The next are the people of AMhara who did not ufe circum- 
cifion, at leaft few of them, till after the maffacre of the 
princes by Judith in the year goo, when the remaining prin- 
ces of the line of Solomon fled to Shoa, and the court was 
eftablifhed there.: The laft of thefe nations that I fhall 
‘mention are the Galla, who are not circumcifed ; of this na- 
tion we have faid enough. 
On the north, a black, woolly-headed nation, called the 
Shangalla, already often mentioned, bounds Abyflinia, and 
ferves like a ftring tothe bow made by thefe nations of Gal- 
la. Who they are we know perfectly, being the Cufhite 
Troglodytes of Sofala, Saba, Axum and Meroé; {hut up, as I 
have already mentioned, in thofe caves, the firft habitations 
of their more polifhed anceftors. Neither do thefe cireum- 
cife, though they immediately bordered upon Egypt, while 
the Cufhite, adjoining to the peninfula of Africa certainly 
did. As then. fo many nations contiguous to Egypt never 
received circumcifion from it, it feems an invincible argu- 
ment, that this was no endemial rite or cuflom among the 
Egyptians, and I have before obferved, that it was of no ufe 
to this nation, as the reafons mentioned by Philo, and the 
reft, of cleanlinefs and climate, are abfolute dreams, and 
Vou. DI. xX xX now 
