and ISLANDERS of AsiAo 57; 



the Nile from its fountains to its mouths, than all Europe united could Be- 

 fore have fupplied ; but, fince he has not been at the pains to compare the- 

 feven languages, of which he has exhibited a fpecimen, and fince I have 

 not leifure to make the comparifon, I muft be fatisfied with obferving, on' 

 his authority, that the dialects of the Gafots and the Gallas, the Agows of 

 both races, and the Fa/a/has* who muft originally have ufed a Chaldean 

 idiom, were never preferved in writing, and the Amharick only in modern 

 times : they muft,. therefore, have been for ages in. fluctuation, and can- 

 lead, perhaps, to . no certain conclusion as to the origin of the feverar 

 tribes, . who anciently fpoke them. It is very remarkable, as Mr. Bruce 

 and Mr. Bryant have proved, that the Greeks gave the appellation- of 

 Indians both to- the fouthern nations of Africk. and to the people, among 

 whom we now live ; nor is it lefs. obfervable, that, according to Ephorus 

 quoted by Strabo, they called all the fouthern nations in the world Ethio* 

 pans, thus ufing Indian a.n\-Etbiop as convertible terms : but we muft leave the 

 gymnofophifts- of Ethiopia, who feem to have profeffed the doctrines of 

 Buddha, and enter the great Indian ocean, of which their AJwtick^v^ 

 African brethren. were probably theiirft navigators. . 



On the iflands near Yemen we have little to remark : they appear now' 

 to be peopled chiefly by Mohammedans, and afford no marks of diferimina-^ 

 tion, with which I am acquainted, either in language or manners; but 1 

 cannotbid farewel to the coaft of Arabia, without alluring you, that^ what~ 

 ever may be faid of ' Ommdn, and the Scythiin colonies, who, it is imagined, 

 were formerly fettled there, I have met with no trace in the maritime part 

 of Yemen, from Aden to Majkat, of any nation, who were not either Arabs 

 or Abyffmian invaders.. 



