"176 
MK' LUCAS'S 
fmall Republics are given; but moil of their States are monar- 
chical ; and of thefe, the inhabitants of the Mahometan King- 
dom of Degombah are diflinguiflied by the cufcom of taming 
the Elephant, and by that of felling for Haves the prifoners they 
take from fuch of the bordering nations as motives of religion 
•or of avarice prompt them to invade. 
Such, however, is the mildnefs of the Negro charafter, 
that even the afperlties of religious difagreement appear to 
have no effeft on their general condud ; for thete is reafon to 
believe, from the Shereefs account, that the Muflelman and 
the Pagan are indifcriminately mixed, that their cattle feed upon 
the fame mountain, and that the approach of evening fends them 
in peace to the fame village : and though the nations who are 
attacked by the people of Degombah punifh with death, as guilty 
of atrocious injuftice, fuch of the invaders as the chance of war 
throws into their hands, yet thofe of the Mahometans who vifit 
them for the purpofes of trade, are received with prote6lion and 
refpeft. 
To the Merchants of Fezzan, who travel to the fouthern 
States of the Negros, the purchafe of gold, which the domi- 
nions of feveral, and efpecially of thofe of Degombah, abun- 
