378 
ANTALO. 
desired them to appear before him in public on a particular day. 
By these, and similar means, he obtains so accurate a knowledge 
of the events that occur in the different districts, that the chiefs, 
however distantly removed from his immediate control, dare not 
commit any very flagrant act of injustice, from the dread of its 
coming to his knowledge. 
I have often had occasion to mention the Shangalla, who are 
in attendance on the Ras, and I shall therefore proceed to give 
the reader a short account of them. It appears, that the name of 
Shangalla, or Shankalla, is a generic term applied by the Abys- 
sinians, without distinction, to the whole race of " Negroes,'' in 
the same way as they apply the words Taltal, and Shiho, to the 
various tribes on the coast. All those Shangalla with whom I 
conversed would not acknowledge the appellation, but had distinct 
names for their own tribes, the greater part of them having been 
taken captives in the neighbourhood of the lower part of the 
Tacazze, or in the wild forests northward of Abyssinia ; while 
some of the others had been brought by the traders from coun- 
tries beyond the Nile, and even from so great a distance as the 
neighbourhood of the Bahr el Abiad. I received from one of the 
latter the following account of the nation to which he belonged. 
The tribe, of which he had been a member, was called Dizzela, 
inhabiting a district named Dabanja, three days journey beyond 
the Nile, in a country bearing the general appellation of Damit- 
chequa. He mentioned, that his countrymen entertain a very 
imperfect notion of God, whom they call Mussa-guzza. The 
only species of adoration they offer up to the deity, is during a 
great holiday, called kemoos, when the whole people assemble to 
