192 
AXUM. 
intimation which we have of the Abyssinians having adopted the 
Gods of Greece, and as I have before partly stated, sets aside the 
descent from the Queen of Saba, and the conversion of the nation 
to Judaism, as also up to the period of its erection, the authenticity 
of those chronicles, called the Chronicles of Axum, so far at least 
as they refer to the religion of the country. 
*' The knowledge of this inscription, also throws a new light on 
another, equally curious and important, which according to the 
account of Cosmas Indicopleustes, was found by him at Adulis, and 
has greatly excited the attention of many learned men, and parti- 
cularly of Dr. Vincent, who has written a treatise on the subject. 
It is not without great hesitation, that I venture to differ from so 
learned and able a writer, but I feel it a duty to submit to the 
pubhc, the ideas which have arisen in my mind, from a mature 
consideration of the inscription discovered by me, and from my 
local knowledge of the places mentioned. 
" Cosmas lived during the reign of the Emperor Justin, and as a 
trader visited Adulis : during his stay, he undertook to decipher 
an inscription existing there in Greek characters, in compliance 
with the wishes of Elesbaas (or Caleb Negus), King of Abyssinia, 
who was then on the point of undertaking an expedition into 
Arabia, and who had probably been told at Axum, that the contents 
referred to conquests made by one of his predecessors. One part of 
this inscription was cut out on a basanite tablet, which, after 
enumerating the titles of Ptolemy, (Euergetes), proceeds to give an 
account of his victories in Asia; and the other part was engraved 
on a chair of white marble, containing a long account of victories 
in Abyssinia, connected, as Cosmas supposes, with the first, though 
