200 AXUM. 
was erected was at no great distance from the time of the Axum 
inscription, and that it was perhaps erected by the same king ; for 
it is a most remarkable fact, that Aeizanas reigned just twenty-seven 
years, according to Bruce's history. 
" It is extremely to be regretted, that we have not the beginning 
of this inscription ; but it is not surprizing that it should be obli- 
terated in the course of three hundred or four hundred years, which 
period we may fairly compute between the time of its erection, 
and the age of Cosmas; or even if it remained, it may have con- 
founded our decipherers, who were far from being learned, or it may 
have stood in the way of their opinion that the whole referred to 
Ptolemy. May it not have been passed over, or, (but that Cosmas's 
character appears too plain and honest to have committed such 
an act), suppressed, for the purpose of attributing to one of his own 
sovereigns the honour of having conquered this remote country? 
for it is to be remembered, that Cosmas was a Greek (a nation whose 
veracity is not to be relied on), and of course more interested about a 
Ptolemy than about a king of Abyssinia. Sufficient for Ptolemy be 
the credit which is given to him in the first part, and which, by 
these conjectures, if admitted, is divested of all the difficulties that 
hitherto have attended it; cleared of all obscurity, it will then 
stand a most valuable document authenticating what had been 
before recorded ; while the latter part confirms, and accounts for 
the great power of the Abyssinians in Arabia, and their consequence 
in the general scale of politics for several centuries, which, from 
the present very low state of that nation, has hitherto appeared 
somewhat doubtful; though it be asserted by several cotempo- 
rary writers, as Procopius, Nonnosus, kc. and confirmed by many of 
