ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO. 
137 
Christian for centuries; and its late King John, who greatly enlarged 
its boundaries and extended its influence in Central Africa, bore, 
like some European monarchs, the title of “Defender of the Faith,'' 
most dear to the kings of Abyssinia. 
The Christian period of Egypt, comparatively short in duration 
and unimportant in influencing neighboring tribes or communities, 
ended in the Arab conquest under Amru, which left but few vestiges 
of Christians or Christianity. To-day, a small Coptic community 
in Cairo, respected more for the intelligence of its members, the 
chief accountants and clerks of the administration, than for their 
numbers or influence, and a few more scattered over various vil¬ 
lages, alone attest the antiquity of Christianity in Egypt. 
RIGID PIETY OF ANCIENT ETHIOPIA. 
But Abyssinia, the ancient Ethiopia, claiming to possess the 
primitive Christianity and boasting of preserving the relics of St. 
Mark the Evangelist, has ever held fast to Christianity, even though 
disfiguring it with strange superstitions, distorting it with fierce 
fanaticism, and showing even sterner savagery than animated the 
old Crusaders, with whom hatred to the heathen was equivalent to 
love of God. 
Three great mountain chains forming a triangle, with its base 
resting on the Abai and the Kawash, and its apex at Massowah on 
the Red Sea, are the boundaries of an immense elevated plateau, 
upheaved by volcanic action from the sultry plains of tropical 
Africa, but blessed with a climate as fresh and healthy as any in 
Europe. Indeed, the table-lands of Abyssinia, bounded on the north 
and west by the arid deserts of the Sudan, on the south by the 
country of the ferocious Gallas, and on the east by Debeni, Adal, 
and the great salt plains of Arrhoo, may be likened to some rocky 
island rising in the midst of the ocean, rich with verdant plains, 
bubbling streams and shady woods, but seldom visited by the 
mariner, owing to its isolated position and the terrible cliffs by 
which it is surrounded. 
Very seldom do the natives of the Abyssinian plateau venture 
down into the fever-stricken plains, where dwell their hereditary 
