bute to their prefervation. The history which treats of those ancient and polished nations has preferved few fragments of their manners entire from the ruins of time; while Abyffinia, at war with nobody, or at war with itself only, has preferved the ancient customs which it enjoyed in common with all the east, and which were only loft in other kingdoms by the invafion of ftrangers, a misfortune Abyffinia has never fuffered fince the introduction of letters.

The old Egyptians, as we are told by Sacred Scripture, did not eat with ftrangers; but perhaps the obfervation is extended farther than ever Scripture meant. The inftance given of Jofeph's brethren not being allowed to eat with the Egyptians was, becaufe Jofeph had told Pharoah that his brethren, and Jacob his father, were fhepherds, that he might get from the Egyptians the land of Gofhen, a land, as the name imports, of pafturage and grafs, which the Nile never overflowed, and it was therefore in poffeffion of the fhepherds.. Now the fhepherds, we are told, were the direct natural enemies of the Egyptians who live in towns. The fhepherds alfo facrificed the god whom the Egyptians worshipped.

The Egyptians worthipped the cow, and the fhepherds lived upon her flesh, which made them a feparate people, that could not eat nor communicate together; and the very knowledge of this was, as we are informed by Scripture, the reason why Jofeph told Pharoah, when he afked him what profeffion his brethren were of," Your fervants, fays Jofeph, are fhepherds, and their employment the feeding of cattle;" and this was given out, that the land of Gothen might be allotted to them, and fo they and their defcendants be kept separate from the Egyptians, and not expofed to mingle in their abominations; or, though they had abftained from those abomi nations, they could not kill cattle for facrifice or for food. They would have raifed ill-will against themfelves, and, as Mofes fays, would have been ftoned, and fo the end of bringing them to Gofhen would have been fruftrated, which was to nurfe them in a plentiful land, in peace and fecurity, till they should attain to be a mighty people, capable of fubduing and filling the land to which, at the end of their captivity, Gon was to lead them.

The Abyffinians neither eat nor drink with ftrangers, though they have no reason for this; and it is now a mere prejudice, because the old occafion for this regulation is loft. They break, or purify, however, every veffel a stranger of any kind shall eat or drink in. The cuftom, then, is copied from the Egyptians, and they have preserved it, though the Egyptian reafon does no longer hold.

The Egyptians made no account of the mother what her ftate was; if the father was free, the child followed the condition of the father. This is ftrictly fo in Abysfinia. The king's child by a negro-flave, bought with money, or taken in war, is as near in fucceeding to the crown, as any one of twenty children that he has older than that one, and born of the nobleft women of the country.

The men in Egypt did neither buy nor fell; the fame is the cafe in Abyffinia at this day. It is infamy for a man to go to market to buy any thing. He cannot carry water or bake bread; but he must wash the cloaths belonging to both fexes; and, in this function, the women cannot help him. In Abyffinia the men carried their burdens on their heads," the women on their fhoulders; and this difference, we are told, obtained in Egypt. It is plain, that this buying, in the public market, by women, must have ended whenever jealoufy or fequeftration of that fex began; for this reason it ended early in Egypt; but, for the oppofite reason, it fubfifts in Abyffinia to this day. It was a fort of impiety in Egypt to eat a calf; and the reafon was plain, they worshipped the cow. In Abyffinia, to this day, no mans eats veal, although every one very willingly eats a cow; the Egyptian reafon no longer fubfifts, as in the former cafe, but the prejudice remains, though they have forgotten their reason.

The Abyffinians eat no wild or water-fowl, not even the goofe, which was a great delicacy in Egypt. The reafon of this is, that, upon their converfion to Judadifm, they were forced to relinquish their ancient municipal customs, as far as they were contrary to the Mofaical law; and the animals, in their country, not correfponding in form, kind, or name, with those mentioned in the Septuagint, or original Hebrew, it

has

thefe feparate reigns come to be added together, the one fum total will not agree with the other, but will be more or less than the just time which that prince reigned. This, indeed, as errors compenfate full as frequently as they accumulate, will feldom amount to a difference above three years; a space of time too trivial to be of any confequence in the hiftory of barbarous nations.

1

TRAVELS

TRAVELS

TO DISCOVER

The SOURCE of the NILE.

BOOK VI.

First Attempt to difcover the Source of the Nile fruftrated. A fuccessful Journey thither, with a full Account of every Thing relating to that celebrated River.

ON

NE day, when Mr. Bruce was at court, he met Tecla Mariam, the king's fecretary, who taking him by the hand, faid, with a laughing countenance, " O ho, I wish you joy; this is like a man; you are now no stranger, but one of us; why was not you at court?" Mr. Bruce faid he had no particular bufinefs there, but that he came thither to fee Ayto Confu, that he might speak in favour of Yafine to get him appointed deputy of Ras el Feel. "Why don't you appoint him yourself? (fays he) what has Confu to do with the affair now? You don't intend always to be in leading ftrings? You may thank the king for yourfelf, but I would never advise you to speak one word of Yafine to him; it is not the cuftom; you may, if you please, to Confu; he knows him already. His eftate lies all around you, and he will enforce your orders, if there fhould be any need."

"Pardon me, Tecla Mariam, (faid Mr. Bruce,) if I do not understand you. I came here to folicit for Yafine, that Confu or his fucceffor would appoint him their

deputy,

has followed, that there are many of each clafs that know not whether they are clean or not; and a wonderful confufion and uncertainty has followed through ignorance or mistake, being unwilling to violate the law in any one inftance through not understanding it.

Mr. Bruce has mentioned, in the courfe of the narrative of his journey from Mafuah, that, at a smali diftince from Axum, he overtook, on the way, three travellers who seemed to be foldiers, driving a cow before them. They halted at a brook, threw down the beaft, and one of them cut a pretty large collop of flesh from its buttocks, after which they drove the cow gently on as before. A violent out-cry was raised in England at hearing this circumftance, which they did not hesitate to pronounce impossible, when the manners and customs of Abyffinia were to them utterly unknown. The Jefuits, established in Abyffinia for above an hundred years, had told them of that people eating, what they call raw meat, in every page, and yet they were ignorant of this.

It must be from prejudice alone we condemn the eating of raw flesh; no precept, divine or human, forbids it; and if it be true, as later travellers have difcovered, that there are nations ignorant of the ufe of fire, any law against eating raw flesh could never have been intended by GoD as obligatory upon mankind in general. At any rate, it is certainly not clearly known, whether the eating raw flesh was not an earlier and more general practice than by preparing it with fire; many wife and learned men have doubted, whether it was at first permitted to man to eat animal food at all. GOD, the author of life, and the beft judge of what was proper ta maintain it, gave this regimen to our firft parents"Behold, I have given you every herb bearing feed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding feed: to you it fhall be for meat." And though, immediately after, he mentions both beafts and fowls, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth, he does not fay that he has defigned any of these as meat for man. On the contrary, he feems to have intended the vegetable creation as food for both man and beast-" And to every beast of