"It is uncertain how long these conquerors retained their acquisition; but, in all probability their ascendancy gave way to the rising greatness of the Mahometan power; which soon afterwards overwhelmed all the nations contiguous to Arabia, spread to the remotest parts of the East, and even penetrated the African deserts from Egypt to the Congo. Meanwhile Abyssinia, though within two hundred miles of the walls of Mecca, remained unconquered and true to the Christian faith; presenting a mortifying and galling object to the more zealous followers of the Prophet. On this account, implacable and incessant wars ravaged her territories. ... She lost her commerce, saw her consequence annihilated, her capital threatened, and the richest of her provinces laid waste. ... There is reason to apprehend that she must shortly have sunk under the pressure of repeated invasions, had not the Portuguese arrived [in the 16th century] at a seasonable moment to aid her endeavours against the Moslem chiefs." _M. Russell, Nubia and Abyssinia, chapter 3._ "When Nubia, which intervenes between Egypt and Abyssinia, ceased to be a Christian country, owing to the destruction of its church by the Mahometans, the Abyssinian church was cut off from communication with the rest of Christendom. ... They [the Abyssinians] remain an almost unique specimen of a semi-barbarous Christian people. Their worship is strangely mixed with Jewish customs." _H. F. Tozer, The Church and the Eastern Empire, chapter 5._ ABYSSINIA: Fifteenth-Nineteenth Centuries. European Attempts at Intercourse. Intrusion of the Gallas. Intestine conflicts.