In _The Pall Mall Gazette_ of August 19, 1904, an interesting account of an interview with M. Hugues Leroux was published. M. Leroux had just returned from a “diplomatic and scientific mission” to Abyssinia. He had been the bearer of an autograph letter from M. Loubet to the Emperor Menelek. M. Leroux brought back much interesting information which concerns only the present circumstances of the country—_e.g._ that the Emperor “is striving to follow out what he himself calls a policy of good-humour. He wants to be on good terms with all the world, but he does not want to be devoured. He is anxious to open up Abyssinia, but to commerce, not to conquest.” And again, “he has at last granted permission for the railway from Djibouti, which hitherto went only as far as Harrar, to be carried up to Addis Abiba. He will probably refuse the British and Italian requests to build branch lines connecting this railway with Zeila and Massouah, the towns on the coast to the north and the south of Djibouti which belong respectively to Great Britain and Italy, his comment upon this scheme being, ‘I would like one ladder up to my front door, but not three.’” M. Leroux had been entrusted with an autograph reply from the Emperor Menelek to the President of the French Republic. But he bore away from Ethiopia a much more interesting document, which—if it is genuine and is rightly described by the traveller and the interviewer—is invaluable for the clue that it gives to the origin of the Abyssinian nation. It is said to be “a most extraordinary Abyssinian manuscript, which is certain to make a great sensation when the translation of it is published, for it throws a flood of light upon the early history of the Jews. The Abyssinian monarchs have always considered this manuscript to be among their most sacred possessions. It was appropriated by the English at the capture of Magdala, but on Emperor John succeeding to the throne, he opened diplomatic negotiations and recovered it from the British Museum, where it had been deposited. It is written in the Geez language, which is of Hebraic origin, of great antiquity, and known only to the priests. It relates that after the plagues of Egypt some hundreds of thousands of Jews did not follow Moses across the Red Sea, but went west, down the Blue Nile, to found a kingdom of their own, which they called Saba—‘Saba’ merely meaning west. These were the original Abyssinians.”