It also appears to me that the word Dankalli connects the history of these people with the empire of the true Ethiopia, or Meroe, which was situated between the branches of the Tacazze and the Assareek, or the Red Nile, for it may be that in the Odyssey, where Homer conducts Neptune into Ethiopia, and places him between two nations of blacks, perfectly distinct from each other, the poet alludes to the two very different people, the Shankalli and the Dankalli, inhabiting the low countries of Africa within the tropics; the former living to the west of Abyssinia, the latter towards the east. This will be more evident when, in a future chapter, I connect the elevated table-land of Abyssinia with the scene of the annual festivities of the gods in Ethiopia. It may be as well in this place, perhaps, to advance my own opinion as to the probable derivation of the name Galla, which has been so generally given to the numerous, divided, and barbarous tribes which I believe have arisen from the ruins of the once civilized and extensive empire of Meroe. The word Galla appears to be merely another form of “Calla,” which in the ancient Persian, Sanscrit, Celtic, and their modern derivative languages, under modified, but not radically changed terms, is expressive of blackness, and which was originally conferred upon a dark-coloured people, as descriptive of their appearance, by the affrighted nations of a lighter complexion, whom their boldness and ferocity have nearly extinguished. Thus the original inhabitants of the high table-land of Abyssinia, a much lighter-coloured race than the Greeks, called the people of the surrounding low countries Galla, for the same reason that the Greeks gave them the name of Ethiopians. In the Geez, or Ethiopic language, these people are styled Tokruree, blacks, and their country Tokruah; and we find that the Arabs and Indians, also influenced by external appearance, call them Seedee, and their country Soudan, from the word _asward_, which signifies black. The Romans, in like manner, gave them the name of Nigritæ; and we ourselves call them Blacks. Two nations of Calla or blacks, very different in physical character and social condition from each other, are now found in the country of ancient Ethiopia; the Shankalli, or the true negro, and the Dankalli, who belong decidedly to the Circassian variety of mankind, possessing round skulls, high full foreheads; the position of the eyes rectilinear; the nose, mouth, and form of countenance being in every respect concordant with the characters assigned to that type of the human race, excepting their colour, which was a dark brown, or sometimes quite black. Their hair, which is much frizzled and worn very full, is a savage caricature of a barrister’s wig. I could perceive no other difference in features or in the form of the head between ourselves and several individuals of this people; indeed, there was often such a