Amhara, which word is at present only used to designate the Christian population of Abyssinia, was, previous to the introduction of the Mahomedan religion, the descriptive appellation of an extensive red people, who principally occupied the eastern border of the Abyssinian table land, from the latitude of Massoah in the north to that of lake Zui in the south. To the west of these, and occupying the portion of the table land in that direction, lived a people decidedly different in their complexion, their features, their language, their religion, and their customs. These were the Gongas, or Agows, who I believe to have been the original possessors of the whole plateau, until a period remarkable in history, when the Emperor of Meroë or Ethiopia located upon a portion of their country, those disaffected soldiers of Psammeticus who had sought an asylum in his kingdom. Were I not convinced that the Amhara population of Abyssinia, at the present day, can be physically demonstrated to be the descendants of these fugitives from Egypt, I would not venture to advance such an innovation upon the generally received opinion, that the Amhara are aborigines of the country they now inhabit. Under the term Abyssins, Dr. Prichard, in his invaluable work upon the natural history of man, includes all the different nations that now inhabit the lofty plain of Abisha or Abyssinia. Of one of these nations, the Amhara, he remarks, “So striking is the resemblance between the modern Abyssinians and the Hebrews of old, that we can hardly look upon them but as branches of one nation, and if we had not convincing evidence to the contrary, and knew not for certain that the Abramidæ originated in Chaldæa, and to the northward and eastward of Palestine, we might frame a very probable hypothesis, which would bring them down as a band of wandering shepherds from the mountains of Habesh, and identify them with the pastor kings, who, according to Manetho, multiplied their bands in the land of the Pharaohs, and being, after some centuries, expelled thence by the will of the gods, sought refuge in Judea, and built the walls of Jerusalem. Such an hypothesis would explain the existence of an almost Israelitish people, and the preservation of a language so nearly approaching to the Hebrew in intertropical Africa.” The learned ethnologist goes on to observe--“It is certainly untrue; and we find no other easy explanation of the facts which the history of Abyssinia presents, and particularly of the early extension of the Jewish religion and customs through that country, for the legend which makes the royal house of Menilek descend from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, is as idle a story as ever monks invented to abuse the reverent ignorance of their lay brethren.”