Upon the represented surface of Abyssinia two principal streams were now delineated, one called the Abiah, flowing from the east and the south; and the other from the north, the Abi, or Bruce’s Nile, which falls into the Abiah immediately after leaving the table land in the vicinity of Fazuglo. From the rivers Abi and Abiah is derived the name Abisha, the original of our word Abyssinia, signifying the country of the Abi; “cha” or “sha,” country, being a frequent compound of the names of large localities, as Dembeacha, the country of Dembea; Angotcha, the country of Angot; Damotcha, and many others. We now came to the more interesting examination of the sources and course of the river Gibbee, the great geographical problem connected with this country as yet undecided by any competent authority. There is no doubt, however, that the Gibbee of the present day is the Zibbee of the Portuguese travellers of the seventeenth century, and the Kibbee of Bruce. Recent visitors to these countries, Krapf, Beke, and Harris, all bear testimony to the correctness of the account given by their predecessors, that this river runs to the south and empties itself into the Indian Ocean. I have ventured to differ altogether from these travellers; and, as will be perceived in my diagram map at the commencement of this volume, I direct the stream of the Zibbee or Gibbee to the north and west, contributing to form the much larger river Abiah, which is the main branch of Assa-abi, or red river, most erroneously written in all European maps Bahr ul Assareek, or the Blue Nile. It is impossible to say with whom this error originated, but probably with some speculative geographer; for by distorting the words “assa arogue” in Amharic, the old red river, a word, similar in sound to a Turkish one, signifying blue, has been manufactured; and Assareek, or Blue Nile, is now the generally received name of the time-honoured Assa-abinus, the Jupiter of the ancient Ethiopians, and the original, I believe, of the Egyptian god Serapis. The true blue river is, in fact, the Nile itself, “nil” being the name of indigo at the present day all along the valley of that river; and in the same language, let it be borne in mind, as every other important designation of this interesting part of the world, the word “nil” is still the word for blue, and with such a signification we find it in many names of places both in India and Persia, of which a familiar example is the celebrated Sanatarium station, near Madras, of Neilgherry, from _Nila gira_, the blue hills. The sacred colour, also, that which distinguished the priests of ancient Egypt, was blue, and no doubt bore some reference to the name of the river, which was originally the object of their worship, for in the names of two of its principal branches, Apis and Serapis, we have the elements of the words Abi and Assaabi, the terminal sigma being the usual Grecian affix to foreign names.