The Chronicle of Axum, the most ancient repository of the antiquities of that country, a book esteemed, I shall not say how properly, as the first in authority after the holy scriptures, says, that between the creation of the world and the birth of our Saviour there were 5500 years[237]; that Abyssinia had never been inhabited till 1808 years before Christ[237]; and 200 years after that, which was in the 1600, it was laid waste by a flood, the face of the country much changed and deformed, so that it was denominated at that time Ourè Midre, or, _the country laid waste_, or, as it is called in scripture itself, a land which the waters or floods had spoiled[238]; that about the 1400 year before Christ it was taken possession of by a variety of people speaking different languages, who, as they were in friendship with the Agaazi, or Shepherds, possessing the high country of Tigrè, came and sat down beside them in a peaceable manner, each occupying the lands that were before him. This settlement is what the Chronicle of Axum calls _Angaba_, the entry and establishment of these nations, which finished the peopling of Abyssinia. Tradition further says, that they came from Palestine. All this seems to me to wear the face of truth. Some time after the year 1500, we know there happened a flood which occasioned great devastation. Pausanius says, that this flood happened in Ethiopia in the reign of Cecrops; and, about the 1490 before Christ, the Israelites entered the land of promise, under Caleb and Joshua. We are not to wonder at the great impression that invasion made upon the minds of the inhabitants of Palestine. We see by the history of the harlot, that the different nations had been long informed by prophecies, current and credited among themselves, that they were to be extirpated before the face of the Israelites, who for some time had been hovering about their frontiers. But now when Joshua had passed the Jordan, after having miraculously dried up the river[239] before his army had invaded Canaan, and had taken and destroyed Jericho, a panic seized the whole people of Syria and Palestine. These petty states, many in number, and who had all different languages, seeing a conqueror with an immense army already in possession of part of their country, and who did not conduct himself according to the laws of other conquerors, but put the vanquished under saws and harrows of iron, and destroyed the men, women, and children; and sometimes even the cattle, by the sword, no longer could think of waiting the arrival of such an enemy, but sought for safety by speedy flight or emigration. The Shepherds in Abyssinia and Atbara were the most natural refuge these fugitives could seek; commerce must have long made them acquainted with each others manners, and they must have been already entitled to the rights of hospitality by having often passed through each other’s country.