I take the old names of these two last-mentioned nations, to be sunk in the circumstances of this their new settlement, and to be a compound of two words Ag-oha, the Shepherds of the River, and I also imagine, that the idolatry they introduced in the worship of the Nile, is a further, proof that they came from Canaan, where they imbibed materialism in place of the pure Sabean worship of the Shepherds, then the only religion of this part of Africa. The fourth is a nation bordering upon the southern banks of the Nile near Damot. It calls itself Gafat, which signifies oppressed by violence, torn, expelled, or chaced away by force. If we were to follow the idea arising merely from this name, we might be led to imagine, that these were part of the tribes torn from Solomon’s son and successor, Rehoboam. This, however, we cannot do confident with the faith to be kept by a historian with his reader. The evidence of the people themselves, and the tradition of the country, deny they ever were Jews, or ever concerned with that colony, brought with Menilek and the queen of Saba, which established the Jewish hierarchy. They declare, that they are now Pagans, and ever were so; that they are partakers with their neighbours the Agows in the worship of the river Nile, the extent or particulars of which I cannot pretend to explain.--The fifth is a tribe, which, if we were to pay any attention to similarity of names, we should be apt to imagine we had found here in Africa a part of that great Gaulish nation so widely extended in Europe and Asia. A comparison of their languages, with what we know exists of the former, cannot but be very curious.--These are the Galla, the most considerable of these nations, specimens of whose language I have cited. This word, in their own language, signifies _Shepherd_[242]; they say that formerly they lived on the borders of the southern rains, within the southern tropic; and that, like these in Atbara, they were carriers between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, and supplied the interior part of the peninsula with Indian commodities. The history of this trade is unknown; it must have been little less ancient, and nearly as extensive, as the trade to Egypt and Arabia. It probably suffered diminution, when the mines of Sofala were given up, soon after the discovery of the new world. The Portuguese found it still flourishing, when they made their first conquests upon that coast; and they carry it on still in an obscure manner, but in the same tract to their settlements near Cape Negro on the western ocean. From these settlements would be the proper place to begin to explore the interior parts of the peninsula, on both sides of the southern tropic, as protection and assistance could probably be got through the whole course of it, and very little skill in language would be necessary.