I conceive it is _ignorance_ of the language which has led these _learned_ men into this mistake. The Abyssinians call a house, standing by itself, allotted to any particular purpose, Bet. So Bet Negus is a palace, or the house of a king; Bet Christian is a church, or a house for Christian worship; whilst Bet Mocha is a prison, or house under ground. But houses in towns or villages are called Taintes, from the Abyssinian word Tain, to sleep, lie down, rest, or repose. I suppose the similitude of this word to tents has drawn these _learned_ critics to believe, that, instead of towns, these were only collections of tents. But still I think, no one acquainted with the Abyssinian language, or without being so, would be so void of understanding as to believe, a people that had built Axum of stone, should endure, for ages after, a tropical winter in bare tents. The fifth thing that fixes falsehood upon Poncet is, that he describes delicious valleys beyond European ideas; beautiful plains, covered with odoriferous trees and shrubs, to be everywhere in his way on the entrance of Abyssinia; whereas, when Salidan’s brother conquered this country, the Arabian books say they found it destitute of all this fruitfulness. But, with all submission to the Arabian books, to Abbé Renaudot and his immense reading, I will maintain, that neither Salidan, nor his brother, nor any of his tribe, ever conquered the country Poncet describes, nor were in it, or ever saw it at a distance. The province where Poncet found these beautiful scenes lies between lat. 12 and 13°. The soil is rich, black mould, which six months tropical rain are needed to water sufficiently, where the sun is vertical to it twice a-year, and stationary, with respect to it, for several days, at the distance of 10°, and at a lesser distance still for several months; where the sun, though so near, is never seen, but a thick screen of watery clouds is constantly interposed, and yet the heat is such, that Fahrenheit’s thermometer rises to 100° in the shade. Can any one be so ignorant in natural history, as to doubt that, under these circumstances, a luxuriant, florid, odoriferous vegetation must be the consequence? Is not this the case in every continent or island within these limits all round the globe?