ABYSSINIA ' is an European improvement upon the native name of HABES1-1.' That this country lies to the south of Nubia, which separates it from Egypt, and to the west of the Gulf of Bab-el-Mandah and the scuthern part of the Arabian sea, will sufficiently indicate its position. Abyssinia is a high country, which has been compared by Humboldt to the lofty Plain of Quito. By one of those beautiful synthetical operations of which his writings offer so many examples, the greatest living geographer, Carl Ritter of Berlin, has established, from the writings of various travellers, that the high country of Habesh consists of three terraces, or distinct table-lands, rising one above another, and of which the several grades of ascent offer them selves in succession to the traveller as he advances from the shores of the Red Sea (Erdkunde, th. i. s. ICS). The first of these levels is the plain of Baharnegash : the second level is the plain and kingdom of Tigre, which formerly contained the kingdom of Axum: the third level is High Abys sinia, or the kingdom of Amhara. This name of Amhara is now given to the whole kingdom, of which Gondar is the capital, and where the Amharic language is spoken eastward of the Takazze. Amhara Proper is, however, a mountainous province to the south-east, in the centre of which was Tegulat, the ancient capital of the empire, and at one period the centre of the civilization of Abyssinia. This province is now in the possession of the Gallas, a barbarous people who have overcome all the southern parts of Habesh. The present kingdom of Amhara is the heart of Abyssinia, and the abode of the emperor, or Negush. It contains the upper course of the Nile, the valley of Dembea, and the lake Tzana, near which is the royal city of Gondar, and likewise the high region of Gojam, which Bruce states to be at least two miles above the level of the sea.
Abyssinia is inhabited by several distinct races, who are commonly included under the name of Habesh or Abyssins. They are clearly distin guished from each other by their languages, but have more or less resemblance in manners and physical character. These races are—I. The Ti puni, or Abyssins of the kingdom of Tigre, which nearly coincides in extent with the old king dom of Axum. They speak a language called by Tellez and Ludolph lingua Tigrania. It is a corruption or modern dialect of the Gheez or old Ethiopic, which was the ancient vernacular tongue of the province ; but is now a dead language conse crated to literature and religious uses [ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE], and the modern language of Tigre has been for more than five centuries merely an oral dialect. 2. The Antharas, who have been for ages the dominant people in Abyssinia ; the genuine Amhara being considered as a higher and nobler caste, as the military and royal tribe. Their lan
guage—the Amharic—now extends over all the eastern parts of Abyssinia, including various pro vinces, some of which appear at one time to have had vernacular languages of their own. 3. The Agows, which name is borne by two tribes, who speak different languages and inhabit different parts of Abyssinia. These are the Agows of Damot, one of the most extensive of the southern provinces, where they are settled about the sources and on the banks of the Nile ; and the Agows of Lasta, who according to Bruce, are Troglodytes, living in caverns and paying the same adoration to the river Takazze which those of the Damot pay to the Nile. These last are called by Salt the Agows of Takazze ; and although they scarcely differ from the other Abyssinians in physical character, their language shews them to be a distinct race from the Persian as well as from the Amhara. 4. The Falasha, a people whose present condition suggests many curious inquiries, and the investigation of whose history may hereafter throw light upon that of the Abyssins, and of their literature and ecclesiastical antiquities. They all profess the Jewish religion, and probably did so before the era of the conversion of the Abyssins to Christianity. Theythemselves profess to derive their origin from Palestine; but their language, which is said to have no affinity with the Hebrew, seems sufficiently to refute this pretension (Vater, Mithria'ates,t. iii.) According to Bruce the Falasha were very powerful at the time of the conversion of the Abyssins to Christianity. They were formerly a caste of potters and tile-makers in the low country of Dembea, but, owing to religious animosities, and being weakened by long wars, they were driven out thence, and took refuge among rugged and almost inaccessible rocks, in the high ridge called the mountains of Samen, where they live under princes of their own, bearing Hebrew names, and paying tribute to the Negush. It is conjectured that the Falasha and the Agows were at one time the princi pal inhabitants of the south-eastern parts of Abys sinia. 5. The CafiAes, a pagan tribe, with a distinct language, living on the southern banks of the Nile, near Damot. 6. The Congas and Enareans. The former inhabit the province of Gonga, and have a language distinct from all the preceding, but the same which is spoken by the people of Narea, or Enarea, to the southward of Habesh. 7. To these we should perhaps now add the Callas, a race of wandering herdsmen, extensively spread in eastern intertropical Africa, who have become, during the last century, very formidable by their numbers, and threaten to overwhelm the Abyssinian empire.