The Abyssinians, like the ancient Egyptians, compute time by the solar year. Their month ( thisists of 30 days, and, to complete the year, they add 11%e days and a quar ter to the month of August, which they call Nahasse. Every fourth year they add a sixth day. With them, as with all the Eastern nations, the year begins on the 91it or 30th day of August, that being the first of their month Mascaras. It is uncertain whence the names of their months have been derived : they have no signifi cation in any of the languages of the country. Their common epoch is h'0111 the creation of the world, which they date 5500 years before the birth of Christ, reject ing the calculation of the Greeks, w ho make that period consist of 5508 years. They make use, likewise, of many other epochs, such as from the councils of Nice and Ephesus. In all their ecclesiastical computations, they invariably employ the golden number and epact. The use of the epact, according to Scaliger, was first adopted by the Abyssinians in the time of Dioclesian. But this opinion is at variance with the positive evi dence of Abyssinian history, which ascribes the inven tion of the epact to Demetrius, patriarch of Alexandria, who was elected in the reign of the emperor Severus, long before the time of Dioclesian. The Abyssinians have another method of computing time peculiar to themselves. They describe their years by the names of the four Evangelists, and will tell you, that an event happened in the days of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. They mark out the different periods of the day in a very arbitrary and irregular manner. The first period, called Nagge comprehends the short and scarcely perceptible morning twilight. Meset, the evening twilight, denotes the instant between the sun's decline and the appearing of the stars. Mid-clay is called hater, a very ancient word, which signifies culmination ; and any other part of the day is expressed by pointing at that place in the heavens where the sun was at the time of which they speak.
The natives are, in general, of a dark olive complexion, and, from a just antipathy against the sanguinary and fanatical jesuits, they detest the resemblance of a white complexion; insomuch that they even show aversion to white grapes. The principal part of their dress is a large cotton cloth, with a blue and yellow border, which they wrap round them in a particular mannc r. and bind with a sash. Besides these robes, which a PC light and beautiful, they wear a kind of breccht.s reaching to the middle of their thigh, and girt with a belt of \I lute cloth ; those of the higher ranks are made of red Indian cotton cloth, with girdles of silk or wo-5ted brought from the Levant. Their head-dress is a kind of turban.
On this subject, Mr Bruce has given a curious disser tation, intended to prove, that the Ethiopian was the original language of mankind; and that its al phabet was composed of the first written characters that had ever been invented But his theory, though ingenious, will not stand the test of sober investigation. The language of Abyssinia is an ancient offspring of the Arabic ; for it will appear in the sequel, that Ethiopia was peopled by a colony from the Arabian peninsula. It is divided into various ditlects, the principal of which are the Tigrin. or that of and the Amharic, which is now the prevailing language of thi:, empire. With regard to the charade_ is, we are informed by 1\11. Mur ray, the ingenious editor of Brace's Travels, that " they are nothing else but the Coptic forms of the Gret It al phabet, modelled on the plan of the Arabic, deranged from their former order, and made rude by the hands of barbarous scribes. The change made in the Arabic alphabet by lbn Mocla, is well known; but it expresses none of the vowels. Long before that time, the mis
sionaries, who first wrote the Geez, took the Greek al phabet from Egypt ; but finding that the language was more related to the Arabic and Hebrew than the Greek, they still retained such of those letters as were common, with which they expressed the Gecz words in the Ara bic or Hebrew manner." The Abyssinian language has been illustrated by the labours of Ludolf, and other mis sionaries; it is probably nearly allied to the Coptic or Egyptian, as a great intercourse once subsisted between the two countries.
Having thus detailed, at some length, the manners, institutions, and present condition of Abyssinia, we shall now proceed to give a sketch of its history, which the limits prescribed to us for articles of this nature will necessarily render short and imperfect.
Various opinions have been entertained concerning the original population of Ethiopia. It was known among the Jews by the name of Cush ; an appellation which applied likewise to the peninsula of Arabia, as well as to the country watered by the Araxes ; and to the region adjacent to Egypt, on the coast of the Ara bian gulf. To all these countries, the name was evi dently transmitted from Cush, the grandson of Noah ; but the honour of being his lineal descendants has been chiefly disputed by the Arabs and Abyssinians. The majority of the learned have decided in favour of the Arabs; maintaining that Cush having settled in Arabia, his descendants gradually migrated to its south-eastern extremity; whence, by an easy passage, they transport ed themselves across the straits of Babelmandeb, and entered the country properly called Ethiopia. Accord ing to some writers, this migration took place while the Israelites resided in Egypt ; others date it from the pe riod when they were got erned by judges in the land of Canaan. On the other hand, a tradition prevails among the Abyssinians, which, they say, has been transmitted from time immemorial, that, soon after the flood, Cush, with his family, passed through Atbara, at that time un inhabited, till they came to the ridge of mountains, by which that country is separated from the high lands of Abyssinia. Still dismayed by the remembrance of the deluge, of which the tropical rains would seem to threat en a return, they did not venture to settle in the plains of Atbara, hut chose to dwell in caves scooped out in the sides of the mountains. The tradition seems to be partly rc futed by the art which is displayed in the forma tion of these suhterraneous abodes. " It is an undoubt ed fact," says Mr Bruce, " that here the Cushites, with unparalleled industry, and with instruments utterly un known to us, formed for themselves commodious, yet wonderful habitations, in the heart of mountains of gra nite and marble, which remain entire in great numbers to this (13' and promise to do so till the consummation of all things." Now, it is not easy to conceive, how the first inhabitants of a world, recently emerged from the waters of the flood, could possess either knowledge or means sufficient for working the heart of marble or gra nite. " into commodious, yet wonderful habitations." Such works could only be accomplished by men w hes had long been united in regular society, and among whom art, and even science, had been cultivated with assiduity and success. These reflections give additional probability to the conjecture, that Ethiopia was peopled by a colony of Cushites from Arabia; the resemblance, which may still be traced between the features of the Arabs and Abyssinians, sufficiently indicates their at flinty.