In the same manner the worship of the rivers in India, and of the dragon monster in China, seem to have originated from Ethiopia; the emigration which carried the first colonies of serpent worshippers to these countries having probably flowed in a direction from the south, as Europe and Western Asia appear to have been civilized by colonists from the north of the same point of dispersion.
It is most interesting to trace the intimate connexion at an early period of the, at present, widely separated and even physically distinct varieties of man; and did not a cautious policy restrain me, I would attempt to demonstrate the original unity of nations now the most dissimilar upon novel evidence, which, to be satisfactory to others, must, however, receive farther corroboration than my own individual observations.
One illustration of the light African explorations promise to throw upon this subject I cannot refrain from advancing, as it is such a striking evidence of the presumed fact of even ourselves having originated from a colony of African emigrants; and that the ancient British temple of Abury, or Abibury, near Stonehenge, derived its name from the same religious worship being there celebrated as was once general on the plateau of Abyssinia, and which, in fact, is so called from exactly the same cause. The deductions of classical learning materially assist a traveller, whose pursuits, so different to a closet student, do not allow him to assume the character of a learned critic or commentator. Dr. Stukeley, known by his inquiries into the ancient religion of the Druids, has proved, I think incontestably, the true character of the temple at Abibury, and demonstrates it to have been constructed in the form of a serpent, bearing upon its back a circle. He referred the religion, that directed such a form to be assumed in the sacred architecture of this people, to an Egyptian origin, and freely speculates, in consequence, upon the African origin of our ancestors, which is asserted by our most ancient historians, but who have been in consequence considered to be apocryphal. In these traditions it is affirmed that Britain was first inhabited by a celebrated descendant of Shem, singularly enough the same, who is considered by biblical ethnologists to have been the common father of no less a respectable people, than the modern Dankalli; Affer, the son of Abraham, having led a colony of Africans to our shores, where he introduced the worship of the sun, and established the religion of Druidism. I recommend to my reader the perusal of Stukley’s work upon “Abury, a Temple of the Ancient Britons,” and then to compare the parallel, but more magnificent temple of nature upon the plateau of Abyssinia, where the serpent Arwè, or in profane language the river Abi, bears upon its back the lake of the sun, most curiously identifying the peculiar worship of that luminary by the ancient Ethiopians with the same adoration which was professed by the Druids in Britain, but who, from their situation, were obliged to construct the winding avenue of stones at Abibury to represent the same mystical hieroglyphic of the serpent and the sun. The name given to this work was Abi, the father, or king, as it was also of the river-symbol in Abyssinia; hence the name Abibury, the latter portion of which word is of Saxon origin; and added, subsequently to the decline of Druidism.[15]
Returning to the Gongas and their connexion with the Sasu of Cosmas, it is singular to observe in what manner the seclusive integrity of that country was first sapped, and then in a great measure overthrown. Within the last two centuries, the Adjows of Northern Abyssinia, the representatives of the Gongas in that situation, were said to continue the original practice of their fathers with respect to commercial transactions. But these must have been a tribe now extinct, as, from what I can learn, it is only in the extreme south where the custom is still persisted in, and it is among these that the most ancient authentic record (uninspired) of the antediluvian world will be found. It is here, too, that the original name of this people, Sasu, is preserved in the modern word Susa, of whom, as a nation, we scarcely possess any information more than sufficient, to warrant the mere assertion that such a people now exist highly civilized, and using a peculiar written character dissimilar to any with which the literati of Europe are acquainted.
Of the Sasu traders in the time of Cosmas, we are told they carried with them oxen which, on their arrival in the country, they killed, and hung up the raw flesh on the thorns, as a kind of merchandise. It will be remembered that I have previously stated the intoxicating effects of this kind of food upon the Amhara, and I have therefore no difficulty in supposing that the Gongas were tempted by this kind of dissipation into the intercourse with the traders, just as in modern times, “fire water” for Indians, and opium for the Chinese are employed to effect a similar object. This receives further confirmation from the fact, that the secluded Gongas of the present day live entirely upon vegetables, the ensete plant and grain forming the principal food. In Zingero and Enarea, broken in upon by the Mahomedan and Christian religions, the inhabitants have adopted the use of animal food, but even among them a party of the older faith exists who continue the original mode of living of their fathers, and who are contemptuously styled, for that reason, “grain eaters.”
The Gongas that I have seen are of short stature, not exceeding five feet four inches, are delicately made, and of a pale yellow complexion. The aperture of the eyelid in some were quite straight, but in others it was obliquely divided. Their hair was straight and strong. A triangular formed face, the forehead being low and long, and the chins very pointed. I could not convince myself, as I looked at their whole appearance, but that they were of the same race as the Hottentots of the Cape, differing only in so much as that the latter are in a very degraded state. Many remarkable customs practised by both nations could not have been merely coincidental; and one, that of voluntary semi-emasculation, is too extraordinary not to be referred to the same origin of imposition. Of the identity of the two people there can be no doubt, and there is no ethnological fact I observed during my journey of which I am so well satisfied as this.
The remains of this interesting people in Northern Abyssinia are the Adjows and the Falasha, and if future travellers will expend their resources in exploring Northern Abyssinia, in preference to the far more important examination of its southern portion, they cannot occupy themselves more advantageously to science than by examining into the customs and characters of the Adjows. I consider it would be a waste of time that could be occupied much better in another direction, or I would, for my own satisfaction, visit the country for this purpose; but as it is far from difficult and constitutes an excellent probationary journey, I recommend aspirants for fame in the field of African discovery to make this their trial excursion.
One more remark upon the Southern Gongas of Enarea, Zingero, and Kuffah, and I must close this notice of a very interesting race of man; and that is to explain the apparent anomaly of their country, situated at such an elevation above the level of the sea as I presume it to be, producing cotton and grapes in profusion.
The observations of that indefatigable and enterprising traveller, Dr. Beke, has proved that the river Abi, after flowing a distance of scarcely one hundred and thirty miles, has excavated a valley five or six thousand feet below the general level of the table land, whilst the opposite summits of the bounding sides are distant between thirty and forty miles. We may look in vain over every portion of the known world for a similar effect of denudation, and this again illustrates the wide field of novel facts which is promised to science, by an examination of the unknown interior of Africa.
On the artificial terraces and natural slopes of these extensive valleys the vegetables of all climates can be successfully cultivated, and the theoretical centre of successive elevations from whence, according to the hypothesis of Linnæus, all vegetation spread over the rest of the earth, appears to exist in the natural phenomena presented, by the surface geography of the Abyssinian table mountain. The country of the Gongas is similarly excavated by the deeply cut channel of the Gibbee, or the Red Nile, which, much larger than the Abi on the northern portion of the plateau, will have a greater extent of denuded valley for the production of those vegetables of a hot climate, the presence of which have been such an argument in favour of those, who contend that the water-shed of the Gibbee must be towards the lowlands in the South, where it is presumed these vegetables could only have been cultivated.