It is plain from all history, that two abominable practices, the one the eating of men, the other of sacrificing them to the devil, prevailed all over Africa. The India trade, as we have seen in very early ages, first established the buying and selling of slaves; since that time, the eating of men, or sacrificing them, has so greatly decreased on the eastern side of the peninsula, that now we scarcely hear of an instance of either of these that can be properly vouched. On the western part, towards the Atlantic Ocean, where the sale of slaves began a considerable time later, after the discovery of America and the West Indies, both of these horrid practices are, as it were, general, though, I am told, less so to the northward since that event.
There is still alive a man of the name of Matthews, who was present at one of those bloody banquets on the west of Africa, to the northward of Senega. It is probable the continuation of the slave-trade would have abolished these, in time, on the west side also. Many other reasons could be alledged, did my plan permit it. But I shall content myself at present, with saying, that I very much fear that a relaxation and effeminacy of manners, rather than genuine tenderness of heart, has been the cause of this violent paroxysm of philanthropy, and of some other measures adopted of late to the discouragement of discipline, which I do not doubt will soon be felt to contribute their mite to the decay both of trade and navigation that will necessarily follow.
The Ethiopian shepherds at first carried on the trade on their own side of the Red Sea; they carried their India commodities to Thebes, likewise to the different black nations to the south-west; in return, they brought back gold, probably at a cheaper rate, because certainly by a shorter carriage than by that from Ophir.
Thebes became exceedingly rich and proud, though, by the most extensive area that ever was assigned to it, it never could be either large or populous. Thebes is not mentioned in scripture by that name; it was destroyed before the days of Moses by Salatis prince of the Agaazi, or Ethiopian shepherds; at this day it has assumed a name very like the ancient one. The first signification of its name, Medinet Tabu, I thought was the Town of our Father. This, history says, was given it by Sesostris in honour of his father; in the ancient language, its name was Ammon No. The next that presented itself was Theba, which was the Hebrew name for the Ark when Noah was ordered to build it—Thou shalt “make thee an Ark (Theba) of gopher-wood[231].”
The figure of the temples in Thebes do not seem to be far removed from the idea given us of the Ark. The third conjecture is, that being the first city built and supported on pillars, and, on different and separate pieces of stone, it got its name from the architects first expression of approbation or surprise, Tabu, that it stood insulated and alone, and this seems to me to be the most conformable both to the Hebrew and Ethiopic.
The shepherds, for the most part, friends and allies of the Egyptians, or Cushite, at times were enemies to them. We need not, at this time of day, seek the cause; there are many very apparent, from opposite manners, and, above all, the difference in the dietetique regimen. The Egyptians worshipped the cow, the Shepherds killed and ate her. The Shepherds were Sabeans, worshipping the host of heaven—the sun, moon, and stars. Immediately upon the building of Thebes and the perfection of sculpture, idolatry and the grossest materialism greatly corrupted the more pure and speculative religion of the Sabeans. Soon after the building of Thebes, we see that Rachel, Abraham’s wife, had idols[232]; we need seek no other probable cause of the devastation that followed, than difference of religion.
Thebes was destroyed by Salatis, who overturned the first Dynasty of Cushite, or Egyptian kings, begun by Menes, in what is called the second age of the world, and founded the first Dynasty of the Shepherds, who behaved very cruelly, and wrested the lands from their first owners; and it was this Dynasty that Sesostris destroyed, after calling Thebes by his father’s name, Ammon No, making those decorations that we have seen of the harp in the sepulchres on the west, and building Diospolis on the opposite side of the river. The second conquest of Egypt by the Shepherds was that under Sabaco, by whom it has been imagined Thebes was destroyed, in the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah, who is said to have made peace with So[233] king of Egypt, as the translator has called him, mistaking So for the name of the king, whereas it only denoted his quality of shepherd.
From this it is plain, all that the scripture mentions about Ammon No, applies to Diospolis on the other side of the river. Ammon No and Diospolis, though they were on different sides of the river, were considered as one city, thro’ which the Nile flowed, dividing it into two parts. This is plain from profane history, as well as from the prophet Nahum[234], who describes it very exactly, if in place of the word sea was substituted river, as it ought to be.
There was a third invasion of the Shepherds after the building of Memphis, where a [235]king of Egypt[236] is said to have inclosed two hundred and forty thousand of them in a city called Abaris; they surrendered upon capitulation, and were banished the country into the land of Canaan. That two hundred and forty thousand men should be inclosed in one city, so as to bear a siege, seems to me extremely improbable; but be it so, all that it can mean is, that Memphis, built in Lower Egypt near the Delta, had war with the Shepherds of the Isthmus of Suez, or the districts near them, as those of Thebes had before with the Shepherds of the Thebaid. But, however much has been written upon the subject, the total expulsion of the Shepherds at any one time by any King of Egypt, or at any one place, must be fabulous, as they have remained in their ancient seats, and do remain to this day; perhaps in not so great a number as when the India trade was carried on by the Arabian Gulf, yet still in greater numbers than any other nation of the Continent.
The mountains which the Agaazi inhabit, are called Habab, from which it comes, that they themselves have got that name. Habab, in their language, and in Arabic likewise, signifies a serpent, and this I suppose explains that historical fable in the book of Axum, which says, a serpent conquered the province of Tigré, and reigned there.