A Sketch of the History of the Kingdom of Abyssinia.
It is a tradition among the Abyssinians, which they say they have had from time immemorial, and which is equally received by the Jews and Christians of that country, that, almost immediately after the flood, Cush, grandson of Noah, with his family, passing through Atbara, then without inhabitants, came to the chains of mountains which separate the flat country of Atbara from the elevated part of Abyssinia. The tradition farther says, that they built the city of Axum early in the days of Abraham; and that they spread from thence until they became (as Josephus says) the Meröetes, or inhabitants of the islands of Meröe.
While population was thus extending towards the north, it is supposed that the mountains parallel to the Red Sea, which in all times have been called Saba or Azaba (which means south), became peopled with the Agaazi, or Shepherds, who first possessed the high country of Abyssinia, called Tigré, several tribes afterward occupying the other countries, many of which still retain particular languages of their own.[25]
In the most ancient of these languages, tribes or assemblies of people are called Habesh, which appellation was therefore supposed to have been given to the whole country now known to us by the name of Abyssinia.
The inhabitants of Saba, Azab, or Azaba, all of which mean south, were a separate and distinct people from the Ethiopians or Arabs; and it was a custom among these Sabeans to have women for their sovereigns in preference to men.
One of these queens, called Balkis by the Arabs and Maqueda by the Abyssinians, having heard not only of the wisdom of Solomon, but of the immense riches which he had accumulated in the north, determined to witness for herself the reality of scenes, to the description of which she had listened with so much delight; and, accordingly, this Queen of Saba (Sheba), Azaba, or the South, suddenly appeared before Solomon. Pagan, Arab, Moor, Abyssinian, and, indeed, the inhabitants of all the countries around, vouch for this expedition very nearly in the language of Scripture, which states, "And when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions;" and again, "The Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here."
It is said by the Abyssinians that this Queen of Sheba or Saba left her country a Pagan; but that, having received Solomon's answers to the hard questions which she put to him, she returned converted to Judaism, bringing with her a young child called Menilek, whose paternity was ascribed to Solomon; and it may here be observed, that both the Jews and Christians of Abyssinia still believe that the fourteenth Psalm is a prophecy, not only of their queen's journey to Jerusalem, but that there she should have a son, who was to be king over a nation of Gentiles.
The Abyssinians declare that Menilek, after residing some years with his mother, was sent by her to his father, Solomon, to be instructed; that he then took the name of David, and was anointed and crowned, in the Temple of Jerusalem, as King of Ethiopia. After this ceremony he is said to have returned to Azab, or Saba, accompanied by a colony of Jews, and by a high-priest, Azazias, who brought with him a Hebrew transcript of the Law. The moment had now arrived for the Queen of Saba to carry her great and hitherto secret objects into execution. Abyssinia was converted to the religion of Jerusalem; and, by the last act of the queen's reign, she settled a new mode of succession to the crown, which has existed very nearly to the present day.
She enacted, first, that the throne should be hereditary in the family of Solomon for ever; secondly, that, on her demise, no woman should be capable of wearing the crown, which should thenceforward descend to heirs-male, however distant; and, lastly, that the heirs-male of the royal house should be kept imprisoned on a high mountain, there to remain until their death, or until they should be called to the throne.
The queen having decreed that these laws should be irrevocable, died, after a long reign of forty years, in the year 986 before Christ. She was succeeded by her son Menilek, whose posterity, according to the annals of Abyssinia, and according to the belief of all the neighbouring nations, have reigned ever since; their device being a lion passant, with this motto: "Mo ansaba am Nizilet Solomon am Negade Juda;" which signifies, "The Lion of the race of Solomon and tribe of Judah hath overcome."