The name of Ethiopia,[143] or Kush, was applied in ancient times vaguely to the East African interior south of Egypt, from about lat. 24° to about lat. 9°. (The name of Nubia, as representing the more northern portion of “Ethiopia,” say between the 3rd and the 1st Cataracts, does not appear till Roman times, but for convenience sake that portion will be so termed in the following account. It was termed Kenset by the Ancient Egyptians.)
The whole tract was, as we know, for the most part sandy or rocky desert, rich in minerals, interspersed with oases, but contained along the course of the Nile a valuable strip of territory; while, south and south-east of the point where the Nile receives the Atbara, it spreads out into a broad and fertile region, watered by many streams, diversified by hills and woodlands, and of considerable fertility; of this but little now remains. This ancient Ethiopia did not, in all probability, include the present Abyssinia.
At no time did the whole of this vast tract—1,000 miles long by 800 or 900 broad—form a single state or monarchy. Rather, for the most part, was it divided up among an indefinite number of states, or rather of tribes, some of them herdsmen, others hunters or fishermen, very jealous of their independence, and frequently at war one with another. Among the various tribes there was a certain community of race, a resemblance of physical type, and a similarity of language. Their neighbours, the Egyptians, included them all under a single ethnic name, speaking of their land as Ta Kes, Kesh, or Kush, and of the inhabitants as Kashi or Kushi—a term manifestly identical with the Kush of the Hebrews. They were a race cognate with the Egyptians, but darker in complexion, and coarser in feature, not by any means negroes, but still more clearly allied to the negro than the Egyptians were. Their best representatives in modern times are believed to be the Gallas and the like, who are probably their descendants.[144]
From the earliest times there appears to have been a constant infiltration from South Arabia into Abyssinia[144] and the Eastern Sudan; indeed, the dynastic Egyptians themselves are believed by some high authorities to have been a Semitic tribe which came over from Arabia, landed somewhere about Massaua (?), and proceeded northwards along the coast, leaving colonies as it went, till it struck the valley of the Nile viâ Kosseir, the Wadi Hammamat, and Kena (or Koptos). Here they found the Neolithic “New Race,” and exterminated or expelled them (?); but it is doubtful how far this New Race extended up the Nile valley.
B.C. 4000 (?).The earliest mention that we have of the land south of Egypt dates from the time of Snefru (? 3rd or 4th Dynasty), who conquered the land of the Negroes, and took captive 7,200 men and women, and 200,000 cattle.
B.C. 3400 (?).An inscription of the Fifth Dynasty informs us that King Assa sent one Ba Ur Tettu to the “Land of Ghosts, which is south of the land of the Negroes,” to fetch him some Pygmies. The quest was successful, and is confirmed (?) by some dwarfish skeletons found in the tombs of that period.
This would seem to show that there were communications, and possibly even a brisk commerce, between the countries at an even earlier date.
B.C. 3230.In the time of the Sixth Dynasty Una, a high official under Pepi I, raised Sudanese levies, natives and negroes, to fight in Eastern Egypt and Sinai. He also cleared a canal in the 1st Cataract (of which there are now no traces), and Nubian chiefs, whom he had fought and conquered five times, brought wood for him. B.C. 3200.Mer-en-Ra (of Sixth Dynasty) sent one Her-Khuf three times to Nubia on trading expeditions, and he returned with ivory, ebony, etc., which would seem to show that he had penetrated some distance. He reached Amani, Arerthet, Meskher, Terres, etc., but the locality of these places is unknown. At this period the Nehes—negroids of the Sudan—occupied the country as far north as Aswan; some of their tribes were termed the Aam, Wauat, etc., the latter living probably near Korosko.
By the end of the Early Empire, B.C. 2530 (First to Tenth Dynasties), Egyptian armies had certainly advanced into the Eastern Sudan.
In the Eleventh Dynasty there was regular communication between Egypt and the debateable land of Punt, and B.C. 2500.we are told that one Hennu, in the reign of Seankhka, made a trading expedition thither by sea, viâ Kosseir, for unguents. This is not the place in which to discuss the position of the land of Punt, but it seems probable that it lay somewhere in the “horn” of Africa, and was not as far south as the Pungwe or Rhodesia, as some have recently tried to prove.