[13] “Abbott’s History of Hannibal.”
CHAPTER III. EASTERN AFRICA.
In the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, and among that range of mountains running parallel with the coast, are Hadharebe, the Ababdeh, and the Bishari, three very ancient tribes, the modern representatives of the Ethiopians of Meroe. The language of these people, their features, so different from the Arabs, and the Guinea Negro, together with their architecture, prove conclusively that they descended from Ethiopia; the most numerous and powerful of these tribes being the Bishari.
Leaving the shores of the Mediterranean, and passing south of Abyssinia, along the coast of Africa, and extending far into the interior over rich mountain-plains, is found the seat of what are called the “Galla nations.” They are nomadic tribes, vast in numbers, indefinable in their extent of territory, full of fire and energy, wealthy in flocks and herds, dark-skinned, woolly-haired, and thick-lipped.
Passing farther west into that vast region which lies between the Mountains of the Moon and the Great Desert, extending through Central Africa even to the western coast, we come into what may be more appropriately called “Negro-land.”
It is a widely-extended region, which abounds in the arts of civilization. Here are large cities containing from ten thousand to thirty thousand souls. Here is a great family of nations, some but just emerging out of barbarism, some formed into prosperous communities, preserving the forms of social justice and of a more enlightened worship, practicing agriculture, and exhibiting the pleasing results of peaceful and productive industry.
Mungo Park gives a glowing account of Sego, the capital of Bambuwa, a city containing thirty thousand inhabitants, with its two-story houses, its mosques seen in every quarter, its ferries conveying men and horses over the Niger. “The view of this extensive city,” he says, “the numerous canoes upon the river, the crowded population, and the cultivated state of the surrounding country, formed altogether a prospect of civilization and magnificence which I little expected to find in the bosom of Africa.”
Farther east he found a large and flourishing town called Kaffa, situated in the midst of a country so beautiful and highly cultivated that it reminds him of England. The people in this place were an admixture of light brown, dark brown, and dingy black, apparently showing the influence of the climate upon their ancestors.