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IN ARABIA.
41

Africa, which is supposed to be a branch of the Djebel-el-Kamri, or Mountains of the Moon.[1]

The Abyssinians were connected with the people of Arabia not only by their situation,—they were a people of the same family, and their kingdom perhaps originated from some of the plundering expeditions of the early tobbaas of Hamyar.[2] Their

  1. Salt's Abyssinia, p. 350. The Arabian geography of Abyssinia may be seen in Hartmann, de Geographia Africæ Edrisiana, p. 54, et seq.—Abu'l-Maala Alaeddin Muhammed ibn Abdo'l-Bak wrote a book في محاسن الحبوش‎ de Excellentiis Habessinorum, in which he said they were derived from Al Habesh, who was the same as Cush, the son of Canaan. Gagnier, not. in Abulfed. Hist. Muham. p. 23.
  2. Ludolf asserts the Arabian origin of the Abyssinians, "Indigenæ enim non sunt; sed venerunt ex ea Arabiæ parte, quæ felix vocatur et mari rubro adjacet; unde facile in Africam transfretari potuerunt. Abassenos enim in Arabia olim habitasse, atque Sabæis sive (quod idem est) Homeritis accensitos fuisse, et veteres geographi testantur, et multa alia convincerant argumenta."—Hist. Æth. lib. i. c. 1. The Arabian writers explain many of the words of the Koran which are not now in use from the Abyssinian.—Gagnier, not. in Abulfed. p. 23. Their form and colour are constantly compared by Bruce to those of the Hamyaritic Arabs. In the early history of Hamyar, the expeditions of its kings are all confined to Africa. Mr. Salt has objected to the Arabian origin of the Abyssinians, and thinks the inhabitants of Auxuma to have been a Berber race. His principal argument, however, against their identity with the Hamyarites is that Arabian historians collected by Schultens distinguish them by their colour, and because one of the princes of Hamyar entreated the Persian emperor to drive out those crows (corvi) who were hateful to his countrymen. The Ethiopians may have been much darker than the Hamyarites;