Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/301

 on his couch, by the side of an excellent fire, attended by some of his confidential people, and a few Shangalla slaves. In the course of the short period that the repast occupied, two applications were made at his gateway for justice, the parties crying out, "Abait, abait!" Master, master! which is the usual mode in which supplicants address their chiefs on such occasions. Immediately on his hearing this appeal, he ordered the applicants to be admitted, and after listening to their complaints, and enjoining secrecy, desired them to appear before him in public on a particular day. By these, and similar means, he obtains so accurate a knowledge of the events that occur in the different districts, that the chiefs, however distantly removed from his immediate control, dare not commit any very flagrant act of injustice, from the dread of its coming to his knowledge.

I have often had occasion to mention the Shangalla, who are in attendance on the Ras, and I shall therefore proceed to give the reader a short account of them. It appears, that the name of Shangalla, or Shankalla, is a generic term applied by the Abyssinians, without distinction, to the whole race of "Negroes," in the same way as they apply the words Taltal, and Shiho, to the various tribes on the coast. All those Shangalla with whom I conversed would not acknowledge the appellation, but had distinct names for their own tribes, the greater part of them having been taken captives in the neighbourhood of the lower part of the Tacazze, or in the wild forests northward of Abyssinia; while some of the others had been brought by the traders from countries beyond the Nile, and even from so great a distance as the neighbourhood of the Bahr el Abiad. I received from one of the latter the following account of the nation to which he belonged. "The tribe, of which he had been a member, was called Dizzela, inhabiting a district named Dahanja, three days journey beyond the Nile, in a country bearing the general appellation of Damitchequa. He mentioned, that his countrymen entertain a very imperfect notion of God, whom they call Mussa-guzza. The only species of adoration they offer up to the deity, is during a great holiday, called kemoos, when the whole people assemble to sacrifice a cow, which is not killed in