Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/327

 fit, and clothing, we compelled to change their abode, and sent them to a certain place of our country called Ma, and we ordered them again to be supplied with bread, furnishing to their six chiefs oxen 4*. In grateful acknowledgment to him who begat me, the invincible Mars, I have dedicated to him a golden statue, and one of silver, and three of brass, for good.

I have only a few remarks to make in addition to those which I before submitted to the public on this subject. The chief importance of this inscription must be considered as relating to the history of the country, upon which I shall hereafter introduce a few cursory observations. With respect to the tribe of the ΒΟΥΓΑΕΙΩΝ, the conquest of which constitutes the main subject of this inscription, it appears that it is still found under the name of the Boja, inhabiting a district two days journey northward of Hamazen, and is partially under the influence of the Nayib of Massowa and of a Christian chief; the natives themselves being half Musselmauns, and half Christians. Still farther to the north, resides a people called Taguié, which in all probability answers the "ΤΟΚΑΕΟΥ," mentioned in the inscription. The numerals which occur in the inscription were supposed, in my former account, "to be inexplicable:" but I cannot help feeling assured, that they also are Greek, as indeed the r in the last line, before translated "three," seemed to prove. I should therefore explain the figures in line 13 to consist of an unknown letter, expressing thousands, rho, iota and beta, or 112; those in 14, to be zeta, upsilon, kappa, and delta, or 7424; but the rest I must still leave to the ingenuity of some person more skilled than myself in the art of deciphering numbers.

During the time that I had been engaged in revising the Greek characters, Mr. Stuart, at my request, had been endeavouring to make out some of the smaller letters on the opposite side of the stone: and on examining what he