Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/117

Rh About the origin of the Gallas there is a diversity of opinion. Some declare them to be Meccan Arabs, who settled on the western coast of the Red Sea at a remote epoch: according to the Abyssinians, however, and there is little to find fault with in their theory, the Gallas are descended from a princess of their nation, who was given in marriage to a slave from the country south of Gurague. She bare seven sons, who became mighty robbers and founders of tribes: their progenitors obtained the name of Gallas, after the river Gala, in Gurague, where they gained a decisive victory over their kinsmen the Abyssins. A variety of ethnologic and physiological reasons—into which space and subject prevent my entering—argue the Kafirs of the Cape to be a northern people, pushed southwards by some, to us, as yet, unknown cause. The origin of the Somal is a matter of modern history.

"Barbarah" (Berberah), according to the Kamus,