Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/483

Rh of Ethiopia and Arabia, by which he enriched Egypt, and what was their connection with the peninsula of India; who were those kings who bore so opposite an office, as to be at the same time Shepherds; and who were those Shepherds, near, and powerful enough to wrest the property of their lands from four million of inhabitants.

explain this, it will be necessary to enter into some detail, without which no person dipping into the ancient or modern history of this part of Africa, can have any precise idea of it, nor of the different nations inhabiting the peninsula, the source of whose wealth consisted entirely in the early, but well-established commerce between Africa and India. What will make this subject of more easy explanation is, that the ancient employment and occupations of these people in the first ages, were still the same that subsist at this day. The people have altered a little by colonies of strangers being introduced among them, but their manners and employments are the same as they originally were. What does not relate to the ancient history of these people, I shall only mention in the course of my travels when passing through, or sojourning amongst them.

had created the inhabitants of the peninsula of India under many disadvantages in point of climate. The high and wholesome part of the country was covered with barren and rugged mountains; and, at different times of the year, violent rains fell in large currents down the sides of these, which overflowed all the fertile land below; and these rains were no sooner over, than they were succeeded by a scorching sun, the effect of which upon the human body, was to render it feeble, enervated, and incapable

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