Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/498

386 flat part of Africa between the northern tropic and the mountains of Abyssinia. This is divided into various districts; it reaches from Masuah along the sea-coaft to Suakem, then turns westward, and continues in that direction, having the Nile on the south, the tropic on the north, to the deserts of Selima, and the confines of Libya on the west. This large extent of country is called Beja. The next is that district * in form of a shield, as Meroë is said to have been; this name was given it by Cambyses. It is between the Nile and Astaboras, and is now called Atbara. Between the river Mareb, the ancient Astusaspes on the east, and Atbara on the weft, is the small plain territory of Derkin, another diftrict of the shepherds. All that range of mountains running east and west, inclosing Derkin and Atbara on the south, and which begins the mountainous country of Abyssinia, is inhabited by the negro woolly-headed Cushite, or Shangalla, living as formerly in caves, who, from having been the most cultivated and instructed people in the world, have, by a strange reverse of fortune, relapsed into brutal ignorance, and are hunted by their neighbours like wild beasts in those forests, where they used to reign in the utmost luxury, liberty, and splendour. But the noblest, and most warlike of all the shepherds, were those that inhabited the mountains of the Habab, a considerable ridge reaching from the neighbourhood of Masuah to Suakem, and who still dwell there.

the ancient language of this country, So, or Suah, signified shepherd, or shepherds; though we do not know any particular rank or degrees among them, yet we may suppose these called simply shepherds were the common sort that attended

the

Diod.Sic. lib. I. cap.