Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/232

 of civil order and monarchical government. At this period the Galla again made an irruption into Gojam.

is now time we should speak of this nation, which has contributed more to weakening and reducing the Abyssinian empire, than all their civil wars, and all the foreign enemies put together. When I spoke of the languages of the several nations in Abyssinia, I took occasion merely to mention the origin of these Galla, and their progress northward, till their first hostile appearance in Abyssinia. I shall now proceed to lay before the reader what further I have collected concerning them. Many of them were in the king's service while I was in Abyssinia; and, from a multitude of conversations I had with all kinds of them, I flatter myself I have gathered the best accounts regarding these tribes.

Galla are a very numerous nation of Shepherds, who probably lived under or beyond the Line. What the cause of their emigration was we do not pretend to say with certainty, but they have, for many years, been in an uniform progress northward. They were at first all infantry, and said the country they came from would not permit horses to breed in it, as is the case in 13° north of the Line round Sennaar. Upon coming northward, and conquering the Abyssinian provinces, and the small Mahometan districts bordering on them, they have acquired a breed of horses which they have multiplied so industriously that they are become a nation of cavalry, and now hold their infantry in very little esteem.