pafture, not tilled nor fown, becaufe not overflowed by the Nile: but the land overflowed by the Nile, was the black earth of the valley of Egypt, and it was here that God confined the zimb; for he fays, it fhall be a fign of this feparation of the people, which he had then made, that not one fly should be feen in the fand or pafture ground, the land of Gofhen; and this kind of foil has ever fince been the refuge of all the cattle emigrating from the black earth to the lower part of Atbara, So powerful is the weakest inftrument in the hands of the Almighty! Thefe are the moft remarkable particulars concerning this infect, collected from vol. i. p. 388, et feq. and vol. v. p. 188, et feq.

We do not fubjoin the author's long and circumftantial defcription of the zimb, because, without a very accurate plate, fuch a defcription would afford neither inftruction nor entertainment. It must be regretted, that the author has not been equally careful in defcribing and delineating the other objects of natural hiftory contained in this volume. In many of them, fome of thofe parts by which naturalifts name, and know, them, are omitted: an omiffion which will prevent his fucceffors from deriving fuch advantage from his labours, as they might otherwife have afforded. Mr. B. feems to be imperfectly acquainted with the fyftems of natural hiftory, which M. de Buffon depreciates under the appellation of Nomenclatures, and even affects to defpife them. This, furely, is not well judged; for there is no branch of knowlege that may not, occafionally, prove highly ufeful to a traveller.

Having confidered Mr. B. under the various characters of an artift, a traveller, a philofopher, an hiftorian, and a naturalift, it might be expected that we fhould here conclude this long article: but there ftill remains one point of view in which thefe celebrated travels merit to be more particularly examined. The ancient arts of the Ethiopians have perifhed; their prefent ignorance, flavery, and barbarities, render their tranfactions incapable and unworthy of connected narration; the trade of the Eaft is now carried on by a different channel; the gold mines of Sofala, wherever they were fituated, must be nearly exhaufted; and the principal articles of commerce, and even most of the objects of curiofity, which those parts of Africa once afforded, are now fupplied in greater abundance from the new world:-but the countries round the Red Sea are fcenes highly interefting in ancient hiftory; and the opi nions of a traveller, who has himself explored thofe countries, the condition of which is fuppofed to have undergone, in the course of three thousand years, but little alteration, must have great weight in fettling difficulties, that have long perplexed

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the learned of all nations. Mr. Bruce boldly enters on this fubject, and beginning with the difperfion of mankind after the univerfal deluge, investigates the ancient hiftory of Egypt and Ethiopia; traces the origin of idolatry; explains the invention of arts and sciences; and reveals the nature and ufe of hieroglyphics. After carefully confidering his obfervations on all thele matters, we acknowlege that our reading inclined us to differ from him in almoft every particular; and which is more remarkable, that the principal circumstances mentioned by Mr. B. himself concerning the prefent ftate of those parts of Africa, appeared ftrongly to warrant our diffent, and to justify our incredulity. Voltaire and his followers, who use the privilege of faying every thing, because they have not the patience to confider any thing, treat with contempt the notion of the children and grand-children of Noah peopling the earth: but their arguments recoil on themselves, and prove them as deftitute of erudition, as they are incapable of calculation. It is not with their frivolous objections that we would encounter Mr. B. It is our duty to meet him on the firm and elevated ground on which he has chofen to ftand, taking the facred fcriptures for our text, and confidering the records and monuments of Pagan antiquity as their ftrongeft confirmation and best commentary.

We thall begin this inquiry by ftating Mr. Bruce's opinions, as clearly as we can, and as much in his own words as brevity will permit. It is an immemorial tradition among the Abyffinians, (vol. i. p. 376, et feq.) that almost immediately after the flood, Cufh, the grandfon of Noah, paffing with his family from the low country of Egypt, came to the ridge of mountains which feparates the flat country of Atbara from the high lands of Abyffinia. Terrified with the late dreadful event, (the flood,) still recent in their minds, and apprehenfive of being again involved in a fimilar calamity, this wandering family chofe for their habitation, caves in the fides of the mountains; where, with unparalleled induftry, and with inAtruments utterly unknown to us, they formed commodious dwellings in rocks of granite and marble, which remain entire, in great numbers, to this day, and promife to do fo till the confummation of all things. As the Cufhites grew populous, they occupied the heights contiguous to their firft dwellings, fpreading their arts and induftry to the eaftern, as well as to the western, ocean. Mr. Bruce here finds fault with St. Jerome and Bochart, for perplexing this fubject of the Cufhites, and blames the latter for induftrioufly involving it in more than Egyptian darkness,

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The Cufhites founded the city of Axum, fome time early in the days of Abraham. Soon after this, they pushed their colony down to Atbara, where we know, from Herodotus, they fuccefsfully purfued their ftudies; from which Jofephus fays they were called Meroetes, or inhabitants of the ifle of Meroe. The prodigious fragments of coloffal ftatues of the dog-ftar, ftill to be seen at Axum, fhew what a material object of their attention they confidered him to be; and Seir, which, in the language of the Troglodytes, or inhabitants of caves, fignifies a dog, inftructs us in the reason why this province was called Siré, and the river bounding it, Siris.

The province of Siré, being within the limits of the tropical rains, was not favourably fituated for obferving the heavenly bodies. The Cufhites therefore went to Meroe in 16° N. L. where Mr. B. imagines that he faw the ruins of that ancient city, and caves in the mountains, which, he doubts not, formed the temporary habitations of the builders of that first feminary of learning. From Meroe, the Cufhites foon extended themselves to Thebes, which is known to be a colony of thiopians; and above Thebes, as well as above Meroe, there are a great many caves, which the colony made provisionally on their firft arrival, and which are all inhabited to this day.

While the defcendents of Cufh thus extended their fettlements to the north, their fouthern brethren gradually occupied the mountains that run parallel to the Arabian gulph, and took poffeffion of Saba or Azabo, both which denote the South, becaufe that tract lies on the fouthern coaft of the gulph, and, from Arabia and Egypt, was the firft land to the fouthward, which bounded the A'rican continent, then richer, more important, and better known, than the rest of the world. The Troglodyte extended himself still further South, and advancing beyond the line, found folid and high mountains in a fine climate, and gold and filver in large quantities; which determined his occupations, and made the riches and confequence of his country. In thefe mountains, called the mountains of Sofala, large quantities of both metals were discovered in their pure unmixed flate.

Meanwhile, the northern colonies advanced from Meroe to Thebes, bufy and intent on the improvement of architecture, and building of towns, which they began to fubftitute for their caves. They became traders, farmers, artificers of all kinds, and even practical aftronomers, from having a meridian night and day free from clouds, for fuch was that of the Thebaid. Their brethren in the middle parts, being confined to their caves during fix months, by perpetual rain, employed their

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leifure in reducing the many obfervations daily made by those of their countrymen who lived under a purer fky. Letters too, and arithmetical characters, were invented by this middle part of the Cufhites; while trade and aftronomy, the natural hiftory of the winds and feafons, employed the part of the colony established at Sofala moft to the fouthward.

A carrier was abfolutely neceffary to the Cufhite, and Providence had provided him one in a nation which were his neighbours. These were in most respects different, as they had long hair, European features, very dufky and dark complexion, but nothing like the black-moor or negro; they lived in plains, having moveable huts or habitations, attended their numerous cattle, and wandered from the neceffities and particular circumstances of their country. Thefe people were in the Hebrew called Phut, and, in all other languages, Shepherds; they are fo ftill, for they still exift; they fubfift by the fame occupation, never had another, and therefore cannot be mistaken; they are called Balous, Bagla, Belowee, Berberi, Barabra, Zilla, and Habab, which all fignify but one thing, namely that of Shepherd. From their place of habitation, the territory has been called Barbaria by the Greeks and Romans, from Berber, in the original fignifying Shepherd. The authors that speak of the Shepherds feem to know little of thofe of the Thebaid, and fill lefs of thofe of Ethiopia, whilft they fall immediately upon the thepherds of the Delta, that they may get the fooner rid of them, and thrust them into Affyria, Palestine, and Arabia. They never fay what their origin was; how they came to be fo powerful; what was their occupation; or, properly, the land they inhabited; or what is become of them now, though they feem inclined to think the race extinct.'

The principal feat of the refidence and power of the fhepherds was that flat part of Africa between the northern tropic and the mountains of Abyffinia. They occupied likewife the two ftripes of land along the Red Sea and the Indian ocean, because they carried their merchandize to the ports there, and thence to Thebes and Memphis on the Nile. The mountainous country of Abyffinia on the other hand is inhabited by the woolly-headed Cufhite 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, relapfed into brutal ignorance, and are hunted by their neighbours like wild beats in thofe forefts, where they ufed to reign in the utmost liberty, luxury, and splendour.'

Both the Cufhites and the fhepherds were affected by the zimb or fly, above defcribed; and the former were compelled, by this irrefiftible infect, to remain, for fix months, fhut up in their caves; while the latter were reduced to the neceffity of changing their habitation twice in every year. Pp. 388 and 390, & feq. vol. i. The fhepherds, for the most part friends and

allies of the Egyptians or Cufhites, at times were enemies to them. Thebes was deftroyed by Salatis, who overturned the firft Dynafty of Cufhite kings. Salatis and his fucceffors behaving very unjustly and cruelly, their dominion was overturned by Sefoftris, whom the Egyptians confidered as their greatest benefactor, for having abolished the tyranny of the fhepherd kings, for having laid open to Egypt the trade of India and Arabia, and for having restored to each individual his own lands which had been wrefted from him by the violent ufurpation of the Ethiopian Shepherds. Vol. i. p. 309.

The fecond conqueft of Egypt by the fhepherds, was that under Sabaco, who deftoyed Thebes in the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah. Their third invafion was after the building of Memphis, where a king of Egypt inclofed 240,000 of them in a city called Abaris, and afterward banished them to Canaan. Mr. B. thinks this number improbable; and obferves that the total expulfion of the fhepherds at any one time by any king of Egypt, or at any one place, muft be fabulous, as they have remained in their ancient feats, and do remain to this day, perhaps in not fo great a number as when the trade was carried on by the Arabian gulph, yet ftill in greater numbers than any other nation of the continent. Ib. p. 397. At this day, the people, who call themfelves Agaazi, are a race of fhepherds inhabiting the mountains of the Habab, and have by degrees extended themselves through the whole province of Tigré, whofe capital is called Axum, which fignifies the principal city of the thepherds that wore arms. Ib. p. 387. The fhepherds were Sabeans, worshipping the hoft of heaven, the fun, moon, and, ftars but immediately on the building of Thebes and the perfection of fculpture, idolatry and the groffeft materialifm greatly corrupted the more pure and fpeculative religion of the Sabeans. P. 395. With idolatry, hieroglyphics are very intimately connected, and the invention of both is referred by Mr. B. to the Cufhites and fhepherds comprehended under the general name of Ethiopians above Egypt.

Thebes was built by a colony of Ethiopians from Sire, the city of Sier, or the Dog Star. Diodorus Siculus fays, that the Greeks, by putting O before Siris, had made the word unintelligible to the Egyptians: Siris, then, was Ofiris; but he was not the Sun, no more than he was Abraham, nor was he a real perfonage. He was Syrius, or the dog-ftar, defigned under the figure of a dog, because of the warning he gave to Atbara, where the first obfervations were made at his heliacal rifing, or his difengaging himself from the rays of the fun, fo as to be viable to the naked eye. He was the Latrator Anubis, and his first appearance was figuratively compared to the barking of a dog, by the warning it gave to prepare for the approaching inundation. I believe, therefore, this was the first hieroglyphics

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