ABYSSINIANS AND JEWS
The race of the Greek kings who ruled over Egypt after the death of
Alexander the Great and until 30 B.C., and later, again, the Byzantine
Emperors of Eastern Rome did much to implant Hellenic civilisation and
the use of the Greek language in Egypt, and their influence extended
over Abyssinia, where the kings of Ethiopian race (Gala dashed with
Arab and Jew) admired and imitated them in much the same manner as
the second Emperor of the French was admired and imitated by the
lesser potentates of Germany. The history of Abyssinia--if it is to be
written with regard to truth--is still obscure. This country of lofty
mountains and temperate climate is bordered on the east by the land of
Afar, an inhospitable desert inhabited by fierce Hamites (Danākil). On
the south its mountains are connected by plateaux and ridges with the
highlands of East Africa, but are separated by much arid and parched
country from the regions of the modern Uganda protectorate. On the
west the mountains of Abyssinia descend in terraces to the plains of
the central Nile. Here the torrid climate is that of the Sudan, but
the country is better watered by the rivers which rise in Abyssinia,
and by a fairly regular rainfall. On the extreme north the Abyssinian
mountains almost overhang the coast of the Red Sea, and are no doubt
visible in clear weather from the opposite Arabian shore. The mountains
of Yaman are remarkably similar in many points to those of Abyssinia,
and the people of Yaman when they were seized with a desire to emigrate
in search of fresh homes were no doubt drawn to this distant land of
mountains just visible in the west. Originally no doubt Abyssinia was
peopled by the same dwarf Bushman race as that which formed the lowest
stratum of all the African populations. Then a portion of the country
came into the possession of the big black Negroes who still inhabit its
western flanks. These again are superseded and partially absorbed by
the superior race of the Hamites, the ancestors of the Gala, Somali,
and Ancient Egyptian. This Hamite race of Caucasian stock with some
Negroid intermixture forms the basis of the Abyssinian population at
the present day. But in the early days of Sabæan enterprise--say four
thousand to three thousand years ago--Abyssinia was conquered by Sabæan
Arabs from Yaman. At many subsequent periods Abyssinia and Yaman (the
Red Sea acting as no barrier) were governed by the same dynasty, and
when Yaman came under Persian influence that influence also penetrated
Abyssinia. In this manner Abyssinia early developed a trade with India,
and even served as an emporium for the introduction of Indian wares
into Egypt on the one hand and the remote parts of eastern equatorial
Africa on the other. The Queen of Saba (Sheba) is no doubt in many
respects a legendary personage, but if she had any real historical
existence she is another instance of an Arab ruler who governed both
Abyssinia and Yaman. She may or may not have visited Solomon, but there
is no doubt that in the time of that Jewish king some intercourse was
kept up between the kingdom of Israel in its brief flicker of power
and prosperity, and the coasts of the Red Sea and southern Arabia.
After the smashing up of the Hebrew state by the Assyrians there are
good reasons for assuming that a number of the dispersed Israelites
migrated to Abyssinia, as no doubt they did to other parts of the
Sabæan Empire. Jewish monotheism always had a certain fascination (in
the days before Christianity and Islam) for the peoples of Arabia and
of Mauritania. This influence was most felt after the final destruction
of Jerusalem by the Romans and the subsequent dispersal of the Jews
in all directions. Several princes in southwestern Arabia adopted
the Jewish faith, more or less, and the Jewish settlers in Abyssinia
also appear to have acted as missionaries in converting the savage,
nominally Semitic, partly Gala rulers of Abyssinia to the principles
of the Jewish faith, into which they wove Jewish legends, such as the
glory and power of Solomon. A similar influence impressed on the Arab
mind the Solomon of the legends. The real son of David was no doubt an
unimportant Semitic prince who borrowed a little civilisation from his
Phœnician, Egyptian, and Sabæan neighbours. But the Greek influence
emanating from Egypt displaced for a time the Persian and Jewish
culture in Abyssinia. In the northern parts of that (then) collection
of Arab and Gala kingdoms, Greek began to be used as a second language,
the speech of the Court itself being a foreign tongue (Ge’ez), derived
from the Himyaritic or some early south Semitic language.
Auxuma--the modern Auxum--in the kingdom or province of Tigre
(northeastern Abyssinia) and near the more modern town of Adua, became
an important trade centre, frequented by many Greek merchants, some
of whom seem to have occasionally returned to their homes in Egypt by
way of the Atbara and the Nile. Others forestalled the Portuguese by
entering into trade relations or actually undertaking journeys which
revealed to them the existence of Lake Tsana and the upper waters of
the Blue Nile.
Cosmas Indicopleustes, a Byzantine Greek, who traded with India in
the early part of the sixth century of our era, called at the port of
Adulis (near Masawa) in 520 A.D. He discovered at this place a monument
which contained two separate inscriptions. The monument was apparently
one erected at the orders of Ptolemy III. (Philadelphus), who reigned
in Egypt from 285 to 247 B.C. This Ptolemy led and sent expeditions
which made a partial conquest of the coast regions of northern
Abyssinia, and added to the Egyptian Empire of that day a good deal of
what now constitutes the modern Italian colony of Eritrea.[9]
On the same monument some four hundred and seventy years later, in
about 127 A.D., a Semitic Abyssinian king (possibly Ela-Auda) recorded
in turn his own victories and extensions of rule. These conquests seem
to have done much to carry the Abyssinian (Semitic as distinct from
Hamitic) arms as far south as the ninth degree of north latitude. Other
indications would show that from this time onwards to about the tenth
century A.D. Abyssinian influence and conquests extended southward
intermittently to the vicinity of Lake Rudolf (the northern end of that
lake). Owing to these conquests, Christianity was carried as far south
as the modern province of Kaffa, and northwestwards along the course
of the Blue Nile to the site of the modern Khartum; for at one time
Abyssinian suzerainty or rule extended almost to the verge of Kordofan
on the west.[10]
The introduction of Islam among the Somalis, among some of the Gala
tribes, and all round the north and west of Abyssinia in the centuries
that followed the eleventh, checked any further spread of Christianity,
and limited--even curtailed--the political aspirations of Abyssinia.
In the sixteenth century a Muhammadan ruler--Muhammad Granye--arose
in the Danākil country (Tajurra Bay), and practically smashed the
Ethiopian Christian power in Abyssinia, which did not recover from the
ravages of these Muhammadan (Arab and Somali) armies for a century or
more. Soon after the wars of Muhammad Granye the heathen Galas[11]
from the south and southwest entered Abyssinia in force, and it was a
long time before the Semitic rulers of that country could bring them
under control. The arrival of the Portuguese (to be described in the
next chapter) gave a fillip to the power of the Christian Semites of
Abyssinia, mainly through the introduction of guns and gunpowder. It is
possible, indeed, that at different times after the commencement of the
Christian era Abyssinian raiders may have ridden south on their slave,
ivory, and cattle-hunting expeditions as far as the vicinity of Mount
Elgon. At the present day their raiders come almost to the frontiers
of Busoga, for there is no tsetse fly in all the district between
Abyssinia and the Victoria Nyanza; therefore, as the Abyssinians have
possessed horses for several thousand years, there has been little to
stop their making rapid expeditions into the Land of the Blacks. In
this way they may have raided and traded as far south as the Victoria
Nyanza and as far west as the White Nile, bringing back with them
for the edification of the Greeks stories of the Great Lakes and
Snow-mountains, and assisting, perhaps, to distribute over the lands
now comprised within the Uganda Protectorate those remarkable blue
Egyptian beads of unknown antiquity which have been referred to by the
present writer in his book, “The Uganda Protectorate,” as being some
slight indication of ancient trading relations between the countries of
the Great Lakes and those under the dominion of Egypt.