The provinces are inhabited by Moors, Pagans, Jews, and
Christians: the last is the reigning and established religion. This
diversity of people and religion is the reason that the kingdom in
different parts is under different forms of government, and that their
laws and customs are extremely various.

The inhabitants of the kingdom of Amhara are the most civilised and
polite; and next to them the natives of Tigre, or the true Abyssins. The
rest, except the Damotes, the Gasates, and the Agaus, which approach
somewhat nearer to civility, are entirely rude and barbarous. Among
these nations the Galles, who first alarmed the world in 1542, have
remarkably distinguished themselves by the ravages they have committed,
and the terror they have raised in this part of Africa. They neither sow
their lands nor improve them by any kind of culture; but, living upon
milk and flesh, encamp like the Arabs without any settled habitation.
They practise no rites of worship, though they believe that in the
regions above there dwells a Being that governs the world: whether by
this Being they mean the sun or the sky is not known; or, indeed, whether
they have not some conception of the God that created them. This deity
they call in their language Oul. In other matters they are yet more
ignorant, and have some customs so contrary even to the laws of nature,
as might almost afford reason to doubt whether they are endued with
reason. The Christianity professed by the Abyssins is so corrupted with
superstitions, errors, and heresies, and so mingled with ceremonies
borrowed from the Jews, that little besides the name of Christianity is
to be found here; and the thorns may be said to have choked the grain.
This proceeds in a great measure from the diversity of religions which
are tolerated there, either by negligence or from motives of policy; and
the same cause hath produced such various revolutions, revolts, and civil
wars within these later ages. For those different sects do not easily
admit of an union with each other, or a quiet subjection to the same
monarch. The Abyssins cannot properly be said to have either cities or
houses; they live either in tents, or in cottages made of straw and clay;
for they very rarely build with stone. Their villages or towns consist
of these huts; yet even of such villages they have but few, because the
grandees, the viceroys, and the Emperor himself are always in the camp,
that they may be prepared, upo