es
for the advancement of science and philosophy, and the inventors (if
they were not rather the importers) of symbolical characters. I
believe on the whole, that the _Ethiops_ of _Meroe_ were the same
people with the first _Egyptians_, and consequently, as it might
easily be shown, with the original _Hindus_. To the ardent and
intrepid MR. BRUCE, whose travels are to my taste, uniformally
agreeable and satisfactory, though he thinks very differently from me
on the language and genius of the Arabs, we are indebted for more
important, and, I believe, more accurate information concerning the
nations established near the _Nile_, from its fountains to its mouths,
than all _Europe_ united could before have supplied; but, since he has
not been at the pains to compare the seven languages, of which he has
exhibited a specimen, and since I have not leisure to make the
comparison, I must be satisfied with observing, on his authority, that
the dialects of the _Gafots_ and the _Gallas_, the _Agows_ of both
races, and the _Falashas_, who must originally have used a _Chaldean_
idiom, were never preserved in writing, and the _Amharick_ only in
modern times: they must, therefore, have been for ages in fluctuation,
and can lead, perhaps, to no certain conclusion as to the origin of
the several tribes who anciently spoke them. It is very remarkable, as
MR. BRUCE and MR. BRYAN have proved, that the _Greeks_ gave the
appellation of _Indians_ both to the southern nations of _Africk_ and
to the people, among whom we now live; nor is it less observable,
that, according to EPHORUS, quoted by STRABO, they called all the
southern nations in the world _Ethiopians_, thus using _Indian_ and
_Ethiop_ as convertible terms: but we must leave the gymnosophists of
Ethiopia, who seemed to have professed the doctrines of BUDDHA, and
enter the great _Indian_ ocean, of which their _Asiatick_ and
_African_ brethren were probably the first navigators.[648]

FOOTNOTES:

[646] Kafir Grammar, p. 3.

[647] Prichard, vol. ii. pp. 216, 217.

* * * * *

SHERBRO MISSION-DISTRICT, WESTERN AFRICA.

Western Africa is one of the most difficult mission-fields in the
entire heathen world. The low condition of the people, civilly,
socially, and religiously, and the deadly climate to foreigners, make
it indeed a hard field to cultivate. I am fully prepared to indorse
what Rev. F. Fletcher, in charge of Wesleyan District, Gold Coast,