United States or Kyrgyzstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ptolemy had described the Nile sources as emanating from two great lakes that received the snows of the mountains of Ethiopia.
The Gods in council command Calypso by Hermes to send away Odysseus on a raft of trees; and Poseidon, returning from Ethiopia and seeing him on the coast of Phaeacia, scattered his raft; and how by the help of Ino he was thrown ashore, and slept on a heap of dry leaves till the next day.
Having passed this country in the forty days, you must go on board another boat, and sail for twelve days; and then you will arrive at a large city, called Meroe; this city is said to be the capital of all Ethiopia. The inhabitants worship no other gods than Jupiter and Bacchus; but these they honour with great magnificence.
He passed eastwards into Asia, crossed the Euphrates, defeated Darius again at the Tigris, and reduced proud Babylon and Shushan, where 150 years previously King Ahasuerus, who reigned "from India even unto Ethiopia over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces," made a feast for his lords and "shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of his excellent majesty."
Now a band of ebony archers in leopard skins entered from far Ethiopia, now Bactrian battle-axemen, now yellow-faced Tartars from the northeast, now bright-turbaned Arabs upon their swaying camels,—Syrians, Cilicians, black-bearded Assyrians and Babylonians, thick-lipped Egyptians, came, and many a strange race more.
The pioneer went up to the table, where sat the general of the troops that had just returned victorious from Ethiopia, and several other officers of high rank, There was a place vacant next to the general.
The chiefe city of Ethiopia, where this great emperor is resident, is called Amacaiz, being a faire citie, whose inhabitants are of the colour of an Oliue. There are also many other cities, as the city of Saua vpon the riuer of Nilus, where the Emperour is accustomed to remaine in the Sommer season.
The next step will be the application; my questioner will say, Now Lycinus, let us suppose an analogue, in a person acquainted only with the Stoic doctrine, like your friend Hermotimus; he has never travelled in Plato's country, or to Epicurus, or any other land; now, if he were to state that there was no such beauty or truth in those many countries as there is in the Porch and its teaching, would you not be justified in considering it bold of him to give you his opinion about them all, whereas he knew only one, having never set foot outside the bounds of Ethiopia?
Yet Alonso de Payva actually believed that the emperor of Ethiopia was Presbyter John, having learnt that he was a Christian king over a Christian nation, as shall be more particularly declared hereafter. At their separation they agreed to meet again at Cairo, when each had executed his part of the royal orders.
With these aids to diplomacy, and doubtless also with the help of a dram or two of spirits or of the wine of Oporto, the treaty was soon concluded, and a very shrewd stroke of business accomplished for the King of Portugal; for it gave him the sole right of exchanging gaudy rubbish from Portugal for the precious gold of Ethiopia.
Word Of The Day