1. DERlVATl0>f, etc. — The word occurs in the earliest tir. literature a.s the name of a race to be found in the e.xtreme E. and the extreme W. ; in later writers* the nation is more definitely localized as dwelling S. of Egypt. The name would seem to be Greek, and to signify 'Rwl-faces' (cf. the similar word alSo\f/ applied by Homer to wine), a designation derived from the colour of the people, just as many names given by the Gr. geographers to African tribes are derived from their charac- teristics, habits, or mode of life ; and indeed the present inhabitants of Abyssinia are said to call themselves Kny ('red' in Amharie), as opposed to the Nubians, wliom they term black [tckuur in Ajiiharic, snlim in Ethiopic ; Lejean, Vuyitcie en Ahyssinie, 1S72, p. 77). As, however, the colour that is a-ssociated with the 'Ethiopians' is not red, but black (Juv. Sat. ii. 23), it has been sug- gested that the Gr. name represents the Grecized form of some foreign appellation, such as Atijab, plural of the Arab. (Ih, 'scents,' used to designate the inhabitants of the country whence the incen.se came (Glaser, Die Abyssinier in Arabien, p. 10). The word is a loan-word in the language called Ethiopic, imported from the Greek, and only em-
Sloyed by the Abyssinians in Christian times to enote themselves. In the inscription of Adulis, the Abyssinian king claims to have defeated the Ethiopians among other foreign races ; meaning by this name, according to Lejean's suggestion, the Shan^allas, a tribe placed in the ma]is of Harris and Left'vre to the W. of the Abjssinian province Shire, between the rivers Mareb and Taccaze. The name Ifabnsh, whereby the Abys- sinian country and people are designated in Arabic (whence the European Abyssinia), would appear to represent an ancient Egyp. name for some African race (Glaser, I.e., after W. Max Miiller) ; the native name is Geez.
2. Gkograpiiy.— Although the Gr. ^'eographers after the time of the Ptolemies distinguish the kingdom of Meroe from the neighbouring tribes, they make the term Ethiopia include both. The extent of territory covered by this name is there- fore very great : to the ancients it represented all the land bounded by the Upper Nile on the W., and the Ked Sea and Arabian (Julf on the E. ; the southern extremity they did not profess to be able to fix. Only modem — the most modem — re- searches have been able to map out accurately the land known to the old geographers by vague reporU).
The land whence the Nile derives itfl waters Is described by Lucan as pxttres arena", but this doscrinlion is not true of the whole of Kthio]>ia. While the political (liviMions have constantly been, and are still, fluctuating, the natural divisions are three. The hi^'hlands of Abyssinia separate the Sudan (usually spelt Boudari), or 'black country,' on the N. anrl W. from the Dana- kil country, which lies between the Ethiopian range and the ■ea.
(o) The Soudan, having been mrcly traversed by Europeans before Sir .Samuel Uakvr (yile Trifnitariet of Abyn»iiiia, 1807), has, since the enterprise of Mohammed Ahmad, been fretiuently the centre of European interest, and the campai^'ns that have been fought there nave led to the elucitlation of its geography ; and the works of Wingat* (Mahdiittm in the Eijyptian Sottdan, 1891), Slatin Pasha (/■'ir^ and .S'tcord in the .S'oKrfan, 1890), and others, give accurate details both of the nature of the country (2,u<io,U4H) sq. miles in ext^-'nt) and of the tribes that inhabit it. Houth of the thirteenth parallel of latitude is fertile country
* Btill the confusion of Ethiopia with Indis continues long Into the Christian era (Letronne, Mat^riaux pour Chittoire du Chrittulnigme, p. S2).
with a six months' rainfall ; X. of it are vast steppes with frequent thorns and thinly-scattered wells fWingat*, p. 8). A narrow strip of rich vegetation is to be found on either wide ol the Nile, which Hows throu;^h it, making a gigantic curve be- tween the third and fifth cataracts, and receivuig at Al-l)amer (aliout 'iX 45' E. long., 17' 31)' N. lat.) the Atbara, laden in the rainy season with tiie waters of Abyssinia, but in the dry season a bed of white sand ; and some two degrees farther S. splitting at the modern town of Khartoum into the Blue and White Nile. The scenery is diversified by mountain ranges of no great height.
(6) Very different from this flat rolling plain is the Switzerland of Afrityi, Abyssinia, aplateau with a mean elevation of WXK) ft., extending from 9' to 15* 20' N. lat., and at its greatest width from 37* to 40* E. long. Never completely severed from com- munication with Europe, this country was lii-st accuratel.v described in the Ilinlona J-^thiopitB of the Etliiopic scholar Job Ludolf(lG81), while the scientific observations and measure- ments of the explorers Riippell (Reise in Al'esxinitm, 1838), Lef6vre (Voi/age en Abijsnnie, 1839-1843), and Ferret and Galinier (contemporary with the last), have in recent times vastly increased our knowledge of it, which has been supplemented yet more recently b^' the researches of M™* d'Abbadie (G'r'o- graphie de t'Ethiopie, ISOO) and others {e.g. Theodore Bent, rhf. Sacred City uf the Ethiopians, 1893; Schoeller, ilittheitun- gen iil/er jneine lieiie in der Cotonia Eritrea, etc.). Separated on the E. from the Red Sea by the Ethiopian ranj^c (as it was first named by M. Theoph. Lef6vre), bounded on tlie S. Ijy the rivers Hawash and Abay (afterwards the Blue Nile), on the N. by the rivers Aiisaba, Barka, and Gaj^h, and on tiie W. by the Atbara, the Abyssinian plateau inclines towards the N.W., but reaches its greatest elevation in the mts. of Samen or Semyen, of which the loftiest, Ras Dedjen, is 14,200 ft. high. The four rivers Taccaze (the Nile of Ethiopia), Mareb, Abay, and Hawash, with their numerous tributaries, divide the country into a great number of natural provinces ; and as these rivers flow in deep ravines, intercommunication during the rainy season is fre- quently suspended ; while the Mareb and the Hawash lose themselves in the sand after dividing into many channels, the Taccaze (called during part of its course the Settite) flows into the Atbara at Tomat (in the province of K.atarif), while the Abay (which near its rise curves through Lake Tsana, the greatest of the Abyssitiian lakes) later on in its course is called the Blue Nile. The jtulitical and linguistic division of the country into Tigre, Amhara, Shoa, and Galla districts is recent ; a more natural division is that according to which the native geographers divide their land into zanfS — the Kola or lowlands (Ijelow 6500 ft.), the Woin.a-Deja (6500-7600 ft.), and the Deja (over 7500 ft.), distinguished by their flora and fauna. (See on these esp. J. Dove, Lrgitmungttheft 37 to Petennann's Mitthev. iungen 'die Kulturzonen Nord-Abessiniens,' and for another division A. Raffray, Bulletin de la socit^tr* de G^ographie, 1882.)