ned over Abyssinia for forty years. The Jewish ascendancy lasted
three hundred and fifty years. Rueppell,[68] a noted African explorer,
gives the names of Jewish dynasties from the ninth to the thirteenth
century. In the wars of the latter and the following century, the Jews
lost their kingdom, keeping only the province of Semen, guarded by
inaccessible mountains. Benjamin of Tudela describes it as "a land full
of mountains, upon whose rocky summits they have perched their towns and
castles, holding independent sway to the mortal terror of their
neighbors." Combats, persecutions, and banishments lasted until the end
of the eighteenth century. Anarchy reigned, overwhelming Gideon and
Judith, the last of the Jewish dynasty, and proving equally fatal to the
Christian empire, whose Negus Theodore likewise traced his descent from
Solomon. So, after a thousand years of mutual hostility, the two ancient
native dynasties, claiming descent from David and Solomon, perished
together, but the memory of the Jewish princes has not died out in the
land.

The Abyssinian Jews are called Falashas, the exiled.[69] They live
secluded in the province west of Takazzeh, and their number is estimated
by some travellers to be two hundred and fifty thousand, while my friend
Dr. Edward Glaser judges them to be only twenty-five thousand strong.
Into the dreary wastes inhabited by these people, German and English
missionaries have found their way to spread among them the blessings of
Christianity. The purity of these blessings may be inferred from the
names of the missionaries: Flad, Schiller, Brandeis, Stern, and
Rosenbaum.

Information about the misery of the Falashas penetrated to Europe, and
induced the _Alliance Israelite Universelle_ to despatch a Jewish
messenger to Abyssinia. Choice fell upon Joseph Halevy, professor of
Oriental languages at Paris, one of the most thorough of Jewish
scholars, than whom none could be better qualified for the mission. It
was a memorable moment when Halevy, returned from his great journey to
Abyssinia, addressed the meeting of the _Alliance_ on July 30, 1868, as
follows:[70] "The ancient land of Ethiopia has at last disclosed the
secret concerning the people of whom we hitherto knew naught but the
name. In the midst of the most varied fortunes they clung to the Law
proclaimed on Sinai, and constant misery has not drained them of the
vitality which enables nations to fulfil the best requirements of modern
soc