His work provided European readers with an authentic account of the role played by the Falashas in Abyssinian history after the Zagwe dynasty and a description of their situation at the time of his visit. The legendary tales of Jews living on mountain tops and engaging in battles with their Christian adversaries began to assume the appearance of reality.

Bruce took a considerable interest in the Falashas and, as he lived in Gondar and travelled far and wide in its neighbourhood, he had many opportunities for meeting them. 'I did not spare my utmost pains,' he wrote, 'in inquiring into the history of this curious people, and lived in friendship with several esteemed the most knowing and learned among them, and I am persuaded, as far as they knew, they told me the truth,' but, he added, 'it required great patience and prudence in making the interrogations, and separating truth from falsehood. '(2) He brought back with him a translation of the Song of Songs in the 'Falashan' dialect of Agau which, with specimens of other languages, he deposited at the Bodleian Library. The Song, he said, was popular with old priests of the Coptic church but was forbidden to the young ones, to the deacons, laymen and women. The Abyssinians believed that it was written by Solomon in praise of the daughter of Pharaoh whom he had taken as one of his wives. (3) This was also the view of Christian scholars in the fifth century and of Grotius in the seventeenth, who regarded the Canticles as 'conjugal prattle' between Solomon and the Egyptian princess.(4) It is not surprising, therefore, that the famous verse 'I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon'(5) has sometimes been interpreted as referring to the Queen of Sheba. During his inquiries into their history, Bruce found that the

(1) Moorehead, The Blue Nile, p. 43.
(2) Travels, vol. 1, p. 483.
(3) 1 Kings 9:16.
(4) Enc. Brit., 11th edn, vol. 5, p. 214.
(5) Song of Songs 1:5.