Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Abyssinian   Listen
noun
Abyssinian  n.  
1.
A native of Abyssinia.
2.
A member of the Abyssinian Church.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Abyssinian" Quotes from Famous Books



... vanished in an instant, and one day, without any warning, little Mirak, playing in the garden, was kidnapped by two stalwart Abyssinian slaves and carried off, howling horribly and fighting with his fists, to the palace where Kumran's wife lived. Tumbu, who was with him at the time, made a gallant show of resistance, and actually bit one of the kidnapper's calves to the bone; ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... foreign; alien faces, barbaric dresses, they were now beheld and fingered, in the swerving cabin, with innocent excitement and surprise. Her Majesty was often recognised, and I have seen French subjects kiss her photograph; Captain Speedy—in an Abyssinian war-dress, supposed to be the uniform of the British army—met with much acceptance; and the effigies of Mr. Andrew Lang were admired in the Marquesas. There is the place for him to go when he shall be weary of Middlesex ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... formed his court and provided him even with a bodyguard. Five hundred beautiful young Turki women, armed with bows and arrows, stood, we are told, on his right hand, and, on his left, five hundred Abyssinian girls. Profligate succeeded profligate, and the degeneracy of his Mahomedan rulers was the Hindu's opportunity. The power passed into the hands of Hindu officers, who were even suffered to take unto themselves mistresses from among ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... returned in tears. I asked him the reason, and what happened to him. He replied with anger, 'What business is it to you? do you enjoy yourself; but what answer will you give on the day of judgment?' I said, O, you Abyssinian, what demon has possessed thee? He answered, 'This is the calamity, that the arms of your two elder brothers have been tied behind their backs in the chauk by a Jew; he is beating them with a whip, and laughs ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... have then shown an Abyssinian, Nubian or Ethiopian, who, black from head to foot, had been found wanting in certain virile properties with which all good Christians are usually furnished, who, having persevered in his silence, after having been tormented and tortured ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... Baron Munchausen were written to ridicule Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, whose adventures were at the time deemed fictitious. Bruce was a most upright, honest man, and recorded nothing but what he had seen; nevertheless, as is always the case, a host of detractors buzzed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various

... and villages with great noise and tumult, scourging themselves till they draw blood, and wounding themselves with knives. They boast that they are descendants of St. George. It is precisely in Tigre, the country of the Abyssinian dancing mania, where they are found in the greatest numbers, and where they have, in the neighbourhood of Axum, a church of their own, dedicated to their patron saint, Oun Arvel. Here there is an ever-burning lamp, and they ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... after the "tutelar saint" of Pennsylvania. The original Tammany was an Indian chief with whom William Penn negotiated for grants of land about the end of the 17th century. Littoral first became familiar in connection with Italy's ill-starred Abyssinian adventure, and hinterland marked the appearance of Germany as ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... of the cafes that open on the Marina, turned their chairs round to look at us without stopping their hubble-bubbling; and all about us, where nothing else was, a line of motley humanity—Greek, Turk, Egyptian, Nubian, Abyssinian, under hats, caps, tarbouches, turbans, hats Persian and ecclesiastical, and no hats at all—half circled us with mute and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... produces a splendid light, entirely eclipsing all other modes of illumination. Years ago a limelight was so arranged as to be used on board ship for illuminating objects at a great distance. By its means, an intended attack of torpedo vessels could be detected. It was employed also in the Abyssinian expedition, for illuminating the advance camp when there was a possibility of it being attacked by Theodore's troops. Now, however, electric lights are used on board all the first-class men-of-war, incandescent lamps being fitted for internal use, and arc lights for signalling ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... its influence. Jesuits had disputed in theology with the bonzes of Japan, and taught astronomy to the mandarins of China; had wrought prodigies of sudden conversion among the followers of Bralinra, preached the papal supremacy to Abyssinian schismatics, carried the cross among the savages of Caffraria, wrought reputed miracles in Brazil, and gathered the tribes of Paraguay beneath their paternal sway. And now, with the aid of the Virgin and her votary at court, they would build another empire among the tribes of New France. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she play'd, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me, Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... and east of Lake Rudolph, you see, is the Northern Game Preserve. It is more or less indefinite, extending up to the Abyssinian border. This chap I'm speaking of went dead across it, as you can see. Incidentally, he landed in ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney

... the world, but most of the population of that day was nomadic. In the fourth century Byzantine influences began to be felt, and in 330 St. Athanasius of Alexandria consecrated Fromentius as Bishop of Ethiopia. He tutored the heir to the Abyssinian kingdom and began its gradual christianization. By the early part of the sixth century Abyssinia was trading with India and Byzantium and was so far recognized as a Christian country that the Emperor Justinian appealed to King Kaleb to protect the Christians in southwestern Arabia. ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois

... genius and labour, his Dictionary of the English Language; the merit of which I contemplate with more and more admiration. BOSWELL. In like manner we have 'Hermes Harris,' 'Pliny Melmoth,' 'Demosthenes Taylor,' 'Persian Jones,' 'Abyssinian Bruce,' 'Microscope Baker,' 'Leonidas Glover,' 'Hesiod ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... prepared a sacrifice to god. Men speak of other gods: there is only Nile. I have prepared a sacrifice of wine—the Lesbian wine from fairy Mitylene—to mingle with your waters till you are drunken and go singing to the sea from the Abyssinian hills. ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany

... conversation. When the public is eager and interested, reviewers must minister to its wants; and the genuine litterateur is too much in the habit of acquiring his knowledge from the book he judges—as the Abyssinian is said to provide himself with steaks from the ox which carries him—to be withheld from criticism of a profound scientific work by the mere want of the requisite preliminary scientific acquirement; while, on the other hand, the men of science who wish well to ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... despotically turned out of his estate an Abyssinian officer in his employ named Ambur Khan, and conferred the same on ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... interior of a Spanish palace inhabited by illustrious French actors and actresses who proceeded to play an act of a tragedy by Corneille, the applause was quintupled. At the end of the tragedy the applause was decupled. Then the Spanish palace dissolved into an Abyssinian harem, and Eliza Fiddle in Abyssinian costume was discovered lying upon two thousand cushions of two thousand colours, and the audience rose at Eliza and Eliza rose at the audience, and the resulting frenzy ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... at Gravesend, Gordon could not be altogether forgotten. The authorities at the Horse Guards could not comply with his request to be attached to the Abyssinian expedition, but they were willing enough to do him what in official circles was thought to be a very good turn when they could. The English membership of the Danubian Commission became vacant, and it was remembered that in his early ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... sought safety in the mountainous regions of that country. Here they were heard of later under the name of Falasha Jews. Cf. Marco Polo, vol. III, chap. xxxv. The reader is referred to Colonel Yule's valuable notes to this chapter. He quotes Bruce's Abstract of Abyssinian Chronicles with regard to a Jewish dynasty which superseded the royal line in the tenth century. See also Dr. Charles Singer's interesting communication in J. Q.R., XVII, p. 142, and J. Halevy's Travels in Abyssinia (Miscellany ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela

... 1622, and was in 1624, at the age of thirty-one, told off as one of the missionaries to be employed in the conversion of the Abyssinians. They were to be converted, from a form of Christianity peculiar to themselves, to orthodox Catholicism. The Abyssinian Emperor Segued was protector of the enterprise, of which we have here ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... and soon after they had finished the cavalry arrived from the other zareba. At eight o'clock the Mounted Infantry moved out, accompanied by a party of Abyssinian scouts. They had gone but a short distance when a very heavy fire was opened upon them, and the officer in command sent back to the general to say that there was a broad ravine stretching across the country a few hundred yards ahead, although hidden by the bushes ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... BLANFORD, LL.D., F.R.S.; (1832-1905), on staff of Geological Survey of India, 1855-1882; accompanied Abyssinian Expedition and Persian Boundary Commission; sometime President of Geological Society and of Asiatic Soc. of Bengal, also of Geological Section British Assoc.; author of works dealing with the geology and zoology of Abyssinia, ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster

... at all uncommon, and the average is well above six. They are strongly and lithely made. Their skins are a red-brown or bronze, generally brought to a high state of polish by liberal anointing. In feature they resemble more the Egyptian or Abyssinian than the negro cast of countenance. The women are tall and well formed, with proud, quaintly quizzical faces. Their expressions and demeanour seem to indicate more independence and initiative than is usual with most savage women, but whether this is ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... her a necklace or a bracelet or a pair of earrings,—those golden lamps that light up the deep, shadowy dimples on the cheeks of young beauties,—swinging in a semi-barbaric splendor that carries the wild fancy to Abyssinian queens and musky Odalisques! I don't believe any woman has utterly given up the great firm of Mundus & Co., so long ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... offers pipes, curiously made, with carved amber mouthpieces, and others with long, flexible, silken tubes. Turbaned crowds stroll leisurely about. Now a strong and wiry Bedouin passes, leading his horse and taking count of everything with his sharp, black eyes, and now a Nile boatman. Yonder is an Abyssinian slave, and beyond is an Egyptian trader, with here and there a Greek or a Maltese. Amid it all one feels curious as to where Aladdin's uncle may be just now, with his new lamps to exchange for old ones. We ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... embellished with protuberances or knobs, that give it a shield-like appearance. This distinguishes it from the African species, all of which are without these knobs, though the hides of some are knotty or warty. The Abyssinian rhinoceros has also foldings of the skin, which approach it somewhat to the character of the Indian species. Both the Sumatra and Java kinds are small compared with their huge cousin, the Indian rhinoceros, which inhabits ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... have scarcely any other means of subsistence than shell fish, and the accidental gifts of the sea. In many places similar Negro tribes occupy thick forests in the hollows beneath high chains of mountains, the summits of which are inhabited by Abyssinian or Ethiopian races. The high table-lands of Africa are chiefly, as far as they are known, the abode or the wandering places of tribes of this character, or of nations who, like the Kafirs, recede very considerably from the Negro type. The Mandingos are, indeed, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... to prayer. The first was Bilal, the Abyssinian slave bought and manumitted by Abu Bakr. His simple cry was "I testify there is no Ilah (god) but Allah (God)! Come ye to prayers!" Caliph Omar, with the Prophet's permission, added, "I testify that Mohammed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... secret satisfaction the occasional presence in the crowd of a dark-skinned soldier in British uniform, and he observed with some surprise the vast number of Abyssinian Arabs, whom he recognized ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon

... with gold and a portion of a golden crown formed of lilies in relievo of pure gold laid upon a mould of bronze; another case was full of bronze ornaments unearthed near Albano, and still another contained rare Abyssinian curios. The collection was renowned among antiquaries, and was often visited by Sir Henry, who would be brought there in the car by Gabrielle, and spend hours alone fingering the objects ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... the Alpine climber who occupies the responsible post of "Cook of the Canoe Club," and modified (after consulting Professor Tyndall), is less than three inches each way, and it acts after the manner of a blow-pipe. It was also adopted in the Abyssinian expedition. In two minutes after lighting it pours forth a vehement flame about a foot in height, which with a warming heat boils two large cups full in my flat copper kettle in five minutes, or a can of preserved meat ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... rest using Arabic characters: this people are the Touaricks. It is besides worthy of remark, that amongst all the African tribes of Central Africa, nay, every part of Africa, excepting the Coptic and Abyssinian Christians, only one alphabet has been found, none of the other tribes having any characters wherewith to write. Specimens of the Touarghee and Ghadamsee language, as well as this alphabet, have been recently published, under the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... The Abyssinian traveller, Bruce, appears to have entertained a peculiar dread of the dangers of such sand columns, but on this point his fear was exaggerated. Cases may have occurred where caravans have been suffocated by whirlwinds ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... his own department was concerned Lord Stanley's administration during this short Ministry was both eminently consistent and eminently successful. It is true that this pacific Minister made the Abyssinian war for the release of some imprisoned British subjects, but he only did this after every peaceful effort to procure their release had proved abortive, and it was almost universally recognised that there was no honourable alternative ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... sight of water in a land where the sun beats down all day long with unremitting force till the earth is like a furnace of iron beneath a sky of molten brass. But the Nile is never clear. During the inundation it is deeply stained with the red argillaceous soil brought down from the Abyssinian highlands. At other seasons it is always more or less tinged with the vegetable matter which it absorbs on its passage from Lake Victoria to Khartoum; and this vegetable matter, combined with Its depth and volume, gives it a dull deep ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... islands..." The facts to which Mr. Wallace called Darwin's attention are given by Mr. J.G. Baker in "Nature," December 9th, 1880, page 125. He mentions the Madagascar Viola, which occurs elsewhere only at 7,000 feet in the Cameroons, at 10,000 feet in Fernando Po and in the Abyssinian mountains; and the same thing is true of the Madagascar Geranium. In Mr. Wallace's letter to Darwin, dated January 1st, 1881, he evidently uses the expression "passing through the air" in contradistinction to the migration of a species by gradual extension of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... several months, Abdul Mourak, in command of a detachment of Abyssinian soldiers, had been assiduously searching for the Arab raider, Achmet Zek, who, six months previously, had affronted the majesty of Abdul Mourak's emperor by conducting a slave raid within the boundaries of ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... believed that the Jews would ultimately be restored; and he says,—If the Gentiles have been so blest by the rejection of the Jews, how much rather shall they be blest by the conversion and restoration of Israel! Why do we expect the Jews to abandon their national customs and distinctions? The Abyssinian church said that they claimed a descent from Abraham; and that, in virtue of such ancestry, they observed circumcision: but declaring withal, that they rejected the covenant of works, and rested on the promise fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... as a Kentucky Colonel appeals to her too much. And then he is new to her—a new type. She only met him in Paris, and he had done some things in the Abyssinian war—" ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington

... Tortured by mutiny in limbs like lead, But as the playful lion of the sea Climbs the rock ledges hard by Fingal's cave To throw himself down into deep green baths, While others barking follow his vigorous lead, The foremost Abyssinian threw his weight Before her with a splash that hid them both, As the explosion of light-filled liquid parcels Shot forth in all directions. In his arms She re-appeared, a tragic terrified face Beside his coarse one ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... her like bees in and out of their straw skep. And often he was tempted to ask her what she was thinking of. But he stopped himself in time. Of course she was thinking of nothing at all, barring possibly a new sherbet to be made, or whether, if they sold Fatima, the Abyssinian cook, who was becoming garrulous, would Fatima have a good home. Trifles! What was the use of asking her? And here was another possibility. She might—anything was possible—be in some deep subtle thought, into ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... disciple, who was an Abyssinian, black, of the name of Hamet. One day Hamet having inadvertently broken a bottle of ink over the Cogia, 'What is this, Cogia?' said the others. 'Don't you think a few good kicks would be a useful lesson to our Hamet?' 'Let him be. He got into a sweat by running,' said the Cogia, 'and ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca

... the Masai which has adopted the settled life of agriculturists is known as the Wakuafi. The Galla section of the Hamites is represented, among others, by Borani living [v.04 p.0603] south of the Goro Escarpment (though the true Boran countries are Liban and Dirri in Abyssinian territory), while Somali occupy the country between the Tana and Juba rivers. Of the Somali tribes the Herti dwell near the coast and are more or less stationary. Further inland is the nomadic tribe of Ogaden Somali. The Gurre, another Somali tribe, occupy the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... just before this time, that a vessel filled with prisoners which Rodomont had taken at the bridge had arrived, and, not knowing of the presence of the Abyssinian army, had sailed right into port, where of course the prisoners and their captors changed places, the former being set at liberty and received with all joy, the latter sent to serve in the galleys. Astolpho thus found himself surrounded with Christian knights, and he and his friends ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... exploration in central Africa. This, in his own words, was undertaken "to discover the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition under Captains Speke and Grant somewhere about the Victoria Lake." After a year spent on the Sudan-Abyssinian border, during which time he learnt Arabic, explored the Atbara and other Nile tributaries, and proved that the Nile sediment came from Abyssinia, he arrived at Khartum, leaving that city in December 1862 to follow up the course of the White Nile. Two months later ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... These were partly natural, partly enlarged by labour. Places were cut for beds and for cupboards; there was provision of a fine water tank, to which, Mr. Dinwiddie told me, there were stone channels leading from a source some hundreds of feet distant; cistern and tubes both carefully plastered. A few Abyssinian Christians come here every spring to keep Lent, Mr. Dinwiddie said. How much more pains they take than we ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... distant hills, the deep green of the valley below, and the rich brown and yellow and red tints of the near foreground, made one of the most exquisitely beautiful sights I have ever witnessed. The nearest approach to it in my experience was, perhaps, the eastern escarpment of the Abyssinian plateau in Africa, where a similar panorama on a much smaller scale could be seen, but not the ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... suddenly at him, precisely the air of bending forward with interest to watch what I was doing, a Mohrgrabim kind of man, almost black, with Jewish nose, crinkled hair, keffie, and flowing robe, probably, I should say, an Abyssinian Galla; with him were only five or six people about the benches, mostly leaning forward with rested head, so that this place had quite a void sequestered mood. At all events, this Galla, or Bedouin, with his grotesque interest in my doings, restrained my hands: and, finally, by ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... Horus, who was possibly of Semitic origin, and another Semitic wave, quite distinct from that which entered Egypt by way of the Isthmus, may very well also have reached Egypt by the Wadi Hammamat, or, equally possibly, from the far south, coming down to the Nile from the Abyssinian mountains. The legend of the coming of Hathor from Ta-neter may refer to some such wandering, and we know that the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom communicated with the Land of Punt, not by way of the Red Sea coast as Hatshepsut did, but by way of the Upper ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... neighbourhood of Benin on the western ocean. But all this I must confess to be a mere conjecture of mine, of which, in the country itself, I never found the smallest confirmation[2]." To these observations of the celebrated Abyssinian traveller, it may be added, that the distance from Benin to Shoa ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... heard you were. Didn't you invent a new motor-pump that drove all the other types out of the field? And besides—that Abyssinian railway. Oh well, well!" he sighed, "it's a good thing somebody's lucky. The rest of us shouldn't complain. But how about the other two—Klaus Brock and Ferdinand Holm? What are ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... an Arab attendant. He pitched his camp, consisting of a saddle and blanket, close beside us. He was an extraordinarily interesting man, with a great gift for languages. In the course of a year or so's wandering in Abyssinia he had learned both ancient and modern Abyssinian. There was a famous German Orientalist with whom he corresponded in the pre-war days. He had mailed him a letter just at the outbreak, which, written in ancient Abyssinian, must have been a good deal of a puzzle ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... than Menelek II of Abyssinia ever swayed the destinies of a people. Throughout the vast territory of the Abyssinian highlands his individual will is law to some millions of subjects; law also to hordes of savage Mohammedan and pagan tribesmen without the confines of his kingdom. His court includes no councillors. Alone throughout the long years ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... the money back with her, and she waited a long while in the stuffy passage of the Contessa's flat. There were imitation Abyssinian trophies on the walls, lances and daggers and shields of lathe and cardboard and painted paper. The husband was an artillery captain, and his sword stood with the umbrellas in the rack, the only real thing in that ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... them. The rest, Hero, it is mace, it is yeast, it is vinegar, pepper, and mustard, it is sardines, it is lobster, it is the unconsidered world of trifles which make up the visible difference between the table of high civilization and that of the Abyssinian or the Blackfoot Indian. Let us hope it is not much cream-of-tartar or saleratus. It is grits and grapes, it is lard and lemons, it is maple-sugar and melons, it is nuts and nutmeg, or any other alliteration ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... Dilke, of The Athenaeum, for books, some years later, Lamb makes a point of "no natural history or useful learning" being sent—such as Giraffes, Pyramids and Adventures in Central Africa. None the less, as a boy, he tells us, he had read Bruce and applied his Abyssinian methods to the New River (see the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... great courtesy, and was especially struck by the extraordinary dimensions, yet pleasing beauty of the immoderately fat fair one, his wife. She could not rise. So large were her arms that between the joints the flesh hung like large loose bags. Then came in their children, all models of the Abyssinian type of beauty, and as polite in their manners as thorough-bred gentlemen. They were delighted in looking over his picture-books and making enquiries about them. The prince, pointing to his wife, observed: "This is all the ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... traveller, called the "Abyssinian," born at Kinnaird House, Stirlingshire, set out from Cairo in 1768 in quest of the source of the Nile: believed he had discovered it; stayed two years in Abyssinia, and returned home by way of France, elated with his success; felt hurt that no honor was conferred on him, and for relief from ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... broken into open revolt, and one of them had proclaimed himself king of a certain province. Sir Robert Napier presented this chieftain with four guns and a thousand rifles, and this recognition on the part of the conquerors enabled the chief in question to mount the Abyssinian throne, taking for himself the name ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... among themselves. The Monophysites still exist in Armenia, Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia; and are represented by the Armenian National church, the Jacobite Christians of Syria and Mesopotamia, the Coptic church, and the Abyssinian church. The schismatic Christians of St. Thomas are now connected with the Jacobites. See Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... topic Grasses is manifestly unfit for children, since grasses are difficult to study, and the description of them in encyclopedias and botanies is too technical. An eight- year-old had to investigate the Abyssinian war. Pupils under 16 were assigned the topic Syncretism in the later pagan movement. A western librarian was asked by some girls for Kipling's "Many inventions" and "Day's work." Both were out. "Well, what other books of Kipling's on agriculture have you?" "Why, Kipling hasn't written any books ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... mission was a complete failure. The Negus was intractable, and, when his bribes were refused, furious. Gordon was ignominiously dismissed; every insult was heaped on him; he was arrested, and obliged to traverse the Abyssinian Mountains in the depth of winter under the escort of a savage troop of horse. When, after great hardships and dangers, he reached Cairo, he found the whole official world up in arms against him. The Pashas had determined at last that they had no ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... century, was translated from the Syriac into the Latin language, by the care of Gregory of Tours. The hostile communions of the East preserve their memory with equal reverence; and their names are honorably inscribed in the Roman, the Abyssinian, and the Russian calendar. [46] Nor has their reputation been confined to the Christian world. This popular tale, which Mahomet might learn when he drove his camels to the fairs of Syria, is introduced as a divine revelation, into the Koran. [47] The story of the Seven ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... told of wireless messages being transmitted 2500 miles across the Abyssinian desert, and of preparation for ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... all parts of the world, and when news is worth sending, these are instructed to spare no pains or expense in transmitting it at once. During the late war it had a small army of attaches in the field, and its reports were the most eagerly sought of all by the public. During the Abyssinian war its reporters and correspondents furnished the London press with reliable news in advance of their own correspondents. Any price is paid for news, for it is the chief wish of Mr. Bennett that "The Herald" shall be the first to chronicle the ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... whether you are greedy? If so, it may interest you to learn that I have a third chef, who makes only souffles, and an Italian pastry-cook; to say nothing of a Spaniard for salads, an Englishwoman for roasts, and an Abyssinian for coffee. You found no trace of their handiwork in the meal you have just had with me? No; for in Oxford it is a whim of mine—I may say a point of honour—to lead the ordinary life of an undergraduate. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... years ago, gave his life for the sins of the world, after having instituted this supper, a monumental institution, representing to our minds the cost of the world's redemption. In the afternoon I attended the preaching service in Mr. Thompson's tabernacle, and visited the Abyssinian church, near Mr. Smith's house. This Abyssinian house is circular, and has a small, round room in the center, around which the congregation stands and worships, leaning on their staves, for the place is void of seats. At night I preached in the tabernacle on the question: "What must I do to be saved?" ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes

... which has descended from age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty, till the order of succession should call him ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson

... Abyssinia, in Africa. From Arabia it was carried to most of the tropical countries, but many varieties have been found in the western hemisphere. Even in Canada certain kinds of coffee plants are known. It is not, therefore, a wholly tropical plant. The Abyssinian coffee has been known from ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay

... pursues its solemn course over the solitudes of Central Africa, a cloudless and a rainless wind, its track marked by desolation and deserts. At first the river becomes red, and then green, because the flood of its great Abyssinian branch, the Blue Nile, arrives first; but, soon after, that of the White Nile makes its appearance, and from the overflowing banks not only water, but a rich and fertilizing mud, is discharged. It is owing to the solid material thus brought down that the river in ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... he is described as a mulatto.[2] "Goddess born, however," says Reynold A. Nicholson, "he could not be called by any stretch of the imagination. His mother was a black slave."[3] All authorities agree that Shedad, his father, was a man of noble blood and that his mother was an Abyssinian slave. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... water upon the Abyssinian mountains had been constant and uniform, the stream, in its passage across the desert, would have communicated very little fertility to the barren sands which it traversed. The immediate banks of the ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott

... along a great part of the frontiers of the Soudan. I beg of you, when you are on the spot, to carefully examine into the situation of affairs, and I authorise you, if you deem it expedient, to enter into negotiations with the Abyssinian authorities with the view of arriving at ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... are Egyptian and Abyssinian. This nose ring was worn by a lady in India some centuries before ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells

... are supposed to have been wrought by the Romans; viz. the tools of copper found in these gold mines, supposed to have been used by the native Egyptians, prior to the conquest of Egypt by the Persians. The next particular mentioned by Agatharcides, respecting the Abyssinian coast of the Red Sea, is very conclusive, with respect to his accuracy and credibility. In Meroe, or Abyssinia, he says, they hunt elephants and hamstring them, and afterwards cut the flesh out of the animal alive: he adds, that the inhabitants ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... Abyssinian pumps, for which I had vainly applied at Cairo, would doubtless discover the prime necessary in the Wadys, many of the latter being still damp and muddy. Moreover, the crible continue a grilles filtrantes, the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... Fashoda was death, so he did not at all beg Hatim that he should not send them upon a new journey, the third in rotation. In his soul, he thought also that riding in an easterly and southerly direction, he must approach the Abyssinian boundaries and that he might escape. He had a hope that upon the dry tableland Nell would be safeguarded against the fever, and for these reasons he willingly and zealously entered into the preparation ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... mention further that a rescued Abyssinian slave named Fareek (happily not tongueless) was well known to me many years ago in the household of the late Warden Barter ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... tarnished, and the glasses dim. The mistress of the house was seated on the cushions, dividing her time between her pipe and her needle-work. She merely made a slight inclination of her head as we entered, and went on with her occupation. Presently her two daughters and an Abyssinian slave appeared, and took their places on the cushions at her feet, the whole forming a charming group, which I regretted some of my artist friends at home could not see. The mistress was so exceedingly dignified, that she bestowed but few words on us. She seemed to resent our admiration ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... front of Boston Philistinism in art. He had been the patron of subservient artists; the chairman of committees for the purchase of public statues; an elegant writer upon such live and timely topics as Plaster Casting among the Egyptians, Notes upon Abyssinian Statues, while his monograph upon the question, What Was the Original Cost of the Venus de Milo? had by his flatterers been pronounced the masterpiece of all known art essays for power and critical research. His was a prominent name upon the covers of dilettante art journals; ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... Algernon, as Elsmere would say, but it truly does just about describe it. You never do that way yourself, but you do open up and read aloud, so to speak, in company sometimes, in a way that is disconcerting. Now, what could one say to a statement about Abyssinian trousers, for instance, when one is just peacefully walking along, going ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... to his former teaching and the interest he had excited in her for his pursuits. But, as he said in apology, what had he to write about in that savage land, but his love, and his researches, and travels? There was no society, no gaiety, no new books to write about, no gossip in Abyssinian wilds. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... I said. 'But you must begin at the right end. First find the race that fears its priests. It is waiting for you—the Mussulmans of Somaliland and the Abyssinian border and the Blue and White Nile. They would be like dried grasses to catch fire if you used the flint and steel of their religion. Look what the English suffered from a crazy Mullah who ruled only a dozen villages. Once get the flames going and they will lick up the ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... directions to send on at once any despatches that might arrive while he remained there, and Cowper's parting request to give his compliments to the old Habshi. This disrespectful term applied to Nawab Sadiq Ali, who traced his descent to a famous naval commander, a Habshi or Abyssinian, in the service of one of the Mogul Emperors. So much did the Badshah appreciate the society of his admiral that he grudged him to the sea, but compromised matters by bestowing on him a jaghir with a river frontage, which the Habshi's descendants, in the break-up ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... and the mounds of Troy; swimming the Hellespont in honour of Leander; at Constantinople, where the prospect of the Golden Horn seemed the fairest of all; at Patras, in the woeful debility of fever; and again at Athens, making acquaintance with Lady Hester Stanhope and "Abyssinian" Bruce. Through all these varied scenes his mind was brooding on the verses ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... valuable material, which resists damp and decay for centuries, and which Decandolle declares would grow in Scotland, is rapidly disappearing from the Pinals. The travellers carried cochineal-seed, for which their village is famous, and a hive which might have been Abyssinian. It was a hollow cylinder of palm-bole, closed with board at either end; in July and August it is carried up the mountain, where the bees cannot destroy the grapes. We searched in vain for M. Broussonet's white violet ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... and having an undergrowth containing an immense variety and quantity of ferns and mosses. Sugar-cane also grows wild here, an uncommon thing in West Africa. The last botanical collection of any importance made from these forests was that of Herr Mann, and its examination showed that Abyssinian genera and species predominated, and that many species similar to those found in the mountains of Mauritius, the Isle de Bourbon, and Madagascar, were present. The number of European plants (forty-three genera, twenty-seven ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... conservative fellahin of Egypt saw the desirability of growing that strange new shrub—the first instance on record of a change in their tillage that came about without compulsion. So great were the profits reaped by intelligent growers that many fellahin bought Circassian and Abyssinian wives, and established harems in which jewels, perfumes, silks, and mirrors were to be found. In a word, Egypt rioted in its new-found wealth. This may be imagined from the totals of exports, which in three years rose from L4,500,000 ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... ships had no distilling apparatus. Martinique was reached in safety, however, the little trees struck their roots into congenial soil, and thus the seeds, such as first yielded their aroma to a surprised and gratified Abyssinian chief more than a thousand years before, now spring from the strong earth of the Western world. Whether Spaniards stole some of these trees, or bought them, or whether they got away by accident, certes, they reached Porto Rico, and so became a source of pleasure and profit to people whom the Dutchman ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner

... curious thing was, that many of them were dressed just like Christians. First came the big Elephant, putting me in mind, for all the world, of Mr. Trunk, the great City merchant; then the Hippopotamus, with a fez cap on exactly like the Abyssinian prince, Ippo, that was in the Exhibition a few days before; then a Kangaroo, with a smart bonnet and shawl, in the same style as Mrs. Jumper's; then a Wild Boar, looking like a country lout in a smock-frock; ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... Heghes, and between all Yasouses and Ozoros? and do you firmly believe that an old man and his son were sent for and put to death, because the King had run into a thorn-bush, and was forced to leave his clothes behind him! Is it your faith, that one of their Abyssinian Majesties pleaded not being able to contribute towards sending for a new Abuna, because he had spent all his money at Venice in looking-glasses? And do you really think that Peter Paez was a Jack-of-all-trades, and built palaces and convents ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... the Abyssinian war. It is not likely that two great barbaric kingdoms living side by side, but differing in race and religion, will long continue at peace; nor was it difficult to discover a cause of the quarrel between the Dervishes and the Abyssinians. For some time a harassing and desultory ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... be, as John Richard Green said, 'Oxford in masquerade'; there may be 'grand incongruities, Abyssinian heroes robed in literary scarlet, degrees conferred by the suffrages of virgins in pink bonnets and blue, a great academical ceremony drowned in an atmosphere of Aristophanean (sic) chaff'. But the chaff is the legitimate successor of the burlesque performance ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells

... dulcimer In a vision once I saw; It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... power during the submergence which the Initiates knew to be impending. Map No. 3 shows Egypt at that date as under water. It remained so for a considerable period, but on its re-emergence it was again peopled by the descendants of many of its old inhabitants who had retired to the Abyssinian mountains (shown in Map No. 3 as an island) as well as by fresh bands of Atlantean colonists from various parts of the world. A considerable immigration of Akkadians then helped to modify the Egyptian type. This is the ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot

... matama, Indian corn, muhogo, and gardens of curry, egg, and cucumber plants. On the banks of the Ungerengeri flourished the banana, and overtopping it by seventy feet and more, shot up the stately mparamusi, the rival in beauty of the Persian chenar and Abyssinian plane. Its trunk is straight and comely enough for the mainmast of a first, class frigate, while its expanding crown of leafage is distinguished from all others by its density and vivid greenness. There ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... learning the ways and customs of the various people among whom he was thrown, or of foisting himself on any company in which he thought he could increase his knowledge. His whole life indeed was a preparation for "The Arabian Nights." Thus at Cairo he had the good fortune to cure some Abyssinian slave-girls of various complaints, including the "price-lowering habit of snoring," and in return he made the slave dealer take him about the town and unfold the mysteries of his craft. He also visited the resting-place of his hero, Burckhardt; [110] indeed, in whatever ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... follow them north-westward into the Nubian desert, and let their camel herds graze on the delicate grass which the moisture has conjured up from the sandy soil. The country about Cassala, which is flooded during the monsoon rains by the rivers from the Abyssinian Mountains, is reserved for the dry season.[1068] In the same way the Tartar tribes of the Dnieper, Don, Volga and Ural Rivers in the thirteenth century moved down these rivers in winter to the sea coast, and in summer up-stream to the hills and mountains.[1069] ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... Cinquecento, but she afterward adopted a rather bombastic and theatrical style. Her only statue, a Pythia, in bronze was placed in the Grand Opera at Paris (1870). In the Luxembourg Museum are marble busts of Bianca Capello (1863) and an "Abyssinian Sheikh" (1870). A "Gorgon" (1865), a "Saviour" (1875), "La Bella Romana" (1875) are among her other works. She left her art treasures, valued at about fifty thousand francs, to the Cantonal Museum at Fribourg, where they occupy a separate ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... table. He was fond of knives of all sorts, and he regarded them always as his legitimate spoil whenever he dined anywhere, pocketing every one he could lay his hands on with as much facility as the Egyptian, and Abyssinian drummers who visited our section of the country every year made off with the spoons of our hostelries. Nor could we ever appeal to him on the score of etiquette. Any observation as to the ways of our first families was ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... Society. I doubt not that the learned gentlemen there will find in your photographs a valuable hint or two, for which they will be much obliged. I learnt, for instance, what seemed to me most valuable geological lessons from mere glances at drawings—I believe from photographs—of the Abyssinian ranges about Magdala. ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... dear friend, Professor Higgs—Ptolemy Higgs to give him his full name—descriptive of the tableland of Mur in North Central Africa, of the ancient underground city in the mountains which surrounded it, and of the strange tribe of Abyssinian Jews, or rather their mixed descendants, by whom it is, or was, inhabited. I say every one advisedly, for although the public which studies such works is usually select, that which will take an interest in them, if the character of a learned and pugnacious personage is concerned, is very wide ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... my time to the cause of Charity, and while on a lecture tour of Massachusetts in the interest of this feature of colored welfare for Richmond, Va., the most colorful incident of my eventful life happened when I met Quango Hennadonah Perceriah, an Abyssinian Prince, who was traveling and lecturing on the customs of his country and the habits of its people. Our mutual interests caused our friendship to ripen fast and when the time of parting came, when each of us had finished our work in Massachusetts, he going back to his home in New York ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... bishop had been removed from the Holy City by the Turks, but their representatives were introduced to the Commander-in-Chief, and so too were the heads of Jewish communities, the Syriac Church, the Greek Catholic Church, the Abyssinian bishop, and the representative of the Anglican Church. A notable presentation was the Spanish Consul, who had been in charge of the interests of almost all countries at war, and whom General Allenby congratulated upon being so busy a man. The presentations over, the Commander-in-Chief ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... rainless country grow anything? The secret is the Nile. Every year, when the rains fall in the great lake-basin of Central Africa, from which one branch of the great river comes, and on the Abyssinian hills, where the other branch rises, the Nile comes down in flood. All the lower lands are covered, and a fresh deposit of Nile mud is left upon them; and, though the river does not rise to the higher grounds, the water is led into big canals, and these, again, are divided up into little ones, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie

... God of Israel. Behind her leered unabashed the rhythmic Herodias; while were heard the praiseful songs of Deborah and Barak, as Caecilia smote her keys. Miriam with her timbrel sang songs of triumph. Abyssinian girls swayed alluringly before the Persian Satrap in his purple litter; the air was filled with the crisp tinklings of tiny bells at wrist and anklet as the Kabaros drummed; and hard by, in the brake, brown nymphs, their little breasts pointing to the zenith, moved in languorous ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... morning,' replied he, 'when I opened my shop, I saw that each of the other merchants had a son or two or more, and I said to myself, "He who took thy father will not spare thee." Now the night I wedded thee, thou madest me swear that I would never take a second wife nor a concubine, Abyssinian or Greek or other, nor would lie a night from thee: and behold, thou art barren, and swiving thee is like boring into the rock.' 'God is my witness,' rejoined she, 'that the fault lies with thee, for that thy seed is thin.' 'And how is it with him whose seed is thin?' asked ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... Supper, sixteen persons were present, who were all regarded as hopefully pious. They were from America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and were members of nine churches,—Congregational, Episcopal, Lutheran, Reformed Lutheran, Moravian, Latin, Armenian, Greek Catholic, and Abyssinian. Dionysius Carabet, Gregory Wortabet, and their wives were then received into the mission church, as was also the wife of Mr. Abbott, the English Consul, a native of Italy. This admission of converts into a church, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson



Words linked to "Abyssinian" :   Abyssinian cat, Abyssinian banana, domestic cat, Felis catus



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com