Note 177 — INTRODUCTION (continued 2)

We must take Benjamin's statements here to mean that the independent Jews who lived in the mountainous country in the rear of Aden crossed the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb and made war against the inhabitants of the Plains of Abyssinia. J. Lelewel, in a series of letters addressed to E. Carmoly, entitled Examen geographique des Voyages de Benjamin de Tudèle (Bruxelles, 1852), takes great pains to locate the land of Hommatum in lieu of which our text reads the land of the Plains; but he quite fails in this and in many other attempts at identification. The Jews coming from Aden had to encounter the forces of the Christian sovereign of Abyssinia, and 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 He quotes Bruce's Abstract of Abyssinian Chronicles with regard to a Jewish dynasty which superseded the royal line in the tenth century.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 of Hebrew Literature: 2nd Series, p. 175).