The inhabitants of Saba, Azab, or Azaba, all of which mean south, were a separate and distinct people from the Ethiopians or Arabs; and it was a custom among these Sabeans to have women for their sovereigns in preference to men.
One of these queens, called Balkis by the Arabs and Maqueda by the Abyssinians, having heard not only of the wisdom of Solomon, but of the immense riches which he had accumulated in the north, determined to witness for herself the reality of scenes, to the description of which she had listened with so much delight; and, accordingly, this Queen of Saba (Sheba), Azaba, or the South, suddenly appeared before Solomon. Pagan, Arab, Moor, Abyssinian, and, indeed, the inhabitants of all the countries around, vouch for this expedition very nearly in the language of Scripture, which states, "And when the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions;" and again, "The Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here."
It is said by the Abyssinians that this Queen of Sheba or Saba left her country a Pagan; but that, having received Solomon's answers to the hard questions which she put to him, she returned converted to Judaism, bringing with her a young child called Menilek, whose paternity was ascribed to Solomon; and it may here be observed, that both the Jews and Christians of Abyssinia still believe that the fourteenth Psalm is a prophecy, not only of their queen's journey to Jerusalem, but that there she should have a son, who was to be king over a nation of Gentiles.
The Abyssinians declare that Menilek, after residing some years with his mother, was sent by her to his father, Solomon, to be instructed; that he then took the name of David, and was anointed and crowned, in the Temple of Jerusalem, as King of Ethiopia. After this ceremony he is said to have returned to Azab, or Saba, accompanied by a colony of Jews, and by a high-priest, Azazias, who brought with him a Hebrew transcript of the Law. The moment had now arrived for the Queen of Saba to carry her great and hitherto secret objects into execution. Abyssinia was converted to the religion of Jerusalem; and, by the last act of the queen's reign, she settled a new mode of succession to the crown, which has existed very nearly to the present day.