THE SOURCE OF THE BLUE NILE SHOWING LAKE IN THE DISTANCE.

See [p. 136.]

THE SOURCE OF THE
BLUE NILE

A RECORD OF A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SOUDAN TO LAKE TSANA
IN WESTERN ABYSSINIA, AND OF THE RETURN TO
EGYPT BY THE VALLEY OF THE ATBARA

WITH
A NOTE ON THE RELIGION, CUSTOMS, ETC.
OF ABYSSINIA

BY
ARTHUR J. HAYES, L.S.A. (Lond.)
MEDICAL OFFICER, QUARANTINE OFFICE, SUEZ
AND
AN ENTOMOLOGICAL APPENDIX
BY
E. B. POULTON, LL.D., F.R.S.
HOPE PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE
1905

(All rights reserved)

PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.

PREFACE

In Africa the centre of interest shifts quickly, from Khartoum to the Cape, from the Congo to Morocco. Before now it has lain in Abyssinia, for Englishmen especially. It may be found there again. If so, the theatre of action will probably be the little known region of Western Abyssinia, and that district of the Anglo-Egyptian Nile Province which adjoins it.

Geographically, Western Abyssinia dominates the south-east of the Soudan. The Soudan, as every one in England knows now, is not a continuation of the Desert of Sahara, but a land that once flowed with milk and honey, and may again. It contains vast tracts of soil perfectly adapted for the cultivation of cotton. A hostile force descending from Abyssinia has the enormous advantage of moving from difficult into easy country with an open line of retreat into almost inaccessible mountains. An expedition from the Soudan, on the other hand, would be confronted, after traversing miles of uninhabited hilly wastes, by the necessity of forcing its way up mule-paths winding among precipices.

There is no reason why peace should not be permanently established between Egypt and Ethiopia, if the Abyssinian slave-raids are stopped. But the changes and chances of international politics bring about strange consequences. Rumours, not without foundation, have been circulated recently of new engagements entered into by the Negus giving far-reaching concessions to Americans. Other Powers are busy, and a diplomatic—and spectacular—mission started lately from Berlin for Addis Abbiba. There is room in the country for all nations to find commercial opportunities. But if influences hostile to Great Britain became dominant in Western Abyssinia, a danger to the Soudan—and not to the Soudan only—would have arisen, the seriousness of which few people at home, perhaps, rightly realize. I make no further apology for bringing some account of a journey from Khartoum to Lake Tsana before the public.

My heartiest thanks are due to my friend, Mr. Godfrey Burchett, without whose aid in preparing for publication the rough notes of a traveller’s diary, this book would not have come into existence. I cannot too cordially acknowledge my indebtedness to him.

I wish to acknowledge also my great obligation to Sir W. Garstin, who, on behalf of the Egyptian Government, has allowed me to reproduce the map of Lake Tsana, published in his Report on the Basin of the Upper Nile (1904); to Professor Poulton for his kindness in preparing the entomological appendix to this volume; and to Mr. C. E. Dupuis for permission to publish interesting photographs taken by him. And I have the pleasure of cordially thanking Mr. John Murray for leave given me to make extracts from “Life in Abyssinia,” by Mansfield Parkyns, and the “Narrative of the British Mission to Theodore, King of Abyssinia,” by Hormuzd Rassam; Messrs. Macmillan and Co., for similar permission in the case of “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” by Sir Samuel Baker; Messrs. C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd., in the case of “Abyssinia,” by Herbert Vivian; Messrs. Chapman & Hall in the case of “A Narrative of a Journey through Abyssinia,” by Henry Dufton; and Mr. Augustus Wylde in the case of “Modern Abyssinia.” It would have been impossible to publish the collated information about the Soudan and Abyssinia contained in this volume without the privilege kindly granted me by these gentlemen.

A. J. HAYES.

Suez, 1905.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE
SOURCE OF THE BLUE NILE

CHAPTER I

In October, 1902, I was acting as Medical Inspector of the native quarter of Alexandria. Cholera had kept the staff busy, and we had brought the number of cases down to about fifteen in the last days of the month. I had passed the disinfecting gangs in review one morning before sending them to their allotted quarters of the town, and had just resumed my work in the hospital, when I heard a voice sing out to me—without preliminary—“Hayes, would you like to go to Abyssinia?”

It was the Chief Inspector of the Sanitary Department who asked the question. By the evening I had made up my mind, and told him that I should be glad to take the chance. However, I heard nothing more of the matter till the middle of November. Then I received a telegram directing me to make my preparations in Cairo. And I had no time to waste; for I learned that the expedition to which I was attached would start in seven days. The “jumping-off place” would be close to Khartoum.

Twenty years earlier the journey thither would have had a lingering fascination of romance. Ten years earlier it would probably have brought the traveller by painful paths to the Land of No Return. To-day it lies within the range of the prudent tourist who prefers safe adventures between regular meals. He is much indebted to Lord Kitchener.

In Cairo I joined my companions Mr. Dupuis and Mr. Crawley. They had had arrangements for the expedition in hand for many months; indeed, it had been planned for the previous year, but the illness of Sir William Garstin at Khartoum delayed it. On November 27 we reached Assouan. Like hundreds of my fellow-countrymen, I photographed the great dam, and the temple of Philæ. Our next stage was by post-boat to Wady Halfa, where we arrived on December 1. In the evening of that day we took train on the Soudan Government Railway. The following morning I had a new experience; for I had never before seen the mirage from the window of a railway carriage.

The granite rocks seemed to rise out of a great lake. The illusion was so perfect that I used it as a test of my black “boy’s” shrewdness. I called him, and said, “Look at the water!” His answer was, “It is not the water. It is the water-thief, your excellency.”

In this desolate land, with a burning sky over it, there are no trees. It is all of a piece, and the different parts of it give no sense of varied locality. The stations are not named but numbered, and here the water is stored in zinc tanks. Command of the tanks means command of the country—an important fact in connection with possible émeutes of native troops.

At Abou Hamed we reached the Nile again, and saw vegetation. Warm baths are provided in the station. We jumped out of the train in our pyjamas and rushed into luxury.

The railway follows the river to Helfiah, on the opposite side of the river to Khartoum. Here I first beheld our camels, the steadily stubborn source of infinite vexation. All that is hard and heart-breaking in the character of the desert is incarnate in the camel. At Helfiah we engaged Soudanese “boys,” settled matters with officials, and finished our preparations for shooting big game.

I went to the Soudan Club at Khartoum, and strolled about the town in the spirit of an inquiring tourist. It is carefully administered, and is laid out in three sections. The best houses are being built by the riverbank. Plans of these must be submitted for approval. They are mostly of red brick, and well constructed. Smaller houses, the “second class,” have their sites behind the big residences. The “third-class” district is still further back. The object of this caste system applied to builders’ enterprise is to secure that there shall be a fine promenade along the river front, and no mean streets near to it. The British and Egyptian flags are hoisted side by side over the quarters of the army of occupation. The Gordon College—the other tribute to the man’s work—is a big, square, red-brick building. It seems to insist on its resemblance to barracks. No dahabeahs are seen on the Nile here; the boats are feluccas. Having made these notes of a tripper I returned to Helfiah. This was on December 5.

We dined in our camp, and slept in our tents for the first time, and I ceased to be a tourist, and became a member of an expedition. My companions and I showed the servants how to pitch the tents and peg them, and we apportioned loads to the camels. The camel is—not metaphorically—foul-mouthed. We put some of the boys up to try the paces of the animals, trusting chiefly to one who had served in the Camel Corps under Kitchener. I watched the exhibition of ungainly shuffling with the face of one who judges, but I thought of the hours during which I should be shaken under the glaring sun.

Next morning we were up at sunrise. We had not yet lost touch of the British breakfast-table, for we ate sausages and poached eggs. Then the camels were loaded and the tents were struck, and at mid-day we started—three Englishmen, six native servants, forty camels, and ten camel-men. Our route lay along the north bank of the Blue Nile, over a beaten track in a wilderness of loose sand. A few scattered thorny mimosa bushes are the only vegetation. I timed the camels and found they travelled about 3¼ miles an hour. At two o’clock the temperature was 104° F. in the shade, but all the surroundings were new to me, and I enjoyed the journey in spite of the monotony of the country. It is all bare desert, and one never loses sight of the mirage. At one point I watched a flock of goats, which looked exactly as if they were knee deep in water. We reached Soba, fourteen miles up the river, at sundown. Here there is a pleasant and clean little rest-house built of straw. We had kept ahead of our baggage-train, which arrived an hour later. People in England who speak of tea as refreshing do not know the full meaning of that word. The cups were filled for men who had fasted since breakfast at 7.30, except for a welcome drink of river water on arrival, and were served with biscuits and sardines. After this, the happiness of a wash, and an eight o’clock dinner. A meal of curry and rice and tinned roast beef is not a severe hardship, and the only contretemps on our first day in the desert was the discovery that we must put ourselves on short rations of candles. A mistake had been made about the quantity ordered, and we were ill supplied. But there was a clear moon. We turned in to sleep in the open, and the sandflies found us and were glad; for we were fresh blood, and they were small enough to crawl through the meshes of the mosquito curtains.

THE START AHEAD OF THE CARAVAN.

See [p. 4.]

CHILDREN AT NO. 6 STATION, BETWEEN HALFA AND ABOU HAMED, EAT THE REMAINS OF LUNCH, CURRY AND RICE.

See [p. 2.]

The first signs of dawn brought us out of bed next morning. We were in good luck; for the servants had kept a fire alight all night, and hot water was ready for us. There was beatitude in a warm bath after the plague of sandflies. We started at daybreak; there was no change in the track or the country. Heat, a high wind and dust spoiled the journey in the morning. We halted to lunch under the largest mimosa bush we could find, which gave as much shade as a telegraph pole.

Crawley opened his big artist’s umbrella, which should have been a successful aid to comfort, but it tried conclusions with the wind and was worsted. We started again at two o’clock, and arrived in the evening at our camping-ground opposite the pleasant village of Sheik-el-Obeid. Our guns played the part of poulterer for us and varied our diet. In the morning Dupuis had shot a brace of sand-grouse, and in the khor[1] below our camp I had the luck to bag a teal. The temperature fell rapidly after sundown, and the night was very cold. The mosquitoes were numbed and did not stir, but the camels did, and I found them as effective in promoting a vigil. All night long they were browsing on the mimosa scrub; they relish the thorns, which are about two inches long. I heard them pull the branches, and then, when one was released, it recoiled into place with a swish. There was a continuous noise of this movement, and it vaguely reminded me of breaking water.

The camels were hobbled, and stumbled from bush to bush. I constantly expected that one would stumble upon my bed. They loomed up, shadowy and grotesque, in the light of the bearers’ fires, and I had a kind of nightmare of them without sleep.

On the 8th we were up before sunrise. Probably the camels, after supping all night, were tired. I say “probably”; for the camel is an aberrant type, and one can only guess its sensations. They were unwilling to barak[2] to receive their loads, and were grunting, snarling, and growling. When one of these beasts seems likely to become unmanageable, the camel-man “bridles” it by passing his index finger through the orifice between its nostrils. In breaking in young ones, a stout thorn, shaped as a peg, is used in the same position.

We started at 7.30, and walked ahead of the baggage train with our guns. At nine o’clock, when the sun had gained power, we took to the saddle. The country through which we passed is cultivated during the rainy season; it is scored with ravines, hollowed out by the rush of water in the wet months, and is uncomfortable ground for travellers.

During the day we shot five pigeons and a sand-grouse. Beside the river we saw and heard great numbers of demoiselle cranes, but found it impossible to get within gun-range of them. They have scouts on the watch both when they are in flight and when they settle, and as soon as the warning cry is given by the outpost the shooter’s chance is gone.

We reached our camping-ground, near Bushagra, before five o’clock, and pitched one tent for our own use in case a dust storm should come upon us. I bathed on the brink of the river, but kept out of the pool for fear of crocodiles. As yet I had seen none, but I made their acquaintance quite closely enough later in the journey. The night was warm, and we slept in the open on the bank of the Nile.

I began the next day (December 9) with a lucky shot. I had put my gun and a No. 3 cartridge—the only one I had—on the table near my bed before turning in, as I hoped that the demoiselles might be less cautious before daybreak. I was up an hour before dawn, and loaded my gun. I could hear the croaking of the birds for a long distance, and knew from the sound that they were moving. Just at the moment when I was ready, three cranes sailed over the camp. They were within range; and when I fired, a fine demoiselle collapsed and came to the ground in a heap. These birds make good eating.

All the country in this district has the same character. The low mimosa scrub is varied by patches of land which are cultivated in the rainy season. The Khalifa had his powder and cartridge factory at Bushagra, and possibly the natives thought that European vengeance might fall on them for this reason. In any case the Soudanese here showed nervousness, and made off when they saw us coming.

We ate another British breakfast—porridge and sausages—and then started on foot with our guns at half-past seven. A tramp of five miles gave us no sport, and we mounted our camels about nine o’clock. Our road lay through the hottest country I have ever known, and the temperature rose hourly as the day advanced. Smoked glasses ease the eyes a little, and there is shade under one’s white umbrella, but nothing seems able to allay the thirst which this land causes. It is a mistake to suppose that one must go east of Suez to gain experience of true human drought. The water in my bottle[3] lasted, and only just lasted, through the journey.

Hot, parched men, in a hot, uninteresting land, are not likely to be in their best temper, and we had to bear with our guide. He had asserted that he knew the whole country, but he barely knew how to follow the track, and seemed to lack ideas of time and distance. We asked him, “When shall we reach the river again?” He pointed to a large section of the heavens and answered, “When the sun reaches there.” He could not tell us the names of villages which lay on our route, and our maps were not trustworthy.

We reached the river bank after our halt at lunch-time, but left it again, and my camel’s action appeared to be more back-breaking and monotonous than ever. Two hours in the saddle seemed like four, and Xenophon’s Greeks were not more delighted to behold the sea than I was by the sight of the blue water as we approached it late in the afternoon. Our camping ground was beside the stream, and I rushed to the brink with my enamelled mug; the water was rather muddy, but the draught seemed like nectar.

I tried for a fish, without success. When I returned to camp I heard a camel grunting loudly and dismally. On going to discover the cause, I found the animal fastened to the ground by cords, while a man was scarifying its back with live cinders. The object is to produce counter-irritation as a remedy for cysts. I arrived too late to deliver the unhappy beast from the horrors of Soudanese veterinary treatment, as the operation had just been completed. However, I gave the Arabs “a piece of my mind.” They may not have understood my Arabic, but they could not mistake the meaning.

We had covered twenty miles during the day and camped beside a khor, opposite to a village called Baranku, which is situated on an island in the river.

On the following morning we started with our guns and walked ahead of the camels. Besides pigeons, we shot plovers of two kinds which I had not seen before. Our route throughout the day was over fertile soil, perfectly adapted for the cultivation of cotton. At present, grain (durrha) is grown here, and apparently only one crop is raised annually, after the summer rains. But Dupuis told me that if a canal were cut and a system of irrigation established the soil would bear “the kindly fruits of the earth” all the year round. Villages are numerous in this district, and we never lost sight of one or other of them during our day’s journey. I noticed a great disproportion between the numbers of male and female inhabitants. In a hamlet in which I made inquiry there were eighteen women to one man. Nearly all the men had perished in the days of the Mahdi and Osman Digna. As a consequence, the women worked in the fields, while their few surviving consorts led lives of idleness. I suppose they were considered, and considered themselves, too valuable to be subjected to fatigue. They were too poor to buy tobacco, or smoking might have kept them silent. As it was, when they were not asleep they were talking, and I wondered how they could possibly find topics for incessant conversation.

We halted for the night on the bank of the river, two miles from Rufa’a, which is the second largest town on the Blue Nile. Miralai[4] Blewitt Bey, the Moudir[5] of Rufa’a, sent a police officer with a courteous message, expressing his desire to do all in his power to assist us. A welcome gift of eggs and fresh milk reached us a few hours later, and at the same time two night-watchmen (Gaffirs) arrived for the protection of the camp. We were heartily grateful for our countryman’s good-will. Dupuis dined with him that evening, while Crawley and I remained in charge of the camp.

In the course of the afternoon I applied iodoform to the back of one of the camels, to keep the flies from a sore. All the drivers came clamouring to me after this, importuning me to treat every scratch on the beasts of burden in the same way. One wishes to conform to the tradition of ready helpfulness which is, happily, associated with the medical profession, but I declined to become physician in ordinary to the forty camels, as far as abrasions were concerned.

Next morning our troublesome guide sought me out to complain of symptoms of dyspepsia. He remarked that he was incessantly spitting—a circumstance which I had already noticed with disgust. I told him that if he swallowed the water which Allah gave him in his mouth, it would make his food move from the place where he had the pain, which was a punishment from Providence for his wastefulness. He asked many questions to make sure that I knew what I was talking about, and then left me, much impressed. My “prescription” had the desired effect, and he gave up his objectionable habit.

The morning of December 11 was very cold for these low latitudes. Just before sunrise the thermometer sank to 43° F. When we were ready to start, we found that the head baggage-man was drunk. He had been tippling “marissa,” which the villagers brew from fermented barley. The man leered vacantly and was incapable of work. Considering the thirst and the opportunities there was little drunkenness among our boys in the Soudan, and we had no further trouble from this source. But the precepts of the Prophet did not keep those who accompanied us into Abyssinia from the vile beer of the country.

Blewitt Bey, on his pony, met us just after we had mounted our camels, and rode five miles with us. He gave us most valuable information about the land in which our road lay, and we were sorry when he said good-bye with best of wishes for our success.

We were in the saddle nearly eight hours and travelled about twenty-three miles. We reached our camping-ground at Abou Harras at five o’clock. The sun set almost immediately, and we, who were in advance, pitched our three tents by moonlight. The last of the baggage train did not arrive till an hour and a half later, and the drunken “Sheik of the Afsh”[6] was not with it.

The country through which we passed was similar to that which we had seen on the previous day. It is perfectly fertile. We had left the sand and mimosa scrub behind us, and were in a well-wooded region, with abundant undergrowth of bushes. The open ground is covered by grass which grows to a height of nine feet in the rainy season, but was now dried and matted under foot. It supplies pasturage for cattle, and I saw a herd of kine grazing on it. They were in fine condition. I handed my mug to the herdsman and asked him for some milk. He gave it to me willingly, and I thought it the best I had tasted since I left England in 1899. It seemed to me that this district offered a valuable field to British capital and enterprise.

I extract from my diary the following unsystematic notes, with an apology to the reader:—The butterflies which I saw most frequently on the journey were the clouded yellow and the red tip. The brimstone and painted yellow are seen occasionally. The familiar cabbage white is found on the banks of the river. I heard no singing bird except the chaffinch, but I saw a pair of blackbirds, tits of many kinds, and fly-catchers. A long-tailed species, which is a little smaller than a ring-dove, is very common. It was called “albicora” by our black boys.

THE WELCOME AT ABOU HARRAS.

See [p. 13.]

CHAPTER II

We did not expect to receive a public welcome at Abou Harras, and were thoroughly surprised when the entire village, on the morning of the 12th, turned out to give us a reception. Women and men bore down on us, dancing and clapping their hands to a hideous accompaniment of tomtoms and drums. Many of them leaped and capered in the craziest fashion to emphasize the display of pleasure at our arrival. The women and children expressed their delight by a peculiar tremolo cry, which reminded me of that heard in Lower Egypt at marriage festivals.[7] One old man came on at a leisurely pace giving an exhibition of sword-play in our honour. He afterwards delivered a panegyric of the English, declaring that they were the saviours of his country, that the children of the Soudanese were now no longer torn from them, and so forth. I found that the young men were almost all absent from the village, doing military service on the Abyssinian frontier; the women who came out to show their delight officially by their shrilling were “the girls they left behind them.” This singular deputation had not approached very near, and presently retired a little way. Some of the slower movements of those who took part in the ceremony were by no means ungraceful, but the din was indescribably discordant. I went to inspect the procession at close quarters, supposing that it would shortly withdraw and disperse. But the “music” continued for fully an hour and a half, and it was more difficult to endure patiently during the latter part of the time as we were all busily writing letters for the homeward mail. A messenger had to carry them half a dozen miles and return immediately to rejoin, and he was waiting for our correspondence.

The point of junction of the river Rahad with the Blue Nile is half a mile distant from Abou Harras, and my companions walked to the spot later in the day. I attended to some odd jobs of the kind which a traveller always finds he has in arrear, and then I tried for fish, but caught nothing and lost my spinner. Many herons had taken their station on a strip of sand about a hundred yards from the place where I stood, and paid no heed to my presence.

On this day we had the good luck to receive two English visitors. The first was Mr. Wilson, the Moudir of Wad-el-Medani. We could only offer him a cup of rather muddy tea; but the village offered him the public reception, and the music was as loud as ever at the second performance. Our second guest was Bimbashi Gwynn, who landed from the sternwheeler which had left Khartoum on the 10th. He was on the way to Abyssinia to settle the boundary question. He had been in that country before, and as he was able to stay and dine with us, we had the benefit of many useful hints in the course of a pleasant chat in the evening.

VILLAGE MUSICIANS AT ABOU HARRAS.

See [p. 14.]

At Abou Harras we parted company with our guide, drivers, and forty camels. There was no unhappiness at the leave-taking. We inspected the men and animals that we had hired in their place, and devoutly hoped we had made a better choice.

On the following morning the thermometer again sank to 43 degrees, and the atmosphere and the water seemed bitterly cold to us. We started on the road to Gedaref just before nine o’clock. Our new guide was a Greek, who had made the journey many times, and was said to know everything that need be known. I was sceptical.

Our route followed the course of the telegraph, and lay at first beside the Rahad. This river differs considerably in the dry season from the Blue Nile. In the latter we had found a fairly fast current flowing over a stony or sandy bed between banks composed of mud. The stream passed through a succession of shallows and deep pools. The Rahad, at the point of junction with the Nile, was entirely dry, and we proceeded some distance up the course before we found pools. The banks are high and steep.

I do not think that Sir Samuel Baker at all exaggerated the fertility and value of the land in this region. He wrote: “The entire country would be a mine of wealth were it planted with cotton.”[8] The Rahad, as he said, “flows through rich alluvial soil; the country is a vast level plain, with so trifling a fall that the current of the river is gentle.”[9] This circumstance would facilitate irrigation. Besides mimosa trees and much other timber, we found in this region matted growths of bushes and wide stretches of long grass now tangled on the ground—all bearing testimony to the quality of the soil.

I soon perceived that my hope of a better mount was vain. My new camel was a failure from the start. His paces were indescribable, and when he trotted I felt like a bad sailor in a small boat on a lively sea. In an hour’s time I had lost my temper and got rid of the camel. As the result, I was better served, and a beast was brought for me which shambled evenly, and allowed me to keep up with my companions.

We halted for lunch at a village called Hadeiba, where two sheikhs came out to receive us. They were very polite, but would neither eat nor smoke, as we were in the month of Ramadan. By-and-by they remembered that they ought to give us a present, and left us, saying that they would bring two sheep, according to the custom of the Soudan. Half an hour later we quitted the spot.

That night we camped at a place named Khor Abou Segeira, close to the Rahad. Near at hand was a muddy pool in the course of the river, and we had to draw our supply of liquor from it. As usual, we set our Berkfeld filters to work. A candle is a part of the apparatus through which the water filters, and we found that this incessantly became foul and required to be cleaned every three minutes. However, we replenished our stock of clear water sufficiently, and then went to bed by moonlight in the open.

We started at a quarter-past seven on the morning of the 14th. No tents had been pitched the night before, so none had to be struck, and our departure was earlier on this account. My companions and I took our guns into the bushy ground beside the river while the camels followed the track towards Gedaref. We were in search of guinea-fowl, which are found in great abundance on the banks of the Rahad. These birds run in flocks, and rise at about forty yards’ distance when one tries to approach them.

I lost sight of my companions in the thick, tangled vegetation, and after waiting where I was for a while in case they should chance to rejoin me, roamed on. I found no guinea-fowl, but pigeons and ringdoves were in great abundance, and there were hoopoes, hornbills, kingfishers, and numbers of other birds. A little later I came to the banks of the river. Here I saw a company of grivet monkeys. These, according to Mansfield Parkyns, are called “tota” or “waag” in Abyssinia. He described the species as “a beautiful little greenish-grey monkey, with black face and white whiskers.”[10] The natty little fellows whom I met by the Rahad just answered the description. They were clean and sleek, and looked as “spry” as cleverness could make them.

After following the course of the river for about half a mile I made towards the track and found it without difficulty, but I saw no sign of our baggage-train. However, one of our boys trotted up a few minutes later, and then I learned that the camels were some way behind. In fact, an hour and a half passed before they overtook me. When the others came up, I learned that they had supposed me to be lost and had scoured the country in all directions, and that the whole party had been detained till all the searchers were called in. I was intensely annoyed to find that I had been the cause of the needless delay.

We lunched beside another muddy pool in the course of the Rahad, and then moved forward to our camping-ground for the night, which was called Mesr-el-Ashir.

During the journey we had noticed that our escort were driving two sheep. We made inquiry about them, and were told that they had been purchased by the Greek guide on the previous day. We had a very strong suspicion that they were the animals which the Sheikhs had promised us at Hadeiba, and that the subtle Hellene had benefited by the gift. One of the sheep was killed in the evening, and we received “a present” of a leg, some chops, and a couple of kidneys. The meat was excellent.

Our route now left the course of the Rahad, and we turned eastward towards Gedaref.

Our beds were spread in the open again. Orion was straight above me as I lay, before falling asleep, and Sirius nearer to the southern horizon. I looked for the constellation and the star each night when I turned in, and had a sense of being in the presence of old friends while I gazed at them.

On the following morning, December 15, I again changed my mount for the better, and rode a smoothly trotting camel at last. Our day’s journey was a short one, and brought us to the last watering-place which a traveller on this road reaches before the wells of Fau. On the way my companions shot a couple of guinea-fowl, and we were glad to see them at dinner-time.

We camped at night close to a long range of hills of a granite formation called Gebal Arang. They rise to a height of three hundred or four hundred feet, and make a striking change in the landscape as one approaches them. I knew that our Berbereen boys had never seen such high ground, and watched them to observe what impression it made upon them. It made none. They are an apathetic race, philosophers of the nil admirari school by temperament.

THE WELLS AT THE FOOT OF GEBAL ARANG.

See [p. 18.]

On these inland marches we carried water in tanks, and were obliged to hoard it. We had to go back in the morning to the allowance which had served us for washing purposes overnight. In all this region, every condition of life, important and unimportant, depends upon the rivers. At Gebel Arang we saw gazelles and the antelopes called ariels for the first time. We also caught sight of a large bustard, and my companion stalked it unsuccessfully. It is hard work to carry a gun in a hot country where every bush, and even the grass, grows thorns that “mean business,” and the man who fails is usually weary as well as disappointed.

Next day, December 16, we travelled at the foot of the hills. It was a pleasant journey, for there was verdure, and the tall mimosas threw shade on the track. Besides the flocks of guinea-fowl to which we were accustomed, we saw a hare—the first we had found in the Soudan. Before midday we reached the wells of Fau. The drinking-water here is of a fairly good quality, but not quite free from mud. Guinea-fowl again supplied our dinner. They are slow to rise, but not easy to shoot; for they run in the most nimble fashion among the thick covert, and to come within range, the “guns” have to run too. The sun is strong overhead, the thorns are strong all round, and the exercise is smart work, even for a man in sound condition.

In the evening a messenger from the Intelligence Department reached our camp. He brought us letters and papers, and I ascertained that he, on a fast camel and without baggage, had travelled in two and a half days a distance which we had covered in six.

Our halting-place was between two ranges of the hills. The wind blew hard during the night, and the current of it came racing down the valley where we lay. Great clouds of dust were carried with it, and the particles were driven thickly into every crevice and corner. Crawley and I tried to form a shelter by piling up our square boxes behind us, but this was of little avail. It was an excitement of a sort, but not pleasant to a sleepy man.

We lay later than usual next morning, December 17, as we did not intend to strike our camp till midday. My companions went to shoot the poultry, and I remained in my tent and nearly shot myself without expending a cartridge. Our plan for securing fizzing drinks was to put a sparklet in a bottle of water and screw in the top. I was busy upon this operation when the bottle which I was handling burst. As luck would have it, I received no injury, though I was peppered with fragments of glass. One particle entered the eye of my boy Achmet. I extracted it and found that no serious damage had been done to the organ. After this, we abandoned the use of sparklets, and fizzing drinks were things of the “dear, dead past,” and the uncertain future.

We left the camp at midday, after six guinea-fowl had been brought in, and struck into the waterless country between our halting-place and Gedaref. The distance is seventy-two miles. We were obliged to carry the drinking supply for the whole journey. Our route lay along a good track that follows the line of the telegraph.

The soil in this region is soft, friable earth, perfectly adapted for cotton cultivation. But the district is unhealthy in the rainy season, when malaria prevails and the country is a reeking swamp of dead and living vegetation. It was perfectly dry when we traversed it, and we ran no risk of disease. The tangle of desiccated tall grass lay upon the ground, as in so many tracts of this part of the Soudan, and our road was bordered by mimosa shrubs. They grow thickly in places, but were not high enough to give protection from the sun.

We halted for the night at five o’clock, and unpacked only our beds and such things as were strictly necessary, for we were to start at half-past four next morning.

I was very sleepy when I was roused at 3.30 a.m. on the 18th. We had a cup of cocoa, and then left our camping-ground at the appointed time by moonlight. The air was chilly even after the sun rose at six o’clock, and the warmth of the day did not make itself felt before eight. At half-past ten we halted for a déjeuner à la fourchette, and rested for a couple of hours.

Darkness had fallen by the time we reached our camping-ground at the place called Terras Wad-el-Fau. We had covered thirty-two miles of our journey since the morning. At this spot we rejoiced to find that an Egyptian soldier in charge of two fantasses (watertanks) had been sent to meet us by the Inspector of Gedaref. Our camel-men with the baggage were some distance behind us, and we lighted a bonfire of mimosa wood to cheer them forward. They overtook us at their leisure, and our dinner of stewed guinea-fowl was not served till a quarter to ten.

We were out of bed by five o’clock next morning, December 19, and hastened the preparations for the start. We had to cover thirty miles in order to reach Gedaref in the evening. All this country—I cannot call it desert, though the conditions are not dissimilar—is comfortless for travellers, but our last day’s journey in it was the worst. The heat was intense; so much so that “resting” at lunch-time seemed less tolerable than movement on camel-back. To quench an incessant thirst we had only the water stored in our tanks, which was warm and far from colourless. Even the hint of shade given by the mimosa scrub had now disappeared, and our eyes were wearied by the monotonous stretches of land, in which nothing was seen but the dried and matted grass. It had been fired in places, accidentally I think; for though it is often kindled to clear the ground for crops, in this region there was no trace of agriculture. The flames had a ghostly, exhausted, unreal look in the burning sunshine. After a march that seemed interminable we beheld, from rising ground, three trees with verdure on them, and then we knew that we were near the boundary of this distressing district. A two miles’ journey brought us to the house of Mr. Flemming at Gedaref[11]—a square building made of sun-dried mud. At our countryman’s dwelling a warm welcome and cool drinks awaited us. Here we found Bimbashis Gwynn and Liddell. That evening Mr. Flemming gave us our Christmas dinner—and we reconciled ourselves to antedating it—with true British plum-pudding in the menu.

MR. FLEMMING’S HOUSE AT GEDAREF.

See [p. 22.]

REST-HOUSE BETWEEN GOZ REGEB AND ADARAMA.

See [p. 214.]

From a Photograph by Mr. C. E. Dupuis.

CHAPTER III

I had slept in the open by choice and felt it a luxury to awake on the following morning with no prospect of a fatiguing journey. At seven o’clock on December 20 we met again at Mr. Flemming’s house, and busied ourselves with amateur photography.

“You are the last white men I shall see until June next year,” said our host, “so I want to keep your faces.”

After breakfast we proceeded to the selection of seventeen “boys,” who were to go up with our donkeys from Gallabat to Abyssinia. The character of the country beyond the frontier of the Soudan renders transit by camel impossible. It struck me as an interesting fact, not without a bearing upon the doctrine of Evolution, that the change from a flat or undulating to a mountainous region is here accompanied not only by a variation in the means of access, in the climate, in the flora and fauna, but in the race of inhabitants and the creed which they profess. In fact, the highlands of Abyssinia may be said to constitute “an island on the land,” if one may borrow the phrase which Darwin applied to the peaks of the Andes. And a similar peculiarity in the survival of types can be observed here as that to which the great biologist referred in the other connection.

Mansfield Parkyns pointed out that the Abyssinians were, in his time, poor swordsmen, ridiculous in their practice of musketry and frequently wanting in genuine courage.[12] Their country has constantly been the scene of civil war and other dissensions. Indeed the Jews among them, to whom I shall refer in another chapter, at one time established a separate state in the “mountain fastnesses of Semien and Belusa, where, under their own kings and queens called Gideon and Judith, they maintained till the beginning of the seventeenth century a chequered and independent existence.”[13]

In spite of these hindrances and deficiencies the Abyssinian people, government and creed, have survived among heights protected on one side by the sea and on the other by a tract of country which is uninhabitable and impassable from May to September, on account of the incessant torrential rains and the floods which they cause. If these favouring conditions had not existed, the Abyssinian nation would long ago have been “converted” to Islamism or exterminated, and in the former case they would have become assimilated by consanguinity to, if not merged in, the surrounding Arab and negroid tribes. As it is, the Abyssinians form, ethnologically, an entirely distinct race.

This digression has carried me a long way from the “donkey-boys” at Gedaref. They were paraded to the number of a hundred for our inspection—Dongolis, Abyssinians, Tokrooris, Dinkas, Hadendowas, men from every clan in the district. An uglier-looking crowd I never beheld, and, as I gazed at the sinister, villainous faces, I hoped rather than believed that our choice of seventeen would not include robbers or murderers. We adopted the plan of choosing one or two men from each of the different races. Experience showed that the policy was sound, for no tribal quarrel was raised during our journey in Abyssinia. None of the groups was strong enough to commence a feud with confidence.

The business of selection was completed after the haggling and confusion inseparable from a bargain among Orientals, and I spent most of the remainder of this and the following day in acquainting myself with the features of life in Gedaref. As this place is a type of the more important towns in the Soudan, in which Great Britain has a permanent interest, I hope the reader will tolerate the transcription of a few of my notes.

The inhabitants number about eight thousand, and live—to use Mr. Dufton’s description—“in a number of scattered villages, the principal called Hellet-es-Sook, or the market town.”[14] The dwellings in this part of the Soudan and in Abyssinia are of the same construction, and I cannot better convey a conception of their simplicity and their appearance to those of my readers who have not seen them than by quoting the following passage from Mr. Dufton’s work:—“Some of the houses are built of sun-dried bricks and have flat roofs, but most of them” (almost all in Western Abyssinia) “are conical thatched huts. The latter are made in the following manner:—In the first place a circle of about twenty feet diameter is described on the ground and surrounded by strong posts, each a yard apart, which are interlaced with thin pliable branches of trees, the whole being covered outwardly with durrha stalks, tied together with the long grass common on the banks of the river. A roof is formed in skeleton on the ground. A number of beams, corresponding to that of the posts, are made to converge at the top, and are held in this position by concentric circles of plaited twigs; the whole being then raised to its position on the house, where it is fastened and made ready to receive the thatch of straw and grass. Not a nail or rivet of any kind is used in the construction of these buildings, and they are rendered totally impervious to the wet. Of course their disadvantage in comparison with mud houses is their liability to catch fire, one or two cases of which I have witnessed; but they are generally built at sufficient distance not to endanger others, and a house of this description is rebuilt in a day or two.”[15] Hence the scattered appearance of the huts. They cover a distance some five miles in length at Gedaref. These dwellings are called “tokhuls,” and I shall have occasion to allude to them frequently under that name. In the Soudan storks build their nests round the upper part of the roofs, and are not molested.

In Mr. Dufton’s time an open-air market was held twice a week in Gedaref. He thus describes it:—“One part is devoted to the sale of camels, cattle, sheep, and goats; another to that of corn and durrha; another milk and butter; another raw cotton, dates, etc. The butcher slaughters his meat on the spot, whether ox, sheep, or camel. The camel is killed somewhat differently from the rest; for it may well be imagined that a camel with merely its throat cut might be a long while in dying. They therefore adopt the mode of striking it with a long knife at once to the heart, having previously taken care to tie his long legs in a manner that he cannot move.”[16]

The commerce of the place has been resuscitated since the British and Egyptian occupation. The market is now held daily. In addition there are the usual bazaars of an Oriental town. Gedaref has the advantage of possessing wells from which water of good quality is drawn. The place suffered severely in the time of the Dervishes. They raided the district as often as their supplies ran low, ruined the cultivation, and destroyed the greater part of the habitations.

The people seemed to be peaceable and contented under the present administration, and I was struck by their politeness towards Europeans. As we passed, they rose, if they were squatting on the ground; those riding dismounted as a token of respect; those who were at work discontinued it and stood still.

There are a certain number of shops in the town kept by Greeks. The commerce of the Eastern Soudan is almost entirely in the hands of Hellenes, who import goods by way of Suakim. The merchandise is brought up the country by camel-train. The articles most in request among the natives are cheap mirrors, tumblers, coloured silk handkerchiefs and similar goods—in short, cheap finery and cheap small commodities. I am not a commercial man, and do not speak upon the point with certainty, but I think German houses meet this demand. The Greek retailers also carry on a brisk trade in olives, which are imported in barrels. Olives and bread are the staple of the diet of many Soudanese, and they eat this simple food with relish.

We found that we could purchase sugar, taken from the familiar sugar-loaf, soap, similar sundries and tinned provisions at Gedaref. I was pleased to observe—for my own sake and that of British enterprise—that the latter bore the trade-mark of Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell.

My impression with regard to commercial opportunities in these towns is that a northern-bred storekeeper could not compete with the Greek retailer. I do not refer, in making this inference, especially to the singular astuteness of the latter. But it is an important consideration that these men are able to live almost on the same scale as the natives, and their profits are due to the frugality of their life.

We managed to start our baggage-train on the journey from Gedaref to Gallabat by a quarter to eight on the morning of the 22nd December. Then we breakfasted with Mr. Flemming, and mounted our camels to take the road again at 9.15. We moved forward at a trot, and I, now making trial of my fourth “steed,” found I had good luck for the second time. But I do not think that any one could devote to the camel the affection which is so readily given to a horse after a brief acquaintance. The animal with the “sculptured sneer” does not invite friendship. It grunts and grimaces when one mounts, and the rider can be under no illusion as to its sentiment towards him.

We saw some ariel, and my companions gave chase and tried to get within rifle-range. But the animals were shy and wary. The hunters exhausted their supply of ammunition, but brought no game. We lunched as usual in the scrappy shade of a mimosa bush, and reached Shisana well shortly after four o’clock.

We had now left the “cotton soil” region, and entered an undulating country, where our road lay over rocky or stony ground. The character of the vegetation changed, and we began to pass through glades of the great mimosa forest which extends from the neighbourhood of Gedaref almost to Gallabat. Here the mimosas are not bushes but trees, and it is from them that the gum-arabic is collected which gives Gedaref its highly valuable trade and its prosperity. Large quantities of the gum are exported by way of Suakim, and there is a market for it at Cairo and other towns of Lower Egypt. For instance, much crape is manufactured in Damietta, where I have watched the process. Gum from Gedaref is used to stiffen the texture, and serves the same purpose in the preparation of various silken fabrics.

The industry might be largely developed. At present it is in the hands of Greek traders. As the supply of coin in the Soudan is small, the gum is used as a kind of currency by the natives, who barter it for other goods. A small duty is levied by the Government on the quantity exported, and no one seems appreciably the worse. I present this detail of information to fiscal controversialists, and make no demand upon their gratitude in doing so.

The gum-bearing mimosas are, on an average, I should say, about twenty-five feet high. The boles are straight. Thorns grow thickly on the branches. The white bark gives a characteristic and almost haunting feature to the great forest. The gum exudes, chiefly, at the junction of the branches with the trunk. Its appearance has been excellently described by Sir Samuel Baker: “At this season the gum was in perfection, and the finest quality was now before us in beautiful amber-coloured masses upon the stems and branches, varying from the size of a nutmeg to that of an orange. . . . This gum, although as hard as ice on the exterior, was limpid in the centre, resembling melted amber, and as clear as though refined by some artificial process. . . . The beautiful balls of frosted yellow gum recalled the idea of the precious jewels upon the trees in the garden of the wonderful lamp of the ‘Arabian Nights.’ The gum was exceedingly sweet and pleasant to the taste.”[17] The trees were in flower when we saw them, and the blossoms scented the air sweetly.

The present method of collecting gum is primitive and unsystematic. Natives go a two or three days’ journey from Gedaref into the forest, when they are pressed by want of a commodity to sell or exchange, and return with as much as they have gathered at hazard.

GUM BEARING MIMOSA TREES.

See [p. 30.]

TRYING THE TEMPERATURE OF A PATIENT AT THE DOCTOR’S PARADE.

See [p. 115.]

Throughout the day’s march we had seen fires raging in the dried grass, and we had frequently passed places where the charred surface showed the effect of the flames. The custom of setting the undergrowth alight would destroy the mimosa forest, but for the fact that the fires burn low and travel quickly. The branches of the trees do not spring from the lower expanse of the boles, and there is consequently no combustion of the timber, except where a quantity of old, sapless wood is ignited.

Trouble threatened us at Shisana well. Grain for the donkeys and boys, that were to accompany us into Abyssinia, had been packed in sacks at Gedaref. The friction caused by the camels’ movement had frayed these open, and the grain was lying on the ground when we arrived. At first we feared that we should be obliged to return to the town and purchase new sacks; but luckily the camel-men were bringing with them a stock of capacious and pliable baskets, made of slit palm-leaves, which they had intended to sell at Gallabat. These we commandeered, and so extricated ourselves from the difficulty.

Our journey next day was through entirely similar scenery, over undulating, rocky ground. We saw some ariel, but again they were too shy for us. Then we “declined upon” guinea-fowl, and bagged two after a brisk, exciting run.

The heat was overpowering, and at lunch-time we had no rest. Bees abound in this region, and get their honey from the flowers of the mimosa trees. As the land is almost waterless in the dry season, these insects suffer much from thirst. Even the moisture of perspiration attracts them in their parched state, and, in addition, there was the smell of water from our drinking-supply. The result was that they swarmed upon us; in fact, they mobbed us. Every drinking vessel was crowded with them. Our boys drank from calabashes; when these were put upon the ground, bees clustered on the edges and crawled towards the liquor. Impatient successors thronged upon the first comers and pushed them into the water, so that in a few minutes the surface was a mass of “struggle-for-lifers.” In spite of the heat we had to keep moving; for when we settled, so did the bees—all over us.

That night we pitched our camp in the mimosa forest, six miles from the village and watering-place called Doka.

Next day—Christmas Eve—we started at seven, carrying our guns, and had not walked a mile when we disturbed a flock of guinea-fowl. Away they sped through the tangle of dry grass, and we after them. We blazed away here and there, but the birds, hit or not, were out of sight in an instant amidst that cover, and we missed in this way many that we had not missed in the other. Our bag consisted of four. When a bird dropped, the Soudanese “gillies,” who were carrying our rifles in case big game should be seen, pounced upon it and decapitated it. Otherwise it would not have been clean meat for a Mohammedan. The land around Doka is hilly, and the ground rises to a height of which Primrose Hill would be a good example. We reached the village about nine o’clock.

Here we found, to our surprise, that the camel-men wanted to water every beast in our convoy. We were but a few miles from another watering-place, where the business could have been done in the evening without wasting the hours of daylight in which we were able to travel. We compromised by hurrying up the animals as soon as we had filled our tanks, and when half a score had drunk, the well ran dry.

We pushed on through the mimosa country. The temperature was about 102°, and I found the heat extraordinarily oppressive. The trees around us and overhead—they grow thickly in parts of the forest—seemed to shut out every movement of air, such as had always relieved us a little in the open tracts. Our extreme thirst constantly tempted us. We had made it a rule not to draw upon our ration of water till eleven in the morning, and abstinence till then was Spartan discipline. If one began to drink, it was a sheer impossibility to leave off, and the supply did not hold out. On calm reflection at a distance, I doubt whether our normal breakfast of tinned sausages and tea was wisely selected under the circumstances. But it could be quickly prepared, and we seldom had time to be leisurely.

While we were traversing the forest, I neither saw nor heard any bird except the guinea-fowl. The dried grass in which they wander was the only undergrowth. Usually the place was as still as a tomb. Of larger animals I saw none but antelopes, and not many of these.

We halted for lunch in a small ravine, and the bees did not find us till we had nearly finished the meal. We “smoked” them with cigarettes, cigars, and a bonfire, to no purpose. Then we shifted our quarters, but they followed. All of us were stung, and we were not quit of them till we mounted our camels and outdistanced the swarms.

We camped for the night among the mimosas about seven miles from the watering-place called Zeraf Zaid. I thought we had been delivered from the plague of insects, but I deceived myself. Our camp was stormed by hosts of small creatures—tiny beetles, flying ants, and the like. They thronged and crawled on one’s candle, one’s book, one’s face, and one’s hands, and I found it difficult to write my diary. Some of them—I do not know whether they were prompted by hunger or malignity—added insult to injury by biting us.

On the morning of Christmas Day we started with our guns in advance of the convoy and bagged two brace of the usual poultry. I had not hitherto found the country unhealthy, though the climate tries one’s condition; but on this occasion I felt “out of sorts,” and was glad—for a wonder—to mount my camel after the tramp in the sunshine.

At 9.30 we reached the village of Zeraf Zaid. Here a clean hut serves as a rest-house. We found the place pleasant and cool. Within it were trestle-beds, of the kind commonly used in the Soudan and called “angareebs.” Sir Samuel Baker has given a concise description of them: “The angareebs, or native bedsteads, are simple frameworks upon legs, covered with a network of raw hide worked in a soft state, after which it hardens to the tightness of a drum when thoroughly dry. No bed is more comfortable for a warm climate than a native angareeb with a simple mat covering; it is beautifully elastic, and is always cool, as free ventilation is permitted from below.”[18] I concur in this favourable opinion of the native bed, and hope that its value in cases of sickness or injury that are not serious may be brought to the notice of the medical authorities of the army. It would be easy to furnish tent-hospitals with this simple appliance in any part of the Soudan.

We rested in contentment, and then lunched while the camels were watered. Our convoy started at noon, and we two hours later. We overtook the baggage at half-past three.

At Zeraf Zaid there is an outpost of “the Arab Battalion,” which consists of Soudanese natives and Soudanese (i.e. naturalized) Abyssinians,[19] Egyptian non-commissioned officers, and two Englishmen, first and second in command, with the rank respectively of colonel and major. The strength is about two hundred, and the permanent head-quarters are at Kassala. The duty of the battalion is to protect the frontier and suppress the slave raids which are frequently attempted by Abyssinian subjects. I doubt whether the latter part of the supervision duty is quite successfully performed owing to the smallness of the corps, and it is well to bear in mind that these raids may upon some occasion lead to serious political complications affecting the attitude of the Anglo-Egyptian Government towards the Negus Negesti.[20] He has but slight control over his more powerful feudatories near the frontier; moreover, the succession to the throne will assuredly be disputed upon the death of the present ruler, and the whole country will then be plunged in misrule and civil war. It is clear that a very serious state of affairs may at any time be established in this region. Questions arising from incursions made into territory where the British flag flies from districts where no effective or responsible government exists may assume the gravest importance.

The “Arab Battalion” is a sort of legacy to us from our predecessors, and the men still wear the picturesque uniform chosen for them in the days of the Italian occupation. It consists of a white tunic extending to the knees, loose white trousers, sandals surmounted by white gaiters, a broad green sash round the waist, and a red tarboush with a green tassel. I cannot offer a valid opinion upon the sufficiency of this body as a frontier guard in the event of disturbances over a wide area, and I am not able to judge what effect the racial sympathy of some members of it with Abyssinians “over the border” would have in such a case.

Shortly after we had left Zeraf Zaid on the road to Gallabat we saw a great bustard near at hand. One of my comrades tried to shoot it for our Christmas dinner, but his luck failed him. However, I had brought the materials of a plum pudding with me from Cairo, and hoped that it would be a solace and a pleasant surprise for the other two members of our mess. The cook obtained some eggs in the village, and I gave him careful and emphatic directions and swore him to secrecy. Ours is a phlegmatic race. The cook did his work creditably, the pudding came to table, and was eaten without comment. The poultry in these villages is of a stunted size, but the flesh is tender and makes good eating. Pigeons are to be had in all the hamlets.

Our camping-ground for the night was a pleasant spot, bare of grass, and surrounded by high trees. In honour of the day, and in expectation of entering Gallabat early on the following afternoon, I discharged a professional man’s duty towards his toilet, and scraped a week’s stubble from my face. In the wilderness even a doctor can neglect appearances.

On Boxing Day we entered rising country with features different from those seen in the mimosa forest.

The sides of the rocky hills have been seamed with ravines by the rains. Nearly all the trees are still of the same order, but certain species have broader leaves, and their appearance resembles that of the timber found in the temperate zones. However, I saw no specimen of the varieties common in England. I heard one songbird in this district, the chaffinch. Water-wagtails abound.

As usual, we made an excursion ahead of the baggage with guns and rifles. The game birds are sand-grouse and partridges, and we shot a brace of the latter. Crawley brought down an ariel buck, which was in good condition. This was our first venison. The shot caused intense excitement in our convoy, and the guides and boys all made a rush for the beast to cut its throat before it died of the bullet wound. It had been hit in the neck.

We rested in a ravine called Otruk—a lovely wooded gorge in which a small stream was flowing. A little further down the course the water disappeared in the sand. Here, for the first time, I saw a troop of baboons. No doubt they inhabit caves and clefts in the surrounding rocks. Some were fully of human stature. Partridges and guinea-fowl were numerous here, and beyond question the rivulet in the khor attracts animals of every kind existing in the district. It was the first running water we had seen since we left the Blue Nile. We rested until two o’clock, and then rode on towards Gallabat.

When we were half an hour’s journey distant from the town, we were met by Mr. Saville, the Inspector, who accompanied us to our quarters.

CHAPTER IV

Politically, Gallabat is a place of much importance, as the principal station on the frontier between Abyssinia and the Anglo-Egyptian dominions. It is the terminus of the telegraph line whose course we had followed along a part of our route, and I shall presently explain why I think it would be difficult to carry the wire from this point into Menelek’s country.

The town consists of two main thoroughfares and of the scattered “tokhuls” which form the villages throughout Abyssinia and the Eastern Soudan. It contains about eight hundred inhabitants. Formerly, I have no doubt, there was a larger population, but this place, like all other trading centres in the land, suffered severely in the days of the Dervish ascendency. The “shops,” which abut upon the main roads, are hovels in a row under a heavily thatched roof, and are separated by rough and ragged partitions of cane thatch. They are “business premises” only, and the proprietor and his family dwell elsewhere. A considerable trade is carried on by Abyssinians who come to Gallabat to sell coffee; sometimes they have a leopard’s skin or other hunter’s trophy to barter in addition. They exchange their goods chiefly for cotton, which is used in the making of shamas and other garments worn in Abyssinia. Sir S. Baker mentions a commerce in bees’-wax and hides, but I saw no evidence of it in Gallabat, and I think it must have declined.

The traffic in coffee proceeds regularly during the dry season, but ceases, of course, when the rains make the neighbouring Abyssinian hill-country impassable. A square, in which there are booths, is set apart for the use of the Abyssinian traders. In the middle of it are the large scales in which the coffee is weighed, and I was much interested to learn that not only the amount of the import duty payable to the Egyptian Customs, but also the sum charged as export duty by the Abyssinian Government, was here determined by the weight of the bundles. The latter tax is retained at the time in the hands of the Anglo-Egyptian officials, and is afterwards remitted by them to Menelek’s Revenue Department. I need hardly add that this is a recent arrangement, and it seems to show that British influence in the Soudan has inspired confidence at Addis Abiba.

The town of Gallabat is five miles distant from the bed of the Atbara. It is built on the slope above a small watercourse. This rivulet and the adjacent supply of drinking water which the inhabitants use are—in all but details—as they were in Sir Samuel Baker’s time. He thus described them:—“We were horribly disgusted at the appearance of the water. A trifling stream of about two inches in depth trickled over a bed of sand, shaded by a grove of trees. The putrefying bodies of about half a dozen monkeys, three or four camels, and the remains of a number of horses, lay in and about the margin of the water. Nevertheless, the natives had scraped small holes in the sand as filters, and thus they were satisfied with this poisonous fluid; in some of these holes the women were washing their filthy clothes.”[21] There are three wells in the town from which good water is obtained. The soldiers of the garrison use this supply, and it is available for all who will take the trouble to draw from it. But generally, the inhabitants, either because they are too indolent to pull up buckets or from mere adherence to custom, prefer the “poisonous fluid” procured in the traditional way.

Our quarters were in the dismantled Dervish fort, which lies on the summit of the hill, above the town. The thick brick wall which surrounded it is now ruinous. In the enclosure are barracks for a detachment of the Arab Battalion, a small rest-house, and the telegraph station.

We set our boys to pitch three tents for us, and before long I had the indescribable delight of tubbing in my portable rubber bath.

After this we received, in the rest-house, the interpreter whom Menelek had sent to await us. His name was Johannes. I learned that he had been three weeks in Gallabat, so perhaps it had been expected that we should travel more rapidly than we did. With him were an assistant, by name Walda Mariam, officially attached to his “mission,” and a servant.

Johannes was a tall, handsome man, with grizzled hair and beard. In person he seemed cleanly, but his shama—the toga-like robe, also known as “quarry,”[22] which is universally worn by Abyssinians—was soiled. It is unfashionable, and even a breach of established custom, for a man to appear in a clean shama except at rare intervals. As all sorts and conditions of men in the country are infested by vermin it may be imagined that an Abyssinian’s clothes usually add nothing to the pleasure of his company.

Our interpreter had spent three years in Marseilles, and we found that he and his followers conformed to the requirements of civilization as regards dirt much more closely than the generality of his countrymen. I do not know whether Parkyns’s description of the use of butter as pomade still holds good in parts of Abyssinia; probably not very widely, as Mr. Wylde tells us that “European hats are getting very common, and are generally of the bowler, wideawake, or Terai patterns,”[23] but in the western provinces, where nearly all the people whom we met were peasants, we saw no sign either of this innovation or that the dairy had been drawn upon to smarten the coiffure. Nevertheless, greasiness of person was the rule.

I may mention here that bodily cleanliness is not only unusual in Abyssinia, but raises a doubt as to the genuineness of a man’s religious profession. In this respect matters have not changed since Parkyns’s time. “St. John’s is the only cleanly day in the calendar; for in the evening the whole population, male and female, old and young, go down to bathe. It is a fact, that, excepting on this occasion, there are many of the number, who, beyond washing their hands before and after meals, and their feet after a journey, never trouble the water from one year’s end to another. My habit of washing every day in the European fashion gave rise to much scandal on my first arrival; and it was constantly inquired, ‘Is he a Mussulman, that he thus washes, and so often?’”[24] The Abyssinians are fond of shaking hands, and it is impossible to avoid this civility without giving serious offence. Nearly all, owing to their independence of soap, suffer from a complaint once associated—wrongly, no doubt—with a highland region nearer home, and the result was that none of the Europeans of our party escaped scabies.

Johannes possessed a felt sombrero, which he held in his hand when we received him in the rest-house. Like most of his countrymen, he wore a cartridge-belt around his middle. He also carried a revolver in his belt. His “boy” held his rifle. Altogether the interpreter was a picturesque but piratical figure, and it occurred to me that a group of Abyssinian “villains” would be effective in a melodrama.

The interpreter bowed to the earth each time we addressed him. He had brought letters for us from Menelek and from Colonel Harrington, the British Minister at Addis Abiba, which is now the capital of the country. The king’s letter is a kind of superior passport, which is generally granted to Europeans who enter his realm with his consent. It is useful, but is not too obsequiously respected in all parts of the land. Johannes had a fair knowledge of French—a matter of importance to one of his calling, seeing that the Abyssinians and the French are neighbours, and that an increasing amount of the commerce and traffic of the country is likely to pass through Jibuti. A railway has been commenced from that point, and a concession obtained from Menelek for its extension into his dominions. Mr. Herbert Vivian has recently pointed out the important developments which may be brought about by the construction of the line.[25]

The Dervish fort at Gallabat is literally a “cockatrice den.” We speared eight or nine fine specimens upon the walls, using our knives, and among them was the largest black scorpion I had seen. The rest-house swarmed with these disquieting arthrogastra, and one of our servants was stung during the evening. Parkyns remarked that, though he had several times endured the sting himself without serious consequences, he had heard of many instances which had ended fatally.[26] Our boy probably had in his mind a similar dismal record, for he howled till midnight. I had very little sympathy with him, especially as he prevented me from sleeping. He, like the other servants, had been provided with boots but persisted in running about the fort barefoot.

I was delighted by the change of scenery which commenced at Gallabat after the long tracts of desert and mimosa forest. To the eastward, the Abyssinian mountains were visible, and there is a most stirring splendour in the sight of the distant peaks when one beholds them in the pink, hot glow of sunset.

An escort of ten men had been appointed for us. All these were Abyssinians by race, but “naturalized” Egyptians, serving in the Arab Battalion, and they spoke Arabic in addition to their native tongue. There was an odd significance in the fact that our journey to Lake Tsana familiarized the inhabitants of the western provinces of Menelek’s kingdom with an Italian uniform which had become British.

On December 27 we “lazed” and enjoyed our indolence. Our only activity was to make trial of our patent donkey saddles. We had seventy of these, and found them anything but serviceable. The natives fasten the loads on the donkeys by long thongs of hide, giving about six girths for each animal. Our saddles allowed but one girth, and, as the consequence, the loads slipped round. On the 28th my companions went to take measurements in the course of the Atbara. I remained in Gallabat and superintended the conversion of camel loads into donkey loads. This involved getting the right weight of flour and corn—fifty pounds—into the sacks. It was troublesome work done by trying people, and the supervision of it would have taxed the patience of a saint.

On the 29th we were all busy with the baggage, sorting our supplies. We took with us sufficient for six weeks. The remainder was left in the zaptieh,[27] and we fully expected that the rats and the white ants would clear it up for us before our return. Our cook had a touch of malarial fever, and during the day I gave him thirty grains of phenacetine and nine grains of quinine. These quantities were effective.

We were to start on the following morning, and sat longer than usual over dinner, and many yarns were told about Egyptian officials. One—I hope it is not a stale story to my readers—ran as follows:—An Egyptian battalion, under a native officer, had been sent to a remote district. The commander had orders to telegraph to head-quarters if anything unusual occurred. He sent off a message announcing that one of his soldiers had died suddenly, and that he awaited instructions. The reply was, “Bury the man, but make sure he is dead first.” The native officer thereupon reported by telegram, “Have buried soldier, and know he is dead, because I hit him on the head with a fishplate.” It need hardly be said that the fishplate was not of the kitchen but the railway kind.

On the following morning, December 30, we had further proof of the defects of the saddles which had been provided as baggage-gear for the donkeys. When, after much tedious work, we had balanced the load on an animal, we started it on the road and turned our attention to another. Five minutes later, the beast that had been despatched was brought back with its load under its stomach. My companions toiled on through the heat of the day; but I fear my services became rather like those of the fly on the wheel, for the malarial fever had got hold of me, and the commencement of a bout with it nearly took me off the list of effectives.

We made a start at last, a little after eleven o’clock, with the intention of travelling about eight miles, and crossed the stream below Gallabat by a stony ford, over which water a few inches deep was running. I was told that this rivulet is never quite dry, and I observed that in the bed of it were the stagnant pools usually found in the watercourses of this district. We had seen the last of the camels at Gallabat, and my companions and I now rode mules. They are the best mounts in the rough, steep, and almost trackless region which forms the western border of Abyssinia. Horses would be useless here for a journey, either to carry men or for purposes of haulage; and I doubt if ponies could anywhere be found that would be more than an encumbrance, at least for long and steady travelling at a fair pace. I believe that the Abyssinians of the Highlands use horses in their hunting expeditions and slave-raiding forays—at all events they do in their campaigns in their own country—and I have little doubt that the inhabitants of the lofty hill district adjoining the border tract, who are of mixed race and bandits by immemorial tradition, use any animals they can lay their hands on when they, like Roderick Dhu and his men, “with strong hands redeem their share” from travelling merchants or Soudanese villagers. But these are “spurts” of work, rapid dashes made by unencumbered men, not plodding regular marches, and, generally speaking, those who cannot pass through this country on a mule or an ass must use their own feet or not go at all.

When my companions and I had advanced about four miles, we halted for lunch at a pleasant spot beside a brook. After the meal, some guinea-fowl were seen, and one was bagged. No doubt many more were hit and lost, as usual, among the high grass. We were in the saddle again at three o’clock, and reached our camping-ground an hour and a half later.

The fever had a grip of me by this time, and I rested in bed, and soon felt the benefit of a dose of quinine. It enabled me to tackle my dinner, and that is no small boon to a sick traveller.

Our boys had cut down trees and formed a zareba, within which the donkeys were penned to prevent them from straying and give them protection from hyenas.[28] I lay idly watching the camp-fires and listening to the occasional outbreaks of scuffling and braying among the donkeys, and presently fell asleep till dawn.

The country which we entered on that day is full of rounded hills. Boulders crop out from the surface of them, and they are separated by ravines with sandy beds. There is no regularity in the configuration of these hills, and no uniformity in their size. When I saw them they were covered either with dried grass or with mimosa scrub.

The region which we had now reached is, as I have said, impassable in the wet season, and Abyssinia is then impregnable as far as its western boundary is concerned. The violence of the storms and the rush of rain are such that it is doubtful whether even a line of telegraph posts and wires could be carried through the district with a likelihood that it would be in working order for any length of time between May and September. The floods would probably be as prohibitive to an underground system of wires as to one overhead, and in both cases allowance would have to be made for the extreme electrical disturbances which often occur at brief intervals during the rainy season.

I have already referred to the raids that take place from the Abyssinian side when the country can be traversed, and will only add here that they are carried out frequently enough to maintain a supply of slaves for all persons in the country whose prosperity raises them above the degree of a peasant. For example, when we reached Gallabat on the return journey we found that eighty-three Soudanese had been carried off during an incursion which had been made since we left the place. It is needless to insist on the difficulties that may arise from raids of this kind undertaken by people who are, nominally at least, subjects of the Negus.

I can testify that slaves are found everywhere in Western Abyssinia, but among the female victims I never had the good fortune to behold one of the class which impressed Sir Samuel Baker so pleasantly at Gallabat. He wrote, “On my return to camp I visited the establishments of the various slave merchants; these were arranged under large tents formed of matting, and contained many young girls of extreme beauty, ranging from nine to seventeen years of age. These lovely captives, of a rich brown tint, with delicately formed features and eyes like those of the gazelle, were natives of the Galla, on the borders of Abyssinia, from which country they are brought by the Abyssinian traders to be sold for the Turkish harems. Although beautiful, these girls are useless for hard labour; they quickly fade away and die unless kindly treated. They are the Venuses of that country, and not only are their faces and figures perfection, but they become extremely attached to those who show them kindness. There is something peculiarly captivating in the natural grace and softness of these young beauties, whose hearts quickly respond to those warmer feelings of love that are seldom known among the sterner and coarser tribes. They are exceedingly proud and high-spirited, and are remarkably quick at learning. At Khartoum, several of the Europeans of high standing have married these charming ladies, who have invariably rewarded their husbands by great affection and devotion. The price of one of these beauties of nature at Gallabat was from twenty-five to forty dollars.”[29]

CHAPTER V

On the morning of December 31, the donkeys were laden and our journey was begun by a quarter to eight. We were again hindered on the march by the shifting of the donkeys’ loads.

Our track now lay among craggy mountains, in the rain-scoured district, where there is no single human habitation. I saw neither wild beast nor bird, and the country gave a strange impression of stillness and lifelessness. The flora is quite distinct from that of the Soudan. The trees are tall and spreading and of many different species. I recognized the “Matabele apple,” and saw the hard, uneatable fruit on the branches. The ground in many places was covered with “bamboo grass,” too high for a mounted man to look over, and the thick, overtopping growth seemed to shut out the air. As we advanced during the afternoon we discovered that the grass had been fired at several spots along our route—I do not know by whom, or whether it was kindled accidentally or by design. The flames drove out some partridges, and Dupuis and I thought that we saw a tasty breakfast for the next morning. But when we moved forward with our guns the birds, to our amazement, ran back into the burning cover. The fire died out in the evening, and all was quiet at night.

There is much stony land in this district. The soil of the fertile tracts is not of the friable kind which we had so often seen in the Soudan: but there are many fissures in it, due, no doubt, to alternate drenching and drying in the rainy season. Our road often lay along steep and wide gorges, through which an enormous volume of water descends to the Atbara at the time of the floods. My mule was very steady on his legs and the motion was easy when he trotted on open ground. He only showed the waywardness of his kind when I led him. It was pleasant to think that some sort of understanding existed between the rider and his mount after one had been accustomed for weeks to the impassive eye of the camel.

On January 1, a couple of shabby fellows visited our camp in the morning. We questioned them and found, from the answers which Johannes translated, that they were the escort sent to accompany Gwynn and were on the way to join him at Gallabat. He might consider their company a sign that he was honoured, but scarcely a sound protection against robbery. We struck our camp after this and commenced the day’s journey, following the bed of a river. As usual, there were dry tracts and well filled pools in its course. Later, we climbed the bank and struck into the country beyond, continually riding up hill and down dale. Again we saw an abundance of tall grass and fine timber. The former was dry at this season, and had been burned in many places. The country here abounds in big game, but the height and thickness of the grass make it very difficult to sight animals. We saw a koodoo, three gazelles, traces of elephants, and spoor of other beasts, but none came within range.

We had covered fourteen miles by half-past eleven, and then halted, considering that the donkeys had journeyed far enough. Our progress depended on them, and we were careful not to overwork them. Three were suffering from girth sores. We pitched our camp in a ravine about a quarter of a mile distant from the bed of the Gundar Wahar—which is the river Atbara with an Abyssinian name.

One of our escort was reported ill with fever, and I found that his temperature was 104 degrees. But quinine had brought about a decisive improvement by nightfall. I had another patient. My friend Crawley had chafed his instep, and there was a bad sore on it. I had recourse to a little doctor’s diplomacy to keep him still, and put on such a large fomentation that he could not walk. Then Dupuis and I took our guns and rifles and tramped in the jungle—for the mass of thick, lofty grass deserved the name. My companion shot a brace of partridges, and we saw some guinea-fowl, and much spoor of big game. But nothing more got into our bag, and the excursion was wearisome and disappointing.

On January 2 our road again lay through hilly, verdurous country. While the donkeys climbed or descended the steep inclines their loads slipped as before, and kept all hands busy. The boys were continually shouting for help, and the burdens were replaced amid yelling and cursing. These natives never worked without talking, singing, or swearing, and they were specially fond of hearing their own oaths. But, I think, very little ill-will went with the words, and in spite of the endless imprecations uttered over the donkeys, they treated the animals well.

During the morning I took my rifle, filled my pockets with ball cartridges, and rode ahead of our party in the hope of trying a shot at big game. But I found small parties of Habashes[30] at intervals along the track throughout a distance of two miles in front of our convoy. Clearly it would be useless to search for any large wild beast in the proximity of these groups. I recognized the men as folk who had attached themselves to our train. They made a practice of camping where we pitched our tents, and had hitherto forestalled us in the choice of ground, and settled under the most suitable trees. They sought protection from the robbers who infest the district—the most notorious at the time was a Soudanese Arab called Hakos. I was glad that these wayfarers should enjoy a sense of security, but resented having sport spoiled. So I addressed a remonstrance to Johannes, who promised that all camp followers should keep in the rear in future, and he was as good as his word.

That afternoon we pitched our tents on the banks of the Gundar Wahar, which was here a stream trickling from pool to pool. We had travelled about fourteen miles. My friend Dupuis fitted out his angling tackle, and tried his fortune in some of the pools, using an ordinary spoon-bait. He caught three fair-sized fish, belonging to the perch family. I saw him land the biggest, which weighed six pounds, and showed fight. It had to be played into the shallows, and was brought ashore in smart style. Crawley, who was lame, limped to the edge of the river and cast a line with dough on the hook. He fished patiently, and his perseverance was rewarded with two little creatures of the size of sticklebacks.

All the camping-grounds by the waterside in this district are called warshas, and as there are few distinctive names for places in the uninhabited tract, we called the spots where we halted warsha number one, warsha number two, and so on.

In this region, near the rivers, the white ants are extremely numerous. They are not seen at a distance from water, and cannot work without moisture to renew the fluid that exudes between their mandibles. This enters into the composition of the stiffened earth of which they build their dwellings. They are voracious and destructive, and have a propensity for gnawing leather, felt—which unfortunately they found in the pads of the donkeys’ saddles—and any textile material. They are most active at night, and, to preserve our bedding, we had provided ourselves with “Willesden sheets.” These are made of canvas coated with a preparation of arsenic, which the white ants avoid. The sheets were always spread under our beds when we camped, and if anything that was to the taste of the ants slid beyond the edge in the dark, destruction awaited it.

I formed the opinion that the white ants have rendered valuable service to Egypt by amassing the fertile mud which is carried down to the Nile Delta, and venture to put forward the following considerations in support of the theory. On entering the Abyssinian borderland, one cannot help remarking the structure of the ground. Our track lay generally along watercourses, and the beds of dry mountain torrents. Here the soil was composed of sand, shingle, and pebbles. On either bank, and for some distance beyond, lay an expanse of basaltic stone, on which little earth was to be seen. Grass grew there, but by no means so abundantly as in the plains, and there were climbing plants, such as convolvulus, and ivy, which clung to nearly every tree. These creepers made the path extremely difficult to follow. Further away from the watercourses lesser vegetation and longer grass appeared. The white ants’ nests, from nine to twelve feet in height, were found here, usually close to a soft wooded tree. The roots of it, in most cases, had been attacked by the insects, and converted into “white ant earth.” The trunk afterwards undergoes the same process, and by the advent of the rainy season only the outlying twigs remain intact. A heavy gust of wind will then overthrow the simulacrum of a tree. The rain falls in torrents, and the compost which the insects have made of the timber is broken up and carried by innumerable channels into the tributaries of the Atbara, and finally reaches the main stream. It is well known that the Atbara brings down the greatest quantity of this mud, the Blue Nile carrying less, and the White Nile, the most sluggish stream of the three, least. The two more rapid rivers rise in Abyssinia, in regions where the white ant is extremely destructive to vegetation. Moreover, the innumerable ant-heaps[31] are made entirely of earth, which crumbles under the rains, and is swept into the watercourses in the season of floods. And in the dry months the ants—besides devouring straw and the bark of living trees[32]—eat into every branch and twig that the past storms have brought to the ground. Carrying earth into their excavations, they hollow the wood, as in the case of the soft standing timber which they attack, and leave just the outer covering intact. I have often stooped to pick up a stick for the cook’s fire, and found that my fingers broke a thin shell of bark, and scattered the contents. Another circumstance which seemed worthy of remark was that we found no deposit of “Nile mud” within the Abyssinian boundary, nor any earth resembling it; so one may conclude that, as soon as the Atbara, when in flood, reaches the level of the Soudan, it spreads a deposit of this fertile soil beside its banks, though the great mass is carried into the Nile. According to this view, the fertility of the alluvial districts of Lower Egypt is in no slight measure due to detritus from Abyssinia, and the white ants have contributed an important share to the resources of the Nile valley. Of course, I do not for an instant contend that all the mud deposited by the river in Egypt is supplied by the white ants, but I believe that the wonderful productive property of the alluvial deposits is due to the work of these insects in the western borderland of Abyssinia. Therefore, in my belief, the white ant has justified its existence, though its room is undeniably preferable to its company.

On January 3 I saw a buffalo, tried to stalk it, and lost it. While I was on the way to rejoin our party, a water-buck sprang up within range—and so startled me, that he got away before I took an aim.

That day we marched seven hours, and covered twenty miles. Our camping-place was in the rocky course which a torrent follows in the rainy season. There were pools in it, and we had an abundance of clear water.

The aneroid barometer showed that we were now three thousand feet above the sea, and the air was chill as soon as the sun went down. It was the first day on which we had reached any considerable height. At this altitude bamboos form the prominent and characteristic vegetation.

On January 4 we continued our ascent. The narrow path followed a zig-zag course up a steep mountain-side. The track was full of loose stones, and we constantly had to “negotiate” boulders and big rocks or scramble through cramped passes. In these the larger loads stuck, and it will be readily inferred that we made slow progress. I heard of no other practicable route through this region, and believe that it would be well-nigh impossible to carry heavy baggage this way.

We reached the summit at last, and saw in front of us, in the distance, the plateau in which Lake Tsana lies. We were almost on a level with it. Far away, many mountains rose in view, clearly outlined, and showing light and shade in a soft and lovely purplish blue colour. There was no glacial cap upon these high peaks, though it is probable that the loftiest points in Abyssinia are within the line of perpetual snow.[33]

One of our escort of Habashes from the Arab Battalion pointed eagerly to the high lands opposite, and said to a Soudanese boy who was standing near, “Look at my beautiful country!” The soldier’s manner showed all the zest of a schoolboy returning home for the holidays. The answer was, “Call this a country! Where are the people?” Our men from Upper Egypt were puzzled and disdainful. They had travelled eighty-six miles in Abyssinia and had not seen a dwelling or a sign of cultivation.

A deep ravine lay below us, and we descended through it and entered a great gorge which opened out as we advanced. We were on rocky ground, covered with a layer of earth and loose stones. Our track wound through dense groves of bamboos, and we had to perform gymnastics on muleback to avoid a whipping from the canes. In this uncomfortable covert we passed a party of traders taking coffee to Gallabat. They had with them about sixty loads.

Presently our convoy, which in extended order covered nearly a mile and a half, debouched upon the valley of the river Geerar.[34] The bed, which is of bare rock, was dry when we passed through it. I saw here many basins neatly excavated in a curious fashion. They varied in size, but at the bottom of each was a stone. Evidently, this had first been lodged during the time of flood in some small hollow in the water-course. There, being constantly driven round by the eddying water, it had worn a deeper and deeper hole, at the bottom of which it rested in the dry season. We followed the course of the river up stream for about five miles.

The valleys on either side are sharply cut ravines in the mountain-sides. They were covered with grass at that period of the year.

We lunched in the shade of the river bank, and afterwards visited some hot springs which were near at hand. The first was a runnel of clear water guided from its source in the rock to a pool by a wooden gutter. I put my hand under this, and judged that the temperature was well over 150° F. At a little distance we found another spring which, welling from the ground, filled a basin about forty feet in circumference and one foot deep. Here, too, the temperature of the water was high, but not so high as to prevent bathing, and a roof of thatch had been built over the pool. We saw several Habashes, men, women, and children, who inhabited some rough, small thatched huts which had been put up close by. Some were old dwellings, some newly constructed. I could not ascertain whether these people resorted to the springs for a “cure” or merely formed a settlement established by keepers in charge of the place. Apparently all belonged to one family. I visited their camping-ground, but when I approached the women and children bolted into one of the huts. Perhaps they had not seen a European before and did not consider the first example prepossessing; or they may still have supposed—as most Abyssinians at one time did—that all persons who came from that continent were Turks. In the latter case I excuse their timidity. They watched me through the thatched walls of the hovel just as a rat sometimes watches a suspect from the entrance of its hole.

The water, as far as I could judge, was pure. It was tasteless, and very “soft,” as I found by using it in my bath. No steam was visible at the springs, though before I left them—about four in the afternoon—the air was becoming cool. Some large trees grew near the pool, and I saw a big and fine monkey with a shaggy face and a growth of fluffy white hair on its tail leaping and squatting among the boughs.

There are many hot springs in Abyssinia, and they are highly valued by the natives for the medicinal qualities attributed to them. Probably in some places the virtue of the waters is real, in others merely reputed.

The most frequented baths are at Wansage on the River Gumara, which flows into Lake Tsana. Dr. Stecker visited the spot in 1881, and wrote the following brief account of it,[35] which throws a light on Abyssinian social customs: “The hot spring issues from the left bank of the river and rises to a height of two or three metres from the ground. It fills a basin constructed by King Theodore with water of a temperature of 37° C. A hut has been built over the basin”—as at the spring which I saw—“and the Abyssinians who are trying the ‘cure’ here sport in the water all day long. In arrangements these baths resemble Ostend and Trouville in miniature, seeing that women and men, youths and girls, spend their time in the bath in lively promiscuity and keep up an intercourse that is not always decorous. Quarrels often arise among the ‘cure’ patients, especially when some one has used the baths longer than is permitted to him. Thus from early till late one hears the loud tones of the brawlers and the lamentations of women and children, who often come in for a beating on these occasions.”

On January 5 our road lay at first beside the River Geerar, which is the main source of the Rahad. Presently it diverged from the bank, and the track, which lay over stiff hills, became worse. At some points the donkeys could not pass, and we had to lift them bodily, loads and all, over obstructions, or push them past the rocks between which their loads were jammed. Once the animal that was carrying Dupuis’ valise and Gladstone bag, half slipped into a steep ravine with water at the bottom, forty feet below. In another place I saw an unlucky little beast turn two complete somersaults while it tried to scramble down a sloping ledge of rock. To my horror I caught sight of my medical bag on the top of its burden. I rushed up, and helped to unload the donkey, which seemed none the worse for the fall, and, to my astonishment and relief, I found all my doctor’s gear intact. Even the tabloid bottles, with a precious stock of quinine and phenacetine in them, had escaped by a miracle.

In crossing and recrossing the river-bed I was able to note the height to which the floods rise in the water-courses. I saw that flotsam, such as wisps of straw and bits of wood, had been lodged in branches and twigs at least twelve feet above the bed of the stream, and this, in the upper reaches among the hills, has a width of twenty-five to thirty feet on an average.

We camped at the foot of the mountain-side which would give us our final climb to the lake-plateau. Johannes pointed out the route to me, and I thought that one would have as much chance of shoving a donkey up the Great Pyramid as up that sheer precipice.

Some Habashes came to us at the camping-ground, bringing a cow, a chicken and ten eggs. They told us, through Johannes, that the cow was “a present,” and he said that it was worth ten dollars.[36] We decided to offer a “present” of fifteen dollars in return, and counted out the money. To our astonishment, the Habashes marched the cow off, saying that they would not accept the gift. We picked up our coins, feeling rather small. But money is “a good soldier and will on,” as Falstaff had found. In an hour the animal was brought back, and the “presents” were duly exchanged. Then there was a wrangle among our Mohammedans as to the ceremonial proper to be observed in slaying the unlucky cow; for some of the boys were of one sect, some of another. The question was settled after much haggling, and they held high festival and ate meat late into the night. A few choice cuts had been reserved for ourselves, but the bulk of the carcase was handed over to our followers, and they left only niggardly fare for the vultures next morning.

RAIN COUNTRY.

See [p. 64.]

A very good impression of the character of the country through which we had been marching is given by Mr. Dufton’s short description of it. “The road was very uneven, now ascending a steep mountain-side, now descending into a deep valley. The country was magnificent, far surpassing anything I had previously seen. The high mountains of the Scotch highlands, covered with the fertility of the Rhineland, would best represent it, but the vegetation was of a nature quite different from that of the Rhine, characterized as it was by the luxuriance of the tropics. Once the road skirted the side of a mountain the summit of which, raised one thousand feet above our heads, looked down into a deep valley another thousand feet below our feet. On the opposite side of the valley the land rose to a similarly steep eminence, which, in one part, was connected with that on which we stood by a low chain of undulating ground, so that a pretty little stream at the bottom, like a silver thread in the dark shadow of the mountains, wound about searching for its channel. Fruitful fields hung over it thick at every curve. The hills, of secondary formation, were broken here and there into rocky chasms, through which leaped innumerable falls of water in their downward course to join the stream; and here I saw for the first time the beautiful Euphorbia called the Kolquol, whose dark, candelabra-shaped branches, tipped with bright orange-red flowers, stood out in deep relief from the lighter ground. Bright flowers of every variety, most of which were unknown to me, but amongst others the familiar wild rose, the honeysuckle and the jessamine, lent their beauty and fragrance to the scene.”[37]

The knotted sapling which I photographed in the course of this day’s journey (January 5) has an historical interest which tempts me to moralize on the variability of human fortunes and the happy tranquillity of vegetable life. The tree had been growing in this distorted form since the time of the battle of Gallabat, which was fought between the Dervishes and the Abyssinians in 1889. I have alluded elsewhere to the singular vicissitudes of the fight.[38] The Dervishes, in light order, pursued their foes as far as the lake district, a circumstance which shows that raids are possible even in this difficult country. The Mahdi’s men, like our own War Office on a more recent occasion, had extremely little geographical or topographical information. So the advance party twisted the saplings to mark the route for those who came after them, and to guide the force on its return journey to the Soudan. The trees are the only remaining memorial of the Dervish raid.

THE KNOTTED SAPLING NOW BECOME A TREE.

See [p. 66.]

In this region I saw very few birds. But on the night of the 4th, while I was getting ready for bed, I heard one whose notes ascended through a perfect chromatic scale. My friend Dupuis told me that these songsters are common in India, where they are called “brain-fever birds.” Whether he spoke as a humourist or a genuine informant, I cannot say. In the Soudan I had often heard a bird whose notes reversed the process and descended the chromatic scale very perfectly. I omitted to suggest to my companion that he should import some of this species to India and try its performance as a remedy for brain fever.

On the morning of January 6, we started to climb to the plateau in which Lake Tsana lies. The ascent commenced immediately. The narrow track was extremely steep, and, as on the previous day, our path was full of loose stones and led us over great rocks that crop out of the mountain-side. The donkeys were constantly slipping and falling. Some came to a standstill, and refused to budge. We had to shove the animals by main force over boulders and up slippery ledges of rock, and at places not a few of them were raised bodily, loads and all, by means of their tails and forelegs, and lifted over obstacles. At this rate of ascending we covered two miles in three hours and a half, and still had a climb of another couple of miles ahead of us. Then the character of the track changed, and we travelled round a horseshoe-shaped chasm, following a path four feet wide, with a sheer precipice four hundred feet deep below us and another rising to the same height above our heads. It was a fine sight, and there is a lovely growth of cactus on the mountain side. Besides, we looked out upon a vast expanse of beautiful scenery, but I felt uncomfortably like the ungodly of whom the psalmist said that they were set in slippery places with a great risk of being cast down and destroyed. “Oh, how suddenly do they consume; perish and come to a fearful end!”[39] It was an inopportune moment to recall the text.

We reached the plateau at last, after another stiff climb upward from the chasm. I need hardly say that the donkeys were utterly fagged out. We had left the mimosas and the bamboos below us, and Dupuis’ aneroid barometer showed that we were some six thousand feet above sea-level. Here many species of cactus, large and small, abounded. The soil on the plateau is rich, and the ground was thickly covered with lush plants in blossom. I noticed, as I passed, the familiar “red-hot poker,” the wild strawberry, moss of many hues growing luxuriantly, the maiden-hair fern, and, on the trunk of a dead tree, the Tonbridge fern. Many springs were bubbling from the rock, and their courses were marked by the tenderest and brightest tints of this wild mountain garden. I found that Dupuis, who had marched at the head of the column, had been stopped by a couple of soldiers on the edge of the plateau. The Abyssinian “regular” has no uniform, but wears a dirty shama and the rest of the national costume, and carries a rifle of an obsolete French pattern. These men were not acting under Menelek’s orders but had been sent by the deputy of the chief of the village, who was himself absent upon a visit to Ras Gouksha, one of the great feudatories of Western Abyssinia. They said that they had orders to stop the three Englishmen, and I found that Dupuis had arranged to lunch at that spot and await developments.

Presently the “Deputy-Governor” arrived. He was barefoot, and his shama and linen trousers showed that he was a sound observer of Abyssinian custom in respect of cleanliness. He was escorted by some grimy fellows with forbidding faces who carried guns. The “Deputy” bowed low and shook hands with the three Europeans. Then Dupuis offered him a camp-stool for a seat and talked to him, Johannes interpreting. Menelek’s letter, giving us the right to pass freely through any part of his realm and calling on his lieges to assist us, was read, but to our consternation the “Deputy” refused to let us go down to the lake, which was eight miles distant, until we had received permission from his Ras.[40] Three days, he said, would elapse before this could be obtained. We gave him a drink of green chartreuse, and then he promised that he would allot a camping-ground to us about a quarter of a mile from Lake Tsana, but insisted that we must not pitch our camp on the shore.

MESSENGER SENT TO STOP US GOING DOWN TO THE LAKE.

See [p. 68.]

In Abyssinian intercourse the raising of the shama to cover the nose is an assertion of superiority by the person who so acts; to raise the shama to cover the mouth implies a claim to equality. To lower it to the waist is a sign of extreme deference; strictly, it implies servitude.

After the palaver he remained to watch us. A skin had been spread for him under a tree a few yards distant from us, and he lounged on this, staring at us when we were near, and following all our movements as closely as he could without giving himself trouble. Long grass grew around our camp, and I noticed some tamarind trees. We strolled among these surroundings with our guns and shot a few wild pigeons for dinner. Great numbers of these birds are seen on the high ground. Then, more anglicano, we had afternoon tea.

After sunset the air was very keen, and we put on our thickest clothes. The variation between the heat of the day and the cold at night is extreme on the plateau, and of course it is sharply felt. We turned in early and slept in the open. Our guard lay around us; for we were in strange company. Besides the “Deputy,” who might be calculating whether it would pay him better to see what present we should offer and avoid the risk of complications, or to cut our throats as quietly as possible and loot the camp, we had as near neighbours a party of Abyssinian traders on their way to Gallabat with coffee. They had bivouacked under a tree close by. They might or might not be disposed to share in the pillaging, if any took place. In the land of the Negus it is well to remember that “no one is expected to feel ashamed of any crime or vice; and whereas in other countries men in committing serious crimes are morbidly excited, in Abyssinia they are perpetrated with indifference, and generally recounted, sometimes by the individual himself, certainly by others, with gaiety and laughter. . . . Theft is in many provinces regarded as an honourable employment; highway robbery is quite excusable, even if accompanied by homicide.”[41]

After all, we slept as peacefully as if we had been in Anerley or Tooting. On the morning of January 8, we rose when the sun had warmed the air, and ignored the presence of our dirty warder, who still kept us under observation. While we were breakfasting I saw a white umbrella approaching through the long grass, and shortly the priest of the village hard by came in view. Neither the hamlet nor its church was visible from our camp. This divine did not wear a turban, which is the emblem of priestly rank in Abyssinia, but had on his head the old straw lining of a tarboush. His other visible garment consisted of a length of yellow and plum-coloured chintz. He carried a staff surmounted by a cross of filigreed iron. One attendant held over him the white umbrella, which had a blue lining, another bore before him an open book, on one page of which appeared a picture—the quaintly stiff and gaudy depiction of saints and sacred persons which is an unvarying convention of Abyssinian art—and on the other page I saw manuscript in the Amharic or Geez character.

The “Deputy” approached the priest, bowed, and kissed the book, and some of his retainers followed his example. Then Johannes explained to us that it was customary for travellers to make an offering to the church of this village, which is on the boundary of inhabited Abyssinia. Dupuis asked what the usual oblation was, and the “spiritual pastor” had the effrontery to reply, through Johannes, that it was ten dollars. Upon this Dupuis remarked that we had been very badly received and were dissatisfied with our welcome, that hindrances had been put in our way in spite of the terms of the king’s letter, and that he should give no alms to any one.

This declaration disconcerted both the priest and the “Deputy.” The former departed without further parley. The latter continued to follow us and spy upon us. Dupuis and Crawley decided to disregard his prohibition and advance. They moved in front of the column, and took with them Johannes, his two attendants, and eight soldiers. I brought up the rear with a couple of mounted men for escort. My progress was not interrupted, and gradually Lake Tsana came clearly into view. I found, when I rejoined my companions at the camping-ground which they had chosen on the shore, that the “Deputy” had made an attempt to stop them when they were about five miles from the spot. He had given them to understand that they might see the lake, but must not go down to the water’s edge. Dupuis replied that he should regard no such order, and marched ahead. Upon this the “Deputy” shrugged his shoulders, and forthwith took his leave, saying that he must then return to his house, but that he would visit us in the evening, and supposed he would find us on the shore of the lake, as we were resolved to proceed thither. He had an answer in the affirmative, and departed, to the relief of the whole party.

CHAPTER VI

Lake Tsana lay before me as a vast expanse of blue water stretching to the horizon. The shore here, near the village of Delgi at the north of the lake,[42] is in places sandy, in others covered with grass. At some points one can walk to the edge of the clear water, at others the shelving bank leads, by a scarcely perceptible incline, to stretches of reed-grown, swampy ground. I saw no water-weed upon the surface.

The lake lies at an altitude of 1942 metres (6372 feet) above the sea-level. Its length from the mouth of the Magetsch to the outlet of the Blue Nile is approximately forty-five miles, and its breadth on the twelfth parallel of longitude is about thirty-seven miles. The map published in this volume is mainly reproduced from that prepared by Dr. Stecker for the African Association of Germany. How painstaking he was in collecting information may be inferred from the fact that during his excursions in the native boats he took three hundred soundings—an example of patient research which those will best appreciate who have seen a “boat” of the kind. Dr. Stecker gave the following results of his survey:—“Lake Tsana covers a superficial area of 2980 square kilometres. All the islands together possess a superficial area of about fifty square kilometres, of which forty are included in Dek, and four in Dega. I found the greatest depth between the island of Dega and Zegi, viz. seventy-two metres, while the deepest sounding between Korata and Zegi was sixty-seven metres. Between Dek and Adina the depth ranged between thirty-two and forty-seven metres. But I am fully convinced that the deepest places—in my opinion having a much greater depth than one hundred metres—are to be found north of Dek in the direction of Dega and Gorgora. One cannot, however, well venture to make an excursion to those parts in the fragile Abyssinian craft.”[43]

This beautiful lake is everywhere girt by mountains, and in some places they rise directly from its shore. As a consequence it is exposed to sudden gusts and squalls that sweep down the valleys and ravines, and these would make navigation risky for small sailing boats. Hippopotami swarm in the waters. The Abyssinians hereabouts—Christians and Mussulmans alike—regard their flesh as unclean; but the hippos do not “lead a very snug life,” as Dr. Stecker supposed. They are constantly harassed by the natives, who shoot them for the sake of their hides. From these are made the whips called coorbatch, which are in general demand and are much valued. Plowden wrote that “the crocodile, that is found in most of the large rivers of Abyssinia, does not infest this lake.”[44] So far as my personal observation goes, he was right. But, knowing the enterprising character of the Blue Nile crocodile, I should think it wise to verify the statement, while on the spot, by careful observation.[45]

I did not hear of the “Deputy’s” peaceful departure immediately on arriving at the lakeside, for neither of my comrades was in view. After a few minutes I saw one strolling towards me carrying a wild goose, which he had just shot with a rifle, and then the other appeared, coming from the opposite direction, with a brace of wild duck. It was clear that the lake country was well stocked, and that the expedition would fare sumptuously if it were not cut up.

All our tents were pitched by eleven o’clock, and we began to think of lunch. A man looks forward cheerfully to his meals in the fine mountain air. But on that morning anxiety about the future harassed our minds. However, I had no leisure to make forecasts, for I had to attend to one of our soldiers who had fever, and one of our boys who had dysentery, and then I found that I was appointed honorary surgeon to the neighbourhood, and that a patient was waiting. He was an old man, who had a large abscess in the sole of his foot, and had endured the affliction for more than a week. I operated, while his friends looked on. There was no superfluity of medical stores, and it seemed fair to make “the case” supply his own bandage. This, when produced, proved to be a piece of dirty shirting. It served, over sublimate wool, and the patient was very grateful and thanked me profusely.

Parkyns made some striking and interesting observations about the insensibility to pain displayed by the Abyssinians and the African races of all kinds.[46] He said, “I have never noticed in Africa any education for the purpose of rendering men patient under suffering,” and he attributed the power of endurance to the hardening effect of a rough, primitive life. How far this is the cause and how far the advantage may be due to a somewhat lower form of nervous organization than that developed in Europeans I will not attempt to determine. But surprising as are the facts related by Parkyns, I do not doubt that he has described them without exaggeration, and my own experience showed that the Habashes stood pain well, though I observed no inclination towards heroism among them.

When I had finished the public demonstration in surgery, I noticed a small throng of people around Dupuis’s tent. Their faces displayed their satisfaction, and I joined the group to learn what had happened. Then I heard that the true representative of Ras Gouksha had arrived, and that the “Deputy” was a fraud. The envoy who had now come into our camp had expected us to reach the lake by another track, and had taken his post to await us. This man greeted us with a most civil welcome, gave us teff,[47] eggs, milk, fowls—in fact, all the supplies which we chiefly needed—and offered to accompany us round the lake and see that we were everywhere treated with courtesy. He seemed a smart and “likely” fellow, and any one may imagine our delight in the prompt exposure of the “Deputy” and the dramatic change for the better in our situation. We gave our new friend a stiff drink of green chartreuse, which he swallowed at one gulp. Then he went off to collect further supplies for us.

A little later the “Deputy” returned to exculpate himself. He grovelled on the ground, imploring forgiveness. He had brought a sheep as a peace-offering, and when we had added this to our belongings, we graciously pardoned him. Upon hearing that he was absolved from his guilt, he stooped down and kissed a stone close to Dupuis’s feet.

We had had enough parley for the day, so Dupuis and I started upon an explorers’ tramp, carrying our guns. We walked about two miles in a north-westerly direction, and saw innumerable kinds of water-fowl along the margin of the lake. The birds were scarcely shy of us at all, and we approached within ten yards of wild geese before they rose. I noticed among the mass a species of goose like a big Muscovy duck, with dark green plumage and white feathers in the wings, plovers of all sorts, herons, pelicans, snake-birds, and the ibis in numbers. We shot none, for we had meat enough in store, and it would have been sheer slaughter to do so. I did, indeed, try my luck with some quail that took to the wing, but no harm came to them, and I was not sorry.

We returned to the village. It was pleasant to see kine again after the long march through the deserted border-country. They are here of the long-horned, hump-backed “Zebu” kind common throughout Africa and the East.[48] My friend Crawley had taken a rod and line to the edge of the lake. He landed a fish about 2 lb. weight, of the perch tribe. So we had a very complete menu. The cold was keen after sundown, but we had a cheery finish to our first day by the lake, after all. And it would hardly be possible to look upon a more lovely scene than that which we saw from our camp when the moon had risen.

We were not astir very early in the morning of January 8, and dawdled over breakfast until half-past seven; it is almost worth while to live a strenuous life at times in order to enjoy dawdling afterwards. Dupuis and Crawley set out with an assortment of gear to make a survey, and I amused myself with a butterfly-net and a camera.

Then I inspected my patients. Several came into camp from the neighbourhood, as I had expected. The old man with the abscess presented himself, and I found that the injured foot was healing well. He thanked me again very profusely, and I believe that after this second visit he departed to the village whence he came with a good opinion of European surgery. Another Habash found me less satisfactory as a physician. He had come to ask what medicine he could take to cure the headache caused by tedj. Now, tedj is the beer, or mead, of the country; it is made from fermented barley, and flavoured with honey diluted in the proportion of one part to three parts of water. It is a very heady—and, to Europeans, a most nasty—drink, and the Abyssinians consume enormous quantities of it. Parkyns was told of a man who was said to have swallowed twenty-six pints at a sitting, on the occasion of a wedding-feast at which the English traveller was present. But he regarded this statement as “a stretcher.”[49] I told the inquirer that the one and only prescription was not to drink tedj, and thereupon the little audience of his fellow-countrymen enjoyed a laugh at his expense.[50]

HOUSES AT DELGI.

See [p. 79.]

WASHING OUT ‘TEDJ’ POTS AT DELGI.

See [p. 79.]

I was glad to see that the servants set to work to wash their clothes with soap in the lake. The cleansing was needed. Soon the tents in our camp were draped with garments enough to occupy the wash-lines of a whole suburb. The lake had a pleasant temperature for bathing, and the men stayed in the water till their clothes were dry.

On this morning we had a visit of ceremony from another priest, whose umbrella was of many colours. His attendants were a boy dressed in plum-coloured chintz with a yellow scroll-pattern on it, another boy, who was naked, and carried a bell which he tinkled incessantly, and three Abyssinian students. These learn to read and write the Gheez language, and I think the Bible is the only book which they study. They are lads from the villages who are “candidates for orders,” and the theological classes are held in the church-porches. I secured two satisfactory snap-shots of the priest. He received an oblation of five dollars with an absolutely impassive face, and then left us in doubt whether he was secretly gratified by the amount of the offering or inwardly disgusted by it.

Dupuis and Crawley resumed their survey work in the afternoon, and I strolled away from camp with my gun and brought down a lesser bustard, of the size of a turkey. I also shot a brace of quail, but lost them in the long grass. Altogether it was a quiet day. The climate was now very pleasant, neither too hot at noon nor too cold at night. In the early morning there was a dead calm. After this a little breeze came down from the north-west, and the wind remained in that quarter till the afternoon. At four o’clock it shifted right round to the south-east, and blew pretty stiffly about seven. We always saw lightning in the evening. It seemed to play over the lake.

On the morning of the 9th Dupuis and I got our Berthon collapsible boat ready. This had caused us much trouble on the upward march, as it is awkwardly shaped for donkey-transport. We took our guns and angling tackle, and paddled about three miles westward. Then we landed on a sandy beach, left two of our boys in charge of the boat, and went in search of game, taking one man with us. We had not walked far when we sighted a covey of guinea-fowl. We got ahead of them, and were trying to drive them towards the water when about forty rose in all directions, and we could not reload fast enough. Several were lost in the thick grass, chiefly owing to the boy’s stupidity; he could not make up his mind which bird to pounce upon first. As we were returning to the beach by the way we had come, Dupuis put up a brace of partridges and shot them. They must have “sat tight” all through the fusillade, and only rose when my companion nearly walked them down. We carried about ten head back to the boat.

When we came to the shore we found our two men in a state of great excitement. As soon as the guns were fired a hippopotamus that had been asleep about ten yards from them sprang up, and rushed into the water, snorting. The beast had nearly frightened them out of their wits. Looking at the path I had followed after landing I saw that I must have passed within a yard of the place where the hippo lay. The men now drew my attention to something in a tree, but I could not discern at first what they were pointing out. After peering for three or four minutes I saw a pair of gleaming eyes above a branch in the deep shade. I fired with number four shot—the only size I had—at a distance of about ten yards, and down came a civet cat. It was hit in the head and dead, when I picked it up.

We tried our luck with the fish while the men paddled us back to camp, but caught nothing. I set about preserving the skin of the cat after lunch, rubbed some arsenical soap well in, and packed the hide in an empty cigarette tin. It was brought to England in good condition. While I was busy in this way, my comrades were taking soundings of the lake from the boat. Later we went out together with our guns, and added two bustards, three partridges, and a quail to the stock in the larder.

During the day, whenever I was in camp, I was importuned by patients; many had trivial ailments, and others troubles, such as chronic ophthalmia, which I certainly could not cure during a three days’ sojourn at Delgi. If they judged that I was not sufficiently moved by the account which they gave at first of their malady, they described what they suffered from another, and a fictitious one. Thus, if I told a man who had chronic ophthalmia that I could not help him, he would remain to declare that he was consumptive, or that his feet needed treatment. They became so tiresome at last that I was thankful for the prospect of resuming the march next day. It seems to be taken for granted in all countries that a doctor ought to be more long-suffering than any other person.

On the morning of the 10th I received, by Abyssinian post, a letter which had been despatched from Port Said on November 25, the day on which I left Cairo. It reached me by a roundabout road; for it had been to Wady Halfa, Berber, Kassala, Sennaar, and Gallabat. I was surprised that it came to hand. The postman was a Soudanese black, and, when we met him, he was on the return journey to Gallabat bearing some official communication. These couriers carry before them—like a wand of office—a long cane, which is split at the top. The “mail” is inserted in the orifice. The cane is a badge that is respected, and I was told that the letter-carriers are never stopped. They amble along at a steady jog-trot, and cover a great deal of ground in a day.

We made a short journey of about ten miles to the eastward after leaving Delgi. Our road kept us some little distance from the northern shore of the lake, and took us through long jungle grass, so tall that we could not see over it, and so thick that there was no possibility of using a gun in it. We camped on a spot where this grass had been beaten down, and spent the afternoon reading. There were no mosquitoes, but the flies swarmed into our tents, and we sympathized with Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

Several of the boys from the Soudanese lowlands had a touch of fever on this high ground. Three were on my hands that day. Quinine was a quick and sure remedy for them. I think that they were affected by the great change of temperature between midday and nightfall much more than Europeans.

The morning of Sunday, January 11, was very cold, and the thermometer stood at 31° F. just before sunrise. I noticed that it always rose to a point above 80° about noon, and these figures will give an idea of the effect of the variations. The servants were shivering when they served our breakfast, but at half-past seven we took off our overcoats, and when we started at a quarter-past eight the day was warm. Our road lay through tall grass, and took us over undulating country, and then up a long, gradually rising slope to Tschenkar, where we arrived at one o’clock. This was by far the largest village that we had yet seen in Abyssinia.

Tschenkar is four miles distant from the lake. As we travelled we had skirted the base of the promontory called Gorgora, which lay on our right hand. This is very lofty ground. Stecker ascended to the highest point of it, the summit of the mountain called Goraf. He found by barometrical measurement that this was 2134 metres above the level of the sea, and recorded the following interesting observations: “This excursion yielded very important results in relation to the geological formation of the mountain chain. I found on the high ground extensive remains of a great stream of lava which I could trace down to Lake Tsana. There were craters half filled up and very considerable volcanic cumuli. The upper strata of the mountains consist of crystalline schist, but the lower are composed of the same sandstone formation in which tertiary coal deposits were discovered at Tschelga.”[51]

In an interview reported in the Egyptian Gazette, Mr. William MacMillan spoke disparagingly, as it seems to me, of the resources of the country.[52] I dissent completely from the opinion that Abyssinia has little to offer to commercial enterprise. Its potential wealth is enormous, and if difficulties of transit could be overcome—which means, in this connection, if the Blue Nile could be made navigable—I believe that a vast and most lucrative development of commerce and industry would follow. As the question appears to me to be of great importance, and as I think that Mr. MacMillan’s words may spread a quite erroneous impression, I hope the reader will forgive me for bringing forward the following evidence.

Consul Plowden reported in his “General Survey of Abyssinia,” 1852-53: “Gold and copper exist, and iron is found in great abundance; plains of sulphur and various salts, in the province now occupied by the Taltals, supply all Abyssinia with those commodities: and other wealth may lie hid in that volcanic tract. A search for coal would, elsewhere, be probably successful.”[53]

Dufton visited the district of Tschelga with M. Lejean, the French Consul, who was then taking gifts from the Emperor Napoleon III. to King Theodore. M. Lejean found, when he attempted to make observations in this neighbourhood, that “the ferruginous nature of the rocks destroyed the determinative power of his delicate compass, sometimes, when placed on the ground to a matter of 90 degrees. The presence of iron was further evidenced by the slimy yellow deposits of oxide which some of the mountain rivulets make in their course. Beds of an inferior coal we also found in the plain of Tschelga, laid bare by a small stream which had dug for itself a passage of some forty feet deep. The fact of the presence of coal, not only here but also in many other parts of Abyssinia, seems to point to sources of wealth possessed by this country, which only an enlightened government is required to open out.”[54]

Mr. Vivian considers that the “one insuperable objection” to industrial enterprise in Abyssinia is “the monstrous craft and subtlety of the Abyssinian.” He wrote, “You or I might spend ourselves and our treasures in discovering coal, or copper, or iron, or gold, or emeralds; we might call new industries into being and establish an era of prosperity; but the Abyssinians would take all the profit, and we should be left out in the cold.”[55]

It seems to me, if one may say so without flippancy, that the introduction of a few mineowners from the Rand would soon show the Abyssinian that he is “a child in these matters.” A fertile country with an enormous range of climate, capable of well-nigh infinite variety of production, well watered, well wooded, and endowed with gold, iron, and coal is something more than a small mart for American shirtings and Russian oil.

To return to Tschenkar. The soil in this region is very rich, and there is a considerable cultivation of durrha and other grain and of chillies for cayenne pepper. This is the condiment universally used in Abyssinia. It is cooked with or added to every dish, and the natives, including the children, eat it in quantities which scorch the most hardened European gullet. When it is remembered that the Habashes usually eat their meat raw, not even rejecting uncleansed tripe,[56] and that they are constantly passing from fasts which they observe with superstitious rigour[57] to an excess of gluttony, that they are immoral from their early years,[58] and that drunkenness is an uncensured habit even among the priests, it is surprising that the race has retained its vigour. I am, however, bound to say that the Abyssinian is, normally, hardy and cheery. No doubt the weakly die in infancy or childhood, and the development of those who survive is greatly helped by the fine air in the upland country.

I made inquiry of our interpreter Johannes as to the system of land tenure here, and was interested to learn that the “Lord of the Manor” leased ground to tenants on the métayage system. He himself paid tithe in kind to the Ras. I fancy the landowner takes the lion’s share of the crops; and the peasantry are heavily mulcted by the priests and scribes. In addition, it is the rule that all guests of the Ras, when travelling within his fief, must be supplied with food by every village at which they halt. So the farmers have to thrive on what is left.

We were, officially, guests of the Ras. In consequence we found that gifts of teff, and poultry, and eggs were brought in without stint. All are cheap commodities in Abyssinia. Augustus Wylde calculated that at Bohoro in the Yejju province, when he was there, fowls were selling at a rate which would have given eight hundred and eighty for the pound sterling, and that the same sum would have purchased eight thousand eight hundred eggs.[59] The eggs presented to us were nearly all bad, a fact which might be due to a misapprehension about European taste or to a feeling that waste articles might fairly be got rid of as unrequited tribute. The fowls made good eating, but they are very small birds. I do not think the Habashes, at the end of the reckoning, had much reason to regret our presence.

In the evening we received a visit from the priest, a pleasant, fine-looking old man. He wore the turban of his class. We promised to see him at his church early on the following morning and present an offering.

The dry grass had been fired in places around the village, and the flames showed impressively after nightfall, though their effect was dimmed by the light of the moon, which was nearly full. We had no reason to fear being burned out of our camp, for the stalks had been beaten down all about into a matted mass. But clouds of smoke and showers of blacks from a conflagration close by would have given us more discomfort than we bargained for, and we watched the drift of the fires in the light, varying winds with interest. Luckily, trouble was not for us that night, and we turned in, with all the contentment of the well-fed Briton, and slept in peace.

CHAPTER VII

On the morning of January 12, we fulfilled our promise to the priest of Tschenkar and went to see the church. It has the reputation of being an exceptionally holy place, because the Dervishes made several attempts to burn it down when they raided the village during their incursion after the battle of Gallabat, and their endeavour failed. I cannot tell how the roof fared, for it was made of the ordinary thatch used in Abyssinia when I saw it and looked very inflammable. But it was hardly necessary to attribute the preservation of the rest of the fabric to a miracle. In many cases the entire structure consists of a timber framework with a covering of thatch, and I never heard that these buildings possessed the immunity of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But the church at Tschenkar is built in part of hard baked mud bricks and in part of stone, and the doorways are made of an extremely tough wood which is found in the country. This had also furnished the beams within the building. Under these circumstances the only marvel seems to be that the Dervishes repeated their attempt to kindle the materials.

The church is round and stands in a circular enclosure, according to the custom in Abyssinia. The wall of the churchyard is of stone, and there are four entrances, facing north, south, east, and west. Cypresses—which I did not observe in other places—were growing in the enclosure, which, as usual, is just a small grassy expanse. No tombstones or other monuments to the dead are seen in it. The church also has four doors and is divided into two parts. These do not closely correspond to nave and chancel; for the sanctum sanctorum of an Abyssinian place of worship is walled in, and makes a third enclosure. Moreover, it does not contain an altar but a representation of the Jewish Ark of the Covenant, which is called a tabot. I shall have occasion to allude to this custom and its origin in a later chapter.

The priest showed us round the building. The walls are decorated with the usual extraordinary “sacred subjects,” treated in the manner which convention strictly prescribes. St. George and the Dragon and the Virgin Mary are almost invariably depicted, and I was fortunate enough to obtain some clear photographs in the church at Korata,[60] which exemplify the singular devotional art of the Habashes. At Tschenkar there were some rude carvings of cherubim and designs of the Virgin drawn with burnt wood on the doorways. We were not admitted to the sanctum sanctorum.

Outside I obtained a photograph of the theological class, which was composed of one teacher and four pupils. Their library consisted of a single book. I could not, of course, decipher the text, but the volume had the appearance of a very dirty and greasy manuscript missal. Probably it was a copy of the Scriptures, in the Gheez language. There was a quaint thatched belfry in a tree, which looked like a primitive bee-hive or an old bird’s-nest.

We had ordered that the baggage donkeys should be loaded and take the road while we were at the church. But we found that confusion always arose if no European was present at the start, and on this occasion, when we had spent some forty minutes with the priest, and then made our way to the track which we were to follow, we beheld no trace of the expedition. When the train did draw in sight we found that one part had been separated from the other, and the two divisions were approaching from opposite sides. It was only a slight contretemps, but we lost an hour by it on a day when we had a long march before us. Matters were righted and we moved ahead.

Dupuis and I were bringing up the rear. At half-past eleven we found that the whole expedition had halted on the bank of the river Magetsch, and one of the guides was insisting that we must camp there. He seemed to have no reason for the choice except that there was water in the stream and that the place which we purposed to reach, called Ambo, was, in his opinion, too far off. All the Habashes were of the same mind as the guide, but we did not take their view, and set to work to cross the river.

Here—about a mile and a half from the lake—the current was some twenty feet wide. It was clear and shallow, running over a shingly bed in a ravine. We forded it without difficulty, and moved on towards the camping-ground which we had selected. We arrived at the place shortly after two o’clock.

Our route crossed the two effluents of the lesser Gumara River not far below Wansage. A concise and interesting account of the geology and botany of the river-valley at that place has been given by Dr. Stecker.[61] This morning while we were on the road we met the “Sultan of Delgi.” The “Sultan,” notwithstanding his title, is a subordinate official, the tax-collector of a district. It was this man whose “Deputy” had met us when we arrived on the plateau and raised difficulties. We found the “Sultan” a very affable old man. He shook hands with us, asked if matters went well with the expedition, and if we were in need of anything. This was the more satisfactory as he was then returning from a visit to the feudal lord of the district, Ras Gouksha.

The village of Ambo was destroyed by the Dervishes, and had not been rebuilt. The site of it is on a beautiful little bay of the lake, which at one part has a sandy beach that shelves into the clear water and at another is bordered by a thick fringe of reeds. Snipe swarm in these. There was no cultivated ground at this spot, and no timber or “scrub.” Tall grass was growing everywhere, and I have no doubt that the soil is extremely fertile.

The tents were pitched, and after lunch we took out our guns to replenish the larder. We made a bag of some half-dozen snipe, and saw an abundance of geese—but they are not very good eating—herons, and other large and small water-fowl. On the way back to camp we put up a flock of crown crane and could have brought down some of them. They are excellent at table; but it seemed a scandal to kill such fine fellows, and we did not shoot. These are noble-looking birds.