VIEW OF ABHIBHAD LAKE, FROM SANKARL.

C. Johnston, del. T & E Gilks, Lithʳˢ

J. Madden & Co. Leadenhall Sᵗ.

Travels in Southern Abyssinia

TRAVELS
IN
SOUTHERN ABYSSINIA,
THROUGH
THE COUNTRY OF ADAL
TO
THE KINGDOM OF SHOA.
BY

CHARLES JOHNSTON, M.R.C.S.

CHARLES JOHNSTON, M.R.C.S.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
J. MADDEN AND CO., LEADENHALL STREET.
M DCCC XLIV.

MACINTOSH, PRINTER,
GREAT NEW STREET, LONDON.

CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

ERRATUM.
Page 106, 14 lines from bottom, transpose the words Apis and Serapis, with Abi and Assabi of the next line.

TRAVELS IN SOUTHERN ABYSSINIA,
ETC.

CHAPTER I.

Staying at Farree.—​Alarm of Galla attack.—​Return to Kokki.—​Women of Kafilah carried into slavery.—​Five Gallas killed.—​Triumph of Hy Soumaulee victors.—​Return to Dinnomalee.—​The Wallasmah Mahomed.—​Seizure of the letters.—​Return to Farree.

May 23.—I had scarcely opened my eyes, after the first night’s rest in Abyssinia, when a heavy knocking at the door, and repeated calls for me, made me get up in a great hurry to know the reason of such a disturbance. I found the escort all in an uproar, and they pushed past me into the house for their weapons, where they had been safely deposited under my care, and which, as soon as they were seized, away my friends ran, one after another, in the direction of Dinnomalee. Ohmed Medina, who had suddenly sprung up from somewhere, sat upon his mule in the market-place, and was shouting for me to come, whilst one of his slaves was hastily saddling my mule also. I could not make out what was the matter, but as the word “Galla” was in the mouth of every one, I suspected that an attack had been made upon the stores during the night by those marauders, and began to be afraid that I had calculated too surely upon their being safe when at Dinnomalee.

Getting myself ready as quickly as possible, I was soon galloping along the road, following Ohmed Medina. We stayed not a moment at Dinnomalee, but a look satisfied my greatest anxiety; for the stores were all safe, and I cared for nothing else, so with a mind much easier, I called out to Ohmed Medina, for the first time, to ask what, and where the disturbance was. He only turned his face towards me, as he called out “Dophan,” and “Galla,” urging his mule on as he spoke, as if he wished he had wings to fly at once to the little town of half-civilized Wahamas, we had passed yesterday on this side of Kokki. We overtook, and gradually left behind us, all the Hy Soumaulee, who, in a far-apart, straggling line, were hastening to the rescue. As we came up to each of these, a vain attempt was made to keep alongside of us, but our pace was too good, and we entered alone the small densely-wooded valley, then along the deep ravine, and at length pulled up on the camping ground we had left yesterday morning, when the leading camels of the Hy Soumaulee Kafilah came in sight, and where they had halted for the night; the greater part of the Tajourah camels alone coming on after us to Dinnomalee the same day.

On our arrival, preparations were being hastily made by the Kafilah to proceed on the march to Dinnomalee; all seemed conscious they had stayed in this place a night too long, and anxious to get away before any other mishap should happen. Some busy talkers surrounded Ohmed Mahomed and Ebin Izaak, who had come in a few minutes before us, and were listening to details of the deeds of blood, the evidences of which were five still bleeding bodies, that lay naked in different places upon the little green sloping bank that rose from the stream, and upon which the encampment stood.

Carmel Ibrahim and another of my escort were busy paring the skin of a goat, just killed, into the little twisted “symbil,” or ornaments, with which it is usual to adorn the head, wrists, ankles, and also the weapons of warriors who have slain a foe. Whilst thus employed, they sung in a sharp falsetto voice some song of triumph, their voices being elevated considerably, as every fresh comer from Dinnomalee arrived. Above us, to the left, the inhabitants of the little town were making sad lamentations, and loud sobbing cries over the dead body of one of their people who had been killed in the engagement.

From what we were now told, it appeared that a little before sunrise, several women of the Kafilah had gone down to a place at some distance from the camp, where the little stream spread out into a pool, to fill their affaleetahs and gourd-shells with water for the march. Here they were seized by a large body of Hittoo Gallas, who, during the night, had approached the Kafilah, and were lying concealed in this situation, awaiting for the camels to be loaded, so that after an attack they might drive them with their loads quickly away. On being discovered, the greater part seized the women and carried them away at once, whilst another body rushed over the little stream hoping still to be able to surprise the Kafilah before the men had assembled for its protection. One Dophanter man, who had followed the women, attempted to escape by running towards the camp, but a pursuing Galla launched his spear, and transfixed him through the back, so that a wound was visible under the breast, corresponding to the much larger one in the back. His cries, however, called the Hy Soumaulee to arms, of whom more than four times the number of the Galla collected immediately, and before the latter were aware of the strength of the party they were about to attack, they were too near to escape some retributive punishment. Immediately the Hy Soumaulee saw them commencing to retire, they were on their feet, following them fast down the little slope to the brook, and succeeded in killing five of the daring robbers, before they could ascend the opposite bank. The rest made good their retreat to the main body, who had now got some distance with the women, and together formed a force far too great for the Hy Soumaulee people to hope to attack it with advantage. They were obliged, therefore to halt, form a semicircular squatting line, and be passive spectators of their women, seven of whom belonged to the Kafilah, and three to the town of Dophan, being carried away into captivity.

Three Gallas were killed by spears, the others had been stabbed in the throat and chest, and probably died fighting fairly enough. Carmel Ibrahim was one happy man-slayer, and also the brother of Moosa, and they kept up their song of triumph all the time we stayed here, except when they took me to see the bodies of those they had killed. I observed that the Dankalli do not practise the brutal custom of disfiguring the slain, so common among the Amhara at the present time, and which was also a characteristic of Jewish warfare. The arms and shields, not only of the Gallas who had been killed, but also numerous others that the fugitives had thrown away, fell to the lot of those who picked them up in the latter case, and to the victors in the former. Two of the other successful Hy Soumaulee were so busy fixing in their own belts the newly-obtained knives, which were much better than their own, that they did not attempt to raise the song, like Carmel and his friend, who, perhaps, only did it to attract my attention. Ohmed Medina informed me that I must give them a present, and upon my asking why, he said it was the custom for masters so to reward brave servants. He assured me that the chief of the town of Dophan had already given them a goat, and that the Wallasmah would also do the same. Seeing that it was the general custom, and as they had only been doing their duty, not as aggressors, but as men defending their wives and property, I promised them a bullock. On my doing this they would insist upon decorating my head with a symbil, or wreath of twisted goatskin, like themselves, but I managed to induce them at last to place it on my hat instead. Before we left the ground, I asked Ohmed Medina, if the dead Gallas would be buried. He looked at me, rather astonished at the question, but thinking, I suppose, that I knew no better, he said, very shortly, “Koran yahklur” (the ravens will eat them).

Our curiosity being satisfied, we now followed the camels, already some distance on their way to Dinnomalee, conversing as we rode along upon the events of the morning. The Hy Soumaulee men were too excited to think of the captive girls taken from amongst them never to return, but several of the women of the Kafilah I noticed with tear-shot eye mourning the loss of some friend or relation. No usual occupation, such as plaiting the palm leaf into a broad ribbon, to be sewed afterwards into mats, filled their hands, no familiar salutations as I passed by enlivened the way with smiles, but each with a long rope fastened around the under jaw of a camel led strings of five or six of these animals, that followed in their peculiarly quiet manner, the path their sorrowing conductress pursued.

Myself and others of the party who were mounted soon went a-head, and had it not been for repeated stoppages on the road to relate to those still coming, all we had learned of the deed of blood, we should have returned to Dinnomalee by ten o’clock; as it was, the sun had passed the meridian when we arrived, and we found there an equally busy scene, but of a very different character, to the one we had been partial witnesses of at Dophan.

During our absence the Wallasmah Mahomed, attended by his brother, two sons, his scribe, and a whole host of armed followers, had come into Farree, and just at the moment we passed the first trees on our side that inclosed the open space where stood the stores, salt, and merchandise of our Kafilah, that officer and his party emerged from the jungly wood opposite; the Wallasmah riding upon a mule, the rest walking, and among these the bearers of the silver mounted shield, and the silver sword of office were most conspicuous.

The Wallasmah Mahomed, the hereditary Prince or Governor of Efat, imbodied my idea of a dull, sensual, yet cunning man. There was nothing in his countenance to recommend him; bloated, with a heavy stupid expression, a little relieved certainly by small restless eyes that glanced at me whenever he thought I was not looking at him. Perhaps his fleshy turned up nose might be termed by some physiognomists an aspiring feature, and his chubby mouth, from having lost all his teeth, or nearly so, was continually mumbling something or other, or else munching a little branch of wormwood. I will not charge him with being actually sober, nor would he, I think, have sworn upon the Koran that he was so himself; but a bad headache was pleaded for the narrow rag of blue cotton that bound a large fresh green leaf upon his forehead. This application, I was told, was to produce a sense of coolness in the part affected, and to aid its effects it was frequently wetted by an attendant with water from a gourd shell, carried for this purpose.

On my going up to speak to the old gentleman, who had already seated himself upon a mat in the round shade of one of the trees, he very politely drew up his legs more under him, and invited me with a wave of his hand to be seated by his side. An inspection of my carabine immediately followed this; putting it up to his shoulder he glanced his eye along the barrels, and then turned round, with a nod and a sly wink, as if he wished me to believe that he knew all about it. He now asked, through Ohmed Medina, if I had any letters, and never supposing that they would be taken from me, I told him there were two packets which I must deliver to the British Embassy at Ankobar that day if possible. Saying this, I got up, and pointing to the sun intimated that it would be too late unless I started; but immediately catching hold of the skirt of my blouse he pulled me down again, saying, “I must stay with him, for the King had ordered that I was to remain at Farree, and not go any farther into the country.” This was fully explained by Ohmed Medina, who also told me that Ebin Izaak had been obliged to give up the letters and despatches whilst I had been talking to the old man.

I had been misled, though most unintentionally on the part of Mr. Cruttenden, by his information of the great honour and reverence with which the King of Shoa, Sahale Selassee, treated the members of our political mission, and I had supposed it was merely necessary for me to be the bearer of despatches from the coast, to be received with all cordiality and freedom from suspicion as to the motives of my visit on my arrival in Shoa. How disappointed I was may be imagined when, instead of being permitted to proceed at once to the residency in Ankobar, I found myself a prisoner; and on my telling the Wallasmah that my queen would be very angry when she came to hear of the letters being taken from me, he very coolly threatened to have me chained, confirming the interpretation of Ohmed Medina, by placing his two wrists together as if bound. As I saw he was in earnest, and that if I said any more it might, perhaps, place our ambassador in a worse position than what he seemed to be in, I restrained my feelings, and retired to think over my situation and what I conceived to be that of the mission in Shoa. Having sent a short note by a messenger the day before to Captain Harris, announcing my arrival, I postponed taking any decided steps until I received his answer, for I now contemplated making my escape back again, to take the news to Aden of the condition of our embassy, the members of which were stated to be prisoners like myself.

I had not sat alone long, when some of the Wallasmah’s people came to tell me I must go to Farree with them. I asked for my mule, but found it had been taken away to have the benefit, as they significantly told me, of the King’s own pasturage. There was nothing to be done but to accompany them; so telling some of the Hy Soumaulee to come to Farree the next morning to see me, and if I were not there to go on to Ankobar, I proceeded with my guides, or guards, to the same house I slept in the last night; and the ready smiling welcome, the little bustle to receive me cordially, I met with from the good-natured inmates, was some set-off to the brutal indifference of the state-gaoler; for such office also I found was filled by the head of the customs of Shoa, the Abigass, or frontier governor of Efat, the obsequious spiteful pluralist the Wallasmah Mahomed.

I passed the night, having received no answer to my note from Ankobar, wishing for the day, still hoping that I might be mistaken in my fears, and that some of the members of the embassy would come to congratulate me on my safe arrival, and free me from the anxiety, restraint, and espionage I was now annoyed with; for two sentinels were constantly on duty in the little enclosure, and always present in the house, when I received visits even from my Hy Soumaulee friends.

The next day came, but no news from Ankobar. I amused myself as well as I could, writing up my notes and settling small accounts with my escort and those of the Kafilah people, from whose importunities on the road I had relieved myself by promises of presents in Shoa, and who now came for paper, needles, buttons, scissors, and razors. Almost all that I possessed was divided among them as some little return for their continued kindness and fidelity to me on the road; for I had little to complain of except the continual falsehoods and petty deceits practised invariably by the Tajourah people. Even Ohmed Medina was not altogether exempt from this failing; but it was from a motive of well-meant kindness, so that I should not be able to detect the number of instances that little attempts were made to impose upon me, and which he thought might lead to expostulation and angry discussions.

CHAPTER II.

Detained at Farree.—​No news from Ankobar.—​Fear all is not right.—​Escape from my confinement.—​Reach Garcia Mulloo.—​Followed by officers of Wallasmah.—​Compromise matters.—​Return to Farree.—​Brutality of Wallasmah.—​Planning escape to the coast with Hy Soumaulee.—​Arrival of Mr. Scott from Ankobar.—​Chief cause of my detention.

I stayed in Farree anxiously awaiting some news from the embassy, until the 25th; but neither note nor messenger came to relieve the suspense I was in. The night before, Ohmed Medina, however, had called upon me, and told me that all was right as regarded their personal safety, but informed me that my note from the Dinnomalee had been intercepted by the Wallasmah, and that none of the English in Shoa knew that I was in the country. I made up my mind, on hearing this, to attempt getting to Ankobar the next morning, if it were possible; and accordingly, before it was light, opened the little wicket that served for the door, passed unobserved the two sentinels who lay wrapped up in their body cloths fast asleep, and was soon some distance on the wrong road; that is to say, the most circuitous one to Ankobar. I thought that I was not exactly right, and meeting some labourers going into the fields to work, I asked the way, by repeating the word, Ankobar. They were too much surprised to speak, but pointed in the direction of the road, and I left them staring after me with a wondering look, as if to ask what would come next. Having reached a village about five miles to the north-west of Farree, I found it impossible to go on, it having been one continual ascent along the roughest and most winding path that can well be imagined. Oppressed with difficulty of breathing, fatigued, and foot-sore, I turned toward the door of the first house, and sitting down on a stone, made signs that I wanted some water. Hereupon such a screaming was set up by the only inmates, two naked children, that it could not have been exceeded if I had intimated that they were about to be devoured. Their cries brought two other little girls, who came running round the house, but seeing me, promptly turned back, tumbling over each other to get out of the way, contributing as they lay not a little to the frantic roaring of the children inside.

The noise soon brought all the disposable people, men and women of all ages, who had not left the village for their labours in the fields, who soon recognised in their visitor a Gypt or Egyptian, as the Abyssinians call all white men. I was glad to find that the character seemed to be a very respected one, although the first evidence I had of it, was the numerous beggars for articles, the names of which I did not understand. They invited me into the house out of the sun, and a large wooden mortar was laid on its side for me to sit upon, whilst several women employed themselves scorching some coffee beans, in a coarse earthenware saucer over a little wood fire in the centre of a circular hearth, that occupied the middle of the room. The whole house consisted of this one apartment, the surrounding wall being composed of sticks placed close together, and about four feet high, upon which rested a straw thatched roof frame of light bamboo, well blackened with the smoke.

I had not long arrived at Garcia Mulloo, the name of the village, before I was followed by a large body of men armed with spears and staves, and dragging along with them, most unwillingly, my old grey mule. The misselannee of Farree, whom I knew, was at the head of the party, and appeared very well pleased to see me, addressing me with great politeness, though I could not understand a word that he said. I took care, however, in Arabic, to charge him and the Wallasmah with incivility, and want of hospitality, for detaining me so long in Farree against my will, and also with having, like a thief, stolen the note I had sent to Ankobar. As we had been now joined by a man named Brekka, who understood what I said, he interpreted for us, and afforded the misselannee an opportunity in reply, of throwing the whole blame upon the Wallasmah, whose servant he was, at the same time begging me to return with him, for which purpose, and for my accommodation, he had brought my mule along with him. I positively refused, on the plea, that their King had promised mine, that Englishmen were to travel unmolested through the country, alluding to the treaty, and that, accordingly, if they now used force to take me back to Farree, it would bring the matter to an issue, and my people would then see the real value of the word of Sahale Selassee. Seeing I was determined not to return with them they agreed to compromise the matter, upon my promising to remain at Garcia Mulloo, and not attempt to proceed farther towards Ankobar, until the King’s pleasure respecting me should be known. This I was induced to do by the misselannee’s pacific appeal that I would not do anything which would occasion him to be imprisoned, and all his property confiscated.

Our interpreter, Brekka, was a scamp of a renegado, who had been a Christian, but was converted to the Islam faith, by the promise of a situation under the Wallasmah, whose district, the province of Efat, is inhabited chiefly by Mahomedans. The contiguity of the two faiths among a people of one origin, affords an interesting opportunity of examining the first effect of differences in religious belief, and which leads, in the course of time, to the division of one family of man into two distinct nations, differing in customs, pursuits, and even, after a lapse of time, in physical features.

The same dispersing operation of opinion, but more advanced, is to be observed in the separation, at the present day, of the Dankalli and Soumaulee tribes, and to any zealous student of the science of all sciences, humanity, or the natural history of man, it is indispensably necessary that he should visit the countries of Abyssinia, of Sennaar, and Adal, where he will find collected, as at a centre, the originals of all the different varieties into which physiologists have divided the human race; and where, at this moment, the principal causes of the great moral change in the condition of man, consequent upon the flood, may be observed in full operation, and producing the same effects of dispersion. Christian civilization, which points to a future union, is the antagonizing principle to the opinion disturbing one, which, I believe, alone separates and divides mankind; and I could wish to see, here, in intertropical Africa, a Mission of enlightened ministers of the Gospel, whose object should be simply to spread the easily understood doctrine of one God, and that love and truth are the redeeming principles in the character of man, to restore him to that state of excellence from which he has fallen.

It being arranged I should stay at Garcia Mulloo, a supply of bread and beer was ordered by the misselanee, who had been sent for to see after this duty; the same officer of the town of Farree, returning there with his party, taking my mule along with them, and leaving Brekka and another man to keep me company, as was said, but in fact, to keep guard over me. A disjointed conversation with the former served to amuse me during the rest of the day. He gave me some information respecting the Embassy, and of the dislike entertained by Sahale Selassee to the English; which surprised me considerably, nor would I at first believe it, but ascribed the statement to the ill feeling and jealousy with which the visit of our Political Mission to the Court of Shoa, was viewed by the Mahomedans of Efat.

In the afternoon, Brekka walked down to Farree, and when he returned, told me he had seen a letter for me, and a messenger from Ankobar, and that if I wished to see them I must go to that town. I did not hesitate a moment, but was now as anxious to be off, as I was before obstinately bent upon remaining. The news of Brekka being confirmed by the arrival of a messenger from the Wallasmah, with the same information, I started immediately. I conceived that the not sending the letter to Garcia Mulloo, was perhaps intended as a kind of punishment for my breaking prison in the morning.

In about an hour and a-half, we were again crossing the little stream which flows at the base of the hill on which Farree stands; and I was soon seated in my old quarters, whilst Brekka went to obtain for me the expected note. When he returned, he brought me an order to go to the Wallasmah myself, as he wanted to see me; and who occupied a house upon one of the little eminences opposite to mine. I was not long in presenting myself in obedience to this summons, and found that gentleman sitting upon a large oxskin spread upon the ground, paring his toe nails with an old pocket knife. As I came round the low stone fence against which he leaned, he cast his eyes upon me, and growled a very sinister kind of salutation, asking me in broken Arabic how I did. I now requested him to give me the letter from Ankobar, but he only shook his head. I asked to see the messenger, and with a chuckle of triumphant cunning, he pointed with the open knife to the fastened door of an outhouse, an action which I readily interpreted to mean, “He is there, in prison.” I did not say a word more, but walked away in high dudgeon, overturning a rude Abyssinian who, with spear and shield pushed against me, as if to prevent my exit when I made my way out through a little wicket in the stick enclosure that surrounded the house.

The worst of my situation was, that I had no friends near, all the Hy Soumaulee and Tajourah people being according to custom, obliged to locate themselves during their stay in Shoa, in a little town called Channo, situated about two miles to the north-east of Farree, where they are compelled to leave their shields and spears when they go farther into the interior of the country. I had to send for any of these to come to me, but either it was too late in the day, being after sunset, or orders had been issued to the contrary, for I could induce no one to take a message from me either to Ohmed Medina or Carmel Ibrahim. I was obliged, therefore, to remain quiet for the night, being determined, however, on the morrow to escape into the Adal country, and carry the news back, which otherwise might be a long time in reaching Aden, of the actual condition of things in Shoa; where, instead of the English being courted and caressed, as was believed to be the case when I was in Tajourah, they were, in fact, the objects of the most jealous suspicion, and subjected to the most tyrannical surveillance, if not actually in prison.

The early part of the morning of the 26th of May was occupied in projecting the plan of my escape with Carmel Ibrahim and Adam Burrah, the latter of whom having assisted Lieut. Barker in getting through the Adal country after that gentleman had left the Hurrah Kafilah, I could the more confidently rely upon, although I had not the least doubt of the fidelity or trustworthiness of the former. These two had come with Allee the First to laugh with me at my attempt of getting to Ankobar the day before, and endeavoured to soothe and interest me, as they thought, by showing how they would disembowel the old fat Wallasmah if they had him in their country. My proposal to go back was met with their decided approbation. It was accordingly arranged that Carmel and Adam should accompany me in the evening, whilst the rest of the escort were to remain, and during the night manage to steal my mule, and as many more as they could, and join us at the little Wahama town Dophan, beyond which they knew very well no attempt would be made to pursue us.

I was in the act of making a few cartridges for my anticipated return journey, when I heard a loud cry of “Commander, Commander,” an English word, by which the Abyssinians had been taught to designate the head of the Mission. Two or three of the inhabitants of Farree came also in a great hurry to call me out of the house, and tell me that some Gypt or other was approaching. I was equally eager, and even ran in a most undignified manner to meet this messenger of light, who, mounted on a mule, now appeared upon the summit or crest of the road before it descends into the little hollow where stands the market-place. There was a great air of civilization about him. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, somewhat like my own, covered with white cotton cloth, a sailor’s large pea-jacket belted round his waist, an old pair of grey check trowsers, and came with a sober steady pace along the narrow path.

I met him as he dismounted beneath the few mimosa-trees, and after a hearty shake of the hand, invited him to my hotel. He then introduced himself as Mr. R. Scott, the surveying draughtsman attached to the Mission.

His first explanation was the cause of his non-arrival sooner, which was owing to the utter ignorance of my arrival on the part of Captain Harris, the chief of the Embassy, until the night but one before, when the King had forwarded by one of his pages two notes, which I had endeavoured to send to him, the last one dated from Dinnomalee. The other was the one which had been sent by Esau Ibrahim, who, it will be remembered, was despatched from Mullu, on the other side of the Hawash, with a note to Ankobar, informing Captain Harris of my being on the road with stores. Both these letters had been intercepted and detained, until public rumour spreading, the King could not have kept the Embassy much longer ignorant of my being in the country; and he therefore made a virtue of necessity, and sent the letters before they were demanded.

An answer had been sent to me by Capt. Harris the day before by the messenger now in prison, confined by the Wallasmah for having brought a letter for me, after the King had issued orders that all correspondence between the English already in the country and those arriving should be prevented. Mr. Scott was not at all surprised when I informed him of the circumstance, though I certainly considered such a proceeding to be very much at variance with the conditions and stipulations I was given to understand were contained in the commercial treaty. I could not help remarking this, and Mr. Scott then candidly admitted the King did not know the character or purport of the paper he had signed; and had only been made aware of the new responsibilities he had incurred, by a sharply worded expostulatory letter, written by Mr. Krapf, in accordance to the dictation of Captain Harris, on an occasion subsequently to the signing of the treaty, when despatches and letters coming up from the coast were intercepted and detained for some time by the orders of the King. Singularly enough, this information was corroborated by Ohmed Medina, who told me that my letter from Dinnomalee had not been carried to Captain Harris, but to the King, who wanted to find out whether the English were his friends or not, and was trying my disposition and that of the Commander (Captain Harris) by this harsh treatment of me; a kind of experiment, in fact, to see what would be borne by us, and how far he had limited his authority by attaching his signature to the treaty. Any idea of granting public benefit, at the expense of his prerogative was never entertained for a moment, the intentions of the King being limited to shewing personal favour alone, which he is ever ready to concede even now to English travellers, much as he complains of the conduct of the Mission in Shoa as regards their political misdoings; more especially of the great insult offered to him by the unfortunate letter before alluded to, and which was worded so unguardedly, that the King, on receiving it, might well, considering his great regard for Mr. Krapf previously, turn to him and say, in a tone that implied more of sorrow than of anger, “Did you write that, my father?”

CHAPTER III.

Staying at Farree with Mr. Scott.—​Both placed under parole.—​Description of the houses of Farree.—​Of the flour mill.—​Some remarks upon the origin of the Amhara.—​Dr. Prichard upon identity of the Amhara with the Antomali of Herodotus.—​Physical characters of the people.—​Interview with the Wallasmah.—​Saltpetre rock.—​Province of Efat.—​Take leave of Escort.—​Tyrannical conduct of the Wallasmah.

May 26, 1842.—After Mr. Scott joined me at Farree, I considered that all my troubles were at an end, although I had still to go above fifty miles before I could meet the members of the British Political Mission who had accompanied the King to his residence at Angolahlah, the most western town of his dominions. An establishment was still kept up at Ankobar, situated about one third of the way between Farree and Angolahlah, at the head of which was the naturalist attached to the Mission, Dr. Roth, with whom was Mr. Bernatz, the artist, and there also Mr. Scott was stationed. Captain Harris the Ambassador, Captain Graham, the second in command, and Mr. Assistant-Surgeon Kirk, lived at Angolahlah, where I now expected to be permitted to go by my gaoler the Wallasmah. I found, however, I was reckoning without my host, for a new difficulty had arisen, from the circumstance of Mr. Scott having come down to Farree without the permission of Walda-anna, the Governor of Ankobar. He was accordingly given to understand that he must consider himself a prisoner with me until the pleasure of the negoos should be known as to our disposal. It was in vain we expostulated with our surly gaoler; we were to be opposed by force if we attempted to leave Farree, and other sentinels were charged with the care of us. Something we did effect, and that was the liberation of the messenger who was detected bringing me a letter the day before, for as soon as this request was made to the Wallasmah it was at once acceded to, and the man was ordered to be set at liberty. Taking this as an evidence of some relaxation of the harsh treatment with which we had been treated, we sat sometime chatting with the old gentleman, and I hinted my intention of making him some present if he would honour me so far as to accept of my poor gifts. When we got up from the ground where we had been sitting, the Wallasmah directed his son, a fine young man about three or four and twenty years old, to accompany us to our residence; a sufficient intimation of his being graciously disposed, without the broad hint given by one of his followers, who whispered into the ears of Mr. Scott, “Give your memolagee to that man.” Our imprisoned servant not making his appearance before we left the Wallasmah, we asked where he was, and were surprised to hear that he had left Farree for Angolahlah without seeing us, but which we supposed he had been obliged to do, so that there should be no chance of our slipping a note into his hands for our friends in that town.

We returned to our house, and for the rest of the day amused ourselves with hearing and telling whatever most interested us, whether of home or foreign news. I must observe that a present of three pieces of calico and a pound of gunpowder was made to the Wallasmah, who sent us back his compliments, and that he was highly delighted with the present, but would be obliged for a little more gunpowder.

Mr. Scott and I were entertained and taken care of for four days in Farree, much to our discomfort and vexation. Fortunately this gentleman had brought with him two native servants, who made themselves useful by marketing and cooking during the term of our confinement, so we suffered nothing from want of food. We could also walk about the straggling town on pledging our word that we would not attempt to escape, although our parole was not deemed sufficient, for, like Buonaparte at St. Helena, two sentinels, on such excursions, always followed at a certain distance in our rear.

Many of the houses in Farree, instead of being the usual circle of closely placed sticks, some five feet high and surmounted by a high conical straw roof, are partial excavations in the soft trachytic stone, so as to leave a back and sides of natural rock. Over this is laid a flat roof, consisting of untrimmed rafters covered by a thick layer of brushwood, upon which is placed a layer of earth some inches in thickness, well stamped down with the feet. A front of wattled sticks, in which the entrance is made, completes the house, and in one such as this was I lodged during my stay in this town.

The internal arrangements were equally simple. A raised platform of stones and clay, about two feet high, occupied one half of the single apartment, and upon one end of this, reaching to the roof, stood a huge butt-like basket, smoothly plastered over inside and out with clay. This was the family granary, in which was preserved the teff seed, or wheat, from the depredations of the numerous mice that are a thorough pest in Abyssinia. In a corner below, stood side by side two of the peculiar handmills used in this country, each consisting of a large flat stone of cellular lava, two feet long and one foot broad, raised upon a rude pedestal of stones and mud, about one foot and a half from the ground. The rough surface of this stone sloped gradually down from behind forwards into a basin-like cavity, into which the flour falls as it is ground. A second stone, grasped in the hand of the woman who grinds, weighs about three pounds, beneath which, as it is moved up and down the inclined plane of the under millstone, the grain is crushed, and gradually converted into a coarse flour.

This is the same kind of mill that was used by the ancient Egyptians, and is represented in the excellent work upon those people, recently written by Sir G. Wilkinson, although he describes it as being used for fulling clothes, having mistaken, I suppose, the flour represented as falling into the cup-like recipient for a stream of water. I observe, also, in another plate in the same work, a representation of this mill, but without any allusion to its real purposes. Moses, in the fifth verse of the eleventh chapter of Exodus, describes exactly the character of the occupation, and the instrument, where he speaks “of the maid-servant that is behind the mill,” for women are only employed on this duty, and they always stand in the rear, leaning forward over their work. Very few houses, those only of the poorest people, have but one mill; generally two or more stand side by side in a row, and the number is always mentioned when the idea is wished to be conveyed of the large dependent retinue that the master of the house feeds.

A few large jars containing water, or ale, ranged along one side of the house, and a shield hung from the projecting end of one of the sticks that formed the front, were the only articles that occupied prominent positions as furniture in my residence. Three or four “maceroitsh,” or earthenware pots for cooking, generally lay upset in the white wood ashes contained in the large circular hearth that occupied a portion of the floor opposite to the mills; and some of the necessary but small instruments for clearing or spinning cotton were placed when not being used upon a skin bag, in which a quantity of that useful material was contained.

I was very much struck with the extreme contrasts that could be drawn between the inhabitants of Farree and the Dankalli Bedouins. The large and portly forms of the former, their apparent love of quiet, the affection they evinced for their children, and that of the children for their parents, were all points characteristic of these great differences. The physiognomy of the two people exhibited equally varying features, and as the men of Farree are a good type of the real Amhara population, I shall endeavour to give an idea of the form of the countenance and the head peculiar to this family of man, by a description drawn from my first observations in that town, where the people have less admixture of Galla blood, than the inhabitants of the table land of Shoa above and beyond them.

This will be preceded, however, by some necessary, and, I believe, novel information respecting the origin of the Amhara, which I became acquainted with during my residence in Shoa, and which has been singularly confirmed by a comparison of the reports and prejudices I noted down while in that country, with recorded circumstances of the earlier history of Egypt, and of other powerful empires that once existed along the course of the Nile.

Amhara, which word is at present only used to designate the Christian population of Abyssinia, was, previous to the introduction of the Mahomedan religion, the descriptive appellation of an extensive red people, who principally occupied the eastern border of the Abyssinian table land, from the latitude of Massoah in the north to that of lake Zui in the south. To the west of these, and occupying the portion of the table land in that direction, lived a people decidedly different in their complexion, their features, their language, their religion, and their customs. These were the Gongas, or Agows, who I believe to have been the original possessors of the whole plateau, until a period remarkable in history, when the Emperor of Meroë or Ethiopia located upon a portion of their country, those disaffected soldiers of Psammeticus who had sought an asylum in his kingdom. Were I not convinced that the Amhara population of Abyssinia, at the present day, can be physically demonstrated to be the descendants of these fugitives from Egypt, I would not venture to advance such an innovation upon the generally received opinion, that the Amhara are aborigines of the country they now inhabit.

Under the term Abyssins, Dr. Prichard, in his invaluable work upon the natural history of man, includes all the different nations that now inhabit the lofty plain of Abisha or Abyssinia. Of one of these nations, the Amhara, he remarks, “So striking is the resemblance between the modern Abyssinians and the Hebrews of old, that we can hardly look upon them but as branches of one nation, and if we had not convincing evidence to the contrary, and knew not for certain that the Abramidæ originated in Chaldæa, and to the northward and eastward of Palestine, we might frame a very probable hypothesis, which would bring them down as a band of wandering shepherds from the mountains of Habesh, and identify them with the pastor kings, who, according to Manetho, multiplied their bands in the land of the Pharaohs, and being, after some centuries, expelled thence by the will of the gods, sought refuge in Judea, and built the walls of Jerusalem. Such an hypothesis would explain the existence of an almost Israelitish people, and the preservation of a language so nearly approaching to the Hebrew in intertropical Africa.” The learned ethnologist goes on to observe—“It is certainly untrue; and we find no other easy explanation of the facts which the history of Abyssinia presents, and particularly of the early extension of the Jewish religion and customs through that country, for the legend which makes the royal house of Menilek descend from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, is as idle a story as ever monks invented to abuse the reverent ignorance of their lay brethren.”

Herodotus, and other ancient historians and geographers, have recorded the migration of a vast body of discontented native soldiers from Egypt, in the time of Psammeticus. These, we are told, to the number of 240,000, retired to the country of Ethiopia, where they were kindly received by the Emperor. They assisted him in his wars, and in return were apportioned, as a residence, some country on the confines of Ethiopia, from which they were to drive a rebellious people to make room for themselves. Herodotus places this country “upon the Nile, at about the same distance beyond Meroë as this last is from Elephantine, or fifty days’ journey;” and he also adds, that “the Antomali (deserters) are known by the name of Asmach, which, being translated, signifies ‘standing on the left hand’ of the King.” It is a most remarkable circumstance that the reason or origin of the name of the country of Gurague, literally “on the left side,” has long been a question of interest with every Abyssinian traveller, but none have given any satisfactory explanation for what reason this particular, and evidently significant, name was first applied. The situation of the Amhara with respect to the Abi or Bruce’s Nile at once accounts for the designation, as they live upon the left hand of the stream as it flows south from lake Dembea, whilst that portion of this people still retaining their ancient name and purity of descent, the present Gurague occupy a country similarly situated with respect to the river Zebee, or Azzabi, or Assabinus, the Ethiopian Jupiter. Abi and Abiah, other names for branches of the Nile in Abyssinia, are expressive of father or king, evidently from having been, at a former period, the chief objects of worship by the people inhabiting their banks. “Asmach,” and “Gurague,” bear, therefore, the same interpretation, “to the left of the king,” and none other can explain the circumstance of the latter name being given to the Amhara. It appears, however to have been bestowed in contra-distinction to the “Gongas,” or “Kongue,” a people who originally occupied the right banks solely of the Abi and Abiah.

This singular correspondence between “Asmach” of the Grecian historian, and “Gurague” of modern travellers, would be alone, perhaps, inconclusive evidence that these terms apply to the same people or country, but some additional evidence may be drawn from the account which Pliny gives of these Egyptian fugitives. On the authority of Aristocreon, he states, that “Seventeen days from Meroë is Esar, a city of those Egyptians who fled from Psammeticus, and entered the service of the monarch of that country, and in return received a considerable tract of territory upon the confines, from which the Ethiopian prince ordered them to expel a tribe of people, at that time in rebellion against him, and this migration of the Egyptian troops, introducing the arts and manners of a refined nation, had a very sensible effect in civilizing the Ethiopians.” The most interesting particulars we gather from this information, is the name of the city, or, as I presume, the chief seat of these fugitives, Esar.

By a singular coincidence in the Old Testament, we are told that Esau is Edom, and although I am not going to infer from this alone, any connexion between that patriarch and the Ethiopian city, Esar, yet the philological analogy between the scriptural proper names, curiously enough, also exists between those of profane history; for the Esar and Amhara of our subject, express the very same idea as Esau and Edom, which by all Biblical commentators, is allowed to be the colour red. “And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.” (Genesis xxv. 25.)

In the present Dankalli language, and I think also, in that of ancient Meroë, Assar signifies red. In the Persian, I am given to understand that the planet Mars is called Azer, from its characteristic colour, a circumstance of significant import when it is considered that the word Calla, from which is derived Galla, “Ab” the root of Abi, and “Nil,” from which comes Nile, with others I have yet to speak of, as designations of places in Abyssinia, are all referable to the same language. To return, however, to Esar, and its connexion with the colour red, for it is the same with Esau, and that it is the same as Edom in Hebrew, I advance the testimony of Dr. Stukeley, who, speaking of the Red Sea, remarks, “That sea had its name from Erythras, as the Greeks and the same Pliny write; who is Edom, or Esau, brother of Jacob. The words are synonymous, signifying red.”[1] Amhara, also bears the same interpretation in Amharic, and although it has another meaning, that of beautiful, this is only because of the national taste directing the name of the favourite complexion among them, to be employed as the term for beauty itself. The Dankalli slave-merchant well understands this, for a light-red Abyssinian girl is the Circassian of oriental harems. In Arabia, where the original word still conveys the more common idea, we find “hamah” employed to express the colour red.

In this manner, I connect the “Asmach” of Herodotus, with Gurague of modern travellers, and the Esar of Pliny, with the Amhara of the present day, and from these two mutually corroborating correspondencies, the identity of the modern Abyssinians of Dr. Prichard with the Automali of Herodotus may perhaps be deduced, and the difficulty of accounting for a Hebrew people, situated on the Abyssinian plateau only requires proof to be advanced that the revolted soldiers of Psammeticus were of the same family of man as the fugitive Israelites who sought a refuge, under nearly similar circumstances, in Syria, and built the walls of Jerusalem; and as their languages are nearly the same, as also their manners, customs, and ancient religion, previous to the introduction of Christianity, it will not, perhaps, be difficult to adduce such evidence. For my part, I am inclined to believe in this national relationship, because it is partly confirmed by the received account of the brothers, Esau and Jacob, contained in the book of Genesis, and the connexion between the two patriarchs, and the country of Egypt, will perhaps receive some illustration from the opinion I have ventured to advance upon the subject. In the elder brother, Esau, I perceive the father of the royal shepherds, and among the list of the dukes, his descendants may be found, perhaps the pastor kings who held for some time the sovereign power in Egypt.

The connexion also of the name Esau, or Esar, with the profession of soldiers, is evident, for in oriental mythology it is identified with the god Mars; whilst on the other hand, the word Israel, in Hebrew, I believe, as in Amharic has an immediate reference to labour, as the name Jacob has also to the heel, which coincides very singularly with the idea prevalent in India, that the labouring class have all sprung from the foot of Brahmah. It would be very interesting, if future discoveries in hieroglyphics, or other cotemporary histories, which, I believe, do exist in central Africa, should prove that the appearance of the Jews as a family of man, under the patriarch Abraham, marks the disruption of an African community of castes, where the Priest class, excited by the ambition of a Psammeticus, should determine upon the expulsion of the soldiers, who thereupon fled to Ethiopia; and, also, that after a tyrannical and cruel oppression should ultimately occasion the flight of the workmen, or Israelites, into Palestine. I leave the question, however, now, to more profound ethnologists, and shall conclude this, I am afraid, very uninteresting subject, with a short but necessary description of the features and physical characteristics of the present Amhara population of Abyssinia.

In the British Museum are many Egyptian statues that possess exactly the features of the genuine Amhara race. One more, especially of a woman in the lower saloon marked 16, I will particularize, to enable those who have the opportunity of examining these relics of an extinct nation to form a proper idea of the physiognomy of the people I am speaking of.

Their general complexion cannot be better described by reference to a familiar object than comparing it with that of red unpolished copper. Their skin is soft and delicate; the general stature is below the middle height of Europeans. Their forms are not fully developed until they have arrived at the same years of puberty as ourselves; and it is very uncommon for women under seventeen to bear children. The features of the women conform to a general characteristic type, and less variations from this are observed among them than in the men. This observation extends to other races besides the Amhara, for I have invariably found more consistency of countenance, more nationality preserved in the features of females than in the males of the many different people I have met with in my travels in Abyssinia.

The Amhara face is ovate, having a considerably greater expression of breadth in the upper than in the lower part. The scalp in front encroaches upon the forehead, making its length disproportionate to its height, and, in consequence, it appears exceedingly low. The eyes are long, but rather full, and the separation of the eyelids longitudinal, as in Europeans. Their cheeks are high, yet finely rounded, and sometimes, with the long forehead, giving to the countenance a nearly triangular form. The nose straight and well-formed, with a small and beautiful mouth, a finely-curved edge gradually rising from the commissure to the fulness of a most inviting pair of lips. A voluptuous fulness, in fact, pervades the whole countenance; a something more than muscular fibre, yet not exactly fat, giving a healthy fleshiness, that reminds you of the chubbiness of children; and I expect the fascinating expression so generally ascribed to Abyssinian beauties by all orientals is owing to the idea of innocence and simplicity, that inseparably connects itself with this infantile character of face. The hair is soft and long; it is neither woolly, like the negro, nor is it the strong, coarse, straight hair of the Gongas, or yellow inhabitants of the right bank of the Abi and Abiah branches of the Azzabi, or red Nile.

I saw few or no cases of distortion among the families I met with in Efat, and my impression is that they but rarely occur, the natural and simple lives of the people conducing to easy parturition and a healthy offspring. The Amhara, however, in their most unchanged condition in Gurague, and the neighbouring Christian states, have yet to be visited. The inhabitants of these countries may exhibit characteristic traits that I have had no opportunities of observing, for those I met with were the most favourable specimens of the imported slaves, or their immediate descendants, who were married to Mahomedans of Efat.

Individuals possessing what I believe to have been the characteristic features of the genuine Amharic countenance are but seldom seen on the high land of Shoa, although it might naturally be expected that their situation would favour a lighter complexion than the dark-brown Shoans exhibit. This is to be attributed to the very recent period that their Galla ancestorial relations intruded themselves into this former Amhara district, as Abyssinian history records that the first appearance of these invaders from the low plains of Adal occurred no later than the year 1537.

From the 27th to the 31st of May, Mr. Scott and I remained in easy durance at Farree. We were frequently summoned to the presence of the Wallasmah, whom we would amuse by firing off my gun, or teaching his son, a boy about fourteen years old, to let off percussion caps without shutting his eyes. The dreadful experiment would never be attempted by papa, but he wonderfully enjoyed the bright promise of his hopeful progeny, the child of his old age, who, on the other hand, annoyed us not a little by the unsatisfied pertness with which he demanded to be so indulged.

Day after day were we most solemnly promised that we should start upon the morrow, but without any intention of being permitted to do so, beyond the accident occurring of our being sent for by the King. Perhaps our importunity excited a desire to gratify us, and what they wished for our sake the kind-hearted people of Farree asserted would be, because of the great probability that the messenger who had been sent to the King to receive his commands, would return sooner than he did.

I am not going to acquit the Wallasmah on this plea, for his want of courtesy towards us; for from some incomprehensible antipathy, he would, had he dared, have placed us in irons, and even on occasions of our visiting him, when we endeavoured to do everything we could to please him, a surly smile was our only return for some little gratification we might afford to his boy. His people frequently made excuses for the conduct of their chief, by stating that he either had been drinking, or else that he had not; so, drunk or sober, it seemed quite natural to them that the old fellow should be in a continual ill-humour from some undefined connexion with strong drink.

I took care to promise him another present on the occasion of our leaving Farree, as I conceived that it might be some expectation of the sort that was operating to cause our tiresome detention. I was wrong in this, for it was not his pleasure, but the King’s, his master, that we should be kept at Farree, although he tried to make us believe it was his own, and assuming an authority that did not belong to him, made our confinement more irksome than it needed to have been, on purpose to evince his power. With our sentinels behind us, however, we could wander all over the hill of Farree, and we accordingly amused ourselves by endeavouring to extend our information upon the various subjects of novel interest with which we were surrounded.

One observation I cannot do better than to insert here, respecting the rocks and soil of Farree, which abound with the nitrate of potass, the bald face of the former, in many places, being hollowed into deep grooves by the constant attrition of the tongues of the numerous flocks and herds, which seem to be as fond of this salt as the same animals are of common table salt in other countries; a circumstance that is well shown in those saline resorts of deer and buffaloes, called the “licks” of North America. The geological structure of the hills in this neighbourhood is a finely-grained trachytic rock; grey, save where the intrusion of narrow dykes of some blacker rocks, a few feet in thickness, and evidently heated on their first appearance, has changed the general colour to a deep red, which gradually recovers its natural hue at the distance of some yards on either side the dyke. This rock contains a considerable quantity of decomposing felt-spar, supplying the potass, and, I presume, deriving from the atmosphere, and the moisture it contains, the other necessary elements to form the thick efflorescence of saltpetre that covers in some places the surface of the rock.

The religion of Farree is exclusively Mahomedan, as is also that of more than three-fourths of the towns and villages of the province of Efat, all of which are under the hereditary viceregal Wallasmah, who boasts a descent from the famous Mahomed Grahnè, the Adal conqueror of many portions of the ancient Abyssinian empire, in the sixteenth century. Efat forms a portion of the valley country, or Argobbah, which extends from the edge of the table land of Shoa to the Hawash, that flows along the base of this slope, from the south towards the north. The northern boundary of Efat is the river Robee, the southern one being the Kabani; both of them flow into the Hawash.

Late in the afternoon of the 30th of May, the messenger returned from Angolahlah, with orders from the King that I should be allowed to proceed thither, and that the stores should be conveyed to his presence. Considerable bustle and confusion seemed thereupon to take possession of the previously quiet town. Vociferous proclamations were from time to time issued by the misselannee in person, standing upon the stone enclosure in the centre of the market-place. Numerous informants, willing to be the first bearers of good news, hurried to acquaint us with the cause of all the stir, and to assure us that we were to start in the morning; for that the requisite permission had arrived from the King, and the Wallasmah had directed our mules to be brought in from the grazing ground. The proclamations of the misselannee were to the effect that all persons owing suit and service to the Wallasmah, on account of land held of him, must present themselves; and either personally, or by their slaves, convey the boxes and other packages as far as Aliu Amba, on the road to Angolahlah, from which town a relief party would then take the duty of carrying them the remaining distance.

From the character of the road, badly constructed and in wretched condition, all the packages had to be conveyed up the long ascent to Shoa upon the shoulders of men. Besides, the only beasts of burden, except an occasional worn-out mule or horse, employed by the Abyssinians, are asses, and these were found to be unequal to the carriage of large angular-formed boxes, which, in fact, could not have been properly secured upon the backs of these little animals.

In the evening the Hy Soumaulee came to bid me good-bye, objecting to the cold of Angolahlah, when I asked them if they did not intend to visit me there. They shuddered at the thought of it, and all business transactions, as regarded payment for their services, were referred to the agency of the two heads of the Kafilah, Ohmed Mahomed and Ebin Izaak, who were obliged, of course, to present themselves to the Negoos Sahale Selassee, and to the British ambassador.

I saw them depart with feelings of regret that I had no means in my power to reward the services of these faithful, and I will add, attached Bedouins; beyond bearing testimony to the great capabilities of their people, who are possessed certainly of the greatest virtues and of the noblest attributes of our nature, if judged by the standard of human excellence contained in the Iliad or Æneid, the heroes of which I would undertake to match with many Dankalli warriors of the present day. During my stay in this town, it was customary for them to come from Channo, where they were quartered, to sit with me an hour or so in the cool of the morning or the evening. On these occasions their appearance always gave me pleasure, bursting into sight all at once as they chased each other over the crest of the hill, their dark forms for a moment boldly relieved upon the bright sky behind them; down they would come full speed along the tortuous, but easy sloping descent across the market-place and up the low bank to my residence, shouting as they came, “Ahkeem, ahkeem,” to give me notice of their approach. On entering, four or five of them, with their usual impetuosity, would extend their hands for the sliding contact with the palm of mine, at the same time calling out together the oft-repeated expression, “Negarsee,” or “Myhisee,” which respectively characterizes the evening or morning salutation.

It was after sunset of the last day we were at Farree, before the Wallasmah sent for us to communicate the pleasure of the King, or Negoos, as I shall call him for the future. We were ordered to proceed to Angolahlah; and whilst we were talking, our mules were brought up and delivered over to Mr. Scott’s servants, that we might start as early as we pleased the next morning. The Wallasmah also was ordered to attend at Angolahlah, which was one reason of his having withheld the information of our departure from us until the last moment. The summons which he was obliged to obey did not exactly accord with his wishes, and a two days’ journey for an old man of sixty years of age, we admitted was a sufficient reason for the increased ill-temper with which he received the causers of so much trouble when we visited him on the last occasion. I took with me another pound of gunpowder and some more coloured cotton cloth; and these had the good effect of restoring him to perfect good humour: indeed, to show his regard for us, much to our surprise, he directed some of his attendants to liberate the unfortunate messenger who had been detected bringing me a letter the day before Mr. Scott’s arrival, and who, we conceived, had returned to Ankobar, according as had been stated on one of our first visits by the Wallasmah himself. Instead of this being the fact, we now found that the poor fellow had been the whole time confined in his thatched lock-up, and supplied with a scanty fare of the worst kind of bread and water. I felt very sorry for him when he came staggering out of prison, with blood-shot eyes and squalid look; and it was with feelings of pity rather than of contempt, that I witnessed the broken spirited man, with shoulders bare, and with the most abject submission, stoop and kiss the earth at the feet of his unjust and tyrannical oppressor. The Wallasmah, with the penetrating glance of suspicious cunning, read in my countenance the detestation I felt at such unwarrantable conduct on his part, and muttered in excuse, something about the man having been “one of Krapf’s servants,” as if he considered that quite a sufficient pretext for the harshest treatment. The Mahomedans of Efat fully believe, that the exhortations of that zealous missionary alone prevented the Negoos from changing his religion; as, shortly before his arrival in Shoa, a Koran and a mollum to expound it to the Christian monarch, had been sent for to the palace.

Mr. Scott and I were so astonished at seeing the man whom we thought to be far distant, that we could not say anything. It would have been a great relief to my indignation if I could have told my thoughts to the old scoundrel, but this being out of the question, I walked away as quickly as possible from his presence, followed by Mr. Scott and our servants; and I do hope that our abrupt and unceremonious departure annoyed him a little, and thus retaliated in some measure for his contempt of, and disrespect towards us.

The politic Sahale Selassee, Negoos of Shoa, is well aware of the character of the Wallasmah, and the value of having such an imbecile ruling over the restless Mahomedan population of his kingdom. A governor, indeed, of whom he may truly say, as our Charles the Second did of himself and of his brother the Duke of York, “That his subjects would never kill him to make the other King.”

The inhabitants of Efat, much as they dislike the opprobrious position of living under a Christian monarch, never entertain an idea of revolting from the Negoos to place themselves under the power of that vindictive drunkard the Wallasmah Mahomed; whose only claim to their respect is his religion and his descent from the hero of modern Abyssinian history, Mahomed Grahnè, of whose extensive kingdom of Adal this little province of Efat, not so large as Middlesex, is all that has remained to his family, and even that is now a portion of the Christian state of Shoa.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Dr. Stukeley. “Stonehenge, a British Temple,” page 53.

CHAPTER IV.

Leave Farree for Ankobar.—​Description of the road.—​Aliu Amba.—​Road to Ankobar.—​Incidents of the journey.—​Vale of the Dinkee river.—​Valley of the Airahra.—​Effect of denudation.—​Ankobar.—​British Residency.—​Start for Angolahlah.—​Ascent of the Tchakkah.—​Road to Angolahlah.—​The town of Angolahlah.—​Meet superior officers of Mission.

May 31st.—Long before the sun had appeared upon the horizon our mules were saddled and bridled; the hotel bill for Mr. Scott and myself duly discharged, by a present of two dollars to the owner of the house where we had been entertained and imprisoned; farewells were exchanged for the last time with some of my Kafilah friends, and of my escort; and we were off on our journey to Angolahlah, just as the distant elevated hills near Ankobar, and the ridge or line of the table land of Shoa beyond these, were brightly gilded by the first rays of the rising luminary. Steadily we descended the loose stony declivity of the hill of Farree, then clattered more briskly along a winding road that, taking us round the base of a much higher eminence, shut us out entirely from the sight of the white tobed townspeople, who sat along the edges of their own cliffs to watch our progress so far on our journey.

We now descended a bank of about four feet high into the bed of the stream, by whose denuding agency the rocky flanks of the adjoining hills had been laid bare. Trees of irregular height, and of very various foliage, bordered the broad pebbly channel, along which a gently rippling brook meandered, its course opposed to ours as it flowed to join the Hawash. Sometimes it scoured a little ledge of gravel, or fell over and among high boulders, the evidences of its power in the time of its fullest might, during the heavy rains of July and August; when its swollen volume, yellow with suspended mud, rushes along its then pent-up bounds, bearing before it rocks, uprooted trees, and the rotting debris of jowarhee, beans, or teff, from the upland fields which it has devastated in its course.

We rode for some time along the bed of the stream, following its serpentine channel, until we turned upon its right bank, and began to ascend a long gradual slope, which having overcome, only led us to a descent equally irksome, both to riders and mules, from its continued inclination downwards. At its base we crossed another stream, and then began to climb another height, and then came again the equally tiresome descent on the opposite side. And thus we proceeded for at least four hours, alternate hill and stream in regular succession, until we arrived at Aliu Amba; a village perched upon a flat-topped isolated rock that, nearly at right angles with the road, juts across the upper end of a pretty little valley, along which we had been coming for the last half hour.

When we had managed to scramble over a series of irregular and quite naturally disposed stone steps, and had gained the level summit of this ridge, I turned to look in the direction from whence we had come, and contemplated it with great satisfaction; congratulating myself at having got two-thirds of the heavy business over of ascending the long flight of hill steps which, gradually increasing in elevation, form a kind of giant staircase from our starting place at Farree to the table land of Shoa.

At Aliu Amba we met numbers of Christian Abyssinians, and were taken to the house of the Governor, also a Christian, but who was absent in attendance upon the King. Every civility was paid to us, and numerous were the inquiries made after Lieut. Barker, who, it appears, had taken up his residence in this town some months previous to his return journey. I was glad to be able to say that I had had a personal interview with him, for I could see, that to be the “Woodage Kapitan,” friend of the Captain, as he was called in Shoa, was a great recommendation; and although a lengthened levee, with a crowd of people whose language you cannot understand, is a terrible bore, still smiling faces, and a friendly welcome, in a strange country, from whatever cause, does the traveller’s heart good, and encourages him to proceed on his undertaking.

We halted for nearly two hours at Aliu Amba, not being able to get away before, as a sheep had been killed, and our servants were determined to take advantage of the hospitality of the townspeople. When their hunger was satisfied, they brought us our mules, for which we had been asking some time in vain, as Mr. Scott and I were anxious to breakfast, if we could, at Ankobar with Dr. Roth, and Mr. Bernatz the artist to the Embassy, A large concourse of the principal people of the town accompanied us across the market-place to the edge of their little table hill, from whence they watched us until shut out from view by the sinuosity of the narrow road, which occupied the summit of a ledge separating the slopes of two small rivulets, running in opposite directions around the hill of Aliu Amba, to join each other in the valley in front.

We now rode between two delightful natural hedge rows of a low thorny bush with dark green leaves, and-bearing clusters of a black sweet berry; over which trailed in most luxuriant profusion a very sweet scented jasmine; and pushing its way through this mass of vegetation, high above all, flowered the common hedge rose of England. Its well-remembered delicately blushing hue, so unexpectedly greeting me here, elicited a feeling that, with but a little more ardent sensitiveness in my nature, would have thrown me on my knees before it, as Linnæus is said to have knelt to the flowering furze, on first witnessing its brilliant blossoms in England.

The road now became most shockingly stony, strewed with detached fragments of the cliffs around, as we approached the bluff termination of the table land above us. A recent earthquake had brought down considerable quantities, and no attempt had been made to remove the blocks, travellers very patiently seeking out a new path around them. In two or three places, where the detour was too great, some desperate spirits had forced their mules or donkeys to breast up the miniature precipices a few feet in height. At one of these situations I dismounted, preferring to walk through the delightfully hanging gardens on either side of me, and along an embowered lane, where a dense shade, and numberless little streams that traversed sometimes considerable distances, contributed to the agreeable coolness of an elevation between 6,000 and 7,000 feet above the level of the sea. Here, as everywhere else, where trees abounded, birds of all characters and colours gave liveliness to the scene. One similar in size and plumage to our sparrow, constructed pensile nests, dropping as it were from the extreme boughs that nodded with these novel appendages. The dove, slattern as she is, here also built her nest, a ragged stage of sticks; whilst in the thick bush beneath, the prying traveller could detect the round black speaking eye of some other little expectant mother of the feathered race, as, with head thrown aside, she confidingly and instinctively expects that the goodness of man’s nature will not allow him to disturb her sacred functions; a pleasing testimony it is to me, nature’s own evidence of the primitive excellence of man, when he and all around were pronounced by the Creator to be good.

Very soon tiring, however, in my weak state and on such a road, I got on to my mule again, which, if she could have spoken, would certainly have echoed the sentiment of the Portuguese traveller, Bermudez, who, in the 16th century, describing the very same road, represents it as giving him an idea of those in hell, from its steepness and roughness. Our poor animals, in fact, were frequently obliged to come to a stand-still to recover their breath; but they soon set their faces to the steep rocks, and managed, in some way or other, to surmount many very queer-looking places, without shedding us into some uncomfortably deep water-cut precipices that, as we got nearer to the end of our journey, began to be exchanged for the verdant hedges of the previous portion. The whole way we were constantly encountering herds of donkeys, heavily laden with grain, which was being brought down from the high land to be exchanged in Efat for cotton and salt. The men who accompanied them were, to my surprise, much darker coloured than the people of the lower country, tall, well made, and armed with spear and shield. With loud cries they encouraged the patient animals before them, to quicken their slow and cautious pace down the stony descent. The friendly salutation as we passed was never forgotten, nor did the laughing fast-talking girls who accompanied them spare their smiles, which was quite a merciful dispensation, that made our difficult and fatiguing ascent, much pleasanter than would have been a macadamized road through a desert.

We at length reached a narrow tortuous ridge of at least a mile in length, across which, a walk of but a few yards presented to the view on either side, a deep and extensive valley. That on the left hand is by far the narrower and more precipitous, being bounded by the steep, almost perpendicular face of the opposite ridge of Tchakkah, at the distance of about four miles; whilst that on the right, is of a character exactly the reverse, a widely extending amphitheatrical formed valley spreading from below the feet, far towards the east.

From the summit of an inclined plane, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, the eye travels for sixty miles over hundreds of little hills, embosomed in the widely diverging arc that defines the bay-like valley, in which is contained the whole of the numberless streams that, joining the small river Dinkee near to Farree, flow into Lee Adu. This lake formed a bright feature of the scene, embosomed in the dark green belt of forest that marks the course of the Hawash; beyond which the sandy plains of Adal, blending with a colourless sky, constituted an horizon in which sight was lost.

Between the two strongly contrasted yet equally beautiful scenes I could have oscillated the whole day, had not I been reminded by Mr. Scott that breakfast would be waiting for us at Ankobar. At this touching appeal I urged on my mule, who now rested herself by a gallop along the very level summit of the ridge that, like a natural suspension bridge, is extended from the hill of Ankobar in the west to that of Lomee on the south, and forms the boundary between these bearings of the upper portion of the Dinkee valley.

In two or three places I noticed that the otherwise narrow ridge spread out into little flats of about fifty yards across. As we passed the first of these, a small heap of stones, surmounted by a rude wooden cross, indicated to the passer-by that a church was hidden in the grove of kolqual and wild fig-trees that occupied the limited expansion. Each of Mr. Scott’s servants most reverentially dismounted to kiss the topmost stone, on which the cross stood. A little beyond, the road again contracted, and from the back of my mule, by merely turning my face, I could look into either valley on my right or left hand. Along this path we proceeded cautiously in Indian file, passing in one place the site of a devastated grove and ruined church; the scarping effects of constant land-slips on either side the ridge having in this position defeated all efforts of man to prevent the destruction of the sacred edifice, its site having been gradually removed during the process of denudation which is so rapidly altering the physical features of this country. The eastern face of the hill of Ankobar was now before us, the head of a subordinate valley scooped out of that side of the ridge only intervening. Having doubled this by continuing along our level road, we scrambled over a rough precipitous ascent, fortunately only of a few yards in extent, and entered a narrow lane or street between high banks, on which stood a number of straggling thatched round houses, each in its own enclosure. The road appeared to have been worn into a hollow way by the constant passage of man and beast during the many reigns since this hill became a royal residence.

Tradition asserts, and I believe Abyssinian recorded history affirms, that the first occupier of this commanding height was a Galla Queen called Anko, and by the addition of “bar”(door) to her name, native philologists (and they are very curious in these matters) have determined the designation of this town to be, significant of its having been the gate or door of Anko. This is rather an unfinished interpretation, as it omits to tell us what it secured; and were it not that we had the circumstantial evidence that the town stands upon the height commanding the only road leading from the low countries to the table land of Shoa, we should be at a loss for the real reason of its very apt name, which it must be allowed to be when that circumstance of situation is known.

After threading our way for at least a quarter of an hour through a labyrinth of high over-hanging banks, topped by ragged hedges, or grey moss-covered palings of splintered fir, we at length reached a large oblong or rather oval building, for one continuous circuit of a wattled wall offered no angles to determine sides. This was covered by an ample straw roof, with far-projected eaves, and having two bright red earthenware pots at the extremities of the crest of the roof, as a finish to the whole. This was the British Residency, and gladly we dismounted to meet our expected friends. Turning aside the green Chinese blind, which, suspended from the top of the entrance, was sufficient to exclude the beggars, and yet admitted some light into the interior, we gained admittance; and having passed through a large central apartment, where mules, horses, and sheep were stabled, I was conducted into a clay-plastered apartment, about six feet by nine, between the inner and outer walls of the building, where I found two gentlemen belonging to the Mission, Dr. Roth, the naturalist, and Mr. Bernatz, the artist, just about to commence their breakfast.

Greetings and congratulations were exchanged, and numberless inquiries made about the cause of my detention at Farree. A host of idle Abyssinian servants gathered around, questioning in like manner the native servants of Mr. Scott, and it was sometime before we settled down to partake of the good things which Constantine, the Portuguese cook, during the bustle of our arrival, had taken the opportunity to prepare.

Mr. Scott and I having determined to hurry on the same day to Angolahlah, fresh mules were ordered to be ready by the time I had sufficiently indulged in the luxury of something like English fare, which, for the first time for nearly three months, was now placed before me.

When we started, Mr. Scott volunteered to be guide, and so excused his servants from being dragged on such an unnecessary journey. Having got through the town of Ankobar, we began to descend, progressing more rapidly after passing some distance along the side of a high stockade surrounding the royal residence, which occupied the whole summit of the partially detached western extremity of the ridge on which Ankobar stands. The descent continued for nearly half an hour, the road being exceedingly rough and stony, until we came to the edge of the little river Airahra, flowing into the Hawash, the stream of which by its denudation has cut from the table-land of Tchakkah, the long narrow ridge which we passed along during the ride to Aliu Amba.

Formerly the Airahra flowed into the Barissa, and was a tributary therefore of the mighty Nile; but a singular natural operation has effected an alteration in its course, and it now flows in an opposite direction. Physical geography, I think, does not describe a similar character of country as the surface of the table land of Abyssinia presents, or the relative position it occupies in consequence with surrounding countries. These must both be treated of before I can give the reader the manner in which nature is gradually effecting what former Abyssinian monarchs threatened to do, the turning of the waters of the Nile from the direction of Egypt and the north, to the Indian Ocean and the East. A mighty operation which is most certainly going on, and which can be demonstrated, will in the end drain the northern portion of Abyssinia, by a communication being opened between the river Hawash and the Abi, or Bruce’s Nile. In this place, however, any description would fail in the effect of conveying a clear idea to the mind of the reader; but in a future page, when more familiar with the country he is now travelling over with me, I will endeavour fully to explain the manner in which this curious process of natural engineering is being carried out.

We forded the Airahra a little beyond a square stone building with a thatched roof, which was pointed out to me as the water mill, that was erected by the two Armenians whom I met in Tajourah, Demetrius and Joannes. Whatever ability was displayed in the construction, but little judgment had been exercised in its situation, for it stood at the bottom of a deep valley, at the distance of two miles at least, by the circuitous and rugged road, from the town of Ankobar: whilst, on the other side, to look up the ascent of the Tchakkah would have certainly occasioned the fall behind of the cap from off the head.

I do not believe the architects built it for any direct purposes of utility, but to give the Negoos an idea of their mechanical skill. It is now unemployed, if we believe some travellers, by reason of the Jinn or demons, by whose power they say the Shoans believe the mill was put in motion. This assertion is of the same character with that which represents Sahale Selassee putting reverentially a pair of vaccine glasses into an amulet, mistaking the instructions given for their proper use, when it is notorious that for a great number of years the analogous operation of inoculation has been practised in Shoa. I can only say, that when windmills were described as being much better adapted for the purposes of a people who principally inhabit the summits of hills, Sahale Selassee so admired the idea that I was almost afraid I should be obliged to construct one. So far from the monarch supposing mills to be worked by demons, he never troubled himself so much, in a conversation with me, as he did to shew how closely he had observed every part of the mill that had been put up, to learn its economy, and the manner in which its effects were produced.

The most laborious employment of the women of Abyssinia is grinding flour. Windmills to perform this duty would diminish considerably the demand for female slaves in that country, and less encouragement would be, therefore, given to the internal slave-trade of Africa, whilst the prohibition of the export of slaves by Mahomedans from the eastern coast, would extinguish the greater part of the infernal traffic at once.

Immediately after crossing the Airahra we commenced a most villanous ascent. I believe that, to be in daily use, and traversed by hundreds of individuals, the Tchakkah road is unequalled in the world for steepness, roughness, and everything else that can contribute to make a road difficult and unsafe. Now a brawling stream, rushing down into the Airahra, covers with a slippery slime the bald face of the rock; here loose crumbling stones treacherously detach themselves from beneath the struggling hoofs of the mule; and there an actual cataract, of at least eight feet high, has to be scrambled over, splashing through spray and the flying gravel dislodged by the ascent. Zigzag parallels, as they are termed in fortifications, are the exact description of the route we took up the almost perpendicular cliffs; and our faces were alternately turned nearly due north and south, as we succeeded in accomplishing some ten or twelve yards in the traverse, at every turn we made, peeping over into a deep abyss that yawned before us, and prevented our ride from being extended longer in that direction. Often does the merciful man here dismount from his tired mule, and sitting upon some detached portion of rock, congratulate himself, as he gazes downward, on having effected so much of his painful task; and as he looks upward receives some encouragement to proceed, when he sees the reward of perseverance, in the distant image of some preceding traveller gradually rising in relief against the sky, then suddenly disappearing over the lofty ridge where terminates his labour.

It took us one hour to surmount this awful steep, which, had it been some thousand feet higher, might not, perhaps, have been unjustly compared with similar passes among the Alps; but even then the comparison would hold no longer than the ascent, for, arrived upon the summit, the stranger finds no descent but an extensive table land spread before him, and he cannot divest himself of an idea, that he has reached some new continent. A Scotch climate, and Scotch vegetation, wheat, barley, and linseed, and yet still in inter-tropical Africa; he feels as if there must be some mistake, an idea of incongruity, not unlike what I experienced upon seeing in a “united family of animals,” several rats seeking a warm retreat beneath the fur of a cat. Everything, in fact, was different to what I had expected, and the nearly black skins of the natives that we met seemed to be unnatural in a country where a chill breeze was blowing.

Koom Dingi, the resting-stone, is a solitary remaining hexagonal prism of grey columnar porphyry, some few feet in height, and stands amidst the fragments of others, very conspicuously on the extreme edge of the Tchakkah. Here it is usual for the weary wayfarer after his ascent, to stop and refresh himself with the bread no Abyssinian on a long journey fails to provide himself with, and carries wrapt up in the long mekanet, or girdle, that surrounds his loins.

Mr. Scott and myself, however, pushed on our mules, glad at having got over the worst part of the road to Angolahlah, and willing to make the best of our way before sunset, for it began to be a question with my companion, if we should arrive before night at our destination.

The country seemed highly cultivated, wheat and barley on all sides growing close to our path; but no trees or hedge rows enlivened with their verdure or fragrance, the bleak, moor-like scene around. The farm-houses were few and far between, neither were they so high nor so comfortable-looking as those of the clustered villages, that crowned every little hill in the vale of the Dinkee, on the other side of Ankobar. The walls were generally a circle of rough, unhewn stones, about three feet high, supporting the usual conical roof of straw. The smoke escaped in white wreaths from beneath the eaves, or issued in a volume from the entrance, and had it not been for some substantial and really English-looking stacks of grain standing near, which prevented the idea of poverty being connected with the apparent discomforts of these dwellings, the name of hovels would have been far too superior a designation for them.

We met very few people on the road, but these had all of them a great number of questions to put, if we would have stayed to listen. We were also several times called upon to stop for the night at the houses of people who ran after us to say, that they knew Mr. Krapf, and that, consequently, we must be their friends, and partake of their hospitality. Although shivering with cold, and nearly tired out, we resisted all such temptations, proceeding at a gentle amble, for which the mules of Shoa are famous, and after a long ride of seven hours, just as the sun was setting, its last rays falling upon our faces, the straggling but extensive town of Angolahlah suddenly opened upon us, as we rounded the low shoulder of a ridge which had been in sight for nearly the last hour.

Three extensive, but low hills of nearly equal height, and covered with houses, enclose a triangular space, which forms the centre of the town. Across this, Mr. Scott and I quickly galloped our mules, pulling up opposite a white square tent, at the door of which had already appeared Capt. Harris and Capt. Graham, the news of our approach having been conveyed by a forerunner, who had observed us in the distance.

A very pleasant evening followed; conversation upon home and Indian news occupied the few hours before we retired to rest; and amidst the luxuries and conveniences, so abundantly supplied to the Embassy by the indulgent care of a liberal Government, I almost fancied that I had returned to the pleasures and comforts of civilized life. As my cloak, coats, and carpet, which constituted my bed, were left at Farree, my courteous entertainer, Capt. Harris, supplied me with an abundance of warm clothing for the night, and I slept well in an adjoining tent, of black worsted-cloth, manufactured by the Abyssinians.

Unfortunately, amidst all his kindness, Capt. Harris considered it to be his duty to take notes of my conversation, without my being aware in the slightest degree of such a step, or being conscious of the least necessity for his doing so. On my becoming aware of this circumstance, a few weeks after, by the distortion of a most innocent remark of mine, which was imputed to me in a sense that I never dreamt of employing it, I retorted in a manner that led to further proceedings; and from that time all intercourse between the members of the Embassy and myself ceased for some months.

CHAPTER V.

Staying at Angolahlah.—​Waterfall into the Tcherkos river.—​Difficulty in obtaining the stores.—​Journey to Ankobar.—​Female slaves of the Negoos.—​Belief of the Shoan Church.—​Father Tellez.—​Vegetables introduced into Shoa.

June 1st.—This morning Capt. Harris and Mr. Scott were busily engaged writing a strong remonstrance to the King upon the subject of the detention of the latter in Farree, and the seizure by the Wallasmah, of the despatches and stores. I had waived all consideration of the indignities offered to myself, as I saw that from some inexplicable reason Capt. Harris wished to restrict the letter to a notice of the imprisonment of Mr. Scott; although I was rather surprised that the letter which was written in English should be taken by that gentleman himself, with a Persian interpreter, who spoke Amharic very imperfectly, to explain it. However, they did not see the Negoos, and beyond the letter being duly entered in the record-book of the Embassy, no other steps were taken on account of the infraction of the commercial treaty which had been entered into between Sahale Selassee, Negoos of Shoa, and Capt. Harris, the representative of Her Majesty at that court.

During the three succeeding days, numerous bearers brought to Angolahlah the stores from Farree, and by orders of the Negoos all were deposited in the palace-yard, nor was one allowed to be touched or seen by our Ambassador. All this time I amused myself as well as I could, reading some volumes upon African discoveries; sometimes taking a short walk along a narrow flat through which a little meandering stream flowed directly to the Lomee Wans, or Lemon river, which has cut a deep and wide ravine in front of the village of Tcherkos, celebrated as being the scene of a dreadful massacre of Christians by a rebel governor of Shoa, named Matoka, some few years before. This ravine extends from the south, in a direction towards the north-east, and joins, or is continuous with that to the west of the town of Debra Berhan, where the Barissa, in its course to the Jumma, forms, in the rainy season, some magnificent waterfalls.

Some idea of the depth to which even these early tributaries of the Abi (Bruce’s Nile) have denuded their channels may be derived from the fact, that the little stream, along the banks of which I used to direct my steps, after a course of scarcely two miles, leaps down, in one unbroken fall, seven hundred feet to join the rivulet below, for the Lomee Wans deserves no higher title. I can easily comprehend, therefore, the astonishing fact that after flowing the short distance of two hundred and fifty miles, the river Abi should be found by Dr. Beke not more than three thousand feet above the level of the sea, although flowing through a table land, the general elevation of which exceeds nine thousand feet.

On the fourth morning of my stay at Angolahlah, a page came from the King to desire Capt. Harris to attend at the palace. Shortly after this was complied with, another summons arrived for one of the soldiers, who was employed as a carpenter, to follow also. In about half an hour, the whole party returned, the interpreter, Ibrahim, carrying in his cloak the torn-up, tarpaulin-covered packages of letters. I now learnt that the Negoos had commanded that the boxes and other things should be burst open in his presence. This arbitrary command being immediately complied with, after the first few were examined, he graciously gave permission for the whole to be removed to the tents of the Embassy, being satisfied with the willingness shown to gratify him in his most unreasonable demands. This humiliating concession, I am convinced, would not have been required had not the monarch felt some jealous misgivings as to the amount of prerogative he had curtailed himself of by attaching his signature to the treaty of commerce; the first fruits of which had been the impolitical letter of remonstrance on a previous occasion; the innocent writer of which, Mr. Krapf, had already been made to feel the kingly resentment by the ill-usage that gentleman received from the chief, Adara Billee, when he endeavoured to return to Shoa, after an unsuccessful attempt to reach the city of Gondah.

For the future, I shall endeavour to relate the incidents of my residence in Shoa, with as little allusion to politics as possible, but the reader must excuse the few remarks I have already made, convinced as I am, that the physical failure of the expedition on the western coast of Africa, under Capt. Trotter, is much less to be regretted, than the great moral injury the cause of African civilization and English influence in that continent have sustained by the incapability of one man, and the ill-judged proceedings which characterized his ambassadorial career. I am not the proper person, however, to sit in judgment upon any one; but I know from personal experience, that as regards Southern Abyssinia, the merchant and the missionary must now seek other situations for carrying out their interesting and philanthropic projects for the regeneration of Africa.[2]

I found the weather so exceedingly cold, and the time at Angolahlah pass so uselessly and heavily along, that I was very glad, after a week’s stay, to be again on the road back to Ankobar. The day previous to my leaving Angolahlah, I engaged a servant, named Walderheros, tall, athletic, but of most ill-favoured countenance, so much so, that “Gool,” to which eastern vampire he was compared by the members of the Mission, became his cognomen afterwards amongst them. My mule being saddled, we started early in the morning, as I was desirous of getting as far on the road as possible before the sun had ascended so high as to render the ride unpleasantly warm. Walderheros trudged along on foot by the side of my mule, carrying my carabine behind his neck, with his two hands resting upon the projecting portions on either side. He talked incessantly, and it did not seem to matter the least, that I could not understand a word he said. To check him, I repeated, with a very grave face, the whole of “My name is Norval.” He listened patiently to the end, and it then seemed to strike him that we should amuse ourselves much better, if he were to teach me in his own language the names of surrounding objects, rather than listen to such another long rigmarole I was also about to treat him with. Thereupon commenced my first Amharic lesson, and as I was a willing pupil, and Walderheros an untiring teacher, I made great progress during the ride.

In this manner we travelled at a slow pace along the undulating broad highroad that, nearly in a direct line, conducts us from Angolahlah to the edge of Tchakkah. We met some few travellers, who, as we passed, exchanged loud and long-continued salutations with Walderheros, kept up until they were out of all convenient speaking distance of each other. A moor, or extensive downs, would convey the best idea of the country around; but though no trees or bushes intercept the sight, the whole surface was well cultivated with wheat and barley, or preserved as grazing meadows for the feeding of cattle. Excepting one considerably excavated valley, two or three miles from Tchakkah, the original level of the table land is only altered in the places where it is traversed by shallow water-denuded channels, along which very frequently the road runs, and the traveller proceeds in a broad hollow way, the flat ridges on each side of him rising some ten or twenty feet above his head.

I was not sorry at seeing again the already familiar land-mark, Koom Dingi, although it reminded me of the steep descent beyond. On arriving at the edge of the table land, I followed the advice of Walderheros, and dismounted; for however sure-footed in such perilous descents mules may be, they sometimes slip, as was evidenced by the dead body of one that lay burst among the rocks below, from a slip over one of the precipices. I sat down a few minutes whilst my servant ran to a house in sight, and procured for me the loan of a long slender staff, of some tough wood, like a spearshaft, which the Shoans generally carry with them when travelling on foot. By the aid of this, I was enabled to get along pretty well, dropping carefully from one huge stone to another, and in this manner, by rough unequal steps, succeeded at length in reaching the stream of the Airahra. I now mounted again, and forded the stony bed of the stream, surmounting with some difficulty the miry bank on the farther side, where the deeply-sunken hoofs of my mule were pulled with successive snatches out of the soughing tenacious mud.

Half an hour’s ride brought me to the foot of the royal hill of Ankobar. As we ascend, the road passes midway along its steep side, which above and below the traveller slopes several hundred feet. Here we encountered a noisy crowd of chatting romping girls, with large jars slung between their shoulders by a leathern belt, or rope, which passes across the breast. They were proceeding to a meadow below, to fill their jars with water at a little clear stream that fell over a little ledge of stones as it proceeded to join the Airahra. As I passed them, I overheard some of them whispering to the other, “Missela Zingero,” a most complimentary speech certainly, meaning nothing less than that I was “like a baboon.” These girls were slaves of the Negoos, and their chief employment consisted of this daily duty of carrying water from the stream to the palace on the summit of the hill. No less than two hundred are so employed, and these supply all the water required for the use of the courtiers and guests, besides a body-guard of three hundred gunmen, all of whom are daily fed at the royal table.

On my arrival at the Residency, I was again entertained by Dr. Roth and Mr. Bernatz, who, during the four days I spent with them were as kind and as attentive as possible. At the end of that time I became much alarmed at feeling the approach of symptoms threatening a return of the intermittent fever, from which I had suffered so much during the previous eight months. I was not long in determining what course to pursue, but resolved upon leaving Ankobar immediately, and exchange its damp cold atmosphere for the more genial climate of Aliu Amba.

In Ankobar my time was principally occupied in receiving information respecting the character and customs of the inhabitants of Shoa, but these I had more opportunity subsequently of observing for myself.

Respecting the slaves of the Negoos, in addition to the water-bearers just spoken of, I learned that he possessed several hundreds of others. All the gunmen who constitute the body-guard are bondsmen, and of these there are at least one thousand. These are divided into three bodies, relieving each other in rotation after one week’s attendance at the palace; so that these men have entirely to themselves two weeks out of three, a period always spent with their families. As individuals distinguish themselves for bravery and loyalty, they obtain grants of houses and gardens, generally in the immediate neighbourhood of the royal residences. When they advance in years, or have sons old enough to attend in their places, larger quantities of land, apportioned according to merit, are given to them and they become tenants of the King, only called up for suite and service on the occasions of the “zemitcharoitsh,” or expeditions. The grown up sons who fill their places as guardsmen generally reside with their fathers, and in that case their guns are allowed to be taken home with them; but the general rule is, that they should deposit them, after the term of duty has expired, in the armouries attached to the palaces, where they remain under the charge of the Atta Habta, the chief blacksmith. The gunmen have but one superior officer, who is termed “Ullica,” or “Shoom.” The name of the present colonel, if he may be so termed, is Kattimah. By courtesy he is styled “Atta Kattimah,” Atta being a title of distinction applied generally to all courtiers of high rank.

The gunmen, whilst on duty at the palace, receive daily two double handsful of some kind of grain or other; a kind of admeasurement that reminded me strongly of a similar custom of giving rations to slaves among the ancient Romans. Beside this, however, they get one good meal a-day at the King’s own table; at least, in an apartment where he superintends this diurnal feast of his attendants, who are plentifully regaled with large teff crumpets and a quantity of ale. With the bread is always provided some cayenne paste, called “dillock,” composed of equal parts of the red pods of the pepper and common salt, mixed with a little “shrow,” or the meal of peas. This is placed in a number of saucers of red earthenware, which stand in the middle of oblong tables of wicker work, about one foot and a-half high. A number of these are placed in the form of a horse-shoe in the banquetting-room, and around, on both sides, sitting upon the ground, the gunmen range themselves, sometimes in double ranks. The King presides over all, reclining upon a yellow satin-covered couch, in a kind of recess, or alcove in one side of the apartment. The greatest order and decorum is preserved, but no restraint appears to be laid either upon appetite or quiet conversation.

Upon occasions of festivals, which are exceedingly numerous, an unlimited amount of raw meat is added to their usual fare. Slave boys carry about a large lump of flesh, held fast over one shoulder by a strong grip of both hands, whilst each of the dining party cuts with his knife such portion he may desire, and then dismisses the boy with his blessing to the next who requires a like uncooked steak. In addition to their entertainment by the King when on duty at the palace, the gunmen receive a monthly pay of from three to seven ahmulahs, or salt-pieces, according to their length of service. Besides the numerous gunmen who are generally slaves born in the service of the Negoos, there is an inferior class who have been purchased from dealers, or have come to the King as the import duty when Kafilahs of these unhappy creatures arrive in his dominions. The usual “assair,” or tithe, being taken as of every other kind of merchandize that is brought into Shoa. These slaves are employed generally as cutters of wood; and a most toilsome and ill-requited labour is that which they have to perform, for the country around Angolahlah and Debra Berhan is so bare of wood that the inhabitants have no other resource for fuel but the dung of cattle mixed with mire, which are formed into large flat cakes and heaped up in storehouses for protection from the weather. I believe that the quantity of potass in the soil in this part of the country, contributes considerably to the value of this strange kind of fuel, as its combination with sundry other elements contained in the dung saturates the mass with saltpetre.

The Negoos, however, does not employ this kind of fuel in his palaces, but is supplied by the wood-cutting slaves with the cedar-smelling pine-tree, called “ted,” or the more adapted for a bright warm fire, the oil-containing wood of the wild olive-tree; both of which grow abundantly in the forests of Kundee and Afrabinah, that occupy the head of some of the numerous valleys sloping towards the Hawash, on the east of the ridge in front of Ankobar. From these forests, the stalwart frames of the Shankalli slaves bear long and heavy burdens of the rended fire-wood up the steep rugged ascent, to the right of the Hill of Grace; and then, for twenty-five miles, to the palaces of Debra Berhan and Angolahlah. Upon this painful and laborious duty, not less than three hundred slaves are employed, who receive daily the most wretched fare, either a few handsful of parched wheat, or else, the sour and coarse refuse from the gunmen’s table. Still, these, I found, were far from being over-worked; for three days are allowed to each for the conveyance of the load, and the return back from the distant palaces to their homes, which even these are provided with for themselves and their families.

The female slaves are still more numerous; independent of the two hundred employed in supplying the King’s household with water, there are, at least, one hundred more, who assist in grinding flour, brewing, and making the “dillock,” or pepper-paste.

There are, however, belonging to this class, a more interesting party of female slaves, who are kept in the strictest seclusion; for Sahale Selassee, a descendant of Solomon, continues, as regards his wives and concubines, the customs of his ancestor’s court. Two hundred of these young ladies are placed in charge of several eunuchs, and the establishment, in fact, corresponds in every respect with the hareem of an oriental monarch. It is not very easy to obtain information respecting the habits or occupations of these immured beauties; but the more elaborately-spun cotton thread, that is used for the finer descriptions of cloths, which are presented by the Negoos to his greatest favourites and governors, is all made by the members of this portion of the royal household.[3] The large and fine cloth, valued in Shoa at thirty dollars, sent by Sahale Selassee, as a present to our Queen, is woven of thread spun in the palace of Debra Berhan; and the monarch, sole visitor to the apartments occupied by these royal cotton-spinners, has no doubt frequently stimulated his favourite slaves to more careful efforts, as they produced the finely long-drawn thread, by dwelling upon the munificence and wealth of his Egyptian sister, our own well-beloved Sovereign.

Besides learning some little of the condition of the slaves belonging to the Negoos of Shoa, whilst in Ankobar, I also read a considerable portion of “Ludolph’s Ethiopic History,” a work left in charge of Dr. Roth, the naturalist of the British Embassy, by Mr. Krapf, when he returned to Egypt. I had the opportunity of making use of the whole book upon the doctrine of the Church, contained in Ludolph; and, also, the interesting almanac which is appended to it; but the former is such an evident compilation of what ought to be the faith of the Abyssinian Church, rather than what it ever was, or is at the present day, that I considered any abstract, or account of the Christians of Shoa, founded upon it, would be one of the grossest impositions that could be palmed upon the reading public. I dare not, in fact, attempt any elucidation of the faith professed by the Negoos and monks of Shoa. They, certainly, have no universal creed, nor any Articles to define what is orthodox belief, and what is not. The chief principle of religion with the heads of the Church in that country seems to be, to think upon this subject exactly as the Negoos does; for if they do not, they are very soon considered in the light of heretics; and how far the principles of the Negoos accord with those of the Abune, or Bishop of Gondah, may be judged from the fact, that he has often been judged to be in contempt, by that holy father, and threatened with all the terrors of excommunication. I confess myself, therefore, unequal to the task of giving any account of the Christian religion in Shoa. To give a correct one, would require a man educated entirely for the purpose by a long study of the subject in all its relations, as connected with the Greek Church, and the Archbishopric of Alexandria, to enable him to collect, compare, and arrange that chaos of religious opinions that seem to characterize the modern Abyssinian faith; and, more especially, that which is professed in Shoa.

Tellez, in his Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, in the seventeenth century, sums up all that was known in his time; and I do not think that any more enlightenment has been vouchsafed since to this benighted Church. Speaking of the proclamation of the Emperor Socinios restoring to the Abyssinians their ancient faith, after an unsuccessful attempt to establish the Roman Catholic religion among them, this author remarks, “This liberty threw them into many errors; for being uncertain what to believe, some of their monks affirmed, that Christ was the Son of God, only by grace; others, that the divinity died with him on the cross, but that he had two divinities, one of which died, and the other survived; others said, one person was composed of the two others, confounded the Divine nature with the human; and others, being quite puzzled, cried, ‘Christ is true God, and true man, and it is enough to know that.’ Nor was there less division about consecrating the cup, some contending it could not be done with any liquor but wine; others, that it should be water discoloured with six or seven raisins. At length, they agreed it should be done as was used at Alexandria; and finding no abler person to inquire of, they put the question to an Egyptian carpenter, who told them, it was done there in wine; yet they resolved it should be with water and raisins.”

This quotation appeared so apt and so true a picture of the present state of Christian belief in Shoa, that I have not hesitated to introduce it here. I should be happy, indeed, to see demonstrated that anything consistent or universal upon that subject is entertained; and in that case I should not mind being told, that I had erred in my conclusions from a want of proper knowledge upon the subject.

It must be observed, however, that in matters of Church ceremony the Shoans affect the formula of the Alexandrian Church. But even on this subject we find that a great schism exists, by the contemptuous disregard of tabots, robes, and all outward show whatever, with which the Tabeeban sect celebrate the rites of their worship. To term these people a sect, is not so correct, perhaps, as to call them a caste, for all artisans in Shoa, and I believe in other parts of Abyssinia, are so designated. Blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, in fact, all manufacturing artisans, are called “Tabeeb,” and, from this circumstance, when first I heard of their mysterious religious rites, I considered that they would be found to be a community of Freemasons. Even now I give them the credit of practising the primitive customs of the early Church of Christ, as it approaches very much to that simple worship of God which, from the internal evidence contained in some of the Church letters of St. Paul, we may suppose to have distinguished the meetings of Christians in the apostolic age. It is from this circumstance, I connect them in origin, singularly enough, with our institution of Freemasonry; although the primitive purity of their parent assemblies has been much better preserved in the simple ceremonies practised by the Abyssinian Tabeebs, than in the festive orgies of the mysterious brotherhood of Europe. I quit this subject for a time, and return to Ankobar.

Whilst staying with Dr. Roth, I frequently accompanied him to a small garden attached to the old house, where Dr. Beke resided during his visit to Shoa. On one occasion our attendant dug up a considerable quantity of potatoes, which had been planted by Mr. Krapf. The seedlings had been sent from Tigre, in northern Abyssinia, by Mr. Isenberg, and the return crop seemed very favourable. At present no advantage has resulted to the natives by their introduction, for the hatred which seemed to exist against everything English extended even to the real benefits that were offered to the Shoans.

Who can help regretting the great mistake of the missionary, in calling political aid to his assistance, but he erred solely by his zeal to extend his opportunities of conferring good upon his fellow-creatures. He grieves now for influence, founded upon respect, that is gone for ever; and from my heart I sympathize with him, for the utter prostration of hope that Abyssinia should become the centre of enlightenment for the rest of the unhappy continent of Africa.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] I had fancied that the political tactics of the Shoan Embassy were unparalleled in history. The “Heimskringha,” or “Chronicles of the Kings of Norway,” record, however, a somewhat similar display of resplendent genius:—“At this time a king called Athelstan had taken the kingdom of England. He sent men to Norway to King Harold with the errand that the messengers should present him with a sword, with the hilt and handle gilt, and also the whole sheath adorned with gold and silver and set with precious jewels. The Ambassadors presented the sword-hilt to the King, saying, ‘Here is a sword, which King Athelstan sends thee, with the request that thou wilt accept it.’ The King took the sword by the handle, whereupon the Ambassadors said, ‘Now thou hast taken the sword, according to our King’s desire, and therefore art thou his subject, as thou hast taken his sword.’ King Harold saw now that this was a jest, for he would be subject to no man. But he remembered it was his rule whenever anything raised his anger to collect himself and let his passion run off, and then take the matter into consideration coolly. Now he did so, and consulted his friends, who all gave him the advice to let the Ambassadors, in the first place, go home in safety.”—Mr. Laing’s Translation.

This is in every particular so curiously analogous to our late political doings in Shoa, that I could not induce myself to abstain from inserting it here as a note. Even the hint of personal violence in the last sentence exactly corresponded with the treatment of the Embassy whilst in Shoa, after the ill-judged letter of remonstrance had been sent; for had it not been for the moderation of the offended monarch, it would indeed have been “Shanta fo, Shanta fo,” for the whole party. It was too late to find out that Sahale Selassee was “a novice in European diplomacy,” only when the total failure of the Mission attested the want of tact and of all knowledge of human nature by the parties employed by a liberal and too indulgent Government.

[3] The Abyssinian word for thread, “fatalah,” has something in its sound that recalls the idea of the three spinners, typical of man’s destiny. If, as is probable, the mythological representation of the Greeks be of Egyptian origin, then the word “fatalah,” may have some connexion with our word fate.

CHAPTER VI.

Return to Aliu Amba.—​Visited by Hy Soumaulee—Complain of being cheated by Ohmed Mahomed.—​Christians of Abyssinia and of the Greek Church generally forbidden the use of tobacco.—​Miriam’s house and furniture.—​Islam contempt for Christianity.—​Evening walk.—​Begging monks.

This morning, Walderheros having hired a mule for two salt-pieces, we proceeded to Aliu Amba. I was not sorry, on reaching the summit of the ridge in front of Ankobar, to see again the Dinkee vale, stretching away before me, studded with eminences and little hill villages. As nearly as possible in the centre of them all, was the flat circumscribed summit of the rock of Aliu Amba, which we did not lose sight of during the whole hour occupied in descending to its foot. The ride was most tiresome, but my mule had more reason to be dissatisfied than myself, and glad she was to be at length ascending the irregular sized steps of displaced stones, which leads on to the little plain before we reach the first houses in the town. Here she broke into a gallop, and carried me unresistingly across the market-place, and along a narrow winding lane, with thatched houses, each in its own snug enclosure, on either side. At the wicket of one of these the animal stopped, and my sudden appearance rather astonished two women who were sitting in the door porch busily spinning cotton. “Woi Gypt, Woi Gypt,” they repeatedly exclaimed, as they got up from the ground, just in time to meet Walderheros, who now came running up. He soon explained the mistake of the mule, and taking hold of the bridle, led her about one hundred yards farther along the lane, to a house the most miserable looking of any I had yet seen in the town.

Here, however, I was informed Lieut. Barker had resided for nearly four months, previously to his return to Aden, and I had been advised, in Ankobar, to live in the same house, at least until a better one could be obtained from the Governor. The landlady was a poor Mahomedan woman, named Miriam, a widow with two children, one a grown up youth of seventeen, named Ibrahim, and the other a daughter, not more than three years old.

Arrangements were immediately made for my accommodation, and the news of my arrival soon spread about the town. Numerous visitors, Christian and Islam, thronged the entrance of the house all day, the floor being occupied by the more influential ones. I lay in a little recess, just long and deep enough to receive my bedstead, a low wooden frame, with a bottom of interlaced strips of hide, over which an ox skin was thrown for a mattress.

With such of my new friends who could speak Arabic, I managed to keep up something like a conversation, and also with some Indians and Persians, who came, among others, to pay their respects, whom I gratified with the relation of all the latest news from their respective countries.

The Governor of Aliu Amba, whose name was Tinta, had not returned from Angolahlah, but his misselannee, or deputy, dragged into my presence, by the horns, a fine goat, which he requested me to accept. Walderheros readily consented in my name, and relieved him at once of his charge, which was taken forthwith and slaughtered; the Deputy-Governor being chief butcher on the occasion, getting for his trouble the head and bowels, which, however, were first brought into me very dutifully, to obtain my permission for such a disposal.

Seeing preparations made for eating, the crowd gradually withdrew, and with considerable natural politeness left me alone to partake of my evening’s meal, without interruption. Fortunately I had brought with me, from the coast, a tea-kettle, frying-pan, and two other vessels of tinned copper. These now became very useful, and Walderheros was not long in placing before me a nicely cooked dinner of boiled meat.

A report of my arrival at Aliu Amba having been carried the same evening to Channo, the next morning I was astonished at seeing the house beset by a number of my Hy Soumaulee friends, who, although they were glad to see me, appeared to be not at all satisfied with something or other.

As none of the Tajourah people had come with them, I sent for an Islam sheik, Hadjji Abdullah, who lived in the next house, to come and interpret between us. This man, by-the-by, came from Berberah, on the banks of the Nile, in Upper Egypt, yet he made himself perfectly understood in the Affah language; and I expect, therefore, that some ethnological connexion will be found to exist between the people of Dongola and the Dankalli tribes, although I understand that this has been denied by some modern travellers, on the ground, singularly enough, of the total distinctness between their two languages.

I was not much surprised to learn that the cause of complaint among the Hy Soumaulee was, that Ohmed Mahomed, who had received from the British Embassy one hundred and twenty dollars, to pay them their wages, at the rate of four dollars each man, had thought proper to give them no more than one each, and a small coarse cotton cloth not the value of half a dollar. Of course the Hy Soumaulee knew nothing of the British Embassy; it was to me they looked for the payment of their stipulated wages, and which, for the latter part of our journey, I had always stated would be five dollars to each man. I recollected perfectly that when they were first engaged I refused to sanction more than four dollars being given, on the plea that, perhaps, the expense I was incurring would be objected to as unnecessary, considering that Mr. Cruttenden had paid in Tajourah all the expenses that we were told would be necessary upon the road. Ohmed Mahomed, however, replied, that in case the extra dollar should be refused, Ebin Izaak and himself would each give half a dollar, and so make up the five dollars per man, and I had therefore always told the Hy Soumaulee they would receive five dollars each. When I discovered how they had been cheated by Ohmed Mahomed, who had actually told them that he had not received a dollar from the Embassy, but that the dollar he had given to each was that one promised by himself and Ebin Izaak, I was only surprised they did not sacrifice me at once to their resentment. I soon disabused them of the deceit that had been practised upon them, and promised that, as the British Mission would be in Ankobar in the course of two days, I would go up and see the Ambassador on purpose that the matter should be examined into.

My old escort then went away very peaceably; but so strict are the orders of the Negoos to prevent any strangers, more especially those coming from Adal, to enter the kingdom without special permission, that the arrival of the Hy Soumaulee in Aliu Amba created quite an alarm, lest, on the one hand, they should commit violence, although they were unarmed, except with their heavy knives; or, on the other, that the displeasure of the Negoos should be excited against the townspeople for having permitted them to come into Aliu Amba at all.

It was sometime before I became accustomed to the new circumstances by which I was surrounded. My house was merely a round shed, having a diameter of about twelve feet, the wall of dry sticks, five feet high, being surmounted by the usual conical roof of thatch. Opposite to the entrance was a slight deviation from the exact periphery of a circle, occasioned by the recess before mentioned, in which was contained my wide couch. Here the wall bulged out something like a bow window in form, and was covered by a little elongation of the roof in that situation. Nearly in the centre of the apartment was a dilapidated raised ring of clay and pebbles, some five or six inches high, and about three feet in diameter. This formed the hearth, within which two large stones, and the broken-off neck of an old jar, formed a kind of tripod, that occasionally supported a smoke-blacked earthenware “macero,” or cooking pot, in which was being boiled either some sort of grain or other for the family, or else the meat for mine and Walderheros’ supper.

On one side, ranged along the wall, stood several large jars, two of which, covered by gourd shell drinking cups, contained water, whilst others, superannuated by sundry cracks, were partly filled with teff, or wheat. The former is the minute seed of a kind of grass, of which is made the bread of the temperate countries of Abyssinia, as it flourishes best in situations between the wheat and barley fields cultivated upon the high table land of Shoa, and the jowarree plantations in the very low countries on a level with the Hawash.

The only piece of furniture, strictly speaking, in the house, except my bed, was a chair of the most primitive construction, its thong-woven bottom being scarcely six inches from the ground. It would have been altogether a good model for some rustic seat builder about to fit up the interior of a garden alcove. My two boxes assisted, however, in producing a showy effect, one of them being a Chinese trunk, covered with bright red leather, the other a shiny tin medicine chest, and to make them useful as well as ornamental, they were generally converted into seats on the occasion of any visitors of rank calling upon me.

Besides these things, old red gowns of my landlady, and some tattered grass-made baskets and sieves used in dressing and cleaning grain, were suspended from the projecting ends of the stick wall, and made the interior of the house look rather untidy.

Walderheros was one of the few Abyssinians I have met who appeared to delight in cleanliness, and a pretty dust he was continually raising, by sweeping with a large handful of well-leaved boughs the clay floor of our residence. He delighted also in the unholy pleasures of the pipe, a severe rheumatism always affecting him when he was about to indulge; and I often smile when I think of the canting tone and long visage with which he used to apostrophise the inanimate object of his affections, a gourd shell pipe, as he drew it towards him, and excused such a dereliction of duty as a Greek Christian, upon the plea that nothing but the smoke of tobacco could drive out the “saroitsh,” or demons, who, according to Abyssinian belief, affect the frame when suffering from any disease.

According to a tradition of the Greek Church, it appears that the devil paid repeated visits to Noah when he commenced building the ark, for the purpose of ascertaining by what means and of what materials he constructed it. The patriarch, however, kept his own counsel, until the devil called to his aid the herb tobacco, with which, it seems, he made poor Noah drunk, and whilst in that state the enemy of mankind wormed his secret from him. Thus assisted (for it is said Noah became an inveterate smoker), the devil availed himself of the darkness of night to undo all that Noah had put together during the day, and this was the principal cause that the building of the ark extended over so long a period. “Ever since that time,” saith the tradition, “God has laid a heavy curse upon tobacco.”[4] If some of the precepts of the Gospel were observed with equal veneration as is this ridiculous story by Abyssinian Christians, we should not have to regret the low ebb to which our religion has been reduced in this priest-ridden, but I must not say consequently, benighted land.

Walderheros, however, was a business man, and before he sat down to smoke, he was careful to shut out observers of the fact, by fixing in its place the old rotten door of three or four untrimmed trunks of small trees, tied into a kind of flat surface by the tough bark of a species of mimosa tree. This hung by two hinges of thongs to a crooked door-post, and shut against the wall on the opposite side, where its own weight kept the entrance securely closed. When all had been arranged satisfactorily, he would drag the clumsy chair into a position opposite to my couch, and sitting down with his back to the door, place the rude pipe between his feet. Then applying his mouth to the end of its long stem, between each puff he would look up, to tell me in Amharic the name of some object for me to write down, whilst he in return would endeavour to learn their Arabic names, which language for some reason or other, he seemed very anxious to learn. I found afterwards that he thought it was English, and wished to learn something of it, on purpose to understand me when speaking my own language, and thus become the admiration of a circle of his acquaintance burning with curiosity to know what I might be saying. Walderheros was, in fact, the best caricature I ever met of that spirit which prompts empirics to employ unintelligible language to increase the presumption of their extensive learning. If any of his friends were present, I could never get a syllable from him but one or other of about a dozen Arabic words he had picked up. Everything was “ewah” (yes) or “la la” (no), and how happy he was when circumstances admitted of his saying “tahle” (come), or “rah” (go), and the grave satisfaction with which he turned round to interpret to his simple gaping companions the meaning of the conversation they had just been treated with, was most ridiculously absurd. When he met a real Arab it was still better; all impatience to display his vast knowledge of their language, every word he knew of it would be pressed into service, whilst the wondering auditor, who would have understood him well enough in Amharic, with a vacant look would probably turn to me, and say, “Arder rigal muginoon fee!” (That man is a fool!)

His temper, however, was provokingly good, for besides its being a great contrast to my own, I half suspected under such a bland exterior some deceit must lurk, but he was a lesson in human nature, and patient ugliness will for the future be a recommendation to me. When illness and pain had contrived to make me the most fretful and irritable of mortals, how often have I been reproved, for my unreasonable upbraidings and continually finding fault, by his constantly mild reply, “Anter gaitah,” “Anter gaitah” (“You are my master,” “You are my master”.)

I was not unfrequently visited by venerable sheiks and learned mollums, who, with the usual Mahomedan assumption of superiority, squatted down upon the boxes uninvited, and considered themselves at liberty to beg, borrow, or steal, as opportunities afforded, without any remonstrance from the Feringhee they affected to patronize.

Although at this time the town of Aliu Amba had a Christian governor, more than three-fourths of its inhabitants were Mahomedans. These were exceedingly cautious in the expression of any dislike towards the religion of their rulers, but their prejudice against the Christian faith only rankled the more in their bosoms. It showed itself chiefly in petty acts of contempt or slight that could not well be complained of without betraying some littleness of spirit. Many of my visitors, for example, when they saw the body of a slaughtered sheep hanging upon the wall, would, with the coolest impudence imaginable, hold their noses when they came into the house, as if it had become tainted by being killed by Walderheros.

Again, they always expected to have the first cup of coffee handed to them, and, in fact, this was the only refreshment they ever deigned to partake with me. When my servant complained to me that my visitors represented this, which my politeness in the first place had induced me to practise, to be an acknowledgment of their superiority as Islam believers, I soon put a stop to the mistaken idea, and if they did not choose to take the only cup I had, after me, they went without. It was some time before they became reconciled to the precedence of a Christian, even in such a trivial matter as this. In doing as I did, there was, perhaps, but little credit on my side, for I opposed their prejudice from a zealous weakness that differed not the least from the principle which had actuated them; but the heart of man is everywhere the same. “Thus I trample,” said Diogenes, “upon the pride of Plato.” “With equal pride,” retorted the insulted sage.

Towards evening it was usual whilst I lived at Miriam’s, for me, attended by Walderheros, to walk to the edge of the precipitous face, looking towards the east, of the rock upon which Aliu Amba is built. Here, upon a large stone, high above the narrow winding footpath, that leads from one end of the ridge to the other, I would sit looking upon the narrow but fertile valley in front, formed by the junction of the two flanking streams that nearly encircled the hill. Numerous little tributaries on each side had formed small pyramidal knolls, carefully cultivated to the very tops. One in particular, higher than the rest, was crowned with a snug-looking village, the conical roof of the largest house in which, pointed into an exact cone the figure of the hill. The name of this village was Sar-amba; the road to Ankobar skirts along its base, leaving on the right hand the town and hill of Aliu Amba. To the left of my position, the peak of the stateprison hill of Gauncho, and the seat of the Wallasmah Mahomed, was just visible over a continuous range of hills, that diminished in elevation as they approached nearer to the town of Farree, and which marked very well the original level of the once sloping talus, or scarp, which connected the high table land of Abyssinia with the low plains around the Hawash.

Whilst sitting one evening upon my usual stone, the loud whining appeal of two turbaned dirty figures announced the presence of begging monks, an order very numerous in Shoa. Their long prayer to the Almighty was still going on, and I in utter ignorance for what purpose two robust and healthy men could be addressing me in such a monotonous duet. Walderheros pretended to know nothing about them, and had it not been for some women who stood by amusing themselves with the appearance of the new come Gypt, or Egyptian, the monks would have had as much chance of obtaining alms from the rocks around me, as of opening my heart or understanding to their appeal. “Ahmulah, ahmulah!” cried two or three of the women, and I then found out that I must bestow in charity a salt piece, the name of which had already become familiar to me.

Walderheros soon came back from the errand I had sent him upon, to procure the bulky coin, which was, however, refused by the surly monks, with a look and grimace that said quite enough, as they duly measured the ahmulah with a span, and found that it was too short for their taste. Again Walderheros was sent to the skin bag in which was deposited the remainder of my last change for a dollar. The cunning fellow, however, instead of procuring another, as he told me afterwards, brought back the same ahmulah again, and as the monks did not think it decent to return it a second time, they growled out the usual blessing of peace and good fortune for me, with an imprecating curse for the benefit of Walderheros, and then walked away.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] This is an old tradition of the Greek Church. Where it is to be found I cannot say, although it is said to be recorded in some of the works of the early Fathers. It is, I think, a proof that tobacco was known in Africa previously to the discovery of America. It is a curious fact, also, that Ignez Pallmee, the German traveller in Kordofan, found in that country potatoes used largely as food.

CHAPTER VII.

Residence in Aliu Amba.—​Settlement with the Hy Soumaulee.—​Proceed to Ankobar.—​Obtain the requisite sum.—​Relapse of intermittent fever.—​Occupation.—​Geographical information.—​Course of the Gibbee.—​Character of table land of Abyssinia.

June 18th.—I had now been three days in Aliu Amba, and had begun to be familiar with the circumstances around me, when the presence of several of my Hy Soumaulee friends recalled the promise I had made to them, and rendered it again necessary to undertake the toilsome ascent to Ankobar. My Dongola acquaintance, Hadjji Abdullah, lent me his mule, and off I started, leaving the Hy Soumaulee, who accompanied me across the market-place, to amuse themselves how they could during my absence. Walderheros walked by my side, and by nine o’clock we arrived at the Residency where a little flag, displayed, telegraphed the presence of the Ambassador, Captain Harris, who had come into town the night before from Angolahlah. I was compelled to solicit, as a personal favour, that which was denied as an act of justice; on the strong representation that “these thirty dollars would be the price of my blood,” our singularly constituted Ambassador reluctantly consented to advance me that sum from the treasury. Let it be observed, that not one word of approbation was bestowed upon the endeavours I had made to obtain the restoration of the boxes, &c., left by Messrs. Bernatz and Scott at Hiero Murroo; and when I alluded to that circumstance, the reply I received was, “that any other party coming up would have brought them on.” The irritation and excitement consequent upon this interview aided the predisposition to a relapse, and to that I principally attribute the long illness which, from this date, afflicted me for many months.

My request, however, in the end being acceded to, after breakfast I prepared to return immediately to Aliu Amba. Mr. Assistant-Surgeon Kirk brought me a polite invitation from Captain Harris to remain at least for the day. Being the anniversary of Waterloo, some appropriate entertainment was proposed, but as I received the message in no very friendly spirit it was not repeated.

Of the thirty Hy Soumaulee engaged at Herhowlee, only seventeen came to receive their additional dollars, the remainder having left Channo with a Kafilah that started before my first return to Aliu Amba. The Ras had engaged them to accompany him across the disturbed country between the Hawash and Hiero Murroo, and after this party had received the dollar and tobe from Ohmed Mahomed, believing they should obtain no more, they had taken the opportunity of returning home. The remainder came in parties for the two or three succeeding days, and went away satisfied with me, but with some feeling of resentment against my worthy Ras ul Kafilah, Ohmed Mahomed.

The first decided recurrence of a fit of the intermittent fever, the paroxysms returning every other day, from which I had suffered so much in Bombay and Aden, came on during the afternoon of the day I returned from Ankobar. My illness, however, did not completely lay me up; for although on the day when the ague fits occurred it was with the greatest difficulty I could leave my bed, still, during the intermediate ones I could always occupy myself in obtaining information, either in the Amharic language, or respecting the interesting circumstances of novel character which surrounded me.

Many instructive conversations have I had with the numerous retired slave merchants who reside in Aliu Amba. The knowledge these men possessed of the country to the south of Shoa, the kingdoms of Gurague, of Enarea, of Zingero and of Limmoo, with others still more remote, was extensive and valuable, and was the result of actual visits to these places for the purpose of procuring slaves. Successful slave merchants have this character in common with horse dealers, that they are generally intelligent and shrewd men, and when they have no object to serve by concealing the truth, they may be relied upon to a considerable extent; for none know better the value of a straightforward tale to secure confidence and good opinion. Profound judges of human nature from their habits and occupation, no one speaks truth like a clever cheating slave-dealer when it will suit his purpose. One of them in particular, however, I chose to be my geographical instructor,—an old man named Ibrahim, a native of the city of Hurrah, who possessed every mental requisite to have been recognised as a first rate traveller, had he only possessed opportunities to record the observations he had made upon men and countries that he had visited.[5]

Ibrahim had evidently amused himself during his journeys into slave districts by examining the characters of the very different people with whom he came in contact, and the striking contrasts he observed had led his attentive mind to the consideration of the probable causes for the anomalies he witnessed of the black Shankalli, the red Amhara, and the yellow Gonga, all inhabiting a plateau of limited extent. In the course of his long life having traversed in different directions the whole of the table land from Enarea to Gondah, he had been enabled by comparison and re-observation to check and correct himself upon many points which would otherwise have been very obscure. It was not unusual for him to repeat to me instances of such errors that he had at first fallen into, but which he was subsequently enabled to correct by other opportunities of observation. His ideas upon ethnology were also exceedingly interesting and curious, and I am convinced myself that many conclusions he had arrived at on this subject are correct, for by comparing my book-acquired information with the remarkable knowledge he had collected from facts, I could confirm many of the singular truths that seemed to have enlightened his mind, and which contributed greatly to my own progress in that science.

My aged instructor would frequently draw upon the earth floor of my residence a rude diagram of the elevated plateau of Abyssinia, which was supposed for our purposes to extend to the parallel of Massoah in the north, and to that of Zanzibar in the south. East and west its extent was represented to be about half this distance. In a large depression in the eastern border, the sources of the river Hawash were represented to be, and opposite, upon the west, was a similar indentation, where the waters of the various rivers that drain this table land fall from above to join the Nile below. Abyssinia, in fact, stands prominently upon the low land around it, like an island in a dried-up sea, and it is this which has given occasion for the Abyssinians to compare their country with the orange red flower of the Soof, (Carthamus tinctorius,)[6] the compound corolla surrounded by sharp thorns, which are supposed aptly enough to represent the barbarous Galla tribes that beset Abyssinia on every side.

In this delineation of Abyssinia by Ibrahim I first observed the discrepancy between the present received opinions of our geographers, that that country is connected on the south with a supposed extensive table land in the interior of Africa, and that which is entertained by the natives themselves, of the well defined and distinctly marked isolated plateau they inhabit.

Upon the represented surface of Abyssinia two principal streams were now delineated, one called the Abiah, flowing from the east and the south; and the other from the north, the Abi, or Bruce’s Nile, which falls into the Abiah immediately after leaving the table land in the vicinity of Fazuglo. From the rivers Abi and Abiah is derived the name Abisha, the original of our word Abyssinia, signifying the country of the Abi; “cha” or “sha,” country, being a frequent compound of the names of large localities, as Dembeacha, the country of Dembea; Angotcha, the country of Angot; Damotcha, and many others.

We now came to the more interesting examination of the sources and course of the river Gibbee, the great geographical problem connected with this country as yet undecided by any competent authority. There is no doubt, however, that the Gibbee of the present day is the Zibbee of the Portuguese travellers of the seventeenth century, and the Kibbee of Bruce. Recent visitors to these countries, Krapf, Beke, and Harris, all bear testimony to the correctness of the account given by their predecessors, that this river runs to the south and empties itself into the Indian Ocean. I have ventured to differ altogether from these travellers; and, as will be perceived in my diagram map at the commencement of this volume, I direct the stream of the Zibbee or Gibbee to the north and west, contributing to form the much larger river Abiah, which is the main branch of Assa-abi, or red river, most erroneously written in all European maps Bahr ul Assareek, or the Blue Nile. It is impossible to say with whom this error originated, but probably with some speculative geographer; for by distorting the words “assa arogue” in Amharic, the old red river, a word, similar in sound to a Turkish one, signifying blue, has been manufactured; and Assareek, or Blue Nile, is now the generally received name of the time-honoured Assa-abinus, the Jupiter of the ancient Ethiopians, and the original, I believe, of the Egyptian god Serapis. The true blue river is, in fact, the Nile itself, “nil” being the name of indigo at the present day all along the valley of that river; and in the same language, let it be borne in mind, as every other important designation of this interesting part of the world, the word “nil” is still the word for blue, and with such a signification we find it in many names of places both in India and Persia, of which a familiar example is the celebrated Sanatarium station, near Madras, of Neilgherry, from Nila gira, the blue hills. The sacred colour, also, that which distinguished the priests of ancient Egypt, was blue, and no doubt bore some reference to the name of the river, which was originally the object of their worship, for in the names of two of its principal branches, Apis and Serapis, we have the elements of the words Abi and Assaabi, the terminal sigma being the usual Grecian affix to foreign names.

In this manner I bring in the authority of Herodotus, and of the Egyptian priest who informed him of the origin of the Nile, in support of my views respecting the rivers of Abyssinia.[7] It is generally admitted that the Bahr ul Abiad was scarcely known to the ancients; at all events it held but a very inferior rank in any account of the rivers of Africa that has been transmitted to our times. I am, therefore, led to believe that the scribe of the sacred treasury of Minerva, who willingly informed Herodotus of what he knew respecting the sources of the Nile, alluded to the two streams of the table land of Abyssinia, the Abi flowing from the north, and the Abiah flowing from the south; which rivers uniting formed the Assa-abi of ancient days, the Assa-arogue of modern times, and which most certainly was the object of religious worship among the ancient Ethiopians.

I would not dare to advance an opinion so directly opposed to the apparently well-considered conclusions arrived at by previous travellers, but that I am convinced that those which they now advocate have been the result of biassed consultations in the closet, where ingenious, but not travelled, geographers have successfully combated the actual results of information derived upon the spot. Krapf, Beke, and Harris, all sent home maps and information, in which the river Gibbee is made to join the Nile, and each have successively given way to subsequent influences. The fact of the Assa-abi, or Assareek, flooding in May, according to the observation of Mr. Inglish, who accompanied the expedition of Mahomed Allee to Sennaar, could not be accounted for by Abyssinian travellers without, in fact, leading the Gibbee, or some other large river, to join the Abi, or Bruce’s Nile, for this latter does not commence to swell before the latter end of June, and could not therefore contribute to the rise of the waters of the Assa-abi in May. This was another reason that should have influenced these travellers to adhere to their Abyssinian information, for no argument that could be brought to bear against it could stand for a moment. But, it has been observed, there is the positive testimony of the Father Antonio Fernandez, who, in 1615, passed over the Kibbee twice in his journey to Enarea and Zingero. To this I answer, that the historiographer of “The Travels of Jesuits in Abyssinia,” F. Balthazer Tellez, so represents it, but not, I think, upon the authority of Fernandez, but merely as an opinion of his own; but asserted with so much positiveness, that it might readily be supposed part of the information which he derived from Fernandez. Compare what Tellez says in his summary of the rivers of Ethiopia—“There is another celebrated river called Zebee, said to be greater than the Nile itself, rising in a territory called Bora, in the kingdom of Narea, which is the most southerly, and whereof we shall speak hereafter. It begins its course westward, a few leagues farther turns to the northward, and runs about the kingdom of Zingero, of which we shall also give an account, making it a sort of peninsula, as the Nile does the kingdom of Gojam. After leaving this kingdom, it takes its course to the southward; and some say, it is the same that falls into the sea at Mombaza.” Tellez alludes to the course of the Zebee again, when recounting the visit of Fernandez to the Court of Zingero; but merely observes, that it encompasses the kingdom of Zingero, making it a sort of peninsula, and then runs to empty itself towards the coast of Melinda; thus embodying, as it were, in an account of the southern parts of Abyssinia, professed to be given by Fernandez, that view of the course of the river he had previously advocated and represented in the small map placed at the commencement of his volume.

Tellez, whilst he is minute enough upon the manners and customs of the people of Abyssinia, and dilates upon the history of the labours of his order in that country, contrives to mystify us considerably in the geography and politics. I cannot help thinking he was directed by some Government to write as he did for a particular purpose, or was jealous of other nations reaping the benefits of the ill-judged policy of the Jesuits, which had terminated in their exclusion from the country; and, which, he was fully conscious, was a very available and a wide field for religious zeal or commercial enterprise to reap rich rewards for the trouble of exploring.

It is a matter of the greatest notoriety, that even in the present enlightened times, it does not follow, because the emissaries of any Government visit and observe unknown countries, that they give correct geographical or political information for the benefit of other nations. Least of any, can such disingenuousness be expected from the Portuguese Court of the seventeenth century; and I cannot therefore, but believe, confirmed as the opinion is by the internal evidence of the book itself, that the imperfect, incorrect, and distorted account of the travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, was written for the political purpose of misleading the enterprising spirits of other nations. Most effectually did it accomplish this object, and for two more centuries was this important country consigned to that obscurity, in which, for so many ages previous to its re-discovery by the Portuguese, its history had been involved. This, however, was not the only injury done to the progress of human civilization; for whilst the natives were thus allowed to fall still lower in barbarism, the Jesuitical statements interfered with European enlightenment; and geographers and men of letters have been misled in many particulars respecting the character of the country, and of the disposition of the various people who inhabit Abyssinia. I can ill afford the space, but to illustrate the manner in which Tellez endeavours to mislead, as regards geographical matters, I will here introduce a most glaring instance, which, I trust, may be received as my apology and excuse for presuming, as I have done, to question the integrity of the great authority of recent Abyssinian travellers; for, without Tellez, they have no authenticated evidence to oppose against that, which I can bring forward to prove that the Gibbee flows, not to the south, and to the Indian ocean, but to the north, and into the Nile. Even Bruce, much as I respect him, as the prince of travellers, evidently follows Tellez in his account of the Gibbee; and it is curious to remark, that not only as regards this river, but upon other subjects where he has exaggerated so much as to be supposed to be drawing upon his imagination, he is actually using almost the very words of the Jesuit historian.

Speaking of the Embassy dispatched to Portugal in the year 1613, by the Emperor Segued, which consisted of some natives of rank, accompanied by the father Antonio Fernandez, and ten other Portuguese, Tellez informs us, “These men were directed to take a route through Narea to Melinda, upon the coast, the Emperor believing (and he, it may be supposed, would be very likely to have the best information) that the road was shorter and easier than the one to Massoah.” This opinion we find still farther confirmed when the Embassy arrived at Narea, for there the Bonero, or Governor, determined the party should not proceed “by the way they designed, which was the best, lest the Portuguese should become acquainted with it.” These native authorities, however, are deemed of no value by Tellez, who thus decides the matter at once, “Now, to deal plainly, the way the father (Fernandez) proposed through Cafah was no better than this (the road back again to the north and east); because, proceeding south from Narea, there is no coming to the sea without travelling many hundred leagues to the Cape of Good Hope, as may appear by all modern maps, so that the whole project had nothing of likelihood.”

Father Antonio Fernandez himself does not appear, in Tellez, to have kept any regular account of the journey; and yet there is internal evidence in what is given to the reader in the “Travels of the Jesuits,” that in reality the greatest attention was paid to every subject of interest; and as we must conceive that the first object of the Government, who supported and encouraged the Jesuits in Abyssinia, was to obtain correct geographical knowledge of that part of Africa, I cannot but believe that this was particularly attended to by their agents; but that when afterwards the travels were published to satisfy public curiosity, it was found convenient to suppress the most important information. This reason is sufficient also to account for the mysterious disappearance of the greater part of the documents which assisted Tellez in drawing up his compilation, a suspicious circumstance of itself, that the object of this book was anything but to give a correct description of the physical character and capabilities of the country of Abyssinia.

I have dwelt too long, perhaps, upon an unimportant subject, but it is necessary, because modern geographers invariably advance Tellez as an unquestionable authority upon the subject of the water-shed of the Gibbee; and with his assistance they have already obliged more than one Abyssinian traveller to throw aside information received in the country, and instead of adhering to opinions advocated whilst there, to repudiate the whole, and follow in supporting errors they thus confessed themselves unable to refute. This is not the only evil of their inconsistency, for their present opinions are so many important authorities which have an equal claim to the attention of the scientific world as my own, and render it impossible for my testimony, even were it demonstrated to be correct, to be received against the conjoined evidence of two or three others who have visited Abyssinia as well as myself. This I admit to be fair, but not so the attempts which have been made to convince me of my geographical errors, not by argument, but by threats of all kinds of critical pains and penalties, for my presumption in advancing views so contrary to generally received accounts. Be it so, I feel quite assured there is some portion of the reviewing press, who will scorn to be made the instruments of unfair attacks upon any one, contending only for what he believes to be true, and for no other motive, but the instruction of himself and others.

Around his rude outline of Abyssinia, my native informant Ibrahim placed representatives of the Shankalli, who surrounded that country, except upon its eastern side, where another black race, the Dankalli, testify by their skins, to a similar low elevation of the country they inhabit. Ibrahim thus undesignedly proved the correctness of his information, for it struck me, that no physical feature is so conclusive as to the character of a country, whether high or low land, than the complexion of its inhabitants. An exception, however, to thus entirely surrounding the high land of Abyssinia with the two nations of blacks was made to the north and south of the country of Adal, where two oppositely situated water-sheds are drained by the two rivers, the Tacazza and the Whabbee, the former flowing into the Nile, the latter into the Indian Ocean at Jubah. The character of both the countries through which these rivers flow are, in one respect, similar; their elevation being intermediate between the low plains of Adal, and the table land of Abyssinia, or about six thousand feet high above the level of the sea. The inhabitants of either water-shed also resemble each other in their colour, being a dark brown, modified by parentage and descent, for the complexion of the inhabitants of Tigre and Angotcha, approaches to the red colour of the real Abyssinian, whilst the skins of the Gallas around the sources of the Whabbee have a duskier inclination towards the original colour of their Dankalli and Shankalli parents.

To the north of Dembeacha, around the lower course of the Tacazza, European travellers attest the existence of Shankalli, whilst the officers attached to the exploring armies of Mahomed Allee, found them also all along the course of Bahr ul Assareek to Fazuglo, and report them as extending an indefinite distance to the south. On the other hand, I have seen and spoken with Shankalli or negroes who had been brought into Shoa from beyond Kuffah, Enarea, and Limmoo; and Ibrahim also was most particular in stating that all around those places to the south was the black country, Tokruah, the Amharic name for that colour, and which is the origin of the general native designation of interior Africa, and is synonymous with Sudan, derived from the Arabic Asward, black.

The inference that is to be derived from this fact, of the Shankalli being found in the immediate neighbourhood of a very light complexioned people, is, that the high table land of Abyssinia suddenly slopes, on its south and west sides, from the elevation of ten or twelve thousand feet, to a low country of less than three thousand feet high, a scarp of perhaps thirty miles only intervening between the two very differently situated countries.

I take it for granted the reader is aware that the light yellow-coloured people of Enarea and Zingero attest, by their skin, the elevation I have assumed for these southern Abyssinian kingdoms. It is, I think, undeniable that the table-land increases in elevation to the south, for all travellers agree that the complexion of the inhabitants becomes fairer as they increase in distance from Shoa in that direction; and I need not observe the contrary would naturally be expected as we approach nearer to the equator. Several people I have seen, however, who came from within five degrees of the line, and were much lighter coloured than the generality of Spaniards. This would not be the case with a people living only upon a mountain ridge, even if the delicate frames of the yellow Zingero people attested, by a different character, the hardy life of a mountaineer. There must be, therefore, I should suppose, a considerable continuity of surface to seclude a large family of man from the otherwise unavoidable intercourse with the darker skinned inhabitants of the low land, and to have enabled a very ancient people to continue unchanged their fair complexion nearly in the centre of a continent of blacks.

These are the principal reasons which have led me to contend for the tabular character of Abyssinia to the south, instead of, as modern travellers invariably represent it, as being divided through its extent by an anticlinal axis, which divides the waters that flow to the north-west and to the Nile, from those which, on the contrary, proceed to the south-east and to the Indian Ocean. This impression, and Tellez’s apparently positive statement that the Zibbee flows to the southward, I am afraid, however will still be proof against my arguments, and until some enterprizing traveller visits the countries of Enarea and Zingero, and decides by actual observation, my readers may still amuse themselves by forming opinions upon this debatable subject. For their assistance I have, therefore, recorded the results of my observations, and the information I received in a country scarcely one hundred miles from these interesting and remote localities.

The Gibbee, or Zibbee, by Ibrahim’s account, rose in Enarea, where its sources were called Somma, which, in the Gonga language signifies, “head.” At this place, annually, many superstitious practices are observed, the last remains, I expect, of the ancient river worship that was once general throughout the whole of Abyssinia. The Agows of Northern Abyssinia, who are of Gonga origin, still profess to worship the Abi, although no traveller has yet given us any account of their ceremonies; the more to be regretted, as it would throw considerable light upon the ancient customs of an early state of society, when Abyssinia was the centre of all civilization in the world.

After flowing some distance to the south and east, the Gibbee was represented to me as taking a course similar to that of the Abi around Gojam, nearly encircling the kingdom of Zingero, which is separated from Gurague by this very stream, then a large river, and still flowing to the south. After passing westward between Zingero and Kuffah, the Gibbee then takes the name of Ankor from the principal province of Zingero which borders upon it, and in which the King resides; it then bends towards the north and west, passing to the south of Enarea, where it is called Durr, and receives a large river, the Omo, coming from Kuffah. From several reasons I believe the Omo to be the main branch, and the Durr merely another name for it; however, as some large stream does join the Gibbee from the south, I have so designated in my map one which I have laid down as coming from that direction. After the Gibbee has passed Enarea, it flows to the west of Limmoo, where it is best known as the Abiah, the common Galla name of the large river which, in that situation, breaks from the table-land, and then proceeds towards the north some distance through the country of the Shankalli before it receives, in the neighbourhood of Fazuglo, the waters of the Abi, which drains northern Abyssinia. After the junction of these two, the name Gibbee then re-assumes in part its most ancient name Assa-arogue, the original of Assareek, meaning in Amharic the old Assa, or red river, so called from flowing through the country of the red people, in contradistinction to that portion of the Nile supposed to flow from a country of the whites: hence, the name of Ab-Addo, the principal western branch of the Bahr ul Abiad, which, as in Arabic, signifies “the river of the whites.”

Gibbee, the modern form of Zibbee, lends its name to assist in unravelling the mystery of its course, for I derive it from the word Azzabe, or Assabi; the origin of the Assabinus, whom Latin authors represent to have been the Jupiter of the Ethiopians, by which is meant, I presume, the principal god of the people. If it be admitted that its name and that of the Zibbee are the same, there can be but little doubt of their streams being one, and that the latter is the early course of the former. Strange rumours reach the ears of travellers in Abyssinia, of human sacrifices being still practised by the Pagan inhabitants of Zingero, whilst even in the Christian kingdom of Enarea it is not unusual for slave Kafilahs, on crossing the Gibbee, to propitiate the god of that river by immolating the most beautiful of the virgin slaves in its waters. A similar custom was formerly practised in Egypt; for an Arab geographer, quoted by Mr. Cooley, either in his Notes to “Larcher’s Herodotus,” or “The Negroland of the Arabs,” records this circumstance. This coincidence of an inhuman practice seems also to point to a connexion between the sacred character of the Gibbee and that of the Nile. Another ceremony also, in which, on the election of a king, the inhabitants of Zingero collect upon the banks of the Gibbee, until upon some one’s head a bee should rest, who is immediately proclaimed to be the sovereign, I have some idea was the reason of that little insect being made the hieroglyphical representative of king or chief among the ancient Egyptians, and perhaps at one period of their history a similar custom prevailed among them.

The Gibbee is at the present time a holy river, as was the Assabi among the Ethiopians, and which was also the original of the Egyptian god, Serapis. This latter supposition is confirmed by the fact that, in some parts of its course, the Abi of Northern Abyssinia at the present day is similarly worshipped, and that its sources, in the time of the Portuguese missionaries, were actually the scene of Pagan sacrifices. The ancient Apis I consider to have been no other; for the Grecian terminal being rejected, the identity of the two names Abi and Api is manifest, whilst that of Assabi and Serapi is equally evident.

That the river Gibbee cannot be the earlier tributary of the Gochob of Dr. Beke, is proved by what we are told by Major Harris, of a river so called, entering the sea at Jubah. If this be the case there can no longer be any doubt of the identity of the Gochob with the Whabbee, and which I feel more assured of, from the information I have received, compared with the accounts sent to the Geographical Society of Paris, by M. d’Abbadie, from Berberah, on the Soumaulee coast, respecting the entrance of the Whabbee into the sea at Jubah.

Nor is this idea at all affected by the discoveries of Lieut. Christopher on the coast near Brava, respecting a river said to be the Whabbee, which runs parallel to the sea-coast in that situation for more than one hundred miles, and then terminates in a fresh-water lake, some short distance inland; for this may be the northern arm of a delta-formed termination of the river, which has been prevented from reaching the sea in that situation, by the strong marine current known to exist along that coast, to the south-west. This has occasioned the silting up of this entrance of the river, so that it is only in very high seasons indeed of flood, that the fluvatile water bursts through, or overflows the barrier, and escapes to the sea. The mouths of several other African rivers present similar phenomena. The discovery of the Haines branch of the delta of the Whabbee proves, in fact, the correctness of all native accounts, who represent a large branch as leaving the main trunk of the Whabbee at Ganana, and terminating in a lake of fresh water, not far distant from Brava, and which intercepted river is supposed to resemble “a tail,” and hence the name, “Ganana.” All informants agree, however, that the principal stream, still called the Whabbee, proceeds to Jubah, so that unless the Gochob is admitted to be that river, some other embouchure must be procured for the latter.

Denying, in this manner, the connexion of the Gibbee with the Gochob of Dr. Beke, for every Abyssinian informant states positively that the Gibbee does not go to the Whabbee, and which, as far as I can judge, appears to be the original of the Gochob, there is but one other river flowing to the south, which the Gibbee can be supposed to join. This is the Kalli, which empties itself into the Indian Ocean by many mouths, about three degrees south of the equator, the principal of which appears to be that of Lamoo. No traveller gives any account of this river, though certainly it is a most important one in connexion with our future intercourse with the high land of Abyssinia. It is, as its name, Kalli, implies, a river of the black people, as the Assabi, or Zebee, of the table land above belongs exclusively to the country of a red race. The Portuguese name, Killimancy, is merely the addition of a word, signifying river in the Shankalli language, to the original Arian term, Kalli. The sources of this river are upon the southern scarp of the Abyssinian table land, in the same manner as the tributaries of the Hawash arise upon the eastern border. The two principal branches of the Kalli, I was told, enclose or receive in the bifurcation, the termination of the table land to the south.

A considerable degree of interest attaches itself to this river, and I could wish to see the attention of our geographers and politicians directed to its examination. All the red Abyssinian slaves, after a month’s journey through the country about the upper part of its course, are then embarked and conveyed down this river to Lamoo, to be carried away and disposed of in the Asiatic markets. It is by this channel also the Abashee colonies on the Malabar coast, of which Major Jervis has written some notices in a late volume of the “Bombay Geographical Society’s Journal,” are recruited. Those of the native Christians on the same coast I have seen myself are decidedly of Abyssinian origin, and perhaps that religion may have been introduced into India by missionaries from that country. It was singular that when an important and expensive Political Mission was about being sent into Abyssinia, some inquiries were not made respecting this southern route, along which a considerable intercourse at the present day exists between India and Abyssinia.

Independently of the table land to the south of the Gibbee increasing considerably in elevation, every other circumstance connected with its name and situation tends to show that the direction of its stream cannot be towards the south to join the Kalli. The stream of the Gibbee, in fact, is a large and navigable river, crossed immediately by slave Kafilahs from Enarea and Zingero during their journey to Lamoo, and they have then to proceed an entire month before they come to another river, the Kalli, to convey them to their destination. The Whabbee and the Kalli, therefore, can neither of them be supposed to be the lower stream of the Gibbee; but there is a large river of which every Galla speaks who comes from Limmoo, Jimma, and other districts in that neighbourhood; and which flows south, say Mr. M’Queen and Major Harris, whilst Dr. Beke denied its existence altogether, until my views were laid before the Geographical Society. He admitted certainly having heard, the small stream of the Dedassa, flowing into the Abi, in one instance called the Abiah. This gentleman appears to have confounded the names Abi and Abiah, believing that the latter was the Galla pronunciation of the former, and his Geography of Southern Abyssinia being founded upon this supposition, he fell into the opposite error to Major Harris; and crowded into a position too close upon the south of the Abi, countries which, upon the authority of the latter, have been carried to a situation not far from the equator; and the Abiah, contrary to any sound information that could possibly have been received, is taken away, to flow through unknown lands to the south and west, where it is made to join the Bahr ul Abiad. Such are travellers’ reports, and I profess to give no better, only that I cannot afford to sacrifice the information I have obtained upon this subject, to the speculative ideas of geographers, however learned, and therefore obstinately persist in what they consider to be error, when it has more the appearance of truth, than have the theories which they can only advance in opposition.

The Abiah, which is almost denied to exist by one traveller, and taken into remote countries by another, I believe to be the main branch of the Gibbee, and have accordingly so laid it down in the sketch map of the different water-sheds of Abyssinia I have projected to assist me in explaining my ideas upon the subject.

I will not, as I am almost tempted, recapitulate the evidences that the Gibbee, the Abiah, and the ancient Assabi, are one and the same river, and the principal branch of the Abyssinian Nile; for if that which I have said is not sufficient to convince; to continue would only be to fatigue the reader with suppositions, probabilities, and beliefs, that would still, in the end, leave the subject in quite as unsatisfactory a state as it remains at present.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] This individual figures in Major Harris’s “Highland of Ethiopia” as Hadjji Mahomed; and the whole occurrence there related happened during the journey to the coast in 1843. It is difficult, therefore, to understand how it could be recorded as an incident of a journey in 1841, and in an account stated to have been written in the heart of Abyssinia. Numerous other instances of this kind of interpolation of adventure could be pointed out which would be immaterial, only, as I shall probably allude to the same circumstances myself, of course I am anxious not to be supposed to borrow them from the work of a cotemporary.

[6] By the old Portuguese writers denominated “the flower Denguelet.”

[7] None of the Egyptians, or Africans, or Grecians, with whom I had any discourse, would own to me their knowledge of the fountains of the Nile, except only a scribe of the sacred treasury of Minerva, in the city Sais in Egypt. He, indeed, cheerfully told me that he certainly was acquainted with them. But this was the account he gave, that there were two mountains, with peaked tops, situated between Syene, a city of Thebais, and Elephantina; the name of one of which was Krophi, of the other Mophi; that from the midst of these two mountains arose the bottomless fountains of the Nile; one part of its stream ran towards Egypt and the north, the other part towards Ethiopia and the south. But that the fountains were bottomless, he said that Psammeticus, a King of Egypt, had made the experiment; after having tied ropes of great length and let them down into the fountains, he could not reach the bottom.—​Herodotus, book ii.

CHAPTER VIII.

Water cure.—​Nearly killed by it.—​Ordered to leave Shoa.—​Proceed to Angolahlah.—​Courteous treatment of the officers of the Negoos.—​Entertainment.—​Remarks upon the character of Sahale Selassee.—​The Mahomedan religion.

My illness increasing, each succeeding paroxysm of fever leaving me in a more weakened condition, my servant proposed a remedy, boasted never to fail in effecting a cure. I had but a scanty stock of medicines, that I had brought with me from Aden, and these seemed to have little or no effect upon my disease; so I determined to give Walderheros a chance of distinguishing himself by conferring health upon his “gaitah” (master).

To do this properly, it was deemed necessary that some water should be fetched from a spring by a man, and as this is a species of labour always performed by women, Walderheros, not to be seen at such employment, undertook to take the water-jar for that purpose the next morning before daylight. I also learnt that the cure was to be effected by a kind of shower-bath, to which I was to submit, sitting down whilst the water was poured from a height upon my head, during the attack of the rigors which preceded the hot stage of the ague fit.

The next day, accordingly, the water having been properly procured, on the first symptoms of the fit coming on, I sat down in the shade of a large ankor tree, a variety of the myrrh, that grows at an elevation of seven thousand feet above the sea, but yields no gum. Here, wrapt up in an Abyssinian tobe, which upon the first fall of the water I was to drop from my shoulders, I awaited the coming shower from above, for Walderheros had climbed into the tree, whilst some assistants lifted up to him the large jar which contained the water. The remedy, however, when it did come down, immediately laid me full length upon the earth, for what with the collapse of the system attendant upon the cold stage and the cold falling water, it certainly cut short the fever, but nearly at the expense of my life, for even when I recovered from the first shock, and was taken back to my bed, I was delirious for several hours after,—a circumstance that I have often had reason to be thankful for, had not been a very usual symptom of my disease.

After this experience, that white men required a very different medical treatment to the red Abyssinians (for in this manner Walderheros endeavoured to account for the failure of his hydropathic remedy), I was not asked again to submit to any more native means of cure for some time; as my recovery, however, was of the greatest importance to me, I commenced a regular course of quinine and James’s Powder, and had it not been for a most disagreeable interruption in the quiet and retired life I was leading in Aliu Amba, I might, perhaps, have been soon restored to health.

On the tenth day after my last visit to Ankobar, the Negoos and the members of the Embassy having, in the meantime, left that city for Angolahlah, a message was brought to Miriam’s house for me to go immediately to the Governor of the town, who had just arrived from the Court on purpose to have me brought before him.

Feeling a little better than I had been for some time, and being curious to know what business the Governor could have with me, I followed his messenger, taking with me, as a present on being introduced, an old pocket telescope. It was fortunate that I recollected to do this, for on my giving it to him he was so highly pleased, that he told me, through an Islam Hadjji named Abdullah, that he was willing to serve me in any way he could in the very awkward position I now learned I was placed in, by the order he had received from the Negoos. For some reason or other, my presence in the kingdom had raised a jealous feeling somewhere, and, in consequence, a most arbitrary mandate, considering the then relations between Shoa and England, was issued, and I was directed to leave the country the very next day. Whilst we were speaking, two men were sent with Walderheros for my boxes, to be brought at once to the Governor’s house, previous to their being forwarded to Farree, where the Kafilah with which I had come up, and which was now on the eve of starting, afforded the opportunity of my proceeding to the sea-coast. Here was another practical proof of the value of the commercial treaty, and bitterly I commented, as may be supposed, upon the worthless parchment. I felt quite assured that it would be of no use applying to our Ambassador for redress, so considered it would be best to submit in peace, and made no objections, therefore, to my boxes being taken to the Governor’s house.

Not having made up my mind though, for all that, to leave the country, I determined, after I had left Tinta (the name of the Governor) to go and consult with a sincere friend of mine, an Edjow Galla named Sheik Tigh, who had shown himself possessed of the kindest disposition by his disinterested and patient attendance upon my sick bed during the short period I had resided in Aliu Amba. He was a Mahomedan mollum, or scribe, for his occupation was writing copies of the Koran, which he used to sell to the slave merchants who came from the more barbarous countries around Shoa. Either on account of the trifling sum that these manuscript Korans can be purchased for in Abyssinia, or the excessive neatness with which Amhara Mahomedans write Arabic compared with even Arabs themselves, these Abyssinian copies are highly prized even along the sacred or eastern coast of the Red Sea, and in Jeddah will command an increased value of two hundred per cent. upon their original cost.

Sheik Tigh concurred immediately in my proposed plan, either of endeavouring to remain in Shoa by a personal request to be made to the Negoos; or of going away to Giddem, and from there to the court of Beroo Lobo, the Mahomedan chief of that portion of the Argobbah, or valley country that extends to the north of Efat, as far as the river Tahlahlac, one of the most northern tributaries of the Hawash. The state of my finances, however, I found would not admit of this latter alternative; for, excepting the thirteen dollars remaining of the Hy Soumaulee money, I had only seven dollars in the world.

It was at length determined amongst us, for Hadjji Abdullah had joined in our consultation, that I should take another present to Tinta, as a kind of bribe, and the real object of which Sheik Tigh was to explain to him. I accordingly packed up a damask table-cloth, and provided myself with three of the most favoured dollars I was possessed of, and thus armed, went again in the dusk of the evening to the house of the Governor. My offering was very quietly received and concealed, by which I perceived the business had been properly managed by Sheik Tigh, and that it was understood I was to have unmolested, three hours’ start of him the next morning, to get over the most difficult portion of the road to Angolahlah before he followed in pursuit; a little manœuvre necessary to keep up appearances with the Negoos; for although it would have been no very heinous offence to have permitted me the opportunity of appealing to the justice of Sahale Selassee, Tinta might have suffered for his generosity in permitting me to come to Angolahlah, when he had received orders to accompany me to Farree. Tinta, like most Abyssinians, was a really kind-hearted man, but his education as a courtier, and that in a despotic court, had taught him dissimulation and caution.

Walderheros, it may be supposed, was violently affected at the prospect of losing his father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, all being, according to his account, rolled up in me. He often used to observe, he was my child; though he was (beautiful boy) at least ten years older than myself. He now protested he should never survive our cruel separation. If it had not been for that “kaffu” (wicked) Hawash, those “kaffu Adaloitsh,” (wicked Dankalli,) and that “kaffu bahr,” (wicked sea,) he swore that he would have followed me over the rest of the world. In this manner he went on talking during the whole of the evening, with many imprecatory bursts of “woi Negoos,” and “min Abat,” at the same time busying himself making preparations for our sanctioned escape next morning to Angolahlah, and what with cooking and expostulating with some imaginary evil destiny that pursued him, he kept me awake nearly the whole night.

As Hadjji Abdullah, after it was dark, had brought me his own mule, it was stabled for the night in my house, and long before cock-crow the next morning we were carefully descending in the dark the step-like road of rough stones which leads from the top of Aliu Amba into the direct road to Ankobar. We were obliged to be very cautious in our progress along the steep slippery bank, and the edges of deep muddy pools produced by the first showers of the rainy season, which had fallen the few days previously, and had not at all improved the condition of the road.

The sun had risen before we reached Ankobar. On this occasion it was unnecessary to go through that town; so having surmounted the long ridge in front, instead of continuing along it, we crossed directly over, leaving the little wooden cross and church of Goodis Gorgis (St. George) in its encircling grove of quolqual and wild fig-trees, on our left hand. The road we followed was exceedingly narrow, and fell very gradually in a prolonged sweep down the steep descent into the valley of the Airahra. Half way down is a broad terrace of considerable extent covered with immense boulders from the destruction of the ridge above, and which appears to be more rapidly denuded upon this face than upon the opposite one looking towards Aliu Amba. On a mound of the detached rocks and soil in this situation is built a church, dedicated to “Abbo,” the father, the only one I have ever seen so situated except the meeting-houses of the Tabibe sect, who do not pay that respect to ancient superstitions that still influences the other Christians of Abyssinia. A sufficient reason, however, accounts for its low elevation.

At the commencement of the reign of the present Negoos, a great portion of the ancient grove of Abbo and its church still occupied the highest point of the ridge over which we had just come. The denuding operations of the conjointed actions of earthquakes and rainy seasons overcame every endeavour that was made to protect the sacred spot from being encroached upon, it having been one of the most ancient and most revered of the sacred edifices in Shoa. Annually large portions were precipitated into the valley of the Airahra; and ultimately the last portion of the walls of the church disappeared, after a violent convulsion of the earth, and a single line of trees, the remains of a once extensive grove, now marks its former site. The spot is still considered sacred, and so attached were the monks upon the establishment, to the ancient edifice, that, observing that the greater portion of the debris had fallen upon the terrace beneath, they determined to erect upon it a representative of the old church, although on so low an elevation compared with the numerous heights around.

This is, however, the only instance I know of a church of the Abyssinian Christians being so situated, for it is a particular feature of the worship in this country that all religious buildings should surmount “some earth o’ertopping mountain;” and to such an extent is this feeling carried, that sacred hills which have become lowered in consequence of the greater denudation of their summits, is a reason sometimes for changing the site of the church to some neighbouring hill that, from more favourable causes, has preserved its height undiminished. A striking instance of this change, and its assigned cause, is found in the circumstances connected with the erection of the new church of St. Michael, which stands upon a hill to the east of the Negoos’s residence, in the valley of the “Michael wans.” Here two groves are observed standing on hills near to each other, the more modern one being of much greater elevation than the other. Both are dedicated to the same saint, and on asking Walderheros why there should be two, he pointed out the difference in the height of the hills upon which they stood as a reason why the lower should be deserted, and preference given to the higher hill for the site of the “bate y Christian,” and the residence of the monks.

Looking upon these groves surrounding temples of religion, and serving as retreats for officiating priests, each of whom has his little cottage among the trees, it is impossible to help reflecting upon the changes in man’s history, recalled by observing such existing monuments of former feelings and religious prejudices. The question naturally suggested itself, what could have been the popular belief when the more ancient of the St. Michael’s groves was first planted; for a long period must have elapsed to have occasioned, by the disintegrating action of its vegetation, so much denudation of the hill it crowns, as to make it more than one hundred feet lower than the present frequented one; and originally it must have been the highest in the neighbourhood. I have observed other customs existing in Abyssinia that strongly reminded me of Druidism and of similar characteristic observances among the ancient Persians; and I certainly looked with some degree of interest upon a grove, that might once have been the scene of the celebration of religious ceremonies, of a very different character to those which distinguish the modern faith.

Although it was so early when we reached the church of Abbo, Walderheros proposed breakfasting. I accordingly dismounted, and after a gaze upwards at the largest tree I had seen since I left England, took my seat beneath its widely-extended branches, upon one of a number of small boulders which had rolled from the rocks above. A quantity of long strips of grilled mutton, was produced, and some teff bread, a large manuscript-like roll of which Walderheros carried tied up in his mekanet or girdle. This useful part of an Abyssinian dress is only worn by the men when engaged out of doors. It is one long piece of cotton cloth, about one cubit, or from the point of the elbow to the ends of the fingers, broad, and fifteen, twenty, or sometimes even thirty cubits long. A girdle similar to this was worn by the Jews. Sometimes in Abyssinia it is taken from the loins of a prisoner to secure his hands, exactly as it is said to have been done in Judea.

After breakfast we proceeded along the base of the large hill upon which Ankobar stands, the road winding around its south and west aspects. We then fell into the usual high road on the west of the town, which proceeds along the steep face of the valley, midway between its crest and the level of the stream below. We crossed, by gentle undulations of the road, several short projecting spurs, all of which seemed to be the productive farms of industrious individuals. Thatched residences of mud and sticks, with yellow stacks of grain, were perched upon their extremities, overlooking the sudden cliff-like termination of these subordinate ridges, cut by the action of the constantly running water of the Airahra.

Fording this river, we commenced the fatiguing ascent of the Tchakkah, and after little less than an hour’s trot were breathing ourselves at the “resting stone,” Koom Dingi. After a short halt, we continued our journey over the moor-like solitary fields that, unbroken by hedge, stone fence, or ditch, appeared in endless succession before us. But the reader must understand that, although the general appearance of the country is so flat, he is only reminded of it by the long level lines that bound the view on each side, for, generally speaking, the road lies in broad shallow water-worn channels, which, like hollow ways with banks ten or twelve feet high, have intersected in all directions this formerly undeviating level country. I always fancied that at one time it must have been the bottom of a deeply rolling sea, and what adds considerably to this impression is, the almost total absence of trees, and the bald, gray, stony, appearance of the stratum of light coloured porphyritic trachyte which overlies the whole country, and which looks as if it had only been raised from the waters a short time before. This super stratum of rock is very easily decomposed, and forms a fertile soil for the cultivation of wheat and barley, but its general appearance, unless covered with the crops, is quite the reverse.

About half way to Angolalah we crossed two or three of the earlier tributaries of the Barissa, which is a small river that collects the waters falling to the west of Tchakkah, and conducts them to the Abi or Nile of Bruce. All streams to the east of Tchakkah descend precipitously to join the Hawash. The Barissa derives its name from having been, previous to the reign of the present Negoos, the “boundary” between the Gallas and the Christian inhabitants of Shoa. It passes to the west of Debra Berhan, flowing towards the north, and joins the Jumma in the district of Marabetee. The Jumma also receives the Tcherkos river, or Lomee wans, which is now the western boundary of the kingdom of Shoa, the district intervening between it and the Barissa, a distance of about sixteen miles, having been annexed to his dominions within the last few years by Sahale Selassee. The Jumma, after receiving the Barissa, and other streams, of the kingdoms of Amhara and of Shoa, joins the Abi near where that river, after flowing to the south from Lake Dembea, turns suddenly to the west, and forms the southern border of the province of Gojam.

We arrived at Angolahlah before noon, and Walderheros took me to the house of a friend of his, named Karissa. The weather, although only the latter end of June, was dreadfully cold, and being very tired and ill, I preferred rolling myself immediately up in my bed-clothes, consisting of two Abyssinian tobes, which my servant had carried with him in a skin-bag, rather than sit up to eat of some hard parched corn which was set before me by one of the women of the house.

In the mean time, Walderheros went to the palace to announce my arrival, and to request an interview with the Negoos. It was a long time before he returned, and I began to think, that like Mr. Krapf’s servant at Farree, he might have been imprisoned for aiding me in coming to Angolalah without permission. In about two hours, however, he made his appearance, bearing on his head a large conical covered straw basket, which contained a flat loaf of excellent wheaten bread. With one hand he steadied this load in its elevated position, whilst in the other, he carried by a strong loop handle of rope, a round earthenware pot, the contents of which were as yet a secret to me. Across one shoulder was also slung an enormous bullock’s horn, the diameter of the base of which was not less than seven inches, full of an agreeable sweet wine, called “tedge,” made of honey, and not at all a bad beverage. I was astonished at the ease with which he seemed to have procured these provisions; and the visions of my Dankalli servant in Adal and the representation I had seen of the Egyptian god, Harpocrates, similarly burdened, recurred to my mind, as the abundance of the land I was in, was illustrated by the appearance of Walderheros on his return from the palace. Besides the refreshments that he bore himself, he was followed by a stream of people, two of them carrying a tressel for my bed, another an oxskin to throw over it, then came others with fire-wood, also two women with large jars of water, and the procession closed by four men bearing a small black tent of coarse woollen cloth, which was set up in a very short time, for my accommodation.

When I had taken possession of my new quarters, the tent was thronged for the rest of the day by curious or busy people, some bearing messages for Walderheros from the palace; others, making anxious inquiries as to my reasons for coming to Angolalah; and not a few were begging of me to intercede for them with the Negoos, to reinstate them into his good graces, which, for some dereliction of duty it seemed, they had lost; and now hoped that by my mediation their sins would be forgiven. Two superior officers of the household of the Negoos, also sat with me nearly the whole day, Waarkie, an Armenian, long resident in Shoa, and Sartwold the chief of the “affaroitsh,” or distributors of the rations to stranger guests. The former understood a little Arabic, and we managed to converse together very well. He told me, that instead of my being sent out of the kingdom, he was quite certain I should become a great favourite with the Negoos. The order sent for my removal from Aliu Amba, was occasioned by the ill-natured un-English representations of the officers of the Embassy who had told Waarkie himself, that I did not belong to their party, that they did not know who I was, and adding, to assist me still more, that I was very poor, and could give no presents to the Negoos. I felt very much hurt, and annoyed, at these unfair representations, and produced a letter which I had received from the Indian Government in Calcutta, addressed to the princes in Africa, who were friendly disposed to England. This I had previously kept back from a feeling of delicacy towards our representative at the Court of Shoa, but now determined to forward it to the Negoos by Sartwold, who readily consented to carry it up to the palace, Walderheros accompanying him to bring me back the answer. Waarkie, who could not read the Persian character, in which the letter was written, went in search of some Islam visitor at Court, who would be able to translate it for the Negoos.

As evening now closed in, I retired to rest; sometime after which my servant returned with the letter, and a couple of lemons sent by the Negoos, with a message that I should be called on the morrow to an interview with him.

Long before it was light, I was awakened by loud shouts of “abiad,” “abiad,” raised at short intervals, and apparently at some distance. On applying to Walderheros for an explanation of this uproar, he made me understand with some difficulty, that it arose from the petitioners for justice, calling upon the Negoos to hear them. It appears that after a case has been heard in the lower courts, if they may be so called, held before the governors of the town in which the conflicting parties reside, if either complain of his decision, an appeal may be made to the king himself. A company of the friends of the dissatisfied assemble, in as great a number as the influence of the party or the justice of the case can collect. These sometimes, so early as midnight, take up a position on a height overlooking the town, and opposite to that on which the palace stands. Half-a-mile, at least, intervenes between the two places. Here they keep up a continual shouting “abiad,” “abiad,” (justice,) until a messenger from the Negoos comes to know the nature of their complaint, and to introduce them into his presence. On this occasion, I did not understand sufficient of the language to learn the particulars of the case, but as the Negoos is the most easily accessible, the most patient listener, and the most upright judge that I ever heard praised by word of mouth, or read of among the most laudatory history of kings, I have no doubt that the cry of his people that awoke me this morning was duly attended to, the case investigated, and the strictest justice awarded.

The Dankalli may well style Sahale Selassee, “a fine balance of gold,” for even now, when thinking of his character, the most lively pictures recur to my mind of instances of his kindness and feeling for the happiness of his subjects, which I have witnessed myself. Excepting the cruelty, and dissimulation, practised towards the unfortunate tribes of Gallas who surround his dominions, and which he has been taught to consider from his childhood, to be praiseworthy acts, which will secure the approbation of God; excepting this, nothing in his character can, I think, be justly assailed. The fears of his Christian, and the hopes of his Islam subjects, that he would renounce the faith in which he has been brought up, and profess Islamism, redounds considerably to his character as a reflecting man, and a proof of the really capacious mind he possesses; for none who are aware of the gross superstition and confusion most confused, of the tenets of the Greek Church as professed in Abyssinia, can feel surprised that a naturally sagacious mind, should refuse the trammels of absurdity and error, to embrace the reasonable simplicity of the profession of one true and only God, which is the real basis and great recommendation of the Mahomedan belief.

It is the false consolation of an easily-satisfied Christianity to believe, that the licentiousness, which an abuse of the Mahomedan religion most certainly encourages, is the chief inducement which converts so rapidly, whole states to the profession of the Islam faith. A little observation soon proves, that although the sensual indulgences it sanctions, and the promises contained in the Koran, enlist the worst passions of man in favour of its continuance, when once that religion has obtained a firm hold upon the opinion of a people; still, that these causes have but little influence in effecting a change from a previous belief.

Wherever a patriarchal, or even a feudal government exists, there the mass of the people are directed in their conduct, and in their ideas of right and wrong, entirely by the leading minds that circumstances have made their superiors. The doctrine that “the king can do no wrong,” appears to be a traditional continuance of this blind confidence in the ruling powers which characterized the state of society in Europe, at an early date; and which is still, to this day, the universal principle of government in all native African states. In that Continent, sagacious and intelligent princes, concentrate the energies of extensive empires, but at their decease, revolutions occur to re-adjust the limits of power again, according to the capabilities of the various ambitious claimants that may spring up. The greatest minds obtain the largest dominion, and when these appear among the professors of superstitious religions, soon feel a contempt for the absurd pretensions and the moral falsehoods their superior mental powers instinctively detect. Too frequently, having no idea of a rational system of theology, but aware of the value of religion as an engine of state policy, they wisely profess and encourage the ancient faith. Let, however, a doctrine be preached that is more adapted to reason and common sense, and which promises equal security to the continuance of social order and of kingly rule: its professors in that case are always found to be received into the highest favour by wise and sagacious princes, who perceive in the new opinions upon an important subject, that satisfaction of the reason which the absurd representations of superstitious religion have only disgusted or amused. Such princes converted to a rational belief, have but to promulgate their adhesion to be followed by the whole of their courtiers, who again impose it upon their dependants, from whom the process passes on to their slaves, and one universal obsequiousness characterizes the conversion of people so situated.

This was the principle that led whole states of Europe, in the earlier feudal ages, to be baptized together, and which, at the present time, is the chief cause of the fast progress of Mahomedanism in Africa. Princes of extraordinary powers of intellect are first converted, who, in the simple unembodied unity of the Deity perceive no absurdity, nor yet dare to deny. Atheism is a sin peculiarly of civilization, for the nearer man approaches barbarism the more predisposed he becomes to a belief in a Providence; and this, in fact, distinguishes him, in his most abject state, from the beasts of the field who defile the inanimate idols he in his ignorance bows down to and worships. The Christianity of Abyssinia is a religion spoiled by human intervention; it appears to be a faith too pure for the nature of the inhabitants, and they have accordingly disfigured it to reduce it to their condition. Abyssinians have, by their abuse of the revered name of the Redeemer of mankind, brought his religion into contempt; whilst the professors of Islamism respect Jesus as a prophet, and profess to worship the Deity he adored. Is it, therefore, to be wondered at, that princes of superior intellects should reject the former and adopt the latter faith, as we know to have been the case with the previously Christian King of Enarea, who, within the last few years, has professed the Mahomedan belief. Sahale Selassee, the monarch of Shoa, universally acknowledged to be the greatest of Abyssinian potentates, was on the verge of a similar repudiation of the religion of his predecessors, when the worthy and exemplary missionaries, Messrs. Isenberg and Krapf appeared in his country. I am too apt to feel the zealot, but every one must admit with me, that that important visit was not a human ordination, for Sahale Selassee’s conversion would have been the downfall of the Christian religion in Abyssinia. Even the political mission to Shoa, which has failed in its proposed objects, yet affords some consolation by supposing that the evidences of our wealth and power, demonstrated by the presents which were laid at his feet by our representative, will confirm him in his renewed attachment to our religion, which only requires his countenance, to contend successfully in Abyssinia against the encroachments of the Islam faith, until fresh efforts shall be made by the friends of the Gospel in this country, more firmly to establish the pure faith of Christ in that benighted land.

Among more savage tribes, again, Islamism has other recommendations, for the missionaries of that religion, the merchants from the sea-coast who journey in to the interior of Africa, are immeasurably more affluent than the chiefs whose territories they visit. Besides, the imposing effect of publicly praying, the apparent devotion of their many genuflections and prostrations, the splendid finery of their large rosaries, added to which, their great ostentation of wealth where personal security is assured, soon influence the poor, ignorant, and wondering natives. The Islam factor is confessedly the greatest man among them; and his manners are copied, and his creed adopted, by the operation of the same human feelings, which in England or France make a lion or constitute a fashion, with this recommendation on the part of the savages, that their admiration is by far the most permanent.

CHAPTER IX.

Court dress.—​Palace of Angolahlah.—​Interview with Negoos.—​Memolagee.—​Invited to house of Tinta.—​Supplies from palace.—​Return to Ankobar.

June 30th.—This morning, after a breakfast of bread and cayenne pottage, which proved to be the contents of the little earthenware jar carried back from the palace the day before, I was sent for, to present myself immediately before the Negoos. Understanding that it was etiquette to appear before royalty either with the upper part of the body, above the waist, quite naked, or else, on the contrary, closely clothed up, I chose the latter alternative, and put over my blowse dress my black Arab cloak, and following the messenger, walked up the side of the low hill upon which the Palace of Angolahlah stands. This ridge, scarcely one hundred feet high, is a red ferruginous basaltic dyke, which has here protruded through the general surface rock of grey columnar porphyry. The rock of which it consists contains so much iron as to render the compass completely useless in taking bearings, and the oxidization, where it is exposed to the action of the atmosphere, occasions the bright red colour of the hill. The circumscribed, but nearly level summit, is occupied by the several courts of the royal residence, the palace buildings, long thatched houses, standing in the centre of all.

An irregular stockade of splintered ted (a juniper pine), twelve or fourteen feet high, is carried around the edge of the ridge, and the enclosed area, in its longest direction, exceeds three hundred yards. This is subdivided into courts, the first of which is entered from the town by a low gateway that scarcely affords passage to a person mounted upon a mule, although it is a privilege of the principal courtiers to ride so far before they dismount, when they visit the Negoos.

Through this court we passed, for about twenty yards, between two rows of noisy beggars, male and female, old, middle-aged, and young; who, leprous, scrofulous, and maimed, exhibited the most disgusting sores, and implored charity for the sake of Christ and the Virgin Mary. I was glad to escape from their piteous importunity, and I passed quickly through another row of palings by a narrow wicket into a second court, something more extensive than the other, where I found a crowd of people listening to an orator, who, with shoulders and body bare to his middle, was addressing three or four turbaned monks who sat in an open alcove, beneath the long projecting eaves of a thatched roof. This I was given to understand by Walderheros, who followed close behind me, was a court of justice, from whose decision, if the parties did not feel satisfied, they appealed to the King. As we passed through a third wicket, a small enclosure on one side attracted my attention, from the circumstance of several prisoners, shackled by the wrists and ancles with bright and apparently much-worn fetters, endeavouring to get a peep at me through the interstices of their wooden prison. In the next court was collected a great heap of stones, upon which a number of people were sitting; and here also I was desired to be seated, as I found out, among the noblemen of the country; for at first I objected to such a lowly couch, until I saw the Wallasmah, whom I knew to be the most powerful of any of the subjects of Sahale Selassee, sitting very contented, wrapt up in his white tobe, his black bald head, little eyes and snub nose, alone appearing from above its ample folds. There were many others of nearly equal rank, who were waiting to see the Negoos; so choosing the sunniest spot unoccupied, did in Shoa as I saw the Shoans do, and sat down with the rest upon the hard stones.

I had scarcely comported myself so unassumingly when its due reward followed, by being summoned immediately afterwards into the presence of the Negoos. I found his majesty in the next court, which was nearly circular, and surrounded by a low stone wall instead of the high, ragged palisades, that three times before fence his retreat about. Several long low houses stood around, serving as stores and offices, and conspicuous among them was the little round cottage, about twenty-two feet in diameter, that was then being erected by Capt. Graham. One of the thatched houses was raised to a second story, open in front, each side of which was ornamented with trellicework of very rude carpentry. In this elevated alcove, upon a couch, covered with red velvet, and reposing upon large cushions of yellow-coloured satin lay the Negoos of Shoa, Sahale Selassee, whilst many-coloured Persian carpets covered the floor, and hung over outside into the court.

I uncovered my head after the most approved court fashion, at least as far as I knew anything of the matter, but a slight movement of the considerate monarch instructed me that he desired I should keep my cap on whilst standing in the sun, addressing me at the same time by an Arabic expression, signifying “How do you do.”

This mode of commencing the conversation rather puzzled me, for simple as was the salutation, I had forgotten the meaning of “kiphanter” and fancying it to be some Amharic word, turned for assistance to Walderheros, who, however, dropped his nether jaw, and looked a vacant “I don’t know; don’t ask me.” Waarkie, who stood with numerous other courtiers around the royal couch, came to the edge of the stage, and repeated the word, upon which, recollecting myself, I bowed in return, and taking out my letter I had received in Calcutta, held it up for Waarkie to take it, and hand to the Negoos, as I hoped from his being so conversant with Arabic, he might be able to decipher it without the aid of an interpreter. This, however, I soon saw he could not do, for upon looking at it, not being able to make anything of it the right way, he turned it upside down, to see if it would read any easier in that position. Two mollums, or learned Mahomedan scribes, attendants of the Wallasmah Mahomed, were now summoned, but they soon confessed themselves at fault with the Persian character. Very fortunately for my reputation, a large round Government seal occupied one-third of the paper, and some of the characters upon it being recognised as Arabic, the document at length was reported to be genuine, or I should have been set down as an impostor as well as an adventurer. The seal having thus impressed them with the official character of the letter, the mollums satisfied the King that they could make out that I was represented in it to be a good man, and after one of them had been instructed to ask me what presents I had brought for the Negoos, they were ordered to depart.

Having understood from the members of the Mission, on my first arrival, that it was an invariable custom, on introduction to the monarch, to make him some present, I had accordingly provided myself with a few yards of rich Chinese silk velvet, and a curiously-worked bead purse, which contained a stone ring, cut out of a piece of green-coloured jaspar. Each was handed up in succession to the Negoos for his inspection; after having been duly described and registered upon a strip of parchment by a scribe who stood at my elbow for that purpose. As each was presented, the Negoos slightly bowed, and said, in his own language, “Egzeer ista” (God return it to you).

A short conversation with his courtiers, who stood with the upper parts of the body completely uncovered, was followed by a request on the part of the Negoos, that I should ask from him whatever I desired. I begged to be allowed to remain in Shoa until after the rains, and then to have permission and his assistance to proceed to Enarea. A slight inclination of assent, with an abrupt recommendation of me to the care of heaven by his majesty, terminated the interview, and I retired, followed by Walderheros, who appeared highly delighted with the graciousness of my reception, and was evidently speculating upon the bright prospects before him from the opportunities I might have of pushing his fortunes at court, for the precincts of which he seemed to have a great predilection.

Immediately after returning to my tent, a large goat was sent to me by the Negoos, and an inconvenient command that I should remain for the day at Angolahlah. There was nothing that I desired less, for the cold weather, the thin shelter of the tent, and my expected attack of the fever paroxysm on this day, made me anxious to proceed at once, after my visit to the palace, to my comparatively comfortable quarters in Aliu Amba, where the climate was so much more temperate and agreeable. I sent Walderheros to report the circumstance of my being very ill, and he fortunately met Tinta, who was coming down to see me, having been appointed to act as my “balderabah.” This is an officer who attends to the wants of a stranger guest, and is responsible to the Negoos for any neglect of the duties of hospitality. He also is the channel of communication between the monarch and his visitors, nor can any other person of the royal household undertake the duties of, or become the deputy of another in this office, so that it not unfrequently happens that an inconvenient detention in one of the courts of the palace takes place, if the balderabah happens not to be present to announce to the Negoos the presence or the business of his client. As the balderabah is always chosen from among the principal men about the court, the office is somewhat analogous to that of the patrons which characterized the state of society among the ancient Romans. The signification of the name “balderabah,” in the Amharic language is, the master or opener of the door.

Tinta came down, and after announcing to me that I had permission to remain in his town, and that he was appointed my “friend at court,” gave into my hand a little piece of parchment, about an inch and a half square upon which was written in the Geez language, “Give to this Gypt, eating and drinking,” nothing more, but which constituted me a “balla durgo,” that is, master or receiver of rations. “Gypt,” the Amharic for Egyptian, is the cognomen generally applied to all white men who visit Abyssinia, they being supposed to come from Egypt.[8]

The durgo, or rations, supplied to strangers whilst resident in their country, is a general custom among Abyssinian princes, and is of very great antiquity. It is considered that all persons visiting the kingdom come only as friends of the monarch, who, in the exercise of his hospitality, takes upon himself the whole expense of their sustenance, so that no excuse may be made for intriguing or interfering in the ordered state of things, as regards the rule or security of the kingly power. A deviation from the policy of non-interference on the part of the guest would then be justly considered an act of great ingratitude; nor when such a conservative principle is involved in the observance of hospitality towards strangers, can we be surprised at the indignation which marks several tirades in the productions of the ancient poets, when this custom was more general than in modern times, against individuals who have thus erred in their duties to the hosts who have entertained them.

Moreover, when departing from an Abyssinian country, the audience of leave-taking is supposed to terminate with a blessing bestowed upon the king by the guest, who acknowledges in this manner the kindness with which he has been received. The blessing being withheld implies the reverse, and no little uneasiness and superstitious alarm would be occasioned in the mind of a monarch, by the idea that the stranger would revenge himself by a curse, for any neglect he may suppose himself to have been treated with.

These customs being borne in mind, to apply our knowledge of them usefully, we must compare them with similar observances which did, and still do, characterize some oriental courts; and readers perhaps will recall to mind some in the histories of ancient and modern Asiatic monarchies, that may have originated from some former connexion in one extensive empire, of the now very different and widely separated countries in which such customs are still retained. I shall content myself, however, with pointing out their strict accordance with similar usages at the court of Pharaoh, as recorded in Genesis, and which is well illustrated in the reception of the patriarch Jacob, at the court of that monarch. In the forty-seventh chapter of that book, Joseph from his connexion with the monarch, introduces his five brethren, but he first reports their arrival and obtains leave; and in nearly the same manner he acts as balderabah of Jacob, and the remainder of the family whom we find on their arrival were constituted balla-durgoitsh “receivers of rations,” for we read in the same chapter that Joseph “nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father’s household with bread according to their families.” We are also told when Jacob retired from the presence of the monarch, “that Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.”

At the hazard of being considered tedious, I shall here allude to two other instances of customs existing at the present day in Abyssinia, and which are intimately connected with the subject we are upon. The only public oath used by the inhabitants of Shoa, is of a remarkable character. “Sahale Selassee e moot.” ‘May Sahale Selassee die,’ if such a thing be not true! is the constant ejaculation of a protesting witness, or a positive informant; and if upon a serious business, the immediate confiscation of property, and incarceration in prison, would be consequent upon a perjured imprecation made against the life of the Negoos. Joseph, accusing his brethren, in the fifteenth verse of the forty-second chapter of Genesis, says, “Hereby shall ye be proved: By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither;” and again, in the next verse, “or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spies.” The very language substituting the name Sahale Selassee for that of Pharaoh, under similar circumstances, which would be used in the court of Shoa at the present day.

In the years 1830 and 1831, when cholera made its circuit of the whole earth, it visited the kingdom of Shoa. It was preceded for two successive years by a great failure of crops, both of grain and cotton, and the people in consequence, were reduced to the greatest extremity for food and clothing. Numbers fell victims from hunger alone, and to relieve their necessities, numerous acts of violence and robbery disturbed the usually peaceful state of society in Shoa. The Negoos, at this time, secured to himself the love of his subjects by the liberality of his frequent distributions of grain; but another calamity made its appearance, the cholera commenced its ravages, and he began to fear that his bounty must end by the exhaustion of his means. The famine increasing from want of the cattle which had died, to cultivate the land, the difficulty of obtaining food began also to be felt by those who had the means of purchasing it, and these intruding with their applications were supplied at a price, whilst the wretched poor were left to die. In this position, having nothing to dispose of but their labour, a starving multitude of some thousands appealed to the Negoos to grant them food, and in return to receive their freedom, or at least their services for life. This was granted, and even after the cholera had swept off nearly two-thirds of their number, above a thousand such individuals were found to be in bondage to the Negoos, and duly registered as slaves. This condition was certainly little more than nominal, for, except upon extraordinary occasions, such as constructing the bridge dams over the streams on the roads to Angolahlah, and to Debra Berhan, or when employed building stone enclosures for the Negoos, a service scarcely ever exceeding three days in three months, this class of slaves were never called upon for regular or long-continued labour.

In the course of the ten succeeding years, however, children were born to these people, and the question then arose, as to whether they shared the bondage of their parents, or were free. This was brought to issue by the Negoos bestowing certain lands, upon which were domiciled several of these bondsmen, upon a courtier, who made a demand of service from the children, which the parents refused to admit as his right, and an appeal was made to the Negoos in consequence. The court of “Wombaroitsh,” or judges of an inferior kind, who relieve the king of all first hearings of cases, except in most important ones, and who sit in judgment in one of the courts of the palace, decided in favour of the children; but this decision, on an appeal by the courtier, was negatived by the Negoos himself, without any hearing of those unfortunates who were most interested. The “Wombaroitsh” put in a plea, however, founded upon the canons of their Church, and the numerous solicitations of the free relations of the bondpeople, induced the Negoos to acknowledge himself to have been in error, and to proclaim that the people alone, whom he had fed and clothed in the time of the famine, were his slaves for life, and that their children for the future must be considered free.

These circumstances I became acquainted with in consequence of having the daughter of one of these very bondsmen in my service, and who was old enough, at the time of the famine, to recollect the sad miseries that fell upon her own family during its continuance, until her father and two brothers sold themselves for their food, in the manner I have above related, to the future service of the Negoos.

Among others who addressed the Negoos in favour of the children, whose numbers amounted to scarcely more than five hundred, were the officers of the British Mission, a fact, however, of which I never heard until my arrival in this country, nor is it, I am afraid, very generally known to have been the case by the inhabitants of Shoa, who have no other idea but that it was the effect of religious feeling, and of the great sense of justice, for which their sovereign, Sahale Selassee, is celebrated all over the eastern horn of Africa, and far into the interior towards the west.

I was never given to understand that the proclamation that announced the freedom of the children at all affected the condition of their parents, who, I believe, still are and will continue until death the bond servants of the Negoos.

When these circumstances were first related to me, I could not help being struck by the exact correspondence they exhibit, with the proceedings of Joseph acting as the steward of Pharaoh towards the starving Egyptians, during the infliction of the seven years’ famine upon that country; and which is another instance of the similarity of custom and of situation between that ancient people and the modern Abyssinians. The appeal, indeed, of the former to Joseph, expresses exactly the request made to the Negoos of Shoa by his subjects; “Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and the land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh, and give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land be not desolate.”

FOOTNOTES:

[8] It is rather a singular circumstance that in England we apply the term Gipsey to the descendants of an outcast people, and that a name of similar origin should designate ourselves among the only remnant of an Egyptian people that have preserved a national independency in the country whither they had fled. It reminded me of another ethnological fact I had observed in Aden, where the flaxen-haired, light-coloured Jews, so different in appearance from the darker complexioned Arabs among whom they lived, were oppositely contrasted with those dark-eyed, dark-haired descendants of Israel, who have retained these characteristics of an eastern origin, although long resident among the fair-skinned inhabitants of northern Europe.

CHAPTER X.

Stay with Tinta.—​Proceed to Ankobar.—​Remain for the day at Musculo’s house.—​Fever.—​Abyssinian supper party.—​Honey wine.—​Importance of salt as an article of food.

When my “balderabah” Tinta, gave to Walderheros the parchment order for durgo, he also told him, as the tent was insufficient shelter for an invalid, to take me to his house, which was not many yards distant from where I was previously lodged.

Here we found his mother and sister sitting upon the ground busy spinning cotton. The right thighs of each were completely bare to the hips, for the purpose of rolling swiftly with the palm of the hand, along the smooth surface, the small light reel, which hung revolving, whilst the hand bearing aloft the light white cloud of cotton, slowly diverged to arms’ length, and the other as gradually drew out in the opposite direction the slender thread that was formed during the operation.

Within the hearth circle, that occupied the centre of the apartment, a huge wood fire was blazing away, the most comfortable looking thing I had seen since leaving Aliu Amba. On the farther side from the door was a raised couch, built of stones and mud, and upon this a layer of fresh cut grass was laid, and an ox skin was soon found to throw over this dampish looking bed. All being arranged, I was invited to sit down, my shoes and socks being then taken off, the older lady, in accordance with a very usual custom, washed my feet in warm water, and I had already become so used to their manners, that I did not now draw back the foot, as at first I could not help doing, from the salute that is always given when the process is concluded.

Besides the goat which the Negoos had sent to me, another supply of bread (like our own), butter, cayenne pottage, and tedge, arrived towards the evening, and although I was not able to enjoy the good things myself, the family and Walderheros fared sumptuously upon the viands thus abundantly provided.

After sunset our party was joined by Tinta himself, who had been detained during the day on duty at the palace. He brought with him the “ullica” of the “affaroitsh,” or superior of the distributors of the rations, named Sartawold, “The gift of the Son.” He was a regular smooth-faced courtier, sleek and well fed, very quiet, and very cunning. A conversation, not an extremely interesting one, was kept up by means of an Islam inhabitant of Aliu Amba, who had arrived in Angolahlah during the day, and upon the strength of having seen me in the market of the former town, had now called to make inquiries after the health of his old friend and intimate acquaintance, the “Aliu Amba ahkeem.”

Among the things Sartawold wanted, was some medicine for the Negoos, whom he did not hesitate to assert, had a most disreputable complaint; but as I did not think proper to understand him until I knew something more of the particulars of the case, he soon ceased making the request. Our halting conversation terminated at length by his getting up from the floor, where he had been sitting upon an ox hide, and telling me that the King desired me to remain at Aliu Amba till I was quite well, and, in the meantime, I must learn to speak Amharic. After recommending each other a dozen times to the care of heaven, Sartawold retired, but it was some time before I could get the talkative Islam to leave me to my much-required repose.

After an early breakfast next morning, Walderheros prepared for our departure, rolling up my plaid, Arab cloak, and two large Abyssinian tobes that formed my bed clothes, and putting them all into a large goat skin bag, in which they were usually carried on occasions of leaving home for a time.

I presented my female friends with a few small strings of blue and gold coloured beads, which are the kind most preferred by the Christian inhabitants of Shoa. Of these beads they construct the more superior kind of “martab,” the particular symbol of their faith; which, of some material or other, they invariably wear. It sometimes consists merely of a white or blue thread, tied around the throat, but those in most general use are made of dark blue silk, imported by the merchants of Giddem and of Hurrah. This colour, once universally worn, is not insisted upon at the present day, for although it still continues to be considered the most orthodox, the white and yellow coloured threads of beads have become very fashionable of late. The custom of wearing coloured “martabs” bears some reference, I believe, to a personal distinction between the Christian and Islam faiths, established by some former Negoos; for red head dresses of cotton cloth, and long red gowns, are invariably the “outward and visible” sign of the profession of Islamism, among the women of Efat, and other Mahomedan provinces, as the blue martab is of the Christian population.

It was nine o’clock before we were fairly started, but we soon lost sight of the palace hill, with its crest of thatched roofs appearing above the bristling stockade; and of its red flanks dotted with squatting noblemen and courtiers, who in clean white tobes sat enjoying the fresh air and the genial influence of a morning sun. Walderheros ran by the side of my mule, poising upon his head the skin bag which contained my bed. When, however, the view of Angolahlah was shut out by the projecting shoulder of a low ridge, along the base of which our road lay, his burden was transferred to the crupper of my saddle, and relieving me of my carabine, the respectful bearing of a servant was changed for the familiarity of a tutor, and one long lesson in Amharic again occupied the way.

We reached Ankobar late in the afternoon, and as I was completely worn out, and the mule was tired also, I agreed to the proposal of Walderheros that we should stay for the night at the house of a married sister of his, the husband of whom was the “ullica,” or the superior of those slaves of the Negoos, whose duty it is to cut and carry wood for the use of the royal residences.

The house was very conveniently situated at the junction of the lower road, around the base of the ridge of Ankobar, with the steep ascending one that leads to the town on its summit.

Walderheros found his sister at home, with a fat slave-girl, Mahriam, as her attendant and companion. Musculo, the husband, was absent upon some duty, but he appeared in the course of the afternoon, and all endeavoured to make me as comfortable as they could.

Their house was of the better sort, built of splinted ted, and consisted of a central apartment, with recesses formed by the division of the space between two circular walls, which were placed at about four feet distant from each other. In one of these recesses was placed a bed-stead, covered with an ox skin tanned with the bark of the kantuffa, which gives to this kind of leather a red colour. A skin so prepared is called “net.” The kantuffa is a pleasing looking tree, and might be cultivated as a lawn shrub in England. It is a species of acacia, and the bright red seed vessels formed like those of the English ash, remaining after the foliage disappears, would diminish considerably, I think, the dreary aspect of a shrubbery in that season.

In the other two recesses were numerous jars containing ale, grain, and water, and side by side stood four pedestal hand mills, in the rear of which a hole, knocked through the mud and stick wall, served the double purpose of a window and chimney. The large circular hearth occupied the usual situation, nearly in the centre of the apartment, which was itself not more than twelve feet in diameter. Two solid planks of the “sigbar” tree, each of which had been cut with no little labour from a single tree, formed a pair of folding-doors. The hinges on which they revolved consisted of strong projecting extremities on one side of the top and bottom of each, which were received into corresponding holes on the wooden lintel and threshold. At night the two flaps were secured by an iron hasp shutting upon a staple, that admitted a kind of wooden linch-pin to be thrust through.

The sigbar tree, of which these doors were made, is the principal forest-tree of Shoa, it sometimes attains the height of one hundred feet, with a diameter of not less than five feet. In flocks along its crushing branches, the flying “gurazo,” a species of monkey, makes the circuit of the forest, and to watch them, as they take the most fearful leaps from tree to tree, is most interesting. I have seen the dam, with a young one held tightly to her breast with one arm, exactly like a human being would do, fearlessly dart from the greatest height to the lower branch of a neighbouring tree, and quickly gaining its summit, keep well up with the rest, in their leaping progress.

Musculo being the “ullica,” or superior of the wood-cutting slaves, I requested him to bring some of the people of all the country to the south of Shoa, that I might have the opportunity of examining them. Whilst he was away, however, my fever fit recurred, and I was under the agreeable influence of a warm water emetic when he returned with a large company of his charge. There were Shankalli negroes from the extreme south and west, and Gallas from the intermediate countries, red Gurague people, and the bilious-coloured, from Zingero and Enarea—all stood or sat around the door-way, and I could have wished to have transferred the whole lot to some ethnological museum, to relieve me just at that moment from taking notes. In fact it was impossible, and so ordering Walderheros to give them two ahmulahs to purchase some ale for their evening’s entertainment, I dismissed the chattering crowd until another day, when more favourable circumstances would admit of my making particular inquiries respecting their families, their nations, and their tongues, sharpened as my appetite for such information was by the clear idea of the character of the country I had already received from the dealer Ibrahim, and which I wished to confirm by actual conversations with the natives of the various countries, he had spoken of in his geography of Southern Abyssinia.

Warm water, as an emetic in the first stage of an ague, materially diminishes its violence, and although I do not recommend it altogether as a cure, I am bound to speak well of it as a palliative. At night I recommend also to a patient, situated as I was, to take doses of from twelve to fourteen grains of Dover’s powders. It is better, however, to compound this excellent febrifuge with sulphate of magnesia, rather than the usual salt, sulphate of potass, and that for reasons which are obvious.

One effect of the opium which is not sufficiently insisted upon by practisers of medicine is its specific effect upon the brain as a tonic. In small doses at bed-time I found it invaluable, as decreasing that congestion in the blood-vessels of the head which attends the paroxysms of ague, and which adds considerably to the severity of the attack. In a severe sun-stroke from which I also suffered, I found abstinence from food and small doses of opium at night relieved me of all bad symptoms in the course of three or four days. Experience has taught me these important facts, but as future travellers cannot be supposed to have my note books with them, I have recorded these hints for their benefit.

After the reaction following the hot stage of the fever, I felt quite certain a horn or two of “tedge” honey wine would not do me any injury, so sent Walderheros just before sunset to endeavour to procure me some. I also gave Musculo a salt piece to purchase fowls and ale, as my contribution towards the entertainment, Walderheros and myself were receiving in the house.

My servant soon breasted the high hill, and fortunately was just in time to find a person in authority, who, immediately he was shown my durgo order, procured a large bullock’s horn full of the sweet wine. The manufacture of tedge or honey wine is a royal monopoly, and is not publicly sold; of course there is a kind of conventional license, not exactly smuggling, by which, for double or treble its value, this beverage may be obtained. Even then the purchased article is probably the rations that have been preserved by some carefully disposed guest of the monarch, who, pouring his daily allowance of a bullock’s hornfull into a large jar, collects a stock for a day of rejoicing or for private sale. The process of brewing tedge is simple enough; cold water being poured over a few small drinking hornsfull of honey placed in a jar, is well stirred up; to this is then added a handful of sprouted barley, “biccalo,” scorched over the fire, and ground into a coarse meal, with the same quantity of the leaves of the “gaisho,” a species of Rhamneæ, not unlike the common tea plant, and an intense but transient bitter like gentian or hops. The mixture being allowed to stand for three or four days, ferments, and is generally drunk in that state, but is then rather a queer kind of muddy beverage, full of little flocculent pieces of wax. It is more agreeable, but not unlike, in appearance or character, very strong sweet-wort. To a superior kind, made for the King’s own table, besides the “biccalo” and “gaisho,” is also added a kind of berry called “kuloh,” which grows not unlike the fruit of our elderberry, and may possibly be the production of some tree belonging to that species. The jars containing this are sealed with a large cake of clay mixed with the lees of the decanted liquor. This kind of tedge is allowed to stand for several months before it is used, and is called “barilla,” from always being handed to guests in small Venetian bottles of green glass, the fracture of one of which is a grievous offence with his Shoan Majesty, and he always makes the careless party pay for it.

Two hours after sunset I was well enough to sit up and partake of my tedge, which was handed to me by Walderheros, to amuse myself with whilst he proceeded to lay out our supper. A large round table of wicker-work, the diameter of which was about three feet, and about one foot in height, was reached down from a peg, where it had been suspended against the wall, and laid upon the floor before me. In the centre of this, Eichess, the lady of the house, placed a round saucer-like dish of red earthenware, full of the cayenne pottage, which had been long preparing upon the fire, and in which were boiled to a hot fricassee the disjointed limbs of a fowl. A separate heap of three or four of the thin teff crumpets, folded four-fold, was then put for each person.

Walderheros, for a few beads, had purchased at the palace about a yard of yellow wax taper, which was merely a long rag dipped into the melted material. Having cut off and lighted a portion of this, he carried it flaring about in his left hand, as he assisted most busily in the arrangement of the supper things. Musculo, not to be idle, had seated himself upon one corner of the bed I occupied, and with the bullock’s horn upon his knee occasionally replenished my drinking horn, and as frequently assisted me in finishing its contents.

Everything at length being pronounced ready, I was requested to take my seat at the table, a boss of straw being placed for my accommodation. I, however, preferred remaining on the bed, watching their whole proceedings for want of other amusement. The company, who soon seated themselves, consisted of Eichess, Mahriam, Walderheros, Musculo, and a younger brother of the latter, named Abta Mahriam, one of the King’s gunmen, who had come in during the preparation of the meal. Musculo took the straw seat, the rest squatted around the table upon their heels, and formed altogether a good picture of an Abyssinian family.

Eichess commenced by dipping several folds of the thin bread into the cayenne pottage until well saturated with the condiment. With a quantity of this she supplied each individual, taking for that purpose the topmost layer of the heap of bread assigned to them, which, after sopping, was returned to its previous situation. The party now proceeded on their own account, tearing off portions of the under bread, and wiping it upon the moistened morsel above, by the contact giving to it the required hot relish, in a manner somewhat analogous to our putting mustard upon meat.

The “wort,” or cayenne pottage, may be termed the national dish of the Abyssinians, as that or its basis, “dillock,” is invariably eaten with their ordinary diet, the thin crumpet-like bread of teff or wheat flour. Equal parts of salt and of the red cayenne pods are well powdered and mixed together with a little pea or bean meal to make a paste. This is called “dillock,” and is made in quantities at a time, being preserved in a large gourd-shell, generally suspended from the roof. The “wort” is merely a little water added to this paste, which is then boiled over the fire, with the addition of a little fat meat and more meal, to make a kind of porridge, to which sometimes is also added several warm seeds, such as the common cress or black mustard, both of which are indigenous in Abyssinia. When unable to make the “wort,” a little of the “dillock” is placed en masse upon the bread, which the eater endeavours to make go as far as possible by slight touches of each portion of the food he puts into his mouth.