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TRAVELS
TO DISCOVER THE
SOURCE OF THE NILE,
In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773.
IN FIVE VOLUMES.
BY JAMES BRUCE OF KINNAIRD, ESQ. F.R.S.

Heath Sc VOL. III.
Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem,
Occuluitque caput, quod adhuc latet.——
Ovid. Metam.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED BY J. RUTHVEN,
FOR G. G. J. AND J. ROBINSON, PATERNOSTER ROW,
LONDON.
M.DCC.XC.

CONTENTS
OF THE
THIRD VOLUME.

PLAN
of
The Island
and
Harbour
of
MASUAH

TRAVELS
TO DISCOVER
THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

BOOK V.
ACCOUNT OF MY JOURNEY FROM MASUAH TO GONDAR—TRANSACTIONS THERE—MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ABYSSINIANS.

CHAP. I.
Transactions at Masuah and Arkeeko.

Masuah, which means the port or harbour of the Shepherds, is a small island immediately on the Abyssinian shore, having an excellent harbour, and water deep enough for ships of any size to the very edge of the island: here they may ride in the utmost security, from whatever point, or with whatever degree of strength, the wind blows. As it takes its modern, so it received its ancient name from its harbour. It was called by the Greeks Sebasticum Os, from the capacity of its port, which is distributed into three divisions. The island itself is very small, scarce three quarters of a mile in length, and about half that in breadth, one-third occupied, by houses, one by cisterns to receive the rain-water, and the last is reserved for burying the dead.

Masuah, as we have already observed, was one of those towns on the west of the Red Sea that followed the conquest of Arabia Felix by Sinan Basha, under Selim emperor of Constantinople. At that time it was a place of great commerce, possessing a share of the Indian trade in common with the other ports of the Red Sea near the mouth of the Indian Ocean. It had a considerable quantity of exports brought to it from a great tract of mountainous country behind it, in all ages very unhospitable, and almost inaccessible to strangers. Gold and ivory, elephants and buffaloes hides, and, above all, slaves, of much greater value, as being more sought after for their personal qualities than any other sort, who had the misfortune to be reduced to that condition, made the principal articles of exportation from this port. Pearls, considerable for size, water, or colour, were found all along its coast. The great convenience of commodious riding for vessels, joined to these valuable articles of trade, had overcome the inconvenience of want of water, the principal necessary of life, to which it had been subjected from its creation.

Masuah continued a place of much resort as long as commerce flourished, but it fell into obscurity very suddenly under the oppression of the Turks, who put the finishing-hand to the ruin of the India trade in the Red Sea, begun some years before by the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, and the settlements made by the Portuguese on the continent of India.

The first government of Masuah under the Turks was by a basha sent from Constantinople, and from thence, for a time, the conquest of Abyssinia was attempted, always with great confidence, though never with any degree of success; so that, losing its value as a garrison, and, at the same time, as a place of trade, it was thought no longer worth while to keep up so expensive an establishment as that of a bashalik.

The principal auxiliary, when the Turks conquered the place, was a tribe of Mahometans called Belowee, shepherds inhabiting the coast of the Red Sea under the mountains of the Habab, about lat. 14°. In reward for this assistance, the Turks gave their chief the civil government of Masuah and its territory, under the title of Naybe of Masuah; and, upon the basha’s being withdrawn, this officer remained in fact sovereign of the place, though, to save appearances, he held it of the grand signior for an annual tribute, upon receiving a firman from the Ottoman Porte.

The body of Janizaries, once established there in garrison, were left in the island, and their pay continued to them from Constantinople. These marrying the women of the country, their children succeeded them in their place and pay as Janizaries; but being now, by their intermarriages, Moors, and natives of Masuah, they became of course relations to each other, and always subject to the influence of the Naybe.

The Naybe finding the great distance he was from his protectors, the Turks in Arabia, on the other side of the Red Sea, whose garrisons were every day decaying in strength, and for the most part reduced; sensible, too, how much he was in the power of the Abyssinians, his enemies and nearest neighbours, began to think that it was better to secure himself at home, by making some advances to those in whose power he was. Accordingly it was agreed between them, that one half of the customs should be paid by him to the king of Abyssinia, who was to suffer him to enjoy his government unmolested; for Masuah, as I have before said, is absolutely destitute of water; neither can it be supplied with any sort of provisions but from the mountainous country of Abyssinia.

The same may be said of Arkeeko, a large town on the bottom of the bay of Masuah, which has indeed water, but labours under the same scarcity of provisions; for the tract of flat land behind both, called Samhar, is a perfect desert, and only inhabited from the month of November to April, by a variety of wandering tribes called Tora, Hazorta, Shiho, and Doba, and these carry all their cattle to the Abyssinian side of the mountains when the rains fall there, which is the opposite six months. When the season is thus reversed, they and their cattle are no longer in Samhar, or the dominion of the Naybe, but in the hands of the Abyssinians, especially the governor of Tigré and Baharnagash, who thereby, without being at the expence and trouble of marching against Masuah with an army, can make a line round it, and starve all at Arkeeko and Masuah, by prohibiting any sort of provisions to be carried thither from their side. In the course of this history we have seen this practised with great success more than once, especially against the Naybe Musa in the reign of Yasous I.

The friendship of Abyssinia once secured, and the power of the Turks declining daily in Arabia, the Naybe began by degrees to withdraw himself from paying tribute at all to the basha of Jidda, to whose government his had been annexed by the porte. He therefore received the firman as a mere form, and returned trifling presents, but no tribute; and in troublesome times, or a weak government happening in Tigrè, he withdrew himself equally from paying any consideration, either to the basha in name of tribute, or to the king of Abyssinia, as share of the customs. This was precisely his situation when I arrived in Abyssinia. A great revolution, as we have already seen, had happened in that kingdom, of which Michael had been the principal author. When he was called to Gondar and made minister there, Tigré remained drained of troops, and without a governor.

Nor was the new king, Hatzè Hannes, whom Michael had placed upon the throne after the murder of Joas his predecessor, a man likely to infuse vigour into the new government. Hannes was past seventy at his accession, and Michael his minister lame, so as scarcely to be able to stand, and within a few years of eighty. The Naybe, a man of about forty-eight, judged of the debility of the Abyssinian government by those circumstances, but in this he was mistaken.

Already Michael had intimated to him, that, the next campaign, he would lay waste Arkeeko and Masuah, till they should be as desert as the wilds of Samhar; and as he had been all his life very remarkable for keeping his promises of this kind, the stranger merchants had many of them fled to Arabia, and others to Dobarwa[1], a large town in the territories of the Baharnagash. Notwithstanding this, the Naybe had not shewn any public mark of fear, nor sent one penny either to the king of Abyssinia or the basha of Jidda.

On the other hand, the basha was not indifferent to his own interest; and, to bring about the payment, he had made an agreement with an officer of great credit with the Sherriffe of Mecca. This man was originally an Abyssinian slave, his name Metical Aga, who by his address had raised himself to the post of Selictar, or sword-bearer, to the Sherriffe; and, in fact, he was absolute in all his dominions. He was, moreover, a great friend of Michael governor of Tigré, and had supplied him with large stores of arms and ammunition for his last campaign against the king at Gondar.

The basha had employed Metical Aga to inform Michael of the treatment he had received from the Naybe, desiring his assistance to force him to pay the tribute, and at the same time intimated to the Naybe, that he not only had done so, but the very next year would give orders throughout Arabia to arrest the goods and persons of such Mahometan merchants as should come to Arabia, either from motives of religion or trade. With this message he had sent the firman from Constantinople, desiring the return both of tribute and presents.

Mahomet Gibberti, Metical Aga’s servant, had come in the boat with me; but Abdelcader, who carried the message and firman, and who was governor of the island of Dahalac, had sailed at same time with me, and had been spectator of the honour which was paid my ship when she left the harbour of Jidda.

Running straight over to Masuah, Abdelcader had proclaimed what he had seen with great exaggeration, according to the custom of his country; and reported that a prince was coming, a very near relation to the king of England, who was no trader, but came only to visit countries and people.

It was many times, and oft agitated (as we knew afterwards) between the Naybe and his counsellors, what was to be done with this prince. Some were for the most expeditious, and what has long been the most customary method of treating strangers in Masuah, to put them to death, and divide every thing they had among the garrison. Others insisted, that they should stay and see what letters I had from Arabia to Abyssinia, lest this might prove an addition to the storm just ready to break upon them on the part of Metical Aga and Michael Suhul.

But Achmet, the Naybe’s nephew, said, it was folly to doubt but that a man, under the description I was, would have protections of every kind; but whether I had or not, that my very rank should protect me in every place where there was any government whatever; it might do even among banditti and thieves inhabiting woods and mountains; that a sufficient quantity of strangers blood had been already shed at Masuah, for the purpose of rapine, and he believed a curse and poverty had followed it; that it was impossible for those who had heard the firing of those ships to conjecture whether I had letters to Abyssinia or not; that it would be better to consider whether I was held in esteem by the captains of those ships, as half of the guns they fired in compliment to me, was sufficient to destroy them all, and lay Arkeeko and Masuah as desolate as Michael Suhul had threatened to do; nor could that vengeance cost any of the ships, coming next year to Jidda, a day’s sailing out of their way; and there being plenty of water when they reached Arkeeko at the south-west of the bay, all this destruction might be effected in one afternoon, and repeated once a-year without difficulty, danger, or expence, while they were watering.

Achmet, therefore, declared it was his resolution that I should be received with marks of consideration, till upon inspecting my letters, and conversing with me, they might see what sort of man I was, and upon what errand I was come; but even if I was a trader, and no priest or Frank, such as came to disturb the peace of the country, he would not then consent to any personal injury being done me; if I was indeed a priest, or one of those Franks, Gehennim, they might send me to hell if they chose; but he, for his part, would not, even then have any thing to do with it.

Before our vessel appeared, they came to these conclusions; and though I have supposed that hoisting the colours and saluting me with guns had brought me into this danger, on the other hand it may be said, perhaps with greater reason, they were the means Providence kindly used to save my life in that slaughter-house of strangers.

Achmet’s father had been Naybe before, and, of course, the sovereignty, upon the present incumbent’s death, was to devolve on him. And what made this less invidious, the sons of the present Naybe had all been swept away by the small-pox; so that Achmet was really, at any rate, to be considered as his son and successor. Add to this, the Naybe had received a stroke of the palsy, which deprived him of the use of one of his sides, and greatly impeded his activity, unless in his schemes of doing ill; but I could not perceive, when intending mischief, that he laboured under any infirmity. All this gave Achmet sovereign influence, and it was therefore agreed the rest should be only spectators, and that my fate should be left to him.

Achmet was about twenty-five years of age, or perhaps younger; his stature near five-feet four; he was feebly made, a little bent forward or stooping, thin, long-faced, long-necked; small, but tolerably well-limbed, agile and active enough in his motions, though of a figure by no means athletic; he had a broad forehead, thick black eye-brows, black eyes, an aquiline nose, thin lips, and fine teeth; and, what is very rare in that country, and much desired, a thick curled beard. This man was known to be very brave in his person, but exceedingly prone to anger. A near relation to the Baharnagash having said something impertinent to him while he was altering the pin of his tent, which his servant had not placed to his mind, in a passion he struck the Abyssinian with a wooden mallet, and killed him on the spot and although this was in the Abyssinian territory, by getting nimbly on horseback, he arrived at Arkeeko without being intercepted, though closely pursued almost to the town.

It was the 19th of September 1769 when we arrived at Masuah, very much tired of the sea, and desirous to land. But, as it was evening, I thought it adviseable to sleep on board all night, that we might have a whole day (as the first is always a busy one) before us, and receive in the night any intelligence from friends, who might not choose to venture to come openly to see us in the day, at least before the determination of the Naybe had been heard concerning us.

Mahomet Gibberti, a man whom we had perfectly secured, and who was fully instructed in our suspicions as to the Naybe, and the manner we had resolved to behave to him, went ashore that evening; and, being himself an Abyssinian, having connections in Masuah, dispatched that same night to Adowa, capital of Tigrè, those letters which I knew were to be of the greatest importance; giving our friend Janni (a Greek, confidential servant of Michael, governor of Tigrè) advice that we were arrived, had letters of Metical Aga to the Naybe and Ras Michael; as also Greek letters to him from the Greek patriarch of Cairo, a duplicate of which I sent by the bearer. We wrote likewise to him in Greek, that we were afraid of the Naybe, and begged him to send to us instantly some man of confidence, who might protect us, or at least be a spectator of what should befal us. We, besides, instructed him to advise the court of Abyssinia, that we were friends of Metical Aga, had letters from him to the king and the Ras, and distrusted the Naybe of Masuah.

Mahomet Gibberti executed this commission in the instant, with all the punctuality of an honest man, who was faithful to the instructions of his master, and was independent of every person else. He applied to Mahomet Adulai, (a person kept by Ras Michael as a spy upon the Naybe, and in the same character by Metical Aga); and Adulai, that very night, dispatched a trusty messenger, with many of whom he was constantly provided. This runner, charged with our dispatches, having a friend and correspondent of his own among the Shiho, passed, by ways best known to himself, and was safely escorted by his own friends till the fifth day, when he arrived at the customhouse of Adowa, and there delivered our dispatches to our friend Janni.

At Cairo, as I have already mentioned, I met with my friend father Christopher, who introduced me to the Greek patriarch, Mark. This patriarch had told me, that there were of his communion, to the number of about twenty, then in Abyssinia; some of them were good men and becoming rich in the way of trade; some of them had fled from the severity of the Turks, after having been detected by them in intimacy with Mahometan women; but all of them were in a great degree of credit at the court of Abyssinia, and possessing places under government greatly beyond his expectation. To these he wrote letters, in the manner of bulls from the pope, enjoining them, with regard to me, to obey his orders strictly, the particulars of which I shall have occasion to speak of afterwards.

Janni, then at Adowa in Tigré, was a man of the first character for good life and morals. He had served two kings of Abyssinia with great reputation, and Michael had appointed him to the customhouse at Adowa, to superintend the affairs of the revenue there, while he himself was occupied at Gondar. To him the patriarch gave his first injunctions as to watching the motives of the Naybe, and preventing any ill-usage from him, before the notice of my arrival at Masuah should reach Abyssinia.

Mahomet Adulai dispatched his messenger, and Mahomet Gibberti repaired that same night to the Naybe at Arkeeko, with such diligence that lulled him asleep as to any prior intelligence, which otherwise he might have thought he was charged to convey to Tigrè; and Mahomet Gibberti, in his conversation that night with Achmet, adroitly confirmed him in all the ideas he himself had first started in council with the Naybe. He told him the manner I had been received at Jidda, my protection at Constantinople, and the firman which I brought from the grand signior, the power of my countrymen in the Red Sea and India, and my personal friendship with Metical Aga. He moreover insinuated, that the coasts of the Red Sea would be in a dangerous situation if any thing happened to me, as both the sherriffe of Mecca and emperor of Constantinople would themselves, perhaps, not interfere, but would most certainly consider the place, where such disobedience should be shewn to their commands, as in a state of anarchy, and therefore to be abandoned to the just correction of the English, if injured.

On the 20th, a person came from Mahomet Gibberti to conduct me on shore. The Naybe himself was still at Arkeeko, and Achmet therefore had come down to receive the duties of the merchandise on board the vessel which brought me. There were two elbow chairs placed in the middle of the market-place. Achmet sat on one of them, while the several officers opened the bales and packages before him; the other chair on his left hand was empty.

He was dressed all in white, in a long Banian habit of muslin, and a close-bodied frock reaching to his ancles, much like the white frock and petticoat the young children wear in England. This species of dress did not, in any way, suit Achmet’s shape or size; but, it seems, he meant to be in gala. As soon as I came in sight of him, I doubled my pace; Mahomet Gibberti’s servant whispered to me, not to kiss his hand; which indeed I intended to have done. Achmet stood up, just as I arrived within arm’s length of him; when we touched each other’s hands, carried our fingers to our lips, then laid our hands cross our breasts; I pronounced the salutation of the inferior Salam Alicum! Peace be between us; to which he answered immediately, Alicum Salam! There is peace between us. He pointed to the chair, which I declined; but he obliged me to sit down.

In these countries, the greater honour that is shewn you at first meeting, the more considerable present is expected. He made a sign to bring coffee directly, as the immediate offering of meat or drink is an assurance your life is not in danger. He began with an air that seemed rather serious: “We have expected you here some time ago, but thought you had changed your mind, and was gone to India.”—“Since sailing from Jidda, I have been in Arabia Felix, the Gulf of Mocha, and crossed last from Loheia.”—“Are you not afraid,” said he, “so thinly attended, to venture upon these long and dangerous voyages.”—“The countries where I have been are either subject to the emperor of Constantinople, whose firman I have now the honour to present you, or to the regency of Cairo, and port of Janizaries—here are their letters—or to the sherriffe of Mecca. To you, Sir, I present the sherriffe’s letters; and, besides these, one from Metical Aga your friend, who, depending on your character, assured me this alone would be sufficient to preserve me from ill-usage so long as I did no wrong: as for the dangers of the road from banditti and lawless persons, my servants are indeed few, but they are veteran soldiers, tried and exercised from their infancy in arms, and I value not the superior number of cowardly and disorderly persons.”

He then returned me the letters, saying, “You will give these to the Naybe to-morrow; I will keep Metical’s letter, as it is to me, and will read it at home.” He put it accordingly in his bosom; and our coffee being done, I rose to take my leave, and was presently wet to the skin by deluges of orange flower-water showered upon me from the right and left, by two of his attendants, from silver bottles.

A very decent house had been provided; and I had no sooner entered, than a large dinner was sent us by Achmet, with a profusion of lemons, and good fresh water, now become one of the greatest delicacies in life; and, instantly after, our baggage was all sent unopened; with which I was very well-pleased, being afraid they might break something in my clock, telescopes, or quadrant, by the violent manner in which they satisfy their curiosity.

Late at night I received a visit from Achmet; he was then in an undress, his body quite naked, a barracan thrown loosely about him; he had a pair of calico drawers; a white coul, or cotton cap, upon his head, and had no sort of arms whatever. I rose up to meet him, and thank him for his civility in sending my baggage; and when I observed, besides, that it was my duty to wait upon him, rather than suffer him to give himself this trouble, he took me by the hand, and we sat down on two cushions together.

“All that you mentioned,” said he, “is perfectly good and well; but there are questions that I am going to ask you which are of consequence to yourself. When you arrived at Jidda, we heard it was a great man, a son or brother of a king, going to India. This was communicated to me, and to the Naybe, by people that saw every day the respect paid to you by the captains of the ships at Jidda. Metical Aga, in his private letter delivered to the Naybe last night by Mahomet Gibberti, among many unusual expressions, said, The day that any accident befals this person will be looked upon by me always as the most unfortunate of my life. Now, you are a Christian, and he is a Mussulman, and these are expressions of a particular regard not used by the one when writing of the other. He says, moreover, that, in your firman, the grand signior stiles you Bey-Adzé, or Most Noble. Tell me, therefore, and tell me truly, Are you a prince, son, brother, or nephew of a king? Are you banished from your own country; and what is it that you seek in our’s, exposing yourself to so many difficulties and dangers?”

“I am neither son, nor brother of a king. I am a private Englishman. If you, Sidi Achmet, saw my prince, the eldest, or any son of the king of England, you would then be able to form a juster idea of them, and that would for ever hinder you from confounding them with common men like me. If they were to choose to appear in this part of the world, this little sea would be too narrow for their ships: Your sun, now so hot, would be darkened by their sails; and when they fired their terrible wide-mouthed cannon, not an Arab would think himself safe on the distant mountains, while the houses on the shore would totter and fall to the ground as if shaken to pieces by an earthquake. I am a servant to that king, and an inferior one in rank; only worthy of his attention from my affection to him and his family, in which I do not acknowledge any superior. Yet so far your correspondents say well: My ancestors were the kings of the country in which I was born, and to be ranked among the greatest and most glorious that ever bore the crown and title of King. This is the truth, and nothing but the truth. I may now, I hope, without offence, ask, To what does all this information tend?”

“To your safety,” said he, “and to your honour, as long as I command in Masuah;—to your certain death and destruction if you go among the Abyssinians; a people without faith, covetous, barbarous, and in continual war, of which nobody yet has been able to discover the reason. But of this another time.”

“Be it so,” said I. “I would now speak one word in secret to you, (upon which every body was ordered out of the room): All that you have told me this evening I already know; ask me not how: but, to convince you that it is truth, I now thank you for the humane part you took against these bloody intentions others had of killing and plundering me on my arrival, upon Abdelcader governor of Dahalac’s information that I was a prince, because of the honour that the English ships paid me, and that I was loaded with gold.”

Ullah Acbar! (in great surprise) “Why, you was in the middle of the sea when that passed.”

“Scarcely advanced so far, I believe; but your advice was wise, for a large English ship will wait for me all this winter in Jidda, till I know what reception I meet here, or in Abyssinia. It is a 64 gun ship; its name, the Lion; its captain, Thomas Price. I mention these particulars, that you may inquire into the truth. Upon the first news of a disaster he would come here, and destroy Arkeeko, and this island, in a day. But this is not my business with you at present.

“It is a very proper custom, established all over the east, that strangers should make an acknowledgement for the protection they receive, and trouble they are to occasion. I have a present for the Naybe, whose temper and disposition I know perfectly,—(Ullah Acbar! repeats Achmet).—I have likewise a present for you, and for the Kaya of the Janizaries; all these I shall deliver the first day I see the Naybe; but I was taught, in a particular manner, to repose upon you as my friend, and a small, but separate acknowledgement, is due to you in that character. I was told, that your agent at Jidda had been inquiring everywhere among the India ships, and at the broker of that nation, for a pair of English pistols, for which he offered a very high price; though, in all probability, those you would get would have been but ordinary, and much used; now I have brought you this separate present, a pair of excellent workmanship; here they are: my doubt, which gave rise to this long private conversation, was, whether you would take them home yourself; or, if you have a confidential servant that you can trust, let him take them, so that it be not known; for if the Naybe”——

“I understand every thing that you say, and every thing that you would say. Though I do not know men’s hearts that I never saw, as you do, I know pretty well the hearts of those with whom I live. Let the pistols remain with you, and shew them to nobody till I send you a man to whom you may say any thing, and he shall go between you and me; for there is in this place a number of devils, not men; but, Ullah Kerim, God is great. The person that brings you dry dates in an Indian handkerchief, and an earthen bottle to drink your water out of, give him the pistols. You may send by him to me any thing you choose. In the mean time, sleep sound, and fear no evil; but never be persuaded to trust yourself to the Cafrs of Habesh at Masuah.”

On the 20th of September a female slave came and brought with her the proper credentials, an Indian handkerchief full of dry dates, and a pot or bottle of unvarnished potter’s earth, which keeps the water very cool. I had some doubt upon this change of sex; but the slave, who was an Abyssinian girl, quickly undeceived me, delivered the dates, and took away the pistols destined for Achmet, who had himself gone to his uncle, the Naybe, at Arkeeko.

On the 21st, in the morning, the Naybe came from Arkeeko. The usual way is by sea; it is about two leagues straight across the bay, but somewhat more by land. The passage from the main is on the north side of the island, which is not above a quarter of a mile broad; there is a large cistern for rain-water on the land-side, where you embark across. He was poorly attended by three or four servants, miserably mounted, and about forty naked savages on foot, armed with short lances and crooked knives.

The drum beat before him all the way from Arkeeko to Masuah. Upon entering the boat, the drum on the land-side ceased, and those, in what is called the Castle of Masuah, began. The castle is a small clay hut, and in it one swivel-gun, which is not mounted, but lies upon the ground, and is fired always with great trepidation and some danger. The drums are earthen jars, such as they send butter in to Arabia; the mouths of which are covered with a skin, so that a stranger, on seeing two or three of these together, would run a great risk of believing them to be jars of butter, or pickles, carefully covered with oiled parchment.

All the procession was in the same stile. The Naybe was dressed in an old shabby Turkish habit, much too short for him, and seemed to have been made about the time of Sultan Selim. He wore also upon his head a Turkish cowke, or high-cap, which scarcely admitted any part of his head. In this dress, which on him had a truly ridiculous appearance, he received the caftan, or investiture, of the island of Masuah; and, being thereby representative of the grand signior, consented that day to be called Omar Aga, in honour of the commission.

Two standards of white silk, striped with red, were carried before him to the mosque, from whence he went to his own house to receive the compliments of his friends. In the afternoon of that day I went to pay my respects to him, and found him sitting on a large wooden elbow-chair, at the head of two files of naked savages, who made an avenue from his chair to the door. He had nothing upon him but a coarse cotton shirt, so dirty that, it seemed, all pains to clean it again would be thrown away, and so short that it scarcely reached his knees. He was very tall and lean, his colour black, had a large mouth and nose; in place of a beard, a very scanty tuft of grey hairs upon the point of his chin; large, dull, and heavy eyes; a kind of malicious, contemptuous, smile on his countenance; he was altogether of a most stupid and brutal appearance. His character perfectly corresponded with his figure, for he was a man of mean abilities, cruel to excess, avaricious, and a great drunkard.

I presented my firman.—The greatest basha in the Turkish empire would have risen upon seeing it, kissed it, and carried it to his forehead; and I really expected that Omar Aga, for the day he bore that title, and received the caftan, would have shewn this piece of respect to his master. But he did not even receive it into his hand, and pushed it back to me again, saying, “Do you read it all to me word for word.”—“I told him it was Turkish; that I had never learned to read a word of that language.”—“Nor I either,” says he; “and I believe I never shall.” I then gave him Metical Aga’s letter, the Sherriffe’s, Ali Bey’s, and the Janizaries letters. He took them all together in both his hands, and laid them unopened beside him, saying, “You should have brought a moullah along with you. Do you think I shall read all these letters? Why, it would take me a month.” And he glared upon me, with his mouth open, so like an idiot, that it was with the utmost difficulty I kept my gravity, only answering, “Just as you please; you know best.”

He affected at first not to understand Arabic; spoke by an interpreter in the language of Masuah, which is a dialect of Tigré; but seeing I understood him in this, he spoke Arabic, and spoke it well.

A silence followed this short conversation, and I took the opportunity to give him his present, with which he did not seem displeased, but rather that it was below him to tell me so; for, without saying a word about it, he asked me, where the Abuna of Habesh was? and why he tarried so long? I said, The wars in Upper Egypt had made the roads dangerous; and, it was easy to see, Omar longed much to settle accounts with him.

I took my leave of the Naybe, very little pleased with my reception, and the small account he seemed to make of my letters, or of myself; but heartily satisfied with having sent my dispatches to Janni, now far out of his power.

The inhabitants of Masuah were dying of the small-pox, so that there was fear the living would not be sufficient to bury the dead. The whole island was filled with shrieks and lamentations both night and day. They at last began to throw the bodies into the sea, which deprived us of our great support, fish, of which we had ate some kinds that were excellent. I had suppressed my character of physician, fearing I should be detained by reason of the multitude of sick.

On the 15th of October the Naybe came to Masuah, and dispatched the vessel that brought me over; and, as if he had only waited till this evidence was out of the way, he, that very night, sent me word that I was to prepare him a handsome present. He gave in a long list of particulars to a great amount, which he desired might be divided into three parcels, and presented three several days. One was to be given him as Naybe of Arkeeko; one as Omar Aga, representative of the grand signior; and one for having passed our baggage gratis and unvisited, especially the large quadrant. For my part, I heartily wished he had seen the whole, as he would not have set great value on the brass and iron.

As Achmet’s assurance of protection had given me courage, I answered him, That, having a firman of the grand signior, and letters from Metical Aga, it was mere generosity in me to give him any present at all, either as Naybe or Omar Aga, and I was not a merchant that bought and sold, nor had merchandise on board, therefore had no customs to pay. Upon this he sent for me to his house, where I found him in a violent fury, and many useless words passed on both sides. At last he peremptorily told me, That unless I had 300 ounces of gold ready to pay him on Monday, upon his landing from Arkeeko, he would confine me in a dungeon, without light, air, or meat, till the bones came through my skin for want.

An uncle of his, then present, greatly aggravated this affair. He presented that the Naybe might do what he pleased with his presents; but that he could not in any shape give away the present due to the janizaries, which was 40 ounces of gold, or 400 dollars; and this was all they contented themselves to take, on account of the letter I brought from the port of janizaries at Cairo; and in this they only taxed me the sum paid by the Abuna for his passage through Masuah. I answered firmly,—“Since you have broken your faith with the grand signior, the government of Cairo, the basha at Jidda, and Metical Aga, you will no doubt do as you please with me; but you may expect to see the English man of war, the Lion, before Arkeeko, some morning by day-break.”—“I should be glad,” said the Naybe, “to see that man at Arkeeko or Masuah that would carry as much writing from you to Jidda as would lie upon my thumb nail; I would strip his shirt off first, and then his skin, and hang him before your door to teach you more wisdom.”—“But my wisdom has taught me to prevent all this. My letter is already gone to Jidda; and if, in twenty days from this, another letter from me does not follow it, you will see what will arrive. In the mean time, I here announce it to you, that I have letters from Metical Aga and the Sherriffe of Mecca, to Michael Suhul governor of Tigrè, and the king of Abyssinia. I, therefore, would wish that you would leave off these unmanly altercations, which serve no sort of purpose, and let me continue my journey.” The Naybe said in a low voice to himself, “What, Michael too! then go your journey, and think of the ill that’s before you.” I turned my back without any answer or salutation, and was scarce arrived at home when a message came from the Naybe, desiring I would send him two bottles of aquavitæ. I gave the servant two bottles of cinnamon-water, which he refused till I had first tasted them; but they were not agreeable to the Naybe, so they were returned.

All this time I very much wondered what was become of Achmet, who, with Mahomet Gibberti, remained at Arkeeko: at last I heard from the Naybe’s servant that he was in bed, ill of a fever. Mahomet Gibberti had kept his promise to me; and, saying nothing of my skill in physic, or having medicines with me, I sent, however, to the Naybe to desire leave to go to Arkeeko. He answered me surlily, I might go if I could find a boat; and, indeed, he had taken his measures so well that not a boat would stir for money or persuasion.

On the 29th of October the Naybe came again from Arkeeko to Masuah, and, I was told, in very ill-humour with me. I soon received a message to attend him, and found him in a large waste room like a barn, with about sixty people with him. This was his divan, or grand council, with all his janizaries and officers of state, all naked, assembled in parliament. There was a comet that had appeared a few days after our arrival at Masuah, which had been many days visible in Arabia Felix, being then in its perihelion; and, after passing its conjunction with the sun, it now appeared at Masuah early in the evening, receding to its aphelion. I had been observed watching it with great attention; and the large tubes of the telescopes had given offence to ignorant people.

The first question the Naybe asked me was, What that comet meant, and why it appeared? And before I could answer him, he again said, “The first time it was visible it brought the small-pox, which has killed above 1000 people in Masuah and Arkeeko. It is known you conversed with it every night at Loheia; it has now followed you again to finish the few that remain, and then you are to carry it into Abyssinia. What have you to do with the comet?”

Without giving me leave to speak, his brother Emir Achmet then said, That he was informed I was an engineer going to Michael, governor of Tigré, to teach the Abyssinians to make cannon and gunpowder; that the first attack was to be against Masuah. Five or six others spoke much in the same strain; and the Naybe concluded by saying, That he would send me in chains to Constantinople, unless I went to Hamazen, with his brother Emir Achmet, to the hot-wells there, and that this was the resolution of all the janizaries; for I had concealed my being a physician.

I had not yet opened my mouth. I then asked, If all these were janizaries; and where was their commanding officer? A well-looking, elderly man answered, “I am Sardar of the janizaries.”—“If you are Sardar, then,” said I, “this firman orders you to protect me. The Naybe is a man of this country, no member of the Ottoman empire.” Upon my first producing my firman to him, he threw it aside like waste-paper. The greatest Vizir in the Turkish dominions would have received it standing, bowed his head to the ground, then kissed it, and put it upon his forehead. A general murmur of approbation followed, and I continued,—“Now I must tell you my resolution is, never to go to Hamazen, or elsewhere, with Emir Achmet. Both he and the Naybe have shewed themselves my enemies; and, I believe, that to send me to Hamazen is to rob and murder me out of sight.”—“Dog of a Christian!” says Emir Achmet, putting his hand to his knife, “if the Naybe was to murder you, could he not do it here now this minute?”—“No,” says the man, who had called himself Sardar, “he could not; I would not suffer any such thing. Achmet is the stranger’s friend, and recommended me to-day to see no injury done him; he is ill, or would have been here himself.”

“Achmet,” said I, “is my friend, and fears God; and were I not hindered by the Naybe from seeing him, his sickness before this would have been removed. I will go to Achmet at Arkeeko, but not to Hamazen, nor ever again to the Naybe here in Masuah. Whatever happens to me must befal me in my own house. Consider what a figure a few naked men will make the day that my countrymen ask the reason of this either here or in Arabia.” I then turned my back, and went out without ceremony. “A brave man!” I heard a voice say behind me, “Wallah Englese! True English, by G—d!” I went away exceedingly disturbed, as it was plain my affairs were coming to a crisis for good or for evil. I observed, or thought I observed, all the people shun me. I was, indeed, upon my guard, and did not wish them to come near me; but, turning down into my own gateway, a man passed close by me, saying distinctly in my ear, though in a low voice, first in Tigré and then in Arabic, “Fear nothing, or, Be not afraid.” This hint, short as it was, gave me no small courage.

I had scarcely dined, when a servant came with a letter from Achmet at Arkeeko, telling me how ill he had been, and how sorry he was that I refused to come to see him, as Mahomet Gibberti had told him I could help him. He desired me also to keep the bearer with me in my house, and give him charge of the gate till he could come to Masuah himself.

I soon saw the treachery of the Naybe. He had not, indeed, forbid me to go and see his nephew, but he had forbid any boat to carry me; and this I told the servant, appealing to the Sardar for what I said in the divan of my willingness to go to Arkeeko to Achmet, though I positively refused to go to Hamazen. I begged the servant to stop for a moment, and go to the Sardar who was in the castle, as I had been very essentially obliged to him for his interposition at a very critical time, when there was an intention to take away my life. I sent him a small present by Achmet’s servant, who delivered the message faithfully, and had heard all that had passed in the divan. He brought me back a pipe from the Sardar in return for my present, with this message, That he had heard of my countrymen, though he had never seen them; that he loved brave men, and could not see them injured; but Achmet being my friend, I had no need of him. That night he departed for Arkeeko, desiring us to shut the door, and leaving us another man, with orders to admit nobody, and advising us to defend ourselves if any one offered to force entrance, be they who they would, for that nobody had business abroad in the night.

I now began to resume my confidence, seeing that Providence had still kept us under his protection; and it was not long when we had an opportunity to exercise this confidence. About 12 o’clock at night a man came to the door, and desired to be admitted; which request was refused without any ceremony. Then came two or three more, in the name of Achmet, who were told by the servant that they would not be admitted. They then asked to speak with me, and grew very tumultuous, pressing with their backs against the door. When I came to them, a young man among them said he was son to Emir Achmet, and that his father and some friends were coming to drink a glass of aracky (so they call brandy) with me. I told him my resolution was not to admit either Emir Achmet, or any other person at night, and that I never drank aracky.

They attempted again to force open the door, which was strongly barricaded. But as there were cracks in it, I put the point of a sword through one of them, desiring them to be cautious of hurting themselves upon the iron spikes. Still they attempted to force open the door, when the servant told them, that Achmet, when he left him the charge of that door, had ordered us to fire upon them who offered to force an entrance at night. A voice asked him, Who the devil he was? The servant answered, in a very spirited manner, That he had greater reason to ask who they were, as he took them for thieves, about whose names he did not trouble himself. “However,” says he, “mine is Abdelcader, (the son of somebody else whom I do not remember). Now you know who I am, and that I do not fear you; and you, Yagoube, if you do not fire upon them, your blood be upon your own head. The Sardar from the castle will soon be up with the rest.” I ordered then a torch to be brought, that they might have a view of us through the cracks of the door; but Abdelcader’s threat being fully sufficient, they retired, and we heard no more of them.

It was the 4th of November when the servant of Achmet returned in a boat from Arkeeko, and with him four janizaries. He was not yet well, and was very desirous to see me. He suspected either that he was poisoned or bewitched, and had tried many charms without good effect. We arrived at Arkeeko about eleven, passed the door of the Naybe without challenge, and found Achmet in his own house, ill of an intermitting fever, under the very worst of regimens.

He was much apprehensive that he should die, or lose the use of his limbs as Emir Achmet had done: the same woman, a Shiho, and a witch, was, he said, the occasion of both. “If Achmet, your uncle, had lost the use of his tongue, said I, it would have saved him a great deal of improper discourse in the divan.” His head ached violently, and he could only say, “Aye! aye! the old miscreant knew I was ill, or that would not have happened.” I gave Achmet proper remedies to ease his pains and his stomach, and the next morning began with bark.

This medicine operates quickly here; nay, even the bark that remains, after the stronger spiritous tincture is drawn from it, seems to answer the purpose very little worse than did the first. I staid here till the 6th in the morning, at which time he was free from the fever. I left him, however, some doses to prevent its return; and he told me, on the 7th, he would come to Masuah with boats and men to bring us with our baggage to Arkeeko, and free us from the bondage of Masuah.

Upon the 6th, in the morning, while at breakfast, I was told that three servants had arrived from Tigrè; one from Janni, a young man and slave, who spoke and wrote Greek perfectly; the other two servants were Ras Michael’s, or rather the king’s, both wearing the red short cloak lined and turned up with mazarine-blue, which is the badge of the king’s servant, and is called shalaka. Ras Michael’s letters to the Naybe were very short. He said the king Hatzè Hannes’s health was bad, and wondered at hearing that the physician, sent to him by Metical Aga from Arabia, was not forwarded to him instantly at Gondar, as he had heard of his being arrived at Masuah some time before. He ordered the Naybe, moreover, to furnish me with necessaries, and dispatch me without loss of time; although all the letters were the contrivances of Janni, his particular letter to the Naybe was in a milder stile. He expressed the great necessity the king had for a physician, and how impatiently he had waited his arrival. He did not say that he had heard any such person was yet arrived at Masuah, only wished he might be forwarded without delay as soon as he came.

To us Janni sent a message by a servant, bidding us a hearty welcome, acknowledging the receipt of the patriarch’s letter, and advising us, by all means, to come speedily to him, for the times were very unsettled, and might grow worse.

In the afternoon I embarked for Masuah. At the shore I received a message from the Naybe to come and speak to him; but I returned for answer, It was impossible, as I was obliged to go to Masuah to get medicines for his nephew, Achmet.

CHAP. II.
Directions to Travellers for preserving Health—Diseases of the Country—Music—Trade, &c. of Masuah—Conferences with the Naybe.

We arrived in the island at eight o’clock, to the great joy of our servants, who were afraid of some stratagem of the Naybe. We got every thing in order, without interruption, and completed our observations upon this inhospitable island, infamous for the quantity of Christian blood shed there upon treacherous pretences.

Masuah, by a great variety of observations of the sun and stars, we found to be in lat. 15° 35´ 5´´, and, by an observation of the second satellite of Jupiter, on the 22d of September 1769, we found its longitude to be 39° 36´ 30´´ east of the meridian of Greenwich: the variation of the needle was observed at mid-day, the 23d of September, to be 12° 48´ W. From this it follows, that Loheia, being nearly opposite, (for it is in lat. 15° 40´ 52´´) the breadth of the Red Sea between Masuah and Loheia is 4° 10´ 22´´. Supposing, then, a degree to be equal to 66 statute miles, this, in round numbers, will bring the breadth to be 276 miles, equal to 92 leagues, or thereabouts.

Again, as the generality of maps have placed the coast of Arabia where Loheia stands, in the 44°, and it is the part of the peninsula that runs farthest to the westward, all the west coast of Arabia Felix will fall to be brought farther east about 3° 46´ 0´´.

Before packing up our barometer at Loheia, I filled a tube with clean mercury, perfectly purged of outward air; and, on the 30th of August, upon three several trials, the mean of the results of each trial was, at six in the morning, 26° 8´ 8´´; two o’clock in the afternoon, 26° 4´ 1´´; and, half past six in the evening, 26° 6´ 2´´, fair, clear weather, with very little wind at west.

At Masuah, the 4th of October, I repeated the same experiment with the same mercury and tube; the means were as follow: At six in the morning 25° 8´ 2´´; two o’clock in the afternoon, 25° 3´ 2´´; and, at half past six in the evening, 25° 3´ 7´´, clear, with a moderate wind at west, so that the barometer fell one inch and one line at Masuah lower than it was at Loheia, though it often rose upon violent storms of wind and rain; and, even where there was no rain, it again fell instantly upon the storm ceasing, and never arrived to the height it stood last at on the coast of Arabia. The greatest height I ever observed Fahrenheit’s thermometer in the shade, at Masuah, was on the 22d of October, at two in the afternoon, 93°, wind N. E. and by N. cloudy; the lowest was on the 23d, at four in the morning, 82°, wind west. It was, to sense, much hotter than in any part of Arabia Felix; but we found no such tickling or irritation on our legs as we had done at Loheia, probably because the soil was here less impregnated with salt.

We observed here, for the first time, three remarkable circumstances shewing the increase of heat. I had carried with me several steel plates for making screws of different sizes. The heat had so swelled the pin, or male screw, that it was cut nearly one-third through by the edge of the female. The sealing-wax, of which we had procured a fresh parcel from the India ships, was fully more fluid, while lying in our boxes, than tar. The third was the colour of the spirit in the thermometer, which was quite discharged, and sticking in masses at unequal heights, while the liquor was clear like spring-water.

Masuah is very unwholesome, as, indeed, is the whole coast of the Red Sea from Suez to Babelmandeb, but more especially between the tropics. Violent fevers, called there nedad, make the principal figure in this fatal list, and generally terminate the third day in death. If the patient survives till the fifth day, he very often recovers by drinking water only, and throwing a quantity of cold water upon him, even in his bed, where he is permitted to lie without attempting to make him dry, or change his bed, till another deluge adds to the first.

There is no remedy so sovereign here as the bark; but it must be given in very different times and manners from those pursued in Europe. Were a physician to take time to prepare his patient for the bark, by first giving him purgatives, he would be dead of the fever before his preparation was completed. Immediately when a nausea or aversion to eat, frequent fits of yawning, straitness about the eyes, and an unusual, but not painful sensation along the spine, comes on, no time is then to be lost; small doses of the bark must be frequently repeated, and perfect abstinence observed, unless from copious draughts of cold water.

I never dared to venture, or seldom, upon the deluge of water, but am convinced it is frequently of great use. The second or third dose of the bark, if any quantity is swallowed, never fails to purge; and, if this evacuation is copious, the patient rarely dies, but, on the contrary, his recovery is generally rapid. Moderate purging, then, is for the most part to be adopted; and rice is a much better food than fruit.

I know that all this is heterodox in Europe, and contrary to the practice, because it is contrary to system. For my own part, I am content to write faithfully what I carefully observed, leaving every body afterwards to follow their own way at their peril.

Bark, I have been told by Spaniards who have been in South America, purges always when taken in their fevers. A different climate, different regimen, and different habit of body or exercise, may surely so far alter the operation of a drug as to make it have a different effect in Africa from what it has in Europe. Be that as it may, still I say bark is a purgative when it is successful in this fever; but bleeding, at no stage of this distemper, is of any service; and, indeed, if attempted the second day, the lancet is seldom followed by blood. Ipecacuanha both fatigues the patient and heightens the fever, and so conducts the patient more speedily to his end. Black spots are frequently found on the breast and belly of the dead person. The belly swells, and the stench becomes insufferable in three hours after death, if the person dies in the day, or if the weather is warm.

The next common disease in the low country of Arabia, the intermediate island of Masuah, and all Abyssinia, (for the diseases are exactly similar in all this tract) is the Tertian fever, which is in nothing different from our Tertian, and is successfully treated here in the same manner as in Europe. As no species of this disease (at least that I have seen) menaces the patient with death, especially in the beginning of the disorder, some time may be allowed for preparation to those who doubt the effect of the bark in the country. But still I apprehend the safest way is to give small doses from the beginning, on the first intermission, or even remission, though this should be somewhat obscure and uncertain. To speak plainly; when the stomach nauseates, the head akes, yawning becomes frequent, and not an excessive pain in the nape of the neck, when a shivering which goes quickly off, a coldness down the spine, a more than ordinary cowardliness and inactivity prevails, (the heat of the climate gives one always enough of these last sensations); I say, when any number of these symptoms unite, have recourse to the powder of bark infused in water; shut your mouth against every sort of food; and, at the crisis, your disease will immediately decide its name among the class of fevers.

All fevers end in intermittents; and if these intermittents continue long, and the first evacuations by the bark have not been copious and constant, these fevers generally end in dysenteries, which are always tedious and very frequently prove mortal. Bark in small quantities, ipecacuanha, too, in very small quantities so as not to vomit, water, and fruit not over ripe, have been found the most successful remedies.

As for the other species of dysentery, which begins with a constant diarrhœa, when the guts at last are excoriated, and the mucus voided by the stools, this disease is rarely cured if it begins with the rainy season. But if, on the contrary, it happen either in the sunny six months, or the end of the rainy ones immediately next to them, small doses of ipecacuanha either carry it off, or it changes into an intermitting fever, which yields afterwards to the bark. And it always has seemed to me that there is a great affinity between the fevers and dysenteries in these countries, the one ending in the other almost perpetually.

The next disease, which we may say is endemial in the countries before mentioned, is called hanzeer, the hogs or the swine, and is a swelling of the glands of the throat, and under the arms. This the ignorant inhabitants endeavour to bring to a suppuration, but in vain; they then open them in several places; a sore and running follows, and a disease very much resembling what is called in Europe the Evil.

THE next (though not a dangerous complaint) has a very terrible appearance. Small tubercules or swellings appear all over the body, but thickest in the thighs, arms, and legs. These swellings go and come for weeks together without pain; though the legs often swell to a monstrous size as in the dropsy. Sometimes the patients have ulcers in their noses and mouths, not unlike those which are one of the malignant consequences of the venereal disease. The small swellings or eruptions, when squeezed, very often yield blood; in other respects the patient is generally in good health, saving the pain the ulcers give him, and the still greater uneasiness of mind which he suffers from the spoiling of the smoothness of his skin; for all the nations in Africa within the tropics are wonderfully affected at the smallest eruption or roughness of the skin. A black of Sennaar will hide himself in the house where dark, and is not to be seen by his friends, if he should have two or three pimples on any part of his body. Nor is there any remedy, however violent, that they will not fly to for immediate relief. Scars and wounds are no blemishes; and I have seen them, for three or four pimples on their bracelet arm, suffer the application of a red-hot iron with great resolution and constancy.

These two last diseases yielded, the first slowly, and sometimes imperfectly, to mercurials; and sublimate has by no means in these climates the quick and decisive effects it has in Europe. The second is completely and speedily cured by antimonials.

The next complaint I shall mention, as common in these countries, is called Farenteit, a corruption of an Arabic word, which signifies the worm of Pharaoh; all bad things being by the Arabs attributed to these poor kings, who seem to be looked upon by posterity as the evil genii of the country which they once governed.

This extraordinary animal only afflicts those who are in constant habit of drinking stagnant water, whether that water is drawn out from wells, as in the kingdom of Sennaar, or found by digging in the sand where it is making its way to its proper level the sea, after falling down the side of the mountains after the tropical rains. This plague appears indiscriminately in every part of the body, but oftenest in the legs and arms. I never saw it in the face or head; but, far from affecting the fleshy parts of the body, it generally comes out where the bone has least flesh upon it.

Upon looking at this worm, on its first appearance, a small black head is extremely visible, with a hooked beak of a whitish colour. Its body is seemingly of a white silky texture, very like a small tendon bared and perfectly cleaned. After its appearance the natives of these countries, who are used to it, seize it gently by the head, and wrap it round a thin piece of silk or small bird’s feather. Every day, or several times a-day, they try to wind it up upon the quill as far as it comes readily; and, upon the smallest resistance, they give over for fear of breaking it. I have seen five feet, or something more of this extraordinary animal, winded out with invincible patience in the course of three weeks. No inflammation then remained, and scarcely any redness round the edges of the aperture, only a small quantity of lymph appeared in the hole or puncture, which scarcely issued out upon pressing. In three days it was commonly well, and left no scar or dimple implying loss of substance.

I myself experienced this complaint. I was reading upon a sofa at Cairo, a few days after my return from Upper Egypt, when I felt in the fore part of my leg, upon the bone, about seven inches below the center of my knee-pan, an itching resembling what follows the bite of a muscheto. Upon scratching, a small tumour appeared very like a muscheto bite. The itching returned in about an hour afterwards; and, being more intent upon my reading than my leg, I scratched it till the blood came. I soon after observed something like a black spot, which had already risen considerably above the surface of the skin. All medicine proved useless; and the disease not being known at Cairo, there was nothing for it but to have recourse to the only received manner of treating it in this country. About three inches of the worm was winded out upon a piece of raw silk in the first week, without pain or fever: but it was broken afterwards through the carelessness and rashness of the surgeon when changing a poultice on board the ship in which I returned to France: a violent inflammation followed; the leg swelled so as to scarce leave appearance of knee or ancle; the skin, red and distended, seemed glazed like a mirror. The wound was now healed, and discharged nothing; and there was every appearance of mortification coming on. The great care and attention procured me in the lazaretto at Marseilles, by a nation always foremost in the acts of humanity to strangers, and the attention and skill of the surgeon, recovered me from this troublesome complaint.

Fifty-two days had elapsed since it first begun; thirty-five of which were spent in the greatest agony. It suppurated at last; and, by enlarging the orifice, a good quantity of matter was discharged. I had made constant use of bark, both in fomentations and inwardly; but I did not recover the strength of my leg entirely till near a year after, by using the baths of Poretta, the property of my friend Count Ranuzzi, in the mountains above Bologna, which I recommend, for their efficacy, to all those who have wounds, as I do to him to have better accommodation, greater abundance of, and less imposition in, the necessaries of life than when I was there. It is but a few hours journey over the mountains to Pistoia.

The last I shall mention of these endemial diseases, and the most terrible of all others that can fall to the lot of man, is the Elephantiasis, which some have chosen to call the Leprosy, or Lepra Arabum; though in its appearance, and in all its circumstances and stages, it no more resembles the leprosy of Palestine, (which is, I apprehend, the only leprosy that we know) than it does the gout or the dropsy. I never saw the beginning of this disease. During the course of it, the face is often healthy to appearance; the eyes vivid and sparkling: those affected have sometimes a kind of dryness upon the skin of their backs, which, upon scratching, I have seen leave a mealiness, or whiteness; the only circumstance, to the best of my recollection, in which it resembled the leprosy, but it has no scaliness. The hair, too, is of its natural colour; not white, yellowish, or thin, as in the leprosy, but so far from it that, though the Abyssinians have very rarely hair upon their chin, I have seen people, apparently in the last stage of the elephantiasis, with a very good beard of its natural colour.

The appetite is generally good during this disease, nor does any change of regimen affect the complaint. The pulse is only subject to the same variations as in those who have no declared nor predominant illness; they have a constant thirst, as the lymph, which continually oozes from their wounds, probably demands to be replaced. It is averred by the Abyssinians that it is not infectious. I have seen the wives of those who were in a very inveterate stage of this illness, who had born them several children, who were yet perfectly free and found from any contagion. Nay, I do not remember to have seen children visibly infected with this disease at all; though, I must own, none of them had the appearance of health. It is said this disease, though surely born with the infant, does not become visible till the approach to manhood, and sometimes it is said to pass by a whole generation.

The chief seat of this disease is from the bending of the knee downwards to the ancle; the leg is swelled to a great degree, becoming one size from bottom to top, and gathered into circular wrinkles, like small hoops or plaits; between every one of which there is an opening that separates it all round from the one above, and which is all raw flesh, or perfectly excoriated. From between these circular divisions a great quantity of lymph constantly oozes. The swelling of the leg reaches over the foot, so as to leave about an inch or little more of it seen. It should seem that the black colour of the skin, the thickness of the leg, and its shapeless form, and the rough tubercules, or excrescences, very like those seen upon the elephant, give the name to this disease, and form a striking resemblance between the distempered legs of this unfortunate individual of the human species, and those of the noble quadruped the elephant, when in full vigour.

An infirmity, to which the Abyssinians are subject, of much worse consequence to the community than the elephantiasis, I mean lying, makes it impossible to form, from their relations, any accurate account of symptoms that might lead the learned to discover the causes of this extraordinary distemper, and thence suggest some rational method to cure, or diminish it.

It was not from the ignorance of language, nor from want of opportunity, and less from want of pains, that I am not able to give a more distinct account of this dreadful disorder. I kept one of those infected in a house adjoining to mine, in my way to the palace, for near two years; and, during that time, I tried every sort of regimen that I could devise. My friend, Dr Russel, physician at Aleppo, (now in the East Indies), to whose care and skill I was indebted for my life in a dangerous fever which I had in Syria, and whose friendship I must always consider as one of the greatest acquisitions I ever made in travelling, desired me, among other medical inquiries, to try the effect of the cicuta upon this disease; and a considerable quantity, made according to the direction of Dr Storke, physician in Vienna, was sent me from Paris, with instructions how to use it.

Having first explained the whole matter, both to the king, Ras Michael, and Azage Tecla Haimanout, chief justice of the king’s bench in Abyssinia, and told them of the consequences of giving too great a dose, I obtained their joint permissions to go on without fear, and do what I thought requisite. It is my opinion, says the Azage, that no harm that may accidentally befal one miserable individual, now already cut off from society, should hinder the trial (the only one we ever shall have an opportunity of making) of a medicine which may save multitudes hereafter from a disease so much worse than death.

It was soon seen, by the constant administration of many ordinary doses, that nothing was to be expected from violent or dangerous ones; as not the smallest degree of amendment ever appeared, either outwardly or inwardly, to the sensation of the patient. Mercury had no better effect. Tar-water also was tried; and if there was any thing that produced any seeming advantage, it was whey made of cow’s milk, of which he was excessively fond, and which the king ordered him to be furnished with at my desire, in any quantity he pleased, during the experiment.

The troubles of the times prevented further attention. Dr Storke’s cicuta, in several instances, made a perfect cure of the hanzeers improperly opened, though, in several other cases, without any apparent cause, it totally miscarried. I scarce ever observed mercury succeed in any complaint.

It is not for me to attempt to explain what are the causes of these distempers. Those whose studies lead them to such investigations will do well to attach themselves, for first principles, to the difference of climate, and the abuses that obtain under them; after this, to particular circumstances in the necessaries of life, to which nature has subjected the people of these countries. Under the first, we may rank a season of six months rains, succeeded, without interval, by a cloudless sky and vertical sun; and cold nights which as immediately follow these scorching days. The earth, notwithstanding the heat of these days, is yet perpetually cold, so as to feel disagreeably to the soles of the feet; partly owing to the six months rains, when no sun appears, and partly to the perpetual equality of nights and days; the thinnest of the cloathing in the better sort, (a muslin shirt) while the others are naked, and sleep in this manner exposed, without covering in the cold nights, after the violent perspiration during the sultry day. These may be reckoned imprudences, while the constant use of stagnant putrid water for four months of the year, and the quantity of salt with which the soil of those countries is impregnated, may be circumstances less conducive to health; to which, however, they have been for ever subject by nature.

It will be very reasonably expected, that, after this unfavourable account of the climate, and the uncertainty of remedies for these frequent and terrible diseases, I should say something of the regimen proper to be observed there, in order to prevent what it seems so doubtful whether we can ever cure.

My first general advice to a traveller is this, to remember well what was the state of his constitution before he visited these countries, and what his complaints were, if he had any; for fear very frequently seizes us upon the first sight of the many and sudden deaths we see upon our first arrival, and our spirits are so lowered by perpetual perspiration, and our nerves so relaxed, that we are apt to mistake the ordinary symptoms of a disease, familiar to us in our own country, for the approach of one of these terrible distempers that are to hurry us in a few hours into eternity. This has a bad effect in the very slightest disorders; so that it hath become proverbial—If you think you shall die, you shall die.

If a traveller finds, that he is as well after having been some time in this country as he was before entering it, his best way is to make no innovation in his regimen, further than in abating something in the quantity. But if he is of a tender constitution, he cannot act more wisely than to follow implicitly the regimen of sober, healthy people of the country, without arguing upon European notions, or substituting what we consider as succedaneums to what we see used on the spot. All spirits are to be avoided; even bark is better in water than in wine. The stomach, being relaxed by profuse perspiration, needs something to strengthen, but not inflame, and enable it to perform digestion. For this reason (instinct we should call it, if speaking of beasts) the natives of all eastern countries season every species of food, even the simplest, and mildest, rice, so much with spices, especially pepper, as absolutely to blister a European palate.

These powerful antiseptics Providence has planted in these countries for this use; and the natives have, from the earliest times, had recourse to them in proportion to the quantity that they can procure. And hence, in these dangerous climates, the natives are as healthy as we are in our northern ones. Travellers in Arabia are disgusted at this seemingly inflammatory food; and nothing is more common than to hear them say that they are afraid these quantities of spices will give them a fever. But did they ever feel themselves heated by ever so great a quantity of black pepper? Spirits they think, substituted to this, answer the same purpose. But does not the heat of your skin, the violent pain in your head, while the spirits are filtering through the vessels of your brains, shew the difference? and when did any ever feel a like sensation from black pepper, or any pepper ate to excess in every meal?

I lay down, then, as a positive rule of health, that the warmest dishes the natives delight in, are the most wholesome strangers can use in the putrid climates of the Lower Arabia, Abyssinia, Sennaar, and Egypt itself; and that spirits, and all fermented liquors, should be regarded as poisons, and, for fear of temptation, not so much as be carried along with you, unless as a menstruum for outward applications.

Spring, or running water, if you can find it, is to be your only drink. You cannot be too nice in procuring this article. But as, on both coasts of the Red Sea you scarcely find any but stagnant water, the way I practised was always this, when I was at any place that allowed me time and opportunity—I took a quantity of fine sand, washed it from the salt quality with which it was impregnated, and spread it upon a sheet to dry; I then filled an oil-jar with water, and poured into it as much from a boiling kettle as would serve to kill all the animalcula and eggs that were in it. I then sifted my dried sand, as slowly as possible, upon the surface of the water in the jar, till the sand stood half a foot in the bottom of it; after letting it settle a night, we drew it off by a hole in the jar with a spigot in it, about an inch above the sand; then threw the remaining sand out upon the cloth, and dried and washed it again.

This process is sooner performed than described. The water is as limpid as the purest spring, and little inferior to the finest Spa. Drink largely of this without fear, according as your appetite requires. By violent perspiration the aqueous part of your blood is thrown off; and it is not spiritous liquor can restore this, whatever momentary strength it may give you from another cause. When hot, and almost fainting with weakness from continual perspiration, I have gone into a warm bath, and been immediately restored to strength, as upon first rising in the morning. Some perhaps will object, that this heat should have weakened and overpowered you; but the fact is otherwise; and the reason is, the quantity of water, taken up by your absorbing vessels, restored to your blood that finer fluid which was thrown off, and then the uneasiness occasioned by that want ceased, for it was the want of that we called uneasiness.

In Nubia never scruple to throw yourself into the coldest river or spring you can find, in whatever degree of heat you are. The reason of the difference in Europe is, that when by violence you have raised yourself to an extraordinary degree of heat, the cold water in which you plunge yourself checks your perspiration, and shuts your pores suddenly. The medium is itself too cold, and you do not use force sufficient to bring back the perspiration, which nought but action occasioned; whereas, in these warm countries, your perspiration is natural and constant, though no action be used, only from the temperature of the medium; therefore, though your pores are shut, the moment you plunge yourself in the cold water, the simple condition of the outward air again covers you with pearls of sweat the moment you emerge; and you begin the expence of the aqueous part of your blood afresh from the new stock that you have laid in by your immersion.

For this reason, if you are well, deluge yourself from head to foot, even in the house, where water is plenty, by directing a servant to throw buckets upon you at least once a-day when you are hottest; not from any imagination that the water braces you, as it is called, for your bracing will last you only a very few minutes; but these copious inundations will carry watery particles into your blood, though not equal to bathing in running streams, where the total immersion, the motion of the water, and the action of the limbs, all conspire to the benefit you are in quest of. As to cold water bracing in these climates, I am persuaded it is an idea not founded in truth. By observation it has appeared often to me, that, when heated by violent exercise, I have been much more relieved, and my strength more completely restored by the use of a tepid bath, than by an equal time passed in a cold one.

Do not fatigue yourself if possible. Exercise is not either so necessary or salutary here as in Europe. Use fruits sparingly, especially if too ripe. The musa, or banana, in Arabia Felix, are always rotten-ripe when they are brought to you. Avoid all sort of fruit exposed for sale in the markets, as it has probably been gathered in the sun, and carried miles in it, and all its juices are in a state of fermentation. Lay it first upon a table covered with a coarse cloth, and throw frequently a quantity of water upon it; and, if you have an opportunity, gather it in the dew of the morning before dawn of day, for that is far better.

Rice and pillaw are the best food; fowls are very bad, eggs are worse; greens are not wholesome. In Arabia the mutton is good, and, when roasted, may be eaten warm with safety; perhaps better if cold. All soups or broths are to be avoided; all game is bad.

I have known many very scrupulous about eating suppers, but, I am persuaded, without reason. The great perspiration which relaxes the stomach so much through the day has now ceased, and the breathing of cooler air has given to its operations a much stronger tone. I always made it my most liberal meal, if I ate meat at all. While at Jidda, my supper was a piece of cold, roasted mutton, and a large glass of water, with my good friend Captain Thornhill, during the dog-days.

After this, the excessive heat of the day being past, covering our heads from the night-air, always blowing at that time from the east and charged with watery particles from the Indian Ocean, we had a luxurious walk of two or three hours, as free from the heat as from the noise and impertinence of the day, upon a terrassed roof, under a cloudless sky, where the smallest star is visible. These evening walks have been looked upon as one of the principal pleasures of the east, even though not accompanied with the luxuries of astronomy and meditation. They have been adhered to from early times to the present, and we may therefore be allured they were always wholesome; they have often been misapplied and mispent in love.

It is a custom that, from the first ages, has prevailed in the east, to shriek and lament upon the death of a friend or relation, and cut their faces upon the temple with their nails, about the breadth of a sixpence, one of which is left long for that purpose. It was always practised by the Jews, and thence adopted by the Abyssinians, though expressly forbidden both by the law and by the prophets[2]. At Masuah, it seems to be particular to dance upon that occasion. The women, friends, and visitors place themselves in a ring; then dance slowly, figuring in and out as in a country-dance. This dance is all to the voice, no instrument being used upon the occasion; only the drum (the butter-jar before mentioned) is beat adroitly enough, and seems at once necessary to keep the dance and song in order. In Abyssinia, too, this is pursued in a manner more ridiculous. Upon the death of an ozoro, or any nobleman, the twelve judges, (who are generally between 60 and 70 years of age) sing the song, and dance the figure-dance, in a manner so truly ridiculous, that grief must have taken fast hold of every spectator who does not laugh upon the occasion. There needs no other proof the deceased was a friend.

Mahomet Gibberti married at Arkeeko. For fifteen days afterward, the husband there is invisible to everybody but the female friends of his wife, who in that sultry country do every thing they can, by hot and spiced drinks, to throw the man, stewed in a close room, into a fever. I do believe that Mahomet Gibberti, in the course of these fifteen days, was at least two stone lighter. It puts me much in mind of some of our countrymen sweating themselves for a horse-race with a load of flannel on. I conceive that Mahomet Gibberti, had it not been for the spice, would have made a bad figure in the match he was engaged in. One of these nights of his being sequestered, when, had I not providentially engaged Achmet, his uncle the Naybe would have cut our throats. I heard two girls, professors hired for such occasions, sing alternately verse for verse in reply to each other, in the most agreeable and melodious manner I ever heard in my life. This gave me great hopes that, in Abyssinia, I should find music in a state of perfection little expected in Europe. Upon inquiry into particulars I was miserably disappointed, by being told these musicians were all strangers from Azab, the myrrh country, where all the people were natural musicians, and sung in a better stile than that I had heard; but that nothing of this kind was known in Abyssinia, a mountainous, barbarous country, without instrument, and without song; and that it was the same here in Atbara; a miserable truth, which I afterwards completely verified. These singers were Cushites, not Shepherds.

I, however, made myself master of two or three of these alternate songs upon the guitar, the wretched instrument of that country; and was surprised to find the words in a language equally strange to Masuah and Abyssinia. I had frequent interviews with these musicians in the evening; they were perfectly black and woolly-headed. Being slaves, they spoke both Arabic and Tigrè, but could sing in neither; and, from every possible inquiry, I found every thing, allied to counterpoint, was unknown among them. I have sometimes endeavoured to recover fragments of these songs, which I once perfectly knew from memory only, but unfortunately I committed none of them to writing. Sorrow, and various misfortunes, that every day marked my stay in the barbarous country to which I was then going, and the necessary part I, much against my will, was for self-preservation forced to take in the ruder occupations of those times, have, to my very great regret, obliterated long ago the whole from my memory.

It is a general custom in Masuah for people to burn myrrh and incense in their houses before they open the doors in the morning; and when they go out at night, or early in the day, they have always a small piece of rag highly fumigated with these two perfumes, which they stuff into each nostril to keep them from the unwholesome air.

The houses in Masuah are, in general, built of poles and bent grass, as in the towns of Arabia; but, besides these, there are about twenty of stone, six or eight of which are two storeys each; though the second seldom consists of more than one room, and that one generally not a large one. The stones are drawn out of the sea as at Dahalac; and in these we see the beds of that curious mussel, or shell-fish, found to be contained in the solid rock at Mahon, called Dattoli da mare, or sea-dates, the fish of which I never saw in the Red Sea; though there is no doubt but they are to be found in the rocky islands about Masuah, if they break the rocks for them.

Although Masuah is situated in the very entrance of Abyssinia, a very plentiful country, yet all the necessaries of life are scarce and dear. Their quality, too, is very indifferent. This is owing to the difficulty, expence, and danger of carrying the several articles through the desert flat country, called Samhar, which lies between Arkeeko and the mountains of Abyssinia; as well as to the extortions exercised by the Naybe, who takes, under the name of customs, whatever part he pleases of the goods and provisions brought to that island; by which means the profit of the seller is so small, as not to be worth the pains and risk of bringing it: 20 rotol of butter cost a pataka and a half, 3½ harf; or, in one term, 45½ harf. A goat is half of a pataka; a sheep, two-thirds of a pataka; the ardep of wheat, 4 patakas; Dora, from Arabia, 2 patakas.

——Venit, vilissima rerum,
Hic aqua.
Horat. lib. I. Sat. 6. v. 88.

Water is sold for three diwanis, or paras, the 7 gallons. The same sort of money is in use at Masuah, and the opposite coast of Arabia; and it is indeed owing to the commercial intercourse with that coast that any coin is current in this or the western side. It is all valued by the Venetian sequin. But glass beads, called Contaria, of all kinds and colours, perfect and broken, pass for small money, and are called, in their language, Borjooke.

Table of the relative value of Money.

The Harf is likewise called Dahab, a word very equivocal, as it means, in Arabic, gold, and frequently a sequin. The Harf is 120 grains of beads.

The zermabub, or sequin of Constantinople, is not current here. Those that have them, can only dispose of them to the women, who hang them about their temples, to their necklaces, and round the necks of their children. The fraction of the pataka is the half and quarter, which pass here likewise.

There is a considerable deal of trade carried on at Masuah, notwithstanding these inconveniencies, narrow and confined as the island is, and violent and unjust as is the government. But it is all done in a slovenly manner, and for articles where a small capital is invested. Property here is too precarious to risk a venture in valuable commodities, where the hand of power enters into every transaction.

The goods imported from the Arabian side are blue cotton, Surat cloths, and cochineal ditto, called Kermis, fine cloth from different markets in India; coarse white cotton cloths from Yemen; cotton unspun from ditto in bales; Venetian beads, chrystal, drinking, and looking-glasses; and cohol, or crude antimony. These three last articles come in great quantities from Cairo, first in the coffee ships to Jidda, and then in small barks over to this port. Old copper too is an article on which much is gained, and great quantity is imported.

The Galla, and all the various tribes to the westward of Gondar, wear bracelets of this copper; and they say at times, that, near the country of Gongas and Guba, it has been sold, weight for weight, with gold. There is a shell likewise here, a univalve of the species of volutes, which sells at a cuba for 10 paras. It is brought from near Hodeida, though it is sometimes found at Konfodah and Loheia. There are a few also at Dahalac, but not esteemed: these pass for money among the Djawi and other western Galla.

The cuba is a wooden measure, containing, very exactly, 62 cubic inches of rain water. The drachm is called Casla; there is 10 drachms in their wakea.

Gold, 16 patakas per wakea.
Civet, 1¾ pataka the wakea.
Elephants teeth, 18 patakas for 35 rotol.
Wax, 4 patakas the faranzala.
Myrrh, 3 patakas per ditto.
Coffee, 1 pataka the 6 rotol.
Honey, ¼ of a pataka the cuba.

The Banians were once the principal merchants of Masuah; but the number is now reduced to six. They are silver-smiths, that make ear-rings and other ornaments for the women in the continent, and are assayers of gold; they make, however, but a poor livelihood.

As there is no water in Masuah, the number of animals belonging to it can be but small. The sea fowl have nothing singular in them, and are the grey and the white gull, and the small bird, called the sea-lark, or pickerel. The sky-lark is here, but is mute the whole year, till the first rains fall in November; he then mounts very high, and sings in the very heat of the day. I saw him in the Tehama, but he did not sing there; probably for the reason given above, as there was no rain.

There are no sparrows to be seen here, or on the opposite shore, nor in the islands. Although there were scorpions in abundance at Loheia, we found none of them at Masuah. Water and greens, especially of the melon and cucumber kind, seem to be necessary to this poisonous insect. Indeed it was only after rains we saw them in Loheia, and then the young ones appeared in swarms; this was in the end of August. They are of a dull green colour, bordering upon yellow. As far as I could observe, no person apprehended any thing from their sting beyond a few minutes pain.

We left Masuah the 10th of November, with the soldiers and boats belonging to Achmet. We had likewise three servants from Abyssinia, and no longer apprehended the Naybe, who seemed, on his part, to think no more of us.

In the bay between Masuah and Arkeeko are two islands, Toulahout and Shekh Seide; the first on the west, the other on the south. They are both uninhabited, and without water. Shekh Seide has a marabout, or saint’s tomb, on the west end. It is not half a mile in length, when not overflowed, but has two large points of sand which run far out to the east and to the west. Its west point runs so near to Toulahout, as, at low-water, scarce to leave a channel for the breadth of a boat to pass between.

There is a chart, or map of the island of Masuah, handed about with other bad maps and charts of the Red Sea, (of which I have already spoken) among our English captains from India. It seems to be of as old date as the first landing of the Portuguese under Don Roderigo de Lima, in the time of David III. but it is very inaccurate, or rather erroneous, throughout. The map of the island, harbour, and bay, with the soundings, which I here have given, may be depended upon, as being done on the spot with the greatest attention.

Achmet, though much better, was, however, not well. His fever had left him, but he had some symptoms of its being followed by a dysentery. In the two days I rested at his house, I had endeavoured to remove these complaints, and had succeeded in part; for which he testified the utmost gratitude, as he was wonderfully afraid to die.

The Naybe had visited him several times every day; but as I was desirous to see Achmet well before I left Arkeeko, I kept out of the way on these occasions, being resolved, the first interview, to press for an immediate departure.

On the 13th, at four o’clock in the afternoon, I waited upon the Naybe at his own house. He received me with more civility than usual, or rather, I should have said, with less brutality; for a grain of any thing like civility had never yet appeared in his behaviour. He had just received news, that a servant of his, sent to collect money at Hamazen, had run off with it. As I saw he was busy, I took my leave of him, only asking his commands for Habesh; to which he answered, “We have time enough to think of that, do you come here to morrow.”

On the 14th, in the morning, I waited upon him according to appointment, having first struck my tent and got all my baggage in readiness. He received me as before, then told me with a grave air, “that he was willing to further my journey into Habesh to the utmost of his power, provided I shewed him that consideration which was due to him from all passengers; that as, by my tent, baggage, and arms, he saw I was a man above the common sort, which the grand signior’s firman, and all my letters testified, less than 1000 patakas offered by me would be putting a great affront upon him; however, in consideration of the governor of Tigrè, to whom I was going, he would consent to receive 300, upon my swearing not to divulge this, for fear of the shame that would fall upon him abroad.”

To this I answered in the same grave tone, “That I thought him very wrong to take 300 patakas with shame, when receiving a thousand would be more honourable as well as more profitable; therefore he had nothing to do but put that into his account-book with the governor of Tigrè, and settle his honour and his interest together. As for myself, I was sent for by Metical Aga, on account of the king, and was proceeding accordingly, and if he opposed my going forward to Metical Aga, I should return; but then again I should expect ten thousand patakas from Metical Aga, for the trouble and loss of time I had been at, which he and the Ras would no doubt settle with him.” The Naybe said nothing in reply, but only muttered, closing his teeth, sheitan afrit, that devil or tormenting spirit.

“Look you, (says one of the king’s servants, whom I had not heard speak before) I was ordered to bring this man to my master; I heard no talk of patakas; the army is ready to march against Waragna Fasil, I must not lose my time here.” Then taking his short red cloak under his arm, and giving it a shake to make the dust fly from it, he put it upon his shoulders, and, stretching out his hand very familiarly, said, “Naybe, within this hour I am for Habesh, my companion will stay here with the man; give me my dues for coming here, and I shall carry any answer either of you has to send.” The Naybe looked much disconcerted. “Besides, said I, you owe me 300 patakas for saving the life of your nephew Achmet.”—“Is not his life worth 300 patakas?” He looked very silly, and said, “Achmet’s life is worth all Masuah.” There was no more talk of patakas after this. He ordered the king’s servant not to go that day, but come to him to-morrow to receive his letters, and he would expedite us for Habesh.

Those friends that I had made at Arkeeko and Masuah, seeing the Naybe’s obstinacy against our departure, and, knowing the cruelty of his nature, advised me to abandon all thoughts of Abyssinia; for that, in passing through Samhar, among the many barbarous people whom he commanded, difficulties would multiply upon us daily, and, either by accident, or order of the Naybe, we should surely be cut off.

I was too well convinced of the embarrassment that lay behind me if left alone with the Naybe, and too determined upon my journey to hesitate upon going forward. I even flattered myself, that his flock of stratagems to prevent our going, was by this time exhausted, and that the morrow would see us in the open fields, free from further tyranny and controul. In this conjecture I was warranted by the visible impression the declaration of the king’s servant had made upon him.

On the 15th, early in the morning, I struck my tent again, and had my baggage prepared, to shew we were determined to stay no longer. At eight o’clock, I went to the Naybe, and found him almost alone, when he received me in a manner that, for him, might have passed for civil. He began with a considerable degree of eloquence, or fluency of speech, a long enumeration of the difficulties of our journey, the rivers, precipices, mountains, and woods we were to pass; the number of wild beasts every where to be found; as also the wild savage people that inhabited those places; the most of which, he said, were luckily under his command, and he would recommend to them to do us all manner of good offices. He commanded two of his secretaries to write the proper letters, and, in the mean time, ordered us coffee; conversing naturally enough about the king and Ras Michael, their campaign against Fasil, and the great improbability there was, they should be successful.

At this time came in a servant covered with dust and seemingly fatigued, as having arrived in haste from afar. The Naybe, with a considerable deal of uneasiness and confusion, opened the letters, which were said to bring intelligence, that the Hazorta, Shiho, and Tora, the three nations who possessed that part of Samhar through which our road led to Dobarwa, the common passage from Masuah to Tigrè, had revolted, driven away his servants, and declared themselves independent. He then, (as if all was over) ordered his secretaries to stop writing; and, lifting up his eyes, began, with great seeming devotion, to thank God we were not already on our journey; for, innocent as he was, when we should have been cut off, the fault would have been imputed to him.

Angry as I was at so barefaced a farce, I could not help bursting out into a violent fit of loud laughter, when he put on the severest countenance, and desired to know the reason of my laughing at such a time. It is now two months, answered I, since you have been throwing various objections in my way; can you wonder that I do not give into so gross an imposition? This same morning, before I struck my tent, in presence of your nephew Achmet, I spoke with two Shiho just arrived from Samhar, who brought letters to Achmet, which said all was in peace. Have you earlier intelligence than that of this morning?

He was for some time without speaking; then said, “If you are weary of living, you are welcome to go; but I will do my duty in warning those that are along with you of their and your danger, that, when the mischief happens, it may not be imputed to me.” “No number of naked Shiho,” said I, “unless instructed by you, can ever be found on our road, that will venture to attack us. The Shiho have no fire arms; but if you have sent on purpose some of your soldiers that have fire arms, these will discover by what authority they come. For our part, we cannot fly; we neither know the country, the language, nor the watering-places, and we shall not attempt it. We have plenty of different sorts of fire-arms, and your servants have often seen at Masuah we are not ignorant in the use of them. We, it is true, may lose our lives, that is in the hand of the Almighty; but we shall not fail to leave enough on the spot, to give sufficient indication to the king and Ras Michael, who it was that were our assassins, Janni of Adowa will explain the rest.”

I then rose very abruptly to go away. It is impossible to give one, not conversant with these people, any conception what perfect matters the most clownish and beastly among them are of dissimulation. The countenance of the Naybe now changed in a moment. In his turn he burst out into a loud fit of laughter, which surprised me full as much as mine, some time before, had done him. Every feature of his treacherous countenance was altered and softened into complacency; and he, for the first time, bore the appearance of a man.

“What I mentioned about the Shiho, he then said, was but to try you; all is peace. I only wanted to keep you here, if possible, to cure my nephew Achmet, and his uncle Emir Mahomet; but since you are resolved to go, be not afraid; the roads are safe enough. I will give you a person to conduct you, that will carry you in safety, even if there was danger; only go and prepare such remedies as may be proper for the Emir, and leave them with my nephew Achmet, while I finish my letters.” This I willingly consented to do, and at my return I found every thing ready.

Our guide was a handsome young man, to whom, though a Christian, the Naybe had married his sister; his name was Saloomé. The common price paid for such a conductor is three pieces of blue Surat cotton cloth. The Naybe, however, obliged us to promise thirteen to his brother-in-law, with which, to get rid of him with some degree of good grace, we willingly complied.

Before our setting out I told this to Achmet, who said, that the man was not a bad one naturally, but that his uncle the Naybe made all men as wicked as himself. He furnished me with a man to shew me where I should pitch my tent; and told me he should now take my final deliverance upon himself, for we were yet far, according to the Naybe’s intentions, from beginning our journey to Gondar.

Arkeeko consists of about 400 houses, a few of which are built of clay, the rest of coarse grass like reeds. The Naybe’s house is of these last-named materials, and not distinguished from any others in the town; it stands upon the S. W. side of a large bay. There is water enough for large ships close to Arkeeko, but the bay being open to the N. E. makes it uneasy riding in blowing weather. Besides, you are upon a lee-shore; the bottom is composed of soft sand. In standing in upon Arkeeko from the sea through the canal between Shekh Seide and the main land, it is necessary to range the coast about a third nearer the main than the island. The point, or Shekh Seide, stretches far out, and has shallow water upon it.

The Cape that forms the south-west side of the large bay is called Ras Gedem, being the rocky base of a high mountain of that name, seen a considerable distance from sea, and distinguished by its form, which is that of a hog’s back.

CHAP. III.
Journey from Arkeeko, over the mountain Taranta, to Dixan.

According to Achmet’s desire, we left Arkeeko the 15th, taking our road southward, along the plain, which is not here above a mile broad, and covered with short grass nothing different from ours, only that the blade is broader. After an hour’s journey I pitched my tent at Laberhey, near a pit of rain-water. The mountains of Abyssinia have a singular aspect from this, as they appear in three ridges. The first is of no considerable height, but full of gullies and broken ground, thinly covered with shrubs; the second, higher and steeper, still more rugged and bare; the third is a row of sharp, uneven-edged mountains, which would be counted high in any country in Europe. Far above the top of all, towers that stupendous mass, the mountain of Taranta, I suppose one of the highest in the world, the point of which is buried in the clouds, and very rarely seen but in the clearest weather; at other times abandoned to perpetual mist and darkness, the seat of lightning, thunder, and of storm.

Taranta is the highest of a long, steep ridge of mountains, the boundary between the opposite seasons. On its east side, or towards the Red Sea, the rainy season is from October to April; and, on the western, or Abyssinian side, cloudy, rainy, and cold weather prevails from May to October.

In the evening, a messenger from the Naybe found us at our tent at Laberhey, and carried away our guide Saloomé. It was not till the next day that he appeared again, and with him Achmet, the Naybe’s nephew. Achmet made us deliver to him the thirteen pieces of Surat cloth, which was promised Saloomè for his hire, and this, apparently, with that person’s good-will. He then changed four of the men whom the Naybe had furnished us for hire to carry our baggage, and put four others in their place; this, not without some murmuring on their part; but he peremptorily, and in seeming anger, dispatched them back to Arkeeko.

Achmet now came into the tent, called for coffee, and, while drinking it, said, “You are sufficiently persuaded that I am your friend; if you are not, it is too late now to convince you. It is necessary, however, to explain the reasons of what you see. You are not to go to Dobarwa, though it is the best road, the safest being preferable to the easiest. Saloomé knows the road by Dixan as well as the other. You will be apt to curse me when you are toiling and sweating ascending Taranta, the highest mountain in Abyssinia, and on this account worthy your notice. You are then to consider if the fatigue of body you then suffer in that passage is not overpaid by the absolute safety you will find yourselves in. Dobarwa belongs to the Naybe, and I cannot answer for the orders he may have given to his own servants; but Dixan is mine, although the people are much worse than those of Dobarwa. I have written to my officers there; they will behave the better to you for this; and, as you are strong and robust, the best I can do for you is to send you by a rugged road, and a safe one.”

Achmet again gave his orders to Saloomé, and we, all rising, said the fedtah, or prayer of peace; which being over, his servant gave him a narrow web of muslin, which, with his own hands, he wrapped round my head in the manner the better sort of Mahometans wear it at Dixan. He then parted, saying, “He that is your enemy is mine also; you shall hear of me by Mahomet Gibberti.”

This finished a series of trouble and vexation, not to say danger, superior to any thing I ever before had experienced, and of which the bare recital (though perhaps too minute a one) will give but an imperfect idea. These wretches possess talents for tormenting and alarming, far beyond the power of belief; and, by laying a true sketch of them before a traveller, an author does him the most real service. In this country the more truly we draw the portrait of man, the more we seem to fall into caricature.

On the 16th, in the evening, we left Laberhey; and, after continuing about an hour along the plain, our grass ended, the ground becoming dry, firm, and gravelly, and we then entered into a wood of acacia-trees of considerable size. We now began to ascend gradually, having Gedem, the high mountain which forms the bay of Arkeeko, on our left, and these same mountains, which bound the plain of Arkeeko to the west, on our right. We encamped this night on a rising-ground called Shillokeeb, where there is no water, though the mountains were everywhere cut through with gullies and water courses, made by the violent rains that fall here in winter.

The 17th, we continued along the same plain, still covered thick with acacia-trees. They were then in blossom, had a round yellow flower, but we saw no gum upon the trees. Our direction had hitherto been south. We turned westerly through an opening in the mountains, which here stand so close together as to leave no valley or plain space between them but what is made by the torrents, in the rainy season, forcing their way with great violence to the sea.

The bed of the torrent was our only road; and, as it was all sand, we could not wish for a better. The moisture it had strongly imbibed protected it from the sudden effects of the sun, and produced, all alongst its course, a great degree of vegetation and verdure. Its banks were full of rack-trees, capers, and tamarinds; the two last bearing larger fruit than I had ever before seen, though not arrived to their greatest size or maturity.

We continued this winding, according to the course of the river, among mountains of no great height, but bare, stony, and full of terrible precipices. At half past eight o’clock we halted, to avoid the heat of the sun, under shade of the trees before mentioned, for it was then excessively hot, though in the month of November, from ten in the morning till two in the afternoon. We met this day with large numbers of Shiho, having their wives and families along with them, descending from the tops of the high mountains of Habesh, with their flocks to pasture, on the plains below near the sea, upon grass that grows up in the months of October and November, when they have already consumed what grew in the opposite season on the other side of the mountains.

This change of domicil gives them a propensity to thieving and violence, though otherwise a cowardly tribe. It is a proverb in Abyssinia, “Beware of men that drink two waters,” meaning these, and all the tribes of Shepherds, who were in search of pasture, and who have lain under the same imputation from the remotest antiquity.

The Shiho were once very numerous; but, like all these nations having communication with Masuah, have suffered much by the ravages of the small-pox. The Shiho are the blackest of the tribes bordering upon the Red Sea. They were all clothed; their women in coarse cotton shifts reaching down to their ancles, girt about the middle with a leather belt, and having very large sleeves; the men in short cotton breeches reaching to the middle of their thighs, and a goat’s skin cross their shoulders. They have neither tents nor cottages, but either live in caves in the mountains under trees, or in small conical huts built with a thick grass like reeds.

This party consisted of about fifty men, and, I suppose, not more than thirty women; from which it seemed probable the Shiho are Monogam, as afterwards, indeed, I knew them to be. Each of them had a lance in his hand, and a knife at the girdle which kept up the breeches. They had the superiority of the ground, as coming down the mountain which we were ascending; yet I observed them to seem rather uneasy at meeting us; and so far from any appearance of’ hostility, that, I believe, had we attacked briskly, they would have fled without much resistance. They were, indeed, incumbered with a prodigious quantity of goats and other cattle, so were not in a fighting trim. I saluted the man that seemed to be their chief, and asked him if he would sell us a goat. He returned my salute; but either could not speak Arabic, or declined further conversation. However, those of our people behind, that were of a colour nearer to themselves, bought us a goat that was lame, (dearly they said) for some antimony, four large needles, and some beads. Many of them asked us for kisserah, or bread. This being an Arabic word, and their having no other word in their language signifying bread, convinces me they were Icthyophagi; as, indeed, history says all those Troglydite nations were who lived upon the Red Sea. It could not indeed be otherwise: the rich, when trade flourished in these parts, would probably get corn from Arabia or Abyssinia; but, in their own country, no corn would grow.

At 2 o’clock in the afternoon we resumed our journey through a very stony, uneven road, till 5 o’clock, when we pitched our tent at a place called Hamhammou, on the side of a small green hill some hundred yards from the bed of the torrent. The weather had been perfectly good since we left Masuah: this afternoon, however, it seemed to threaten rain; the high mountains were quite hid, and great part of the lower ones covered with thick clouds; the lightning was very frequent, broad, and deep tinged with blue; and long peals of thunder were heard, but at a distance. This was the first sample we had of Abyssinian bad weather.

The river scarcely ran at our passing it; when, all of a sudden, we heard a noise on the mountains above, louder than the loudest thunder. Our guides, upon this, flew to the baggage, and removed it to the top of the green hill; which was no sooner done, than we saw the river coming down in a stream about the height of a man, and breadth of the whole bed it used to occupy. The water was thick tinged with red earth, and ran in the form of a deep river, and swelled a little above its banks, but did not reach our station on the hill.

An antelope, surprised by the torrent, and I believe hurt by it, was forced over into the peninsula where we were, seemingly in great distress. As soon as my companions saw there was no further danger from the river, they surrounded this innocent comrade in misfortune, and put him to death with very little trouble to themselves. The acquisition was not great; it was lean, had a musky taste, and was worse meat than the goat we had bought from the Shiho. The torrent, though now very sensibly diminished, still preserved a current till next morning.

Between Hamhammou and Shillokeeb we first saw the dung of elephants, full of pretty thick pieces of indigested branches. We likewise, in many places, saw the tracks thro’ which they had passed; some trees were thrown down from the roots, some broken in the middle, and branches half-eaten strewed on the ground.

Hamhammou is a mountain of black stones, almost calcined by the violent heat of the sun. This is the boundary of the district; Samhar, inhabited by the Shiho from Hamhammou to Taranta, is called Hadassa; it belongs to the Hazorta.

This nation, though not so numerous as the Shiho, are yet their neighbours, live in constant defiance of the Naybe, and are of a colour much resembling new copper; but are inferior to the Shiho in size, though very agile. All their substance is in cattle; yet they kill none of them, but live entirely upon milk. They, too, want also an original word for bread in their language, for the same reason, I suppose, as the Shiho. They have been generally successful against the Naybe, and live either in caves, or in cabannes, like cages, just large enough to hold two persons, and covered with an ox’s hide. Some of the better sort of women have copper bracelets upon their arms, beads in their hair, and a tanned hide wrapt about their shoulders.

The nights are cold here—even in summer, and do not allow the inhabitants to go naked as upon the rest of the coast; however, the children of the Shiho, whom we met first, were all naked.

The 18th, at half past five in the morning, we left our station on the side of the green hill at Hamhammou: for some time our road lay through a plain so thick set with acacia-trees that our hands and faces were all torn and bloody with the strokes of their thorny branches. We then resumed our ancient road in the bed of the torrent, now nearly dry, over stones which the rain of the preceding night had made very slippery.

At half past seven we came to the mouth of a narrow valley, through which a stream of water ran very swiftly over a bed of pebbles. It was the first clear water we had seen since we left Syria, and gave us then unspeakable pleasure. It was in taste excellent. The shade of the tamarind-tree, and the coolness of the air, invited us to rest on this delightful spot, though otherwise, perhaps, it was not exactly conformable to the rules of prudence, as we saw several huts and families of the Hazorta along the side of the stream, with their flocks feeding on the branches of trees and bushes, entirely neglectful of the grass they were treading under foot.

The caper-tree here grows as high as the tallest English elm; its flower is white, and its fruit, though not ripe, was fully as large as an apricot.

I went some distance to a small pool of water in order to bathe, and took my firelock with me; but none of the savages stirred from their huts, nor seemed to regard me more than if I had lived among them all their lives, though surely I was the most extraordinary sight they had ever seen; whence I concluded that they are a people of small talents or genius, having no curiosity.

At two o’clock we continued our journey, among large timber trees, till half past three, along the side of the rivulet, when we lost it. At half past four we pitched our tent at Sadoon, by the side of another stream, as clear, as shallow, and as beautiful as the first; but the night here was exceedingly cold, though the sun had been hot in the day-time. Our desire for water was, by this time, considerably abated. We were everywhere surrounded by mountains, bleak, bare, black, and covered with loose stones, entirely destitute of soil; and, besides this gloomy prospect, we saw nothing but the heavens.

On the 19th, at half past six in the morning, we left Sadoon, our road still winding between mountains in the bed, or torrent of a river, bordered on each side with rack and sycamore trees of a good size. I thought them equal to the largest trees I had ever seen; but upon considering, and roughly measuring some of them, I did not find one 7½ feet diameter; a small tree in comparison of those that some travellers have observed, and much smaller than I expected; for here every cause concurred that should make the growth of these large bodies excessive.

At half past eight o’clock, we encamped at a place called Tubbo, where the mountains are very steep, and broken, very abruptly, into cliffs and precipices. Tubbo was by much the most agreeable station we had seen; the trees were thick, full of leaves, and gave us abundance of very dark shade. There was a number of many different kinds so closely planted that they seemed to be intended for natural arbours. Every tree was full of birds, variegated with an infinity of colours, but destitute of song; others, of a more homely and more European appearance, diverted us with a variety of wild notes, in a stile of music still distinct and peculiar to Africa; as different in the composition from our linnet and goldfinch, as our English language is to that of Abyssinia: Yet, from very attentive and frequent observation, I found that the sky-lark at Masuah sang the same notes as in England. It was observable, that the greatest part of the beautiful painted birds were of the jay, or magpie kind: nature seemed, by the fineness of their dress, to have marked them for children of noise and impertinence, but never to have intended them for pleasure or meditation.

The reason of the Hazorta making, as it were, a fixed station here at Tubbo, seems to be the great exuberancy of the foliage of these large trees. Their principal occupation seemed to be to cut down the branches most within their reach; and this, in a dry season, nearly stripped every tree; and, upon failure of these, they remove their flocks, whatever quantity of grass remained.

The sycamores constitute a large proportion of these trees, and they are everywhere loaded with figs; but the process of caprification being unknown to these savages, these figs come to nothing, which else might be a great resource for food at times, in a country which seems almost destitute of the necessaries of life.

We left Tubbo at three o’clock in the afternoon, and we wished to leave the neighbourhood of the Hazorta. At four, we encamped at Lila, where we passed the night in a narrow valley, full of trees and brushwood, by the side of a rivulet. These small, but delightful streams, which appear on the plain between Taranta and the sea, run only after October. When the summer rains in Abyssinia are ceasing, they begin again on the east side of the mountains; at other times, no running water is to be found here, but it remains stagnant in large pools, whilst its own depth, or the shade of the mountains and trees, prevent it from being exhaled by the heat of the sun till they are again replenished with fresh supplies, which are poured into them upon return of the rainy season. Hitherto we had constantly ascended from our leaving Arkeeko, but it was very gradually, indeed almost imperceptibly.

On the 20th, at six o’clock in the morning, we left our station at Lila, and about seven we began to ascend the hills, or eminences, which serve as the roots or skirts of the great mountain Taranta. The road was on each side bordered with nabca, or jujeb trees of great beauty, and sycamores perfectly deprived of their verdure and branches.

We saw to-day plenty of game. The country here is everywhere deprived of the shade it would enjoy from these fine trees, by the barbarous axes of the Hazorta. We found everywhere immense flocks of antelopes; as also partridges of a small kind that willingly took refuge upon trees; neither of these seemed to consider us as enemies. The antelopes let us pass through their flocks, only removing to the right or to the left, or standing still and gazing upon us till we passed. But, as we were then on the confines of Tigrè, or rather on the territory of the Baharnagash, and as the Hazorta were in motion everywhere removing towards the coast, far from the dominions of the Abyssinians to which we were going, a friend of their own tribe, who had joined us for safety, knowing how little trust was to be put in his countrymen when moving in this contrary direction, advised us by no means to fire, or give any unnecessary indication of the spot where we were, till we gained the mountain of Taranta, at the foot of which we halted at nine in the morning.

At half past two o’clock in the afternoon we began to ascend the mountain, through a most rocky, uneven road, if it can deserve the name, not only from its incredible steepness, but from the large holes and gullies made by the torrents, and the huge monstrous fragments of rocks which, loosened by the water, had been tumbled down into our way. It was with great difficulty we could creep up, each man carrying his knapsack and arms; but it seemed beyond the possibility of human strength to carry our baggage and instruments. Our tent, indeed, suffered nothing by its falls; but our telescopes, time-keeper, and quadrant, were to be treated in a more deliberate and tender manner.

Our quadrant had hitherto been carried by eight men, four to relieve each other; but these were ready to give up the undertaking upon trial of the first few hundred yards. A number of expedients, such as trailing it on the ground, (all equally fatal to the instrument) were proposed. At last, as I was incomparably the strongest of the company, as well as the most interested, I, and a stranger Moor who had followed us, carried the head of it for about 400 yards over the most difficult and steepest part of the mountain, which before had been considered as impracticable by all.

Yasine was the name of that Moor, recommended to me by Metical Aga, of whom I have already spoken a little, and shall be obliged to say much more; a person whom I had discovered to be a man of a most sagacious turn of mind, firm heart, and strenuous nerves; never more distinguished for all these qualities than in the hour of imminent danger; at other times remarkable for quietness and silence, and a constant study of his Koran.

We carried it steadily up the steep, eased the case gently over the big stones on which, from time to time, we rested it; and, to the wonder of them all, placed the head of the three-foot quadrant, with its double case, in safety far above the stony parts of the mountain. At Yasine’s request we again undertook the next most difficult task, which was to carry the iron foot of the quadrant in a single deal-case, not so heavy, indeed, nor so liable to injury, but still what had been pronounced impossible to carry up so steep and rugged a mountain; and refusing then the faint offers of those that stood gazing below, excusing themselves by foretelling an immediate and certain miscarriage, we placed the second case about ten yards above the first in perfect good condition.

Declaring ourselves now without fear of contradiction, and, by the acknowledgment of all, upon fair proof, the two best men in the company, we returned, bearing very visibly the characters of such an exertion; our hands and knees were all cut, mangled, and bleeding, with sliding down and clambering over the sharp points of the rocks; our clothes torn to pieces; yet we professed our ability, without any reproaches on our comrades, to carry the two telescopes and time-keeper also. Shame, and the proof of superior constancy, so much humbled the rest of our companions, that one and all put their hands so briskly to work, that, with infinite toil, and as much pleasure, we advanced so far as to place all our instruments and baggage, about two o’clock in the afternoon, near half way up this terrible mountain of Taranta.

There were five asses, two of which belonged to Yasine, and these were fully as difficult to bring up the mountain as any of our burdens. Most of their loading, the property of Yasine, we carried up the length of my instruments; and it was proposed, as a thing that one man could do, to make the unladen light asses follow, as they had been well taken care of, were vigorous and young, and had not suffered by the short journies we had made on plain ground. They no sooner, however, found themselves at liberty, and that a man was compelling them with a stick to ascend the mountain, than they began to bray, to kick, and to bite each other; and, as it were with one consent, not only ran down the part of the hill we had ascended, but, with the same jovial cries as before, (smelling, I suppose, some of their companions) they continued on at a brisk trot; and, as we supposed, would never stop till they came to Tubbo, and the huts of the Hazorta.

All our little caravan, and especially the masters of these animals, saw from above, in despair, all our eagerness to pass Taranta defeated by the secession of the most obstinate of the brute creation. But there was no mending this by reflection; at the same time, we were so tired as to make it impossible for the principals to give any assistance. Bread was to be baked, and supper to be made ready, after this fatiguing journey.

At length four Moors, one of them a servant of Yasine, with one firelock, were sent down after the asses; and the men were ordered to fire at a distance, so as to be heard in case any thing dishonest was offered on the part of the Hazorta. But luckily the appetite of the asses returning, they had fallen to eat the bushes, about half way to Lila, where they were found a little before sun-set.

The number of hyænas that are everywhere among the bushes, had, as we supposed, been seen by these animals, and had driven them all into a body. It was probable that this, too, made them more docile, so that they suffered themselves to be driven on before their masters. The hyænas, however, followed them step by step, always increasing in number; and, the men, armed only with lances, began to be fully as much afraid for themselves as for the asses. At last the hyænas became so bold, that one of them seized the ass belonging to the poor Moor, whose cargo was yet lying at the foot of Taranta, and pulled him down, though the man ran to him and relieved him with lances. This would have begun a general engagement with the hyænas, had not Yasine’s man that carried the firelock discharged it amongst them, but missed them all. However, it answered the purpose; they disappeared, and left the asses and ass-drivers to pursue their way.

The shot, for a moment, alarmed us all upon the mountain. Every man ran to his arms to prepare for the coming of the Hazorta; but a moment’s reflection upon the short time the men had been away, the distance between us and Tubbo, and the small space that it seemed to be from where the gun was fired, made us all conclude the man had only intended by the shot to let us know they were at hand, tho’ it was not till near midnight before our long-eared companions joined their masters.

We found it impossible to pitch our tents, from the extreme weariness in which our last night’s exertion had left us: But there was another reason also; for there was not earth enough covering the bare sides of Taranta to hold fast a tent-pin; but there were variety of caves near us, and throughout the mountain, which had served for houses to the old inhabitants; and in these found a quiet and not inconvenient place of repose, the night of the 20th of November.

All this side of the mountain of Taranta, which we had passed, was thick-set with a species of tree which we had never before seen, but which was of uncommon beauty and curious composition of parts; its name is kol-quall[3]. Though we afterwards met it in several places of Abyssinia, it never was in the perfection we now saw it in Taranta.

On the 21st, at half past six in the morning, having encouraged my company with good words, increase of wages, and hopes of reward, we began to encounter the other half of the mountain, but, before we set out, seeing that the ass of the stranger Moor, which was bit by the hyæna, was incapable of carrying his loading further, I desired the rest every one to bear a proportion of the loading till we should arrive at Dixan, where I promised to procure him another which might enable him to continue his journey.

This proposal gave universal satisfaction to our Mahometan attendants. Yasine swore that my conduct was a reproach to them all, for that, though a Christian, I had set them an example of charity to their poor brother, highly necessary to procure God’s blessing upon their journey, but which should properly have come first from themselves. After a great deal of strife of kindness, it was agreed that I should pay one-third, that the lame ass should go for what it was worth, and the Moors of the caravan make up the difference.

This being ended, I soon perceived the good effect. My baggage moved much more briskly than the preceding day. The upper part of the mountain was, indeed, steeper, more craggy, rugged, and slippery than the lower, and impeded more with trees, but not embarrassed so much with large stones and holes. Our knees and hands, however, were cut to pieces by frequent falls, and our faces torn by the multitude of thorny bushes. I twenty times now thought of what Achmet had told me at parting, that I should curse him for the bad road shewn to me over Taranta; but bless him for the quiet and safety attending me in that passage.

The middle of the mountain was thinner of trees than the two extremes; they were chiefly wild olives which bear no fruit. The upper part was close covered with groves of the oxy cedrus, the Virginia, or berry-bearing cedar, in the language of the country called Arz. At last we gained the top of the mountain, upon which is situated a small village called Halai, the first we had seen since our leaving Masuah. It is chiefly inhabited by poor servants and shepherds keeping the flocks of men of substance living in the town of Dixan.

The people here are not black, but of a dark complexion bordering very much upon yellow. They have their head bare; their feet covered with sandals; a goat’s skin upon their shoulders; a cotton cloth about their middle; their hair short and curled like that of a negroe’s in the west part of Africa; but this is done by art, not by nature, each man having a wooden stick with which he lays hold of the lock and twists it round a screw, till it curls in the form he desires[4]. The men carry in their hands two lances and a large shield of bull’s hide. A crooked knife, the blade in the lower part about three inches broad, but diminishing to a point about sixteen inches long, is stuck at their right side, in a girdle of coarse cotton cloth, with which their middle is swathed, going round them six times.

All sorts of cattle are here in great plenty; cows and bulls of exquisite beauty, especially the former; they are, for the most part, completely white, with large dewlaps hanging down to their knees; their heads, horns, and hoofs perfectly well-turned; the horns wide like our Lincolnshire kine; and their hair like silk. Their sheep are large, and all black. I never saw one of any other colour in the province of Tigré. Their heads are large; their ears remarkably short and small; instead of the wool they have hair, as all the sheep within the tropics have, but this is remarkable for its lustre and softness, without any bristly quality, such as those in Beja, or the country of Sennaar; but they are neither so fat, nor is their flesh so good, as that of the sheep in the warmer country. The goats here, too, are of the largest size; but they are not very rough, nor is their hair long.

The plain on the top of the mountain Taranta was, in many places, sown with wheat, which was then ready to be cut down, though the harvest was not yet begun. The grain was clean, and of a good colour, but inferior in size to that of Egypt. It did not, however, grow thick, nor was the stalk above fourteen inches high. The water is very bad on the top of Taranta, being only what remains of the rain in the hollows of the rocks, and in pits prepared for it.

Being very tired, we pitched our tent on the top of the mountain. The night was remarkably cold, at least appeared so to us, whose pores were opened by the excessive heat of Masuah; for at mid-day the thermometer stood 61°, and at six in the evening 59°; the barometer, at the same time, 18½ inches French. The dew began to fall strongly, and so continued till an hour after sun-set, though the sky was perfectly clear, and the smallest stars discernible.

I killed a large eagle here this evening, about six feet ten inches from wing to wing. It seemed very tame till shot. The ball having wounded it but slightly, when on the ground it could not be prevented from attacking the men or beasts near it with great force and fierceness, so that I was obliged to stab it with a bayonet. It was of a dirty white; only the head and upper part of its wings were of a light brown.

On the 22d, at eight in the morning, we left our station on the top of Taranta, and soon after began to descend on the side of Tigré through a road the most broken and uneven that ever I had seen, always excepting the ascent of Taranta. After this we began to mount a small hill, from which we had a distinct view of Dixan.

The cedar-trees, so tall and beautiful on the top of Taranta, and also on the east side, were greatly degenerated when we came to the west, and mostly turned into small shrubs and scraggy bushes. We pitched our tent near some marshy ground for the sake of water, at three quarters past ten, but it was very bad, having been, for several weeks, stagnant. We saw here the people busy at their wheat harvest; others, who had finished theirs, were treading it out with cows or bullocks. They make no use of their straw; sometimes they burn it, and sometimes leave it on the spot to rot.

We set out from this about ten minutes after three, descending gently through a better road than we had hitherto seen. At half past four in the evening, on the 22d of November, we came to Dixan. Halai was the first village, so is this the first town in Abyssinia, on the side of Taranta. Dixan is built on the top of a hill, perfectly in form of a sugar loaf; a deep valley surrounds it everywhere like a trench, and the road winds spirally up the hill till it ends among the houses.

This town, with a large district, and a considerable number of villages, belonged formerly to the Baharnagash, and was one of the strong places under his command. Afterwards, when his power came to be weakened, and his office in disrepute by his treasonable behaviour in the war of the Turks, and civil war that followed it, during the Portuguese settlement in the reign of Socinios, the Turks possessing the sea ports, and being often in intelligence with him, it was thought proper to wink at the usurpations of the governors of Tigrè, who, little by little, reduced this office to be dependent on their power.

Dixan, presuming upon its strength, declared for independence in the time the two parties were contending; and, as it was inhabited mostly by Mahometans, it was secretly supported by the Naybe. Michael Suhul, however, governor of Tigré, in the reign of king Yasous II. invested it with a large army of horse and foot; and, as it had no water but what was in the valley below, the general defect of these lofty situations, he surrounded the town, encamping upon the edge of the valley, and inclosed all the water within his line of circumvallation, making strong posts at every watering-place, defended by fire-arms.

He then sent to them a buffoon, or dwarf, desiring them to surrender within two hours. The passions of the inhabitants were, however, raised by expectations of succour from the Naybe; and they detested Michael above every thing that could be imagined. They, therefore, whipt the dwarf, and inflicted other marks of contumely upon him. Michael bore this with seeming indifference. He sent no more summonses, but strengthened his posts, and ordered them to be continually visited. Several attacks of no consequence were made by the besieged following large stones, which were rolled down into the trench, but all to no purpose. A general attack, however, from the town, was tried the third day, by which one well was carried, and many relieved their thirst; many died there, and the rest were forced back into the town. A capitulation was now offered; but Michael answered, he waited for the coming of the Naybe. About 700 people are said to have died, during the siege, with thirst; and at last, there being no prospect of relief, twelve of the leaders were delivered and hanged up at the wells. The town surrendered at discretion, and the soldiers finished those whom thirst had spared.

Michael then farmed Dixan to the Naybe, who repeopled it. There was a high and low town, divided from each other by a considerable space. In the lower abode Christians, at least so calling themselves; on the top of the hill were the Naybe’s party, who had dug for themselves a scanty well. Saloomé, our guide, was son of the governor for the Naybe. Achmet was the person the Moors in the low town had confided in; and the Christian chief was a dependent upon Janni, our Greek friend at Adowa, who had direction of all the custom-houses in Tigrè, and of that at Dixan among the rest.

Our baggage had passed the trench, and had reached the low town through which Saloomè had conducted me, under pretence of getting a speedy shelter from the heat: but he overacted his part; and Janni, his servant, who spoke Greek, giving me a hint to go no farther, I turned short towards the house, and sat down with my firelock upon a stone at the door. Our baggage quickly followed, and all was put safe in a kind of a court inclosed with a sufficient stone-wall.

It was not long till Hagi Abdelcader, Achmet’s friend, came to us, inviting me civilly to his house, and declaring to me the friendly orders he had received from Achmet concerning me; bringing along with him also a goat, some butter and honey. I excused myself from leaving Janni’s friend, the Christian, where I had first alighted; but I recommended Yasine to him, for he had begun to shew great attachment to me. In about a quarter of an hour came Saloomé, with about twenty men, and demanded us, in the name of the Naybe, as his strangers: he said we owed him money for conducting us, and likewise for the customhouse dues. In a moment near a hundred men were assembled round Hagi Abdelcader, all with shields and lances, and we expected to see a fray of the most serious kind. But Abdelcader, with a switch in his hand, went gravely up to Saloomè, and, after chiding his party with great authority, he held up his stick twice over Saloomé’s head, as if to strike him; then ordered him, if he had any demands, to come to him in the evening; upon which both parties dispersed, and left us in peace.

The matter was settled in the evening with Saloomé in an amicable manner. It was proved that thirteen pieces of blue cloth were the hire agreed on, and that it had been paid by his order to Achmet; and, though he deserved nothing for his treacherous inclinations towards us, yet, for Achmet’s sake, and our friend Hagi Abdelcader’s, we made him a present of three pieces more.

It is true of Dixan as, I believe, of most frontier towns, that the bad people of both contiguous countries resort thither. The town, as I before have said, consists of Moors and Christians, and is very well peopled; yet the only trade of either of these sects is a very extraordinary one, that of selling of children. The Christians bring such as they have stolen in Abyssinia to Dixan as to a sure deposit; and the Moors receive them there, and carry them to a certain market at Masuah, whence they are sent over to Arabia or India. The priests of the province of Tigré, especially those near the rock Damo, are openly concerned in this infamous practice; and some of these have been licensed by Michael to carry it on as a fair trade, upon paying so many firelocks for each dozen or score of slaves.

Nothing can elucidate the footing upon which this trade stands better than a transaction which happened while I was in Ethiopia, and which reached Gondar by way of complaint from Masuah, and was told me by Michael himself.

Two priests of Tigrè, whose names I have forgot, had been long intimate friends. They dwelt near the rock Damo. The youngest was married, and had two children, both sons; the other was old, and had none. The old one reproved his friend one day for keeping his children at home idle, and not putting them to some profession by which they might gain their bread. The married priest pleaded his poverty and his want of relations that could assist him; on which, the old priest offered to place his eldest son with a rich friend of his own, who had no children, and where he should want for nothing. The proposal was accepted, and the young lad, about ten years of age, was delivered by his father to the old priest, to carry him to this friend, who sent the boy to Dixan and sold him there. Upon the old priest’s return, after giving the father a splendid account of his son’s reception, treatment, and prospects, he gave him a piece of cotton cloth, as a present from his son’s patron.

The younger child, about eight years old, hearing the good fortune of his elder brother, became so importunate to be allowed to go and visit him, that the parents were obliged to humour him, and consent. But the old priest had a scruple, saying he would not take the charge of so young a boy, unless his mother went with him. This being settled, the old priest conveyed them to the market at Dixan, where he sold both the mother and the remaining child.

Returning to the father, the old priest told him, that his wife would stay only so long, and expected he would then fetch her upon a certain day, which was named. The day being come, the two priests went together to see this happy family; and, upon their entering Dixan, it was found that the old priest had sold the young one, but not to the same Moor to whom he had sold his family. Soon after, these two Moors, who had bought the Christians, becoming partners in the venture, the old priest was to receive forty cotton-cloths, that is, L. 10 Sterling, for the husband, wife, and children.

The payment of the money, perhaps the resentment of the family trepanned, and the appearance of equity which the thing itself bore, suggested to the Moorish merchants that there was some more profit, and not more risk, if they carried off the old priest likewise. But as he had come to Dixan, as it were under public faith, in a trade that greatly interested the town, they were afraid to attempt any thing against him whilst there. They began then as it were to repent of their bargain, from a pretended apprehension that they might be stopped and questioned at going out of town, unless he would accompany them to some small distance; in consideration of which, they would give him, at parting, two pieces of cloth to be added to the other forty, which he was to take back to Tigré with him upon his return.

The beginning of such expeditions is in the night. When all were asleep, they set out from Dixan; the buyers, the seller, and the family sold; and, being arrived near the mountain where the way turns off to the desert, the whole party fell upon the old priest, threw him down, and bound him. The woman insisted that she might be allowed to cut, or tear off the little beard he had, in order, as she said, to make him look younger; and this demand was reckoned too just to be denied her. The whole five were then carried to Masuah; the woman and her two children were sold to Arabia; the two priests had not so ready a market, and they were both in the Naybe’s house when I was at Masuah, though I did not then know it.

The Naybe, willing to ingratiate himself with Ras Michael at a small expence, wrote to him an account of the transaction, and offered, as they were priests, to restore them to him. But the Ras returned for answer, that the Naybe should keep them to be his chaplains; as he hoped, some day, he would be converted to the Christian faith himself; if not, he might send them to Arabia with the rest; they would serve to be carriers of wood and drawers of water; and that there still remained at Damo enough of their kind to carry on the trade with Dixan and Masuah.

This story I heard from Ras Michael himself, at his grand-daughter’s marriage, when he was feasting, and in great spirits. He, and all the company, laughed heartily; and although there were in the room at least two dozen of priests, none of them seemed to take this incident more seriously than the rest of the company. From this we may guess at the truth of what the Catholic writers advance, with regard to the respect and reverence shown to the priesthood by the government and great men in Abyssinia.

The priest of Axum, and those of the monastery of Abba Garima, are equally infamous with those of Damo for this practice, which is winked at by Ras Michael, as contributing to his greatness, by furnishing fire-arms to his province of Tigré, which gives him a superiority over all Abyssinia. As a return for this article, about five hundred of these unfortunate people are exported annually from Masuah to Arabia; of which three hundred are Pagans, and come from the market at Gondar; the other two hundred are Christian children, kidnapped by some such manner as this we have spoken of, and in times of scarcity four times that number. The Naybe receives six patakas of duty for each one exported. Dixan is in lat. 14° 57´ 55´´ North, and long. 40° 7´ 30´´ east of the meridian of Greenwich.

From Dixan we discovered great part of the province of Tigrè full of high dreadful mountains. We, as yet, had seen very little grain, unless by the way-side from Taranta, and a small flat called Zarai, about four miles S. S. W. of the town.

CHAP. IV.
Journey from Dixan to Adowa, Capital of Tigrè.

It was on Nov. 25th, at ten in the morning, we left Dixan, descending the very steep hill on which the town is situated. It produces nothing but the Kol-quall tree all around it. We passed a miserable village called Hadhadid, and, at eleven o’clock, encamped under a daroo tree, one of the finest I have seen in Abyssinia, being 7½ feet diameter, with a head spreading in proportion, standing alone by the side of a river which now ran no more, though there is plenty of fine water still stagnant in its bed. This tree and river is the boundary of the territory, which the Naybe farms from Tigré, and stands within the province of Baharnagash, called Midrè Bahar.

Hagi Abdelcader had attended us thus far before he left us; and the noted Saloomè came likewise, to see if some occasion would offer of doing us further mischief; but the king’s servants, now upon their own ground, began to take upon them a proper consequence. One of them went to meet Saloomé at the bank of the river, and making a mark on the ground with his knife, declared that his patience was quite exhausted by what he had been witness to at Masuah and Dixan; and if now Saloomé, or any other man belonging to the Naybe, offered to pass that mark, he would bind him hand and foot, and carry him to a place where he should be left tied to a tree, a prey to the lion and hyæna. They all returned, and there our persecution from the Naybe ended. But it was very evident, from Achmet’s behaviour and discourse, had we gone by Dobarwa, which was the road proposed by the Naybe, our sufferings would not have been as yet half finished, unless they had ended with our lives.

We remained under this tree the night of the 25th; it will be to me a station ever memorable, as the first where I recovered a portion of that tranquillity of mind to which I had been a stranger ever since my arrival at Masuah. We had been joined by about twenty loaded asses driven by Moors, and two loaded bulls; for there is a small sort of this kind called Ber, which they make use of as beasts of burden. I called all these together to recommend good order to them, desiring every one to leave me that was not resolved to obey implicitly the orders I should give them, as to the hours and places of encamping, keeping watch at night, and setting out in the morning. I appointed Yasine the judge of all disputes between them; and, if the difference should be between Yasine and any one of them, or, if they should not be content with his decision, then my determination was to be final. They all consented with great marks of approbation. We then repeated the fedtah, and swore to stand by each other till the last, without considering who the enemy might be, or what his religion was, if he attacked us.

The 26th, at seven in the morning, we left our most pleasant quarters under the daroo-tree, and set forward with great alacrity. About a quarter of a mile from the river we crossed the end of the plain Zarai, already mentioned. Though this is but three miles long, and one where broadest, it was the largest plain we had seen since our passing Taranta, whose top was now covered wholly with large, black, and very heavy clouds, from which we heard and saw frequent peals of thunder, and violent streams of lightning. This plain was sown partly with wheat, partly with Indian corn; the first was cut down, the other not yet ripe. Two miles farther we passed Addicota, a village planted upon a high rock; the sides towards us were as if cut perpendicular like a wall. Here was one refuge of the Jesuits when banished Tigrè by Facilidas, when they fled to the rebel John Akay. We after this passed a variety of small villages on each side of us, all on the top of hills; Darcotta and Embabuwhat on the right, Azaria on the left.

At half an hour past eleven we encamped under a mountain, on the top of which is a village called Hadawi, consisting of no more than eighty houses, though, for the present, it is the seat of the Baharnagash. The present Baharnagash had bought the little district that he commanded, after the present governor of Tigré, Michael Suhul, had annexed to his own province what he pleased of the old domains, and farmed the other part to the Naybe for a larger revenue than he ever could get from any other tenant. The Naybe had now no longer a naval force to support him, and the fear of Turkish conquest had ceased in Tigrè. The Naybe could be reduced within any bounds that the governor of Tigrè might please to prescribe him; and the Baharnagash was a servant maintained to watch over him, and starve him into obedience, by intercepting his provisions whenever the governor of Tigré commanded him.

This nobleman paid me a visit in my tent, and was the first Abyssinian I had seen on horseback; he had seven attendant horsemen with him, and about a dozen of others on foot, all of a beggarly appearance, and very ill-armed and equipped. He was a little man, of an olive complexion, or rather darker; his head was shaved close, with a cowl, or covering, upon it; he had a pair of short trousers; his feet and legs were bare; the usual coarse girdle was wrapt several times about him, in which he stuck his knife; and the ordinary web of cotton cloth, neither new nor clean, was thrown about him. His parts seemed to be much upon the level with his appearance. He asked me, if I had ever seen horses before? I said, Very seldom. He then described their qualities in such a manner as would never have given me any idea of the animal if I had seen it seldom. He excused himself for not having sent us provisions, because he had been upon an expedition against some rebellious villages, and was then only just returned.

To judge by his present appearance, he was no very respectable personage; but in this I was mistaken, as I afterwards found. I gave him a present in proportion to the first idea, with which he seemed very well content, till he observed a number of fire-arms tied up to the pillar in the middle of the tent, among which were two large ship-blunderbusses. He asked me if there was no danger of their going off? I said, that it happened every now and then, when their time was come. A very little after this, he took the cushion upon which he sat, went out, and placed himself at the door of the tent. There the king’s servant got hold of him, and told him roundly, he must furnish us with a goat, a kid, and forty loaves, and that immediately, and write it off in his deftar, or account-book, if he pleased. He then went away and sent us a goat and fifty cakes of teff bread.

But my views upon him did not end here. His seven horses were all in very bad order, though there was a black one among them that had particularly struck my fancy. In the evening I sent the king’s servants, and Janni’s, for a check, to try if he would sell that black horse. The bargain was immediately made for various pieces of goods, part of which I had with me, and part I procured from my companions in the caravan. Every thing was fashionable and new from Arabia. The value was about L. 12. Sterling, forty shillings more than our friend at Dixan had paid for a whole family of four persons. The goods were delivered, and the horse was to be sent in the evening, when he proved a brown one, old, and wanting an eye. I immediately returned the horse, insisting on the black one; but he protested the black horse was not his own; that he had returned it to its master; and, upon a little further discourse, said, that it was a horse he intended as a present for the king.

My friends treated this with great indifference, and desired their goods back again, which were accordingly delivered. But they were no sooner in the tent, when the black horse was sent, and refused. The whole, however, was made up, by sending us another goat, which I gave, to Yasine, and two jars of bouza, which we drank among us, promising, according to the Baharnagash’s request, we would represent him well at court. We found, from his servants, that he had been upon no expedition, nor one step from home for three months past.

I was exceedingly pleased with this first acquisition. The horse was then lean, as he stood about sixteen and a half hands high, of the breed of Dongola. Yasine, a good horseman, recommended to me one of his servants, or companions, to take care of him. He was an Arab, from the neighbourhood of Medina, a superior horseman himself, and well-versed in every thing that concerned the animal. I took him immediately into my service. We called the horse Mirza, a name of good fortune. Indeed, I might say, I acquired that day a companion that contributed always to my pleasure, and more than once to my safety; and was no slender means of acquiring me the first attention of the king. I had brought my Arab stirrups, saddle, and bridle with me, so that I was now as well equipped as a horseman could be.

On the 27th we left Hadawi, continuing our journey down a very steep and narrow path between two stony hills; then ascended one still higher, upon the top of which stands the large village of Goumbubba, whence we have a prospect over a considerable plain all sown with the different grain this country produces, wheat, barley, teff, and tocusso; simsim, (or sesame) and nook; the last is used for oil.

We passed the village of Dergate, then that of Regticat, on the top of a very high hill on the left, as the other was on our right. We pitched our tent about half a mile off the village called Barranda, where we were overtaken by our friend the Baharnagash, who was so well pleased with our last interview, especially the bargain of the horse, that he sent us three goats, two jars of honey-wine, and some wheat-flour. I invited him to my tent, which he immediately accepted. He was attended by two servants on foot, with lances and shields; he had no arms himself, but, by way of amends, had two drums beating, and two trumpets blowing before him, sounding a charge.

He seemed to be a very simple, good-natured man, indeed, remarkably so; a character rarely found in any degree of men in this country. He asked me how I liked my horse? said, he hoped I did not intend to mount it myself? I answered, God forbid; I kept him as a curiosity. He commended my prudence very much, and gave me a long detail about what horses had done, and would do, on occasions. Some of the people without, however, shewed his servants my saddle, bridle, and stirrups, which they well knew, from being neighbours to the Arabs of Sennaar, and praised me as a better horseman by far than any one in that country; this they told to the Baharnagash, who, nothing offended, laughed heartily at the pretended ignorance I had shewn him, and shook me very kindly by the hand, and told me he was really poor, or he would have taken no money from me for the horse. He shewed so much good nature, and open honest behaviour, that I gave him a present better than the first, and which was more agreeable, as less expected. Razors, knives, steels for striking fire, are the most valuable presents in this country, of the hardware kind.

The Baharnagash now was in such violent good spirits, that he would not go home till he had seen a good part of his jar of hydromel finished; and he little knew, at that time, he was in the tent with a man who was to be his chief customer for horses hereafter. I saw him several times after at court, and did him some services, both with the king and Ras Michael. He had a quality which I then did not know: With all his simplicity and buffoonery, no one was braver in his own person than he; and, together with his youngest son, he died afterwards in the king’s defence, fighting bravely at the battle of Serbraxos.

At five o’clock this afternoon we had a violent shower of hailstones. Nothing is more common than aggravation about the size of hail; but, stooping to take up one I thought as large as a nutmeg, I received a blow from another just under my eye, which I imagined had blinded me, and which occasioned a swelling all the next day.

I had gained the Baharnagash’s heart so entirely that it was not possible to get away the next day. We were upon the very verge of his small dominions, and he had ordered a quantity of wheat-flour to be made for us, which he sent in the evening, with a kid. For my part, the share I had taken yesterday of his hydromel had given me such a pain in my head that I scarce could raise it the whole day.

It was the 29th we left our station at Barranda, and had scarcely advanced a mile when we were overtaken by a party of about twenty armed men on horseback. The Shangalla, the ancient Cushites, are all the way on our right hand, and frequently venture incursions into the flat country that was before us. This was the last piece of attention of the Baharnagash, who sent his party to guard us from danger in the plain. It awakened us from our security; we examined carefully the state of our fire-arms; cleaned and charged them anew, which we had not done since the day we left Dixan.

The first part of our journey to-day was in a deep gully; and, in half an hour, we entered into a very pleasant wood of acacia-trees, then in flower. In it likewise was a tree, in smell like a honeysuckle, whose large white flower nearly resembles that of a caper. We came out of this wood into the plain, and ascended two easy hills; upon the top of these were two huge rocks, in the holes of which, and within a large cave, a number of the blue fork-tailed swallows had begun their nests. These, and probably many, if not all the birds of passage, breed twice in the year, which seems a provision against the losses made by emigration perfectly consonant to divine wisdom. These rocks are, by some, said to be the boundaries of the command of the Baharnagash on this side; though others extend them to the Balezat.

We entered again a straggling wood, so overgrown with wild oats that it covered the men and their horses. The plain here is very wide. It reaches down on the west to Serawé, then distant about twelve miles. It extends from Goumbubba as far south as Balezat. The soil is excellent; but such flat countries are very rare in Abyssinia. This, which is one of the finest and widest, is abandoned without culture, and is in a state of waste. The reason of this is, an inveterate feud between the villages here and those of Serawé, so that the whole inhabitants on each side go armed to plow and to sow in one day; and it is very seldom either of them complete their harvest without having a battle with their enemies and neighbours.

Before we entered this wood, and, indeed, on the preceding day, from the time we left Hadawi, we had seen a very extraordinary bird at a distance, resembling a wild turkey, which ran exceedingly fast, and appeared in great flocks. It is called Erkoom[5], in Amhara; Abba Gumba, in Tigrè; and, towards the frontiers of Sennaar, Tier el Naciba, or, the Bird of Destiny.

Our guides assembled us all in a body, and warned us that the river before us was the place of the rendezvous of the Serawè horse, where many caravans had been entirely cut off. The cavalry is the best on this side of Abyssinia. They keep up the breed of their horses by their vicinity to Sennaar whence they get supply. Nevertheless, they behaved very ill at the battle of Limjour; and I cannot say I remember them to have distinguished themselves any where else. They were on our right at the battle of Serbraxos, and were beat by the horse of Foggora and the Galla.

After passing the wood, we came to the river, which was then standing in pools. I here, for the first time, mounted on horseback, to the great delight of my companions from Barranda, and also of our own, none of whom had ever before seen a gun fired from a horse galloping, excepting Yasine and his servant, now my groom, but neither of these had ever seen a double-barrelled gun. We passed the plain with all the diligence consistent with the speed and capacity of our long-eared convoy; and, having now gained the hills, we bade defiance to the Serawè horse, and sent our guard back perfectly content, and full of wonder at our fire-arms, declaring that their master the Baharnagash, had he seen the black horse behave that day, would have given me another much better.

We entered now into a close country covered with brushwood, wild oats, and high bent-grass; in many places rocky and uneven, so as scarce to leave a narrow part to pass. Just in the very entrance a lion had killed a very fine animal called Agazan. It is of the goat kind; and, excepting a small variety in colour, is precisely the same animal I had seen in Barbary near Capsa. It might be about twelve stone weight, and of the size of a large ass. (Whenever I mention a stone weight, I would wish to be understood horseman’s weight, fourteen pound to the stone, as most familiar to the generality of those who read these Travels.) The animal was scarcely dead; the blood was running; and the noise of my gun had probably frightened its conqueror away: every one with their knives cut off a large portion of flesh; Moors and Christians did the same; yet the Abyssinians aversion to any thing that is dead is such, unless killed regularly by the knife, that none of them would lift any bird that was shot, unless by the point or extreme feather of its wing. Hunger was not the excuse, for they had been plentifully fed all this journey; so that the distinction, in this particular case, is to be found in the manners of the country. They say they may lawfully eat what is killed by the lion, but not by the tiger, hyæna, or any other beast. Where they learned this doctrine, I believe, would not be easy to answer; but it is remarkable, even the Falasha themselves admit this distinction in favour of the lions.

At noon we crossed the river Balezat, which rises at Ade Shiho, a place on the S. W. of the province of Tigrè; and, after no very long course, having been once the boundary between Tigrè and Midré Bahar, (for so the country of the Baharnagash was called) it falls into the Mareb, or ancient Astusaspes. It was the first river, then actually running, that we had seen since we passed Taranta; indeed, all the space is but very indifferently watered. This stream is both clear and rapid, and seems to be full of fish. We continued for some time along its banks, the river on our left, and the mountains on our right, through a narrow plain, till we came to Tomumbusso, a high pyramidal mountain, on the top of which is a convent of monks, who do not, however, reside there, but only come hither upon certain feasts, when they keep open house and entertain all that visit them. The mountain itself is of porphyry.

There we encamped by the river’s side, and were obliged to stay this and the following day, for a duty, or custom, to be paid by all passengers. These duties are called Awides, which signifies gifts; though they are levied, for the most part, in a very rigorous and rude manner; but they are established by usage in particular spots; and are, in fact, a regality annexed to the estate. Such places are called Ber, passes; which are often met with in the names of places throughout Abyssinia, as Dingleber, Sankraber; and so forth.

There are five of these Awides which, like turnpikes, are to be paid at passing between Masuah and Adowa; one at Samhar, the second at Dixan, the third at Darghat, the fourth here at Balezat, and the fifth at Kella. The small village of Sebow was distant from us two miles to the east; Zarow the same distance to the S. S. E. and Noguet, a village before us, were the places of abode of these tax-gatherers, who farm it for a sum from their superior, and divide the profit pro rata of the sums each has advanced. It is much of the same nature as the caphar in the Levant, but levied in a much more indiscreet, arbitrary manner. The farmer of this duty values as he thinks proper what each caravan is to pay; there is no tariff, or restraint, upon him. Some have on this account been detained months; and others, in time of trouble or bad news, have been robbed of every thing: this is always the case upon the least resistance; for then the villages around you rise in arms; you are not only stript of your property, but sure to be ill-treated in your person.

As I was sent for by the king, and going to Ras Michael, in whose province they were, I affected to laugh when they talked of detaining me; and declared peremptorily to them, that I would leave all my baggage to them with great pleasure, rather than that the king’s life should be in danger by my stay. They were now staggered, and seemed not prepared for an incident of this kind. As I kept up a high tone, we were quit with being detained a day, by paying five pieces of blue Surat cotton cloth, value 3/4 of a pataka each, and one piece of white, value one pataka. Our companions, rather than stay behind, made the best bargain they could; and we all decamped, and set forward together. I was surprised to see, at the small village Zarow, several families as black as perfect negroes, only they were not woolly-headed, and had prominent features. I asked if they descended from slaves, or sons of slaves? They said, No; their particular families of that and the neighbouring village Sebow, were of that colour from time immemorial; and that this did not change, though either the father or mother were of another colour.

On the 1st of December we departed from Balezat, and ascended a steep mountain upon which stands the village Noguet, which we passed about half an hour after. On the top of the hill were a few fields of teff. Harvest was then ended, and they were treading out the teff with oxen. Having passed another very rugged mountain, we descended and encamped by the side of a small river, called Mai Kol-quall, from a number of these trees growing about it. This place is named the Kella, or Castle, because, nearly at equal distances, the mountains on each side run for a considerable extent, straight and even, in shape like a wall; with gapes at certain distances, resembling embrasures and bastions. This rock is otherwise called Damo, anciently the prison of the collateral heirs-male of the royal family.

The river Kol-quall rises in the mountains of Tigrè, and, after a course nearly N. W. falls into the Mareb. It was at Kella we saw, for the first time, the roofs of the houses made in form of cones; a sure proof that the tropical rains grow more violent as they proceed westward.

About half a mile on the hill above is the village Kaibara, wholly inhabited by Mahometan Gibbertis; that is, native Abyssinians of that religion. Kella being one of these bers, or passages, we were detained there three whole days, by the extravagant demands of these farmers of the Awide, who laughed at all the importance we gave ourselves. They had reasons for our reasons, menaces for our menaces, but no civilities to answer ours. What increased the awkwardness of our situation was, they would take no money for provisions, but only merchandise by way of barter. We were, indeed, prepared for this by information; so we began to open shop by spreading a cloth upon the ground, at the sight of which, hundreds of young women poured down upon us on every side from villages behind the mountains which we could not see. The country is surprisingly populous, notwithstanding the great emigration lately made with Michael. Beads and antimony are the standard in this way-faring commerce; but beads are a dangerous speculation. You lose sometimes every thing, or gain more than honestly you should do; for all depends upon fashion; and the fancies of a brown, or black beauty, there, gives the ton as decisively as does the example of the fairest in England.

To our great disappointment, the person employed to buy our beads at Jidda had not received the last list of fashions from this country; so he had bought us a quantity beautifully flowered with red and green, and as big as a large pea; also some large oval, green, and yellow ones; whereas the ton now among the beauties of Tigré were small sky-coloured blue beads, about the size of small lead shot, or seed pearls; blue bugles, and common white bugles, were then in demand, and large yellow glass, flat in the side like the amber-beads formerly used by the better sort of the old women-peasants in England. All our beads were then rejected, by six or seven dozen of the shrillest tongues I ever heard. They decried our merchandize in such a manner, that I thought they meant to condemn them as unsaleable, to be confiscated or destroyed.

Let every man, travelling in such countries as these, remember, that there is no person, however mean, who is in his company, that does not merit attention, kindness, and complacency. Let no man in travelling exalt himself above the lowest, in a greater degree than he is able to do superior service; for many that have thought themselves safe, and been inattentive to this, have perished by the unsuspected machinations of the lowest and meanest wretch among them. Few have either made such long or such frequent journies of this kind as I, and I scarcely recollect any person so insignificant that, before the end of a moderate journey, had not it in his power to return you like for like for your charity or unkindness, be the difference of your quality and condition what it would.

Of all the men in our company, none had any stock of the true small sky-blue beads, and no one had one grain of the large yellow-glass ones, but the poor Moor, whose ass was bit by the hyæna near Lila, and whose cargo, likely to be left behind at the foot of Taranta, I had distributed among the rest of the asses of the caravan; and, leaving the wounded one for the price he would fetch, had next day bought him another at Halai, with which, since that time, he continued his journey. That fellow had felt the obligation in silence; and not one word, but Good-day, and Good-e’en, had passed between us since conferring the favour. Understanding now what was the matter, he called Yasine, and gave him a large package, which he imprudently opened, in which was a treasure of all the beads in fashion, all but the white and blue bugles, and these Yasine himself furnished us with afterwards.

A great shout was set up by the women-purchasers, and a violent scramble followed. Twenty or thirty threw themselves upon the parcel, tearing and breaking all the strings as if they intended to plunder us. This joke did not seem to be relished by the servants. Their hard-heartedness before, in professing they would let us starve rather than give us a handful of flour for all our unfashionable beads, had quite extinguished the regard we else would have unavoidably shewn to the fair sex. A dozen of whips and sticks were laid unmercifully upon their hands and arms, till each dropped her booty. The Abyssinian men that came with them seemed to be perfectly unconcerned at the fray, and stood laughing without the least sign of wishing to interfere in favour of either side. I believe the restitution would not have been complete, had not Yasine, who knew the country well, fired one of the ship-blunderbusses into the air behind their backs. At hearing so unexpectedly this dreadful noise, both men and women fell flat on their faces; the women were immediately dragged off the cloth, and I do not believe there was strength left in any hand to grasp or carry away a single bead. My men immediately wrapped the whole in the cloth, so for a time our market ended.

For my part, at the first appearance of the combat I had withdrawn myself, and sat a quiet spectator under a tree. Some of the women were really so disordered with the fright, that they made but very feeble efforts in the market afterwards. The rest beseeched me to transfer the market to the carpet I sat on under the tree. This I consented to; but, growing wise by misfortune, my servants now produced small quantities of every thing, and not without a very sharp contest and dispute, somewhat superior in noise to that of our fish-women. We were, however, plentifully supplied with honey, butter, flour, and pumpkins of an exceeding good taste, scarcely inferior to melons.

Our caravan being fully victualled the first and second day, our market was not opened but by private adventurers, and seemingly savoured more of gallantry than gain. There were three of them the most distinguished for beauty and for tongue, who, by their discourse, had entertained me greatly. I made each of them a present of a few beads, and asked them how many kisses they would give for each? They answered very readily, with one accord, “Poh! we don’t sell kisses in this country: Who would buy them? We will give you as many as you wish for nothing.” And there was no appearance but, in that bargain, they meant to be very fair and liberal dealers.

The men seemed to have no talent for marketing; nor do they in this country either buy or sell. But we were surprised to see the beaux among them come down to the tent, the second day after our arrival, with each of them a single string of thin, white bugles tied about their dirty, black legs, a little above their ancle; and of this they seemed as proud as if the ornament had been gold or jewels.

I easily saw that so much poverty, joined to so much avarice and pride, made the possessor a proper subject to be employed. My young favourite, who had made so frank an offer of her kindness, had brought me her brother, begging that I would take him with me to Gondar to Ras Michael, and allow him to carry one of my guns, no doubt with an intention to run off with it by the way. I told her that was a thing easily done; but I must first have a trial of his fidelity, which was this, That he would, without speaking to anybody but me and her, go straight to Janni at Adowa, and carry the letter I should give him, and deliver it into his own hand, in which case I would give him a large parcel of each of these beads, more than ever she thought to possess in her lifetime. She frankly agreed, that my word was more to be relied upon than either her own or her brother’s; and, therefore, that the beads, once shewn to them both, were to remain a deposit in my hand. However, not to send him away wholly destitute of the power of charming, I presented him the single string of white bugles for his ancle. Janni’s Greek servant gave him a letter, and he made such diligence that, on the fourth day, by eight o’clock in the morning, he came to my tent without ever having been missed at home.

At the same time came an officer from Janni, with a violent mandate, in the name of Ras Michael, declaring to the person that was the cause of our detention, That, was it not for ancient friendship, the present messenger should have carried him to Ras Michael in irons; discharging me from all awides; ordering him, as Shum of the place, to furnish me with provisions; and, in regard to the time he had caused us to lose, fixing the awides of the whole caravan at eight piasters, not the twentieth part of what he would have exacted. One reason of this severity was, that, while I was in Masuah, Janni had entertained this man at his own house; and, knowing the usual vexations the caravans met with at Kella, and the long time they were detained there at considerable expence, had obtained a promise from the Shum, in consideration of favours done him, that he should let us pass freely, and, not only so, but should shew us some little civility. This promise, now broken, was one of the articles of delinquency for which he was punished.

Cohol, large needles, goats skins, coarse scissars, razors, and steels for striking fire, are the articles of barter at Kella. An ordinary goat’s skin is worth a quart of wheat-flour. As we expected an order of deliverance, all was ready upon its arrival. The Moors with their asses, grateful for the benefit received, began to bless the moment they joined us; hoping, in my consideration, upon our arrival at the customhouse of Adowa, they might meet with further favour.

Yasine, in the four days we had staid at Kella, had told me his whole history. It seems he had been settled in a province of Abyssinia, near to Sennaar, called Ras el Feel; had married Abd el Jilleel, the Shekh’s daughter; but, growing more popular than his father-in-law, he had been persecuted by him, and obliged to leave the country. He began now to form hopes, that, if I was well received, as he saw, in all appearance, I was to be, he might, by my interest, be appointed to his father-in-law’s place; especially if there was war, as every thing seemed to indicate. Abd el Jilleel was a coward, and incapable of making himself of personal valued to any party. On the contrary, Yasine was a tried man, an excellent horseman, strong, active, and of known courage, having been twice with the late king Yasous in his invasions of Sennaar, and both times much wounded there. It was impossible to dispute his title to preferment; but I had not formed that idea of my own success that I should be able to be of any use or assistance to him in it. Kella is in lat. 14° 24´ 34´´ North.

It was in the afternoon of the 4th that we set out from Kella; our road was between two hills covered with thick wood. On our right was a cliff, or high rock of granite, on the top of which were a few houses that seemed to hang over the cliff rather than stand upon it. A few minutes after three o’ clock we passed a rivulet, and a quarter of an hour afterwards another, both which run into the Mareb. We still continued to descend, surrounded on all sides with mountains covered with high grass and brushwood, and abounding with lions. At four, we arrived at the foot of the mountain, and passed a small stream which runs there.

We had seen no villages after leaving Kella. At half past four o’clock we came to a considerable river called Angueah, which we crossed, and pitched our tent on the farther side of it. It was about fifty feet broad and three in depth. It was perfectly clear, and ran rapidly over a bed of white pebbles, and was the largest river we had yet seen in Habesh. In summer there is very little plain ground near it but what is occupied by the stream; it is full of small fish, in great repute for their goodness.

This river has its name from a beautiful tree, which covers both its banks. This tree, by the colour of its bark and richness of its flower, is a great ornament to the banks of the river. A variety of other flowers fill the whole level plain between the mountain and the river, and even some way up the mountains. In particular, great variety of jessamin, white, yellow, and party-coloured. The country seemed now to put on a more favourable aspect; the air was much fresher, and more pleasant, every step we advanced after leaving Dixan; and one cause was very evident; the country where we now passed was well-watered with clear running streams; whereas, nearer Dixan, there were few, and all stagnant.

The 5th, we descended a small mountain for about twenty minutes, and passed the following villages, Zabangella, about a mile N. W.; at a quarter of an hour after, Moloxito, half a mile further S. E.; and Mansuetemen, three quarters of a mile E. S. E. These villages are all the property of the Abuna; who has also a duty upon all merchandise passing there; but Ras Michael had confiscated these last villages on account of a quarrel he had with the last Abuna, Af-Yagoube.

We now began first to see the high mountains of Adowa, nothing resembling in shape to those of Europe, nor, indeed, any other country. Their sides were all perpendicular rocks, high like steeples, or obelisks, and broken into a thousand different forms.

At half past eight o’clock we left the deep valley, wherein runs the Mareb W. N. W.; at the distance of about nine miles above it is the mountain, or high hill, on which stands Zarai, now a collection of villages, formerly two convents built by Lalibala; though the monks tell you a story of the queen of Saba residing there, which the reader may be perfectly satisfied she never did in her life.

The Mareb is the boundary between Tigré and the Baharnagash, on this side. It runs over a bed of soil; is large, deep, and smooth; but, upon rain falling, it is more dangerous to pass than any river in Abyssinia, on account of the frequent holes in its bottom. We then entered the narrow plain of Yeeha, wherein runs the small river, which either gives its name to, or takes it from it. The Yeeha rises from many sources in the mountains to the west; it is neither considerable for size nor its course, and is swallowed up in the Mareb.

The harvest was in great forwardness in this place. The wheat was cut, and a considerable share of the teff in another part; they were treading out this last-mentioned grain with oxen. The Dora, and a small grain called telba, (of which they make oil) was not ripe.

At eleven o’clock we rested by the side of the mountain whence the river falls. All the villages that had been built here bore the marks of the justice of the governor of Tigré. They had been long the most incorrigible banditti in the province. He surrounded them in one night, burnt their houses, and extirpated the inhabitants; and would never suffer any one since to settle there. At three o’clock in the afternoon we ascended what remained of the mountain of Yeeha; came to the plain upon its top; and, at a quarter before four, passed the village of that name, leaving it to the S. E. and began the most rugged and dangerous descent we had met with since Taranta.

At half past five in the evening we pitched our tent at the foot of the hill, close by a small, but rapid and clear stream, which is called Ribieraini. This name was given it by the banditti of the villages before mentioned, because from this you see two roads; one leading from Gondar, that is, from the westward; the other from the Red Sea to the eastward. One of the gang that used to be upon the out-look from this station, as soon as any caravan came in sight, cried out, Ribieraini, which in Tigrè signifies they are coming this way; upon which notice every one took his lance and shield, and stationed himself properly to fall with advantage upon the unwary merchant; and it was a current report, which his present greatness could not stifle, that, in his younger days, Ras Michael himself frequently was on these expeditions at this place. On our right was the high, steep, and rugged mountain of Samayat, which the same Michael, being in rebellion, chose for his place of strength, and was there besieged and taken prisoner by the late king Yasous.

The rivulet of Ribieraini is the source of the fertility of the country adjoining, as it is made to overflow every part of this plain, and furnishes a perpetual store of grass, which is the reason of the caravans chusing to stop here. Two or three harvests are also obtained by means of this river; for, provided, there is water, they sow in Abyssinia in all seasons. We perceived that we were now approaching some considerable town, by the great care with which every small piece of ground, and even the steep sides of the mountains, were cultivated, though they had ever so little soil.