PORTUGAL AND ABYSSINIA
Portugal was created by the crusading spirit. The King of Castile, who
had become the leading prince in the northern half of Spain, despatched
a young Burgundian adventurer, Count Henry, to advance on the Douro
from Galicia (in the northwest corner of the Spanish peninsula) and
to drive the Moors into the sea,--either the Atlantic Ocean or the
Straits of Gibraltar. Count Henry drove them at any rate half-way down
that western coastland of the Spanish peninsula which we now call
Portugal.[14] Lisbon was only eventually conquered from the Moors by
the help of a large party of English volunteers who stopped to aid
in this struggle with the Moslem while on their way to a Crusade in
the Holy Land. Steadily, bit by bit, Count Henry and his successors,
the kings of Portugal, drove the Moors southward into and out of the
little province of Algarve, and then, flushed with continuous success,
crossed the Straits, attacked them in Morocco, and added a large part
of the present Empire of Morocco to the possessions of the Portuguese
Crown.[15] These brilliant successes awoke a great spirit of discovery
in Portugal,--a spirit fomented and encouraged by that noble and
far-sighted man, Prince Henry the Navigator, who had himself shared in
the Morocco wars. Rapidly the limits of the Portuguese explorations
extended. First they rounded Cape Bojador on the northwest coast of
Africa. Then they reached Sierra Leone, the gold coast, Benin (where
they powerfully affected native art and industry), the Niger Delta, the
Cameroons, the Congo, Angola, and the Cape of Good Hope. Once having
passed this promontory, whence they had once retired baffled, their
great navigator, Vasco da Gama, carried on the exploration of the
coasts of Africa eastward and northward to Mombasa and thence to India.
Succeeding vessels explored the Red Sea, and the expeditions they
conveyed attempted to get into touch with Abyssinia, where, according
to the rumours brought home by crusaders and Italian merchants from
Egypt, there lay a Christian country ruled by a pious monarch, John
the Priest.[16] But before ever Vasco da Gama had rounded the Cape of
Good Hope, the Portuguese, by contact with the Moors, had heard of Arab
settlements on the East Coast of Africa, and of the insular character
of the great continent. Their government, therefore, in 1486 despatched
on a journey to Egypt, India, and eastern Africa Pero de Covilhaõ to
spy out the land.
This was a very risky journey in those days when the jealousy of Venice
was added to the fanaticism of the Moslems. But Pero de Covilhaõ
fulfilled his mission. He visited Egypt, the Red Sea, and India. He
then, on his return journey, touched at many of the Arab ports on the
East African coast. Finally he disembarked at Masawa, and travelled
to Abyssinia, the first intelligent European to enter that country
for a very long period of time,--the first, in fact, since the Greek
merchants and missionaries who traded and travelled under the Byzantine
Empire. The King of Abyssinia was so delighted with the advent of this
white man, yet so suspicious of his country’s motives, that he was
detained as an unwilling guest in Abyssinia for several years, and
died when on his way home. But the Portuguese fleet came to Masawa in
1520 with an embassy which remained in the country of Abyssinia for
six years. In this embassy were the priests Bermudez and Francisco
Alvarez. Alvarez afterwards (about 1550) wrote an interesting account
of Abyssinia, describing more especially the province of Tigre, and
alluding to the Atbara (there known as the Takaze) as the main Nile.
Bermudez became for a time the primate or patriarch of Abyssinia. The
Jesuit missionaries, for the most part Portuguese, strove hard to
replace the corrupt Greek Christianity of the country by the Latin
rite. This action not unnaturally set up against them a strong body of
opponents in the native Abyssinian priesthood. For a time, however,
the civilisation they introduced, and their trading connection with
India, made a great impression on the king and chieftains of Ethiopia,
until, as will be seen later on, the country became suspicious of
Portuguese intentions, observing the facility with which parts of
East Africa, India, and the shores of the Persian Gulf had been
conquered and occupied by the Portuguese. But before this jealousy
was to culminate in the expulsion of the Portuguese from Abyssinia
one hundred years later, the Christian rulers of that country were
forced to appeal to Portugal for help and armed intervention. As
already mentioned in Chapter V., an attack on Abyssinia had been made
by a Muhammadan chieftain of the Danakil country,--Muhammad Granye,
or Muhammad the Lame. This man was probably of Somali race, and ruled
the country round about Tajurra Bay,--the French Somaliland of to-day.
In alliance with the Arabs and Turks, he not only created the Somali
kingdom of Adel, but ravaged the greater part of Abyssinia. His policy
was distinctly anti-Christian, and it is conceivable that he might
have extinguished for ever the Christian Semite rule over Abyssinia
but for the intervention of the Portuguese. The Emperor David, about
1530, managed to send emissaries (probably Jesuit priests) to Lisbon
to implore the assistance of the King of Portugal. The result was that
Dom Estevaõ da Gama (son of the celebrated Vasco[17]) as Portuguese
Admiral entered the Red Sea with the Portuguese fleet, and landed
at Masawa four hundred Portuguese under the command of his brother
Christophoro da Gama. The Portuguese brought with them firearms, with
which apparently the Muhammadan invaders of Abyssinia were at first
unprovided. They threw into the struggle with the Somalis and Arabs
all the crusading ardour with which their ancestors had driven the
Moors out of Portugal. Christophoro da Gama was a heroic figure, a
very paladin. He excited the admiration of his Somali opponent, who
at one stage of the struggle offered him a safe conduct to the coast
and the means of departing from Abyssinia worth all the honours of
war. Nevertheless, the four hundred Portuguese inflicted reverse after
reverse on the thousands that followed the banner of Muhammad Granye,
who at that time was practically master even of the mountainous regions
of Abyssinia. Some of the Portuguese went to the assistance of the
fugitive Emperor of Abyssinia. Those that remained under Christophoro
da Gama, despite the constant defeats they inflicted on superior
numbers, gradually found themselves isolated and vastly outnumbered.
The Turks had taken alarm at Portuguese successes, and had sent to
Muhammad Granye’s assistance a train of artillery, while two thousand
Arabs with muskets crossed over from Mokha and joined the Somalis. Thus
reinforced, Muhammad Granye attacked the Portuguese entrenched camp,
which he ultimately carried, when the unfortunate Christophoro da Gama
had one arm broken and his knee shattered. A few of the Portuguese
escaped and joined the Abyssinians, but most of them were slaughtered
by Muhammad Granye. Christophoro da Gama, however, though wounded,
managed with ten of his men to escape on horseback to a forest. Here he
was captured by Muhammad Granye, who, after inflicting much torture on
him, offered, in admiration of his bravery, to set him at liberty and
assist him to return to India, if only he would abjure Christianity.
The blazing indignation with which he answered this proposal so enraged
Muhammad Granye that he struck off his head with a sword. The body of
Dom Christophoro was then cut into quarters and his remains buried in
separate places. Ultimately, however, the bones are supposed to have
been gathered together by Roman Catholic Abyssinians, and some seventy
years later the skull of the martyr was thought to have been found by
Jeronimo Lobo.
Amongst the Portuguese who escaped slaughter at the hands of Muhammad
Granye was Pedro Leon, who had been body-servant to Christophoro da
Gama. Assisted by the advice of this little band of Portuguese heroes,
the Emperor of Abyssinia at last made a successful stand against the
Muhammadan invader. In the furious battle which ensued, the Portuguese
directed all their energies against that part of the Somali army
where Muhammad Granye was commanding. Pedro Leon, filled with a holy
rage, singled out the Somali king from amongst his men, and shot him
through the head with a musket. Muhammad Granye did not die at once,
but managed to escape for some distance from the battlefield, being
always, however, resolutely followed on horseback by Pedro Leon. At
last Muhammad fell down dead, and Leon, having satisfied himself of
the fact, cut off one of his ears to prove to the Emperor of Abyssinia
that it was he who had avenged Dom Christophoro. After the death of
their leader the Muhammadan forces melted away, and Christian Abyssinia
slowly recovered from the greatest crisis in its fortunes prior to the
Italian invasion of 1896.
In 1615[18] a notable advance in Nile exploration was made. Father
Pedro Paez was shown by the Abyssinians the sources of the Blue Nile
on the Sagada or Sakala Mountain in the western part of the province
of Gojam. Paez mentions that the river, before it enters Lake Tsana,
is styled the Jemma, a term which scarcely differs from its name at
the present day. He also alludes to, though he does not describe very
carefully, Lake Tsana.
In 1622 Father Jeronimo Lobo left Lisbon and proceeded to Goa, whence,
after staying for more than a year, he started for Abyssinia. News
had reached the Portuguese at Goa, from such of the missionaries as
remained in Abyssinia, that the Emperor of that country had decided to
join the Roman Church. A pressing demand was made for more Portuguese
missionaries to strengthen this conversion, and the missionaries
were advised to enter Ethiopia by way of the river Nile, through
Dongola and Sennar. Unfortunately the secretary to the missionaries
in Abyssinia mixed up the word Dancala (Dongola) with the country of
the Danakil (on the Red Sea),[19] and advised the Jesuits at Goa to
land at Zeila (Somaliland), and make their way through the Danakil
country to Abyssinia. It was attempted to carry out this unfortunate
advice. The eight missionaries who started from Goa were to divide
into two companies, one to go to Zeila, and the other to land at
Melinda (Malindi) on the Zanzibar coast, and thence make their way
overland to Abyssinia,--rather a “large order” at that date (to use
modern slang). Those that went by sea to Zeila were seized by the
Turks, though finally released at the intercession of the Emperor
of Abyssinia, who bribed the Turkish Pasha with the present of a
zebra.[20] The other four missionaries, among whom Lobo was one, were
again divided into two lots. Two of the fathers that were to attempt
entering southern Abyssinia from Somaliland were duly landed at Zeila.
A Muhammadan chieftain who was styled king of the country (probably in
the neighbourhood of Tajurra Bay) seized these unfortunate missionaries
and threw them into prison. In spite of the entreaties of the Emperor
of Abyssinia, this Muhammadan chieftain (some relation of the Muhammad
Granye who had been killed by the Portuguese when he invaded Abyssinia
seventy years previously) finally had the Jesuits beheaded.
Father Lobo and a companion were conveyed by a Portuguese ship to the
island of Lamu on the Zanzibar coast. Thence with great difficulty
they made their way in a boat along the coast to the mouth of the Juba
River, where they came into contact with the “Galles,”[21] probably the
existing Ogadein Somalis. These boisterous people soon made it apparent
to the missionaries that any journey overland from Kismayu to Zeila
and Abyssinia was an impossibility; so, after many hardships, they
eventually made their way back to Mombasa and India.
In 1625[22] Lobo and his companion once more started for Abyssinia, and
this time sailed past Sokotra Island and Cape Guardafui, and finally
landed at Baylur (Bailul), a port opposite Mokha, on the coast of
the little known Danakil country. Here they received a very friendly
reception, owing to the precautions taken by the Emperor of Abyssinia;
and the two Portuguese missionaries actually made their way through
the country of the fierce Danakil and across the salt deserts and
blazing steppes of that inhospitable region, which along the same route
has probably never since been traversed by Europeans. “Our clothes
tattered, and our feet bloody,” they climbed the Abyssinian mountains,
rejoicing at the cool temperature, running water, and singing birds,
and at length reached the Jesuit settlement of Fremona.[23] After
undergoing many risks and dangers owing to the hostility with which
the Abyssinians of Tigre regarded the Latin Christianity introduced
by the Jesuits, Lobo started for the kingdom of Damot, which is in
the southern part of Abyssinia proper, between the Blue Nile and Lake
Tsana. Prior to his crossing the Blue Nile, he had paid a ceremonial
visit to the Emperor of Abyssinia. He mentions that the Blue Nile
(which he not unnaturally considers to be the main stream) is called
by the Abyssinians Abavi. This may be an older form than Abai, and is
perhaps a little nearer to the Hellenised Astapus. The Blue Nile, he
found, as his predecessor Paez had declared, takes its rise on the
declivity of a mountain called Sakala (Sagada), some distance to the
south-southwest of Lake Tsana. The source of the Blue Nile he describes
as follows: “This spring, or rather these two springs, are two holes,
each about two feet in diameter, a short distance from each other. One
is about five feet and a half in depth.... The other, which is somewhat
less, has no bottom. We were assured by the inhabitants that none had
ever been found. It is believed here that these springs are the vents
of a great subterranean lake, and they have this circumstance to favour
their opinion: that the ground is always moist, and so soft that the
water boils up under foot as one walks upon it. This is more remarkable
after rain, for then the ground yields and sinks so much that I believe
it is chiefly supported by roots of trees that are interwoven one with
another.” Father Lobo declares that the infant Blue Nile (which bears
the name of Jimma) only enters Lake Tsana[24] on the southwest to
leave that lake not far from its entry, turning abruptly to the east
and south. It crosses Lake Tsana only at one end, “with so violent
a rapidity that the waters of the Nile may be distinguished through
all the passage, which is six leagues.” Fifteen miles from the point
where the Nile leaves Lake Tsana it “forms one of the most beautiful
waterfalls in the world,” under which Father Lobo rested himself “for
the sake of the coolness.” He was charmed “with the thousand delightful
rainbows which the sunbeams painted on the water in all their shining
and lovely colours. The fall of this mighty stream from so great a
height makes a noise which may be heard from a considerable distance,
and the mist rising from this fall of water may be seen much further
than the noise can be heard.” Father Lobo notes that at the cataracts
which succeeded this splendid fall there was a bridge of timber (logs)
over which the whole Abyssinian army had recently passed, but he goes
on to state that the Emperor had since built a bridge of one arch in
the same place, for which purpose masons were imported from India. This
stone bridge was the first erected in Abyssinia.
Father Lobo makes a truthful observation regarding the source of the
Nile floods, believing them to arise rather from the excessive rainfall
on the high mountains of Abyssinia than from the melting of the snows
in the summer. He declares, in fact, that he only saw snow on the
Samien and Namera mountains, and in small quantity.
As to the country of Damot, to the south of Lake Tsana, in which he
was sent to reside for a time, he expatiates enthusiastically on its
beauty, fertility, and perfect climate. He also describes here--first
of all Europeans--the wild banana, or Ensete, the name of which he
declares means “the tree for hunger,” though it is difficult to
understand, from our subsequent knowledge of the wild banana and from
Father Lobo’s description, how it can be used as an article of food,
as its fruit is almost inedible, while the leaves and watery trunk are
quite unfit for food.
But Lobo’s residence in Damot was not lengthy, as, owing to the jealous
suspicions of the Abyssinians, he was sent back to reside with the
rest of the Jesuits in Tigre. Their settlement of Fremona, where
some hundred Portuguese priests and seminarists were established,
was attacked by the Abyssinians. The Portuguese defended themselves
bravely, and for a time there was a truce. The friendly Emperor of
Abyssinia had died, and the subsidiary chiefs all believed that
Portugal intended to invade and annex Abyssinia. The prowess of the
four hundred Portuguese who in the preceding century had, as the
allies of the Abyssinians, completely routed the Muhammadan invaders,
made them feel that a few thousand Portuguese warriors would soon add
Abyssinia to the Portuguese Empire. At this juncture the Portuguese
sent a strong expedition to chastise the Sultan of Tajurra who had
killed the missionaries.
After attempting to flee from Abyssinia and make their way to the coast
of the Red Sea, the whole of the Portuguese colony of Fremona was
handed over to the Turks at Masawa, and by them sent to Suakin. They
underwent cruel sufferings at the hands of the Turks, but some of the
missionaries, including Father Lobo, were allowed to ransom themselves,
and return in a ship to India. Here Lobo endeavoured to induce the
Viceroy of Portuguese India to send an expedition against the Turks of
Suakin in order to release the priests that were left in their hands;
but the viceroy declined to take this step without the consent of the
Portuguese Government. Accordingly Father Lobo started for Lisbon, was
shipwrecked on the coast of Natal, fell into the hands of the Dutch,
but in spite of his extraordinary hardships, and difficulties wellnigh
insurmountable, actually returned to Portugal; whence he went to plead
at Rome the cause of Latin Christianity in Abyssinia. The missionaries
left in the hands of the Turks at Suakin were eventually ransomed, and
returned to India. The few Portuguese missionaries who for one cause or
another were left in Abyssinia were all killed by the Abyssinians.
[Illustration: DAPPER’S MAP (AMSTERDAM, 1686).
Giving the falsified results of Portuguese explorations in East Africa.]
Portuguese contact with Abyssinia, the Portuguese conquest of Zanzibar
and long occupation of Mombassa very naturally led to this people
acquiring in their intercourse with Arabs and Abyssinians some idea
of the geography of inner Africa,--ideas which were added to by the
information collected on the West Coast. Nevertheless, strange to say,
they were less correct in their surmises than Claudius Ptolemæus.
The maps of the Nile and the geography of inner Africa which
they formed on the reports of their explorers and missionaries were
altogether misleading. Their delineation of the whole interior of
the western half of Africa bears absolutely no correspondence to
actuality in geographical features; moreover, they were so ignorant of
the simplest principles of hydrography as to make one lake give rise
to several great rivers.[25] The only element of truth in all their
guesses at the inner waterways of Africa lay in their delineation of
Abyssinia. They put down with some likeness to actuality the Blue
Nile, and they named correctly the principal countries that lie to the
south of Abyssinia proper. But this contribution was vitiated by the
exaggerations regarding distances,--exaggerations perpetrated chiefly
by map-makers,--so that the Blue Nile and its tributaries, and such
provinces as Gojam, Kaffa, Shoa, etc., instead of lying a considerable
distance north of the equator, were dragged far to the south of the
line, and these features were even made to encroach on the basin of
the Congo. A good idea of the extent of Portuguese knowledge and fable
concerning the geography of inner Africa may be obtained from a glance
at the celebrated Vatican map of Africa which, from information derived
from the Portuguese and from the Abyssinian converts, was painted
on one of the panels of a gallery at the Vatican in the seventeenth
century.
Several Portuguese adventurers were despatched in the sixteenth century
across Africa from west to east to strike the Nile, but they were never
heard of any more. Credit must be given to the Portuguese Jesuits
for amassing much accurate knowledge regarding the scenery, people,
and products of Abyssinia. There is a wonderfully interesting and
very beautiful piece of tapestry in the Governor’s Palace at Valletta
(Malta), which it is supposed was executed early in the eighteenth
century from the information supplied by the Portuguese Jesuits. The
characteristic fauna and flora, domestic animals, houses, and natives
of Abyssinia are portrayed in this tapestry with great fidelity to
nature. Later in the eighteenth century Portugal began to take up with
some earnestness the scientific exploration of such African territories
as remained to her after the revolt and the attacks of the East Coast
Arabs, but these journeys and their results do not come within the
scope of the present volume. Portuguese influence over Abyssinia had
disappeared by the end of the seventeenth century, and almost all
that remains of it is the name which the civilised world applies to
this country. In the southeastern part of this powerful African state
is the river Hawash, or Habash, which attempts to reach the Red Sea
but finally expires in the barren sands of the Danakil country. The
name of this river had been applied by the Arabs to the Semiticised
people living north and west of its course. “Habash, Habshi”[26] was
transmuted through the Portuguese speech to Abessi, Abessim, Abessinia.
This in time was further misspelt in French and English as Abyssinie,
Abyssinia.
The Turks had always viewed with a great deal of jealousy and anger
the attempts of Portugal to establish herself as mistress of the
navigation of the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and Arabian
Sea. Consequently the Turks occupied and held Masawa, and drove away
Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from easy contact
with Abyssinia, which between 1633 and 1769 was only visited by one
European, a French doctor named Poncet (1698).
Several Abyssinian converts of the Portuguese missionaries who had
become devotedly attached to the Roman Catholic form of the Christian
faith had proceeded to Italy for further instructions. Indeed, all
through the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries
Abyssinians constantly journeyed to Italy. They were able to traverse
the Muhammadan countries of Nubia and Egypt very easily, either
disguised as Copts or affecting to be Muhammadans. From the ports of
Egypt they easily made their way to Venice or to Naples as traders.
Four of these Christian Abyssinians, one of them known as Gregory, were
established at Rome in the middle of the seventeenth century.
At Erfurt in Saxony was born, in 1624, the celebrated Ludolf, whose
real name was Hiob Leutholf. Ludolf at an early age exhibited a
remarkable talent for acquiring languages, and he had a special bent
for the Semitic tongues. Having been entrusted with a secret mission
to Rome by the Swedish Ambassador at Paris, Leutholf, or Ludolf,
encountered in Rome these four Abyssinians. He spent three years in
enthusiastically studying Amharic, and also the older liturgical tongue
of Ethiopia, the Gez or Ge’ez. By the help of these Abyssinians he
compiled a grammar of the Amharic, and dictionaries of that tongue and
of the Ge’ez. He also wrote a history of Ethiopia; but, above all (as
far as this book is concerned), he did important work in elucidating
the geography of the northeastern portion of the Nile basin, and the
information he received from Gregory and the other Abyssinians he
carefully collated with the works of the Portuguese Jesuits. Although
Ludolf never visited even Egypt, he did a great deal to assist the
map-makers of his time to delineate the course of the Blue Nile and
of the Atbara with its various affluents. Ludolf passed a good many
years of his life in the diplomatic service of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha.
Curiously enough, he not only visited England repeatedly, but became
an Anglophil, and desired to establish trading connections between
England and Abyssinia. The troubles consequent on James II.’s reign,
and the jealous opposition of the Coptic Church in Egypt baulked his
scheme, which was much taken up in high quarters in England, and which
might, if it had been carried out, have strangely anticipated events
in northeast Africa by establishing British influence in Egypt and
Abyssinia at the end of the seventeenth century.
Attracted towards the mystery of the Nile and of the so-called
Christian civilisation of Abyssinia, that Duke of Saxe-Gotha who had
taken Ludolf into his diplomatic service caused another Saxon, named
Michael Wansleb (born at Erfurt), to learn Amharic first of all from
Ludolf, and then to go to Abyssinia. Here he was expected to explore,
and also to collect liturgies and other books likely to throw light on
the Abyssinian version of Christianity, which the Duke believed would
be found to be in harmony with Lutheranism. Wansleb never succeeded in
getting to Abyssinia, but journeyed for some distance up the Nile and
wrote on the subject of Egypt, publishing also in London, between 1661
and 1671, a number of Abyssinian liturgies and dissertations on the
Amharic language.
In 1668 the then recently founded Royal Society in England took up
the question of the Portuguese explorations of the Nile sources,
and ordered that the translation of a Portuguese manuscript by Sir
Peter Wyche should be printed and published. This little work is
described as “A Short Relation of the River Nile, etc.: Writings by an
Eye-witness who lived many years in the Abyssine Empire.” Sir Peter
Wyche probably did little else than translate and collate what seemed
to him the most interesting extracts from the works of Paez and Lobo.
These works were seemingly written first of all in Portuguese, but
were never printed in that language. Paez’ manuscript was translated
into Latin and published at Rome in 1652 by the Jesuit Athanasius
Kircher. The Portuguese manuscript of Jeronimo Lobo was translated at
length into English, and published in London by the Jesuit father F.
Balthazar Tellez. Seemingly, however, this book was issued either in a
Portuguese or a Latin version at Lisbon in 1670. It was translated into
French from the original Portuguese manuscript by M. Le Grand in the
early part of the eighteenth century, and this translation, with some
additional matter, was rendered into English and published in London in
1735.
The Royal Society’s paraphrase of which Sir Peter Wyche was author
contains no new matter, but its date is worthy of remark,--1668.
It would seem as though Sir Peter Wyche had had access to Lobo’s
manuscript, or to the joint works of Lobo and Paez, before the actual
publication of Lobo’s book in 1670. It is further remarkable as showing
the intelligent interest taken in these geographical questions at that
day by the cultivated classes in England.