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.

On Wednesday the 6th of December, at eight o’clock in the morning, we

set out from Ribieraini; and in about three hours travelling on a very

pleasant road, over easy hills and through hedge-rows of jessamin,

honey-suckle, and many kinds of flowering shrubs we arrived at Adowa,

where once resided Michael Suhul, governor of Tigrè. It was this day we

saw, for the first time, the small, long-tailed green paroquet, from

the hill of Shillodee, where, as I have already mentioned, we first

came in sight of the mountains of Adowa.

CHAP. V.

_Arrive at Adowa--Reception there--Visit Fremona and Ruins of

Axum--Arrive at Siré._

Adowa is situated on the declivity of a hill, on the west side of a

small plain surrounded everywhere by mountains. Its situation accounts

for its name, which signifies _pass_, or _passage_, being placed on the

flat ground immediately below Ribieraini; the pass through which every

body must go in their way from Gondar to the Red Sea.

This plain is watered by three rivulets which are never dry in the

midst of summer; the Assa, which we cross just below the town when

coming from the eastward; the Mai Gogua, which runs below the hill

whereon stands the village of the same name formerly, though now it

is called Fremona, from the monastery of the Jesuits built there;

and the Ribieraini, which, joining with the other two, falls into

the river Mareb, about 22 miles below Adowa. There are fish in

these three streams, but none of them remarkable for their size,

quantity, or goodness. The best are those of Mai Gogua, a clear and

pleasant rivulet, running very violently and with great noise. This

circumstance, and ignorance of the language, has misled the reverend

father Jerome, who says, that the water of Mai Gogua is called so

from the noise that it makes, which, in common language, is called

_guggling_. This is a mistake, for Mai Gogua signifies _the river of

owls_.

There are many agreeable spots to the south-east of the convent, on the

banks of this river, which are thick-shaded with wood and bushes. Adowa

consists of about 300 houses, and occupies a much larger space than

would be thought necessary for these to stand on, by reason that each

house has an inclosure round it of hedges and trees; the last chiefly

the wanzey. The number of these trees so planted in all the towns,

screen them so, that, at a distance, they appear so many woods. Adowa

was not formerly the capital of Tigré, but has accidentally become

so upon the accession of this governor, whose property, or paternal

estate, lay in and about it. His mansion-house is not distinguished

from any of the others in the town unless by its size; it is situated

upon the top of the hill. The person who is Michael’s deputy, in his

absence, lives in it. It resembles a prison rather than a palace; for

there are in and about it above three hundred persons in irons, some

of whom have been there for twenty years, mostly with a view to extort

money from them; and, what is the most unhappy, even when they have

paid the sum of money which he asks, do not get their deliverance from

his merciless hands; most of them are kept in cages like wild beasts,

and treated every way in the same manner.

But what deservedly interested us most was, the appearance of our kind

and hospitable landlord, Janni. He had sent servants to conduct us

from the passage of the river, and met us himself at the outer-door of

his house. I do not remember to have seen a more respectable figure.

He had his own short white hair, covered with a thin muslin turban, a

thick well-shaped beard, as white as snow, down to his waist. He was

clothed in the Abyssinian dress, all of white cotton, only he had a

red silk sash, embroidered with gold, about his waist, and sandals

on his feet; his upper garment reached down to his ancles. He had a

number of servants and slaves about him of both sexes; and, when I

approached him, seemed disposed to receive me with marks of humility

and inferiority, which mortified me much, considering the obligations

I was under to him, the trouble I had given, and was unavoidably still

to give him. I embraced him with great acknowledgments of kindness and

gratitude, calling him father; a title I always used in speaking either

to him or of him afterwards, when I was in higher fortune, which he

constantly remembered with great pleasure.

He conducted us through a court yard planted with jessamin, to a

very neat, and, at the same, time, large room, furnished with a silk

sofa; the floor was covered with Persian carpets and cushions. All

round, flowers and green leaves were strewed upon the outer yard;

and the windows and sides of the room stuck full of evergreens, in

commemoration of the Christmas festival that was at hand. I stopt at

the entrance of this room; my feet were both dirty and bloody; and

it is not good-breeding to show or speak of your feet in Abyssinia,

especially if any thing ails them, and, at all times, they are

covered. He immediately perceived the wounds that were upon mine. Both

our cloaths and flesh were torn to pieces at Taranta, and several other

places; but he thought we had come on mules furnished us by the Naybe.

For the young man I had sent to him from Kella, following the genius

of his countrymen, tho’ telling truth was just as profitable to him as

lying, had chosen the latter, and seeing the horse I had got from the

Baharnagash, had figured in his own imagination, a multitude of others,

and told Janni that there were with me horses, asses, and mules in

great plenty; so that when Janni saw us passing the water, he took me

for a servant, and expected, for several minutes, to see the splendid

company arrive, well mounted upon horses and mules caparisoned.

He was so shocked at my saying that I performed this terrible journey

on foot, that he burst into tears, uttering a thousand reproaches

against the Naybe for his hard heartedness and ingratitude, as he had

twice, as he said, hindered Michael from going in person and sweeping

the Naybe from the face of the earth. Water was immediately procured to

wash our feet. And here began another contention, Janni insisted upon

doing this himself; which made me run out into the yard, and declare

I would not suffer it. After this, the like dispute took place among

the servants. It was always a ceremony in Abyssinia, to wash the feet

of those that come from Cairo, and who are understood to have been

pilgrims at Jerusalem.

This was no sooner finished, than a great dinner was brought,

exceedingly well dressed. But no consideration or intreaty could

prevail upon my kind landlord to sit down and partake with me. He

would stand, all the time, with a clean towel in his hand, though

he had plenty of servants; and afterwards dined with some visitors,

who had come out of curiosity, to see a man arrived from so far.

Among these was a number of priests; apart of the company which I

liked least, but who did not shew any hostile appearance. It was long

before I cured my kind landlord of these respectful observances, which

troubled me very much; nor could he wholly ever get rid of them, his

own kindness and good heart, as well as the pointed and particular

orders of the Greek patriarch, Mark, constantly suggesting the same

attention.

In the afternoon, I had a visit from the governor, a very graceful man,

of about sixty years of age, tall and well favoured. He had just then

returned from an expedition to the Tacazzè, against some villages of

Ayto Tesfos[6], which he had destroyed, slain 120 men, and driven off

a number of cattle. He had with him about sixty musquets, to which,

I understood, he had owed his advantage. These villages were about

Tubalaque, just as you ascend the farther bank of the Tacazzé. He said

he doubted much if we should be allowed to pass through Woggora, unless

some favourable news came from Michael; for Tesfos of Samen, who kept

his government after Joas’s death, and refused to acknowledge Michael,

or to submit to the king, in conjunction with the people of Woggora,

acted now the part of robbers, plundering all sorts of people, that

carried either provisions, or any thing else, to Gondar, in order to

distress the king and Michael’s Tigré soldiers, who were then there.

The church of Mariam is on the hill S. S. W. of the town, and east

of Adowa; on the other side of the river, is the other church,

called Kedus Michael. About nine miles north, a little inclined to

the east, is Bet Abba Garima, one of the most celebrated monasteries

in Abyssinia. It was once a residence of one of their kings; and

it is supposed that, from this circumstance ill understood, former

travellers[7], have said the metropolis of Abyssinia was called Germè.

Adowa is the seat of a very valuable manufacture of coarse cotton

cloth, which circulates all over Abyssinia instead of silver money;

each web is sixteen peek long of 1¾ width, their value a pataka; that

is, ten for the ounce of gold. The houses of Adowa are all of rough

stone, cemented with mud instead of morter. That of lime is not used

but at Gondar, where it is very bad. The roofs are in the form of

cones, and thatched with a reedy sort of grass, something thicker than

wheat straw. The Falasha, or Jews, enjoy this profession of thatching

exclusively; they begin at the bottom, and finish at the top.

Excepting a few spots taken notice of as we came along from Ribieraini

to Adowa, this was the only part of Tigrè where there was soil

sufficient to yield corn; the whole of the province besides is one

entire rock. There are no timber trees in this part of Tigrè unless a

daroo or two in the valleys, and wanzeys in towns about the houses.

At Adowa, and all the neighbourhood, they have three harvests annually.

Their first seed time is in July and August; it is the principal one

for wheat, which they then sow in the middle of the rains. In the same

season they sow tocusso, teff, and barley. From the 20th of November

they reap first their barley, then their wheat, and last of all their

teff. In room of these they sow immediately upon the same ground,

without any manure, barley, which they reap in February; and then often

sow teff, but more frequently a kind of veitch, or pea, called Shimbra;

these are cut down before the first rains, which are in April. With all

these advantages of triple harvests, which cost no fallowing, weeding,

manure, or other expensive processes, the farmer in Abyssinia is always

poor and miserable.

In Tigré it is a good harvest that produces nine after one, it scarcely

ever is known to produce ten; or more than three after one, for peas.

The land, as in Egypt, is set to the highest bidder yearly; and like

Egypt it receives an additional value, depending on the quantity of

rain that falls and its situation more or less favourable for leading

water to it. The landlord furnishes the seed under condition to receive

half the produce; but I am told he is a very indulgent master that does

not take another quarter for the risk he has run; so that the quantity

that comes to the share of the husbandman is not more than sufficient

to afford sustenance for his wretched family.

The soil is white clay, mixed with sand, and has as good appearance as

any I have seen. I apprehend a deficiency of the crop is not from the

barrenness of the soil, but from the immense quantity of field-rats and

mice that over-run the whole country, and live in the fissures of the

earth. To kill these, they set fire to their straw, the only use they

make of it.

The cattle roam at discretion through the mountains. The herdsmen

set fire to the grass, bent, and brushwood, before the rains, and an

amazing verdure immediately follows. As the mountains are very steep

and broken, goats are chiefly the flocks that graze upon them.

The province of Tigré is all mountainous; and it has been said, without

any foundation in truth, that the Pyrenees, Alps, and Apennines, are

but mole-hills compared to them. I believe, however, that one of the

Pyrenees above St John Pied de Port, is much higher than Lamalmon;

and that the mountain of St Bernard, one of the Alps, is full as high

as Taranta, or rather higher. It is not the extreme height of the

mountains in Abyssinia that occasions surprise, but the number of

them, and the extraordinary forms they present to the eye. Some of

them are flat, thin, and square, in shape of a hearth-stone, or slab,

that scarce would seem to have base sufficient to resist the action of

the winds. Some are like pyramids, others like obelisks or prisms, and

some, the most extraordinary of all the rest, pyramids pitched upon

their points, with their base uppermost, which, if it was possible, as

it is not, they could have been so formed in the beginning, would be

strong objections to our received ideas of gravity.

They tan hides to great perfection in Tigré, but for one purpose only.

They take off the hair with the juice of two plants, a species of

solanum, and the juice of the kol-quall; both these are produced in

abundance in the province. They are great novices, however, in dyeing;

the plant called Suf produces the only colour they have, which is

yellow. In order to obtain a blue, to weave as a border to their cotton

clothes, they unravel the blue threads of the Marowt, or blue cloth of

Surat, and then weave them again with the thread which they have dyed

with the suf.

It was on the 10th of January 1770 I visited the remains of the

Jesuits convent of Fremona. It is built upon the even ridge of a

very high hill, in the middle of a large plain, on the opposite side

of which stands Adowa. It rises from the east to the west, and ends

in a precipice on the east; it is also very steep to the north, and

slopes gently down to the plain on the south. The convent is about

a mile in circumference, built substantially with stones, which are

cemented with lime-morter. It has towers in the flanks and angles; and,

notwithstanding the ill-usage it has suffered, the walls remain still

entire to the height of twenty-five feet. It is divided into three,

by cross walls of equal height. The first division seems to have been

destined for the convent, the middle for the church, and the third

division is separated from this by a wall, and stands upon a precipice.

It seems to me as if it was designed for a place of arms. All the walls

have holes for muskets, and, even now, it is by far the most defensible

place in Abyssinia. It resembles an ancient castle much more than a

convent.

I can scarce conceive the reason why these reverend fathers

misrepresent and misplace this intended capital of Catholic Abyssinia.

Jerome Lobo calls this convent a collection of miserable villages.

Others place it fifty miles, when it is but two, from Adowa to the

north-east. Others say it is only five miles from the Red Sea, while it

is an hundred. It is very extraordinary, that these errors should occur

in the situation of a place built by their own hands, and where their

body long had its residence; and, what makes it more extraordinary

still, it was the domicil which they first occupied, and quitted last.

The kindness, hospitality, and fatherly care of Janni never ceased a

moment. He had already represented me in the most favourable light to

the Iteghè, or queen-mother, (whose servant he had long been) to her

daughter Ozoro Esther, and Ozoro Altash; and, above all, to Michael,

with whom his influence was very great; and, indeed, to every body

he had any weight with; his own countrymen, Greeks, Abyssinians, and

Mahometans; and, as we found afterwards, he had raised their curiosity

to a great pitch.

A kind of calm had spread itself universally over the country, without

apparent reason, as it has been in general observed to do immediately

before a storm. The minds of men had been wearied rather than amused,

by a constant series of new things, none of which had been foreseen,

and which generally ended in a manner little expected. Tired of

guessing, all parties seemed to agree to give it over, till the success

of the campaign should afford them surer grounds to go upon. Nobody

loved Michael, but nobody neglected their own safety so much as to do

or say any thing against him, till he either should lose or establish

his good fortune, by the gain or loss of a battle with Fasil.

This calm I resolved to take advantage of, and to set out immediately

for Gondar. But the 17th of January was now at hand, on which the

Abyssinians celebrate the feast of the Epiphany with extraordinary

rejoicings, and as extraordinary ceremonies, if we believe what their

enemies have said about their yearly repetition of baptism. This I

was resolved to verify with my own eyes; and as Alvarez, chaplain to

the embassy from Don Emanuel, king of Portugal, to king David III.

says he was likewise present at it, the public will judge between two

eye-witnesses which is likeliest to be true, when I come to give an

account of the religious rites of this people. Adowa is in lat. 14° 7´

57´´ north.

On the 17th, we set out from Adowa, resuming our journey to Gondar;

and, after passing two small villages Adega Net, and Adega Daid, the

first about half a mile on our left, the second about three miles

distant on our right, we decamped at sun set near a place called Bet

Hannes, in a narrow valley, at the foot of two hills, by the side of a

small stream.

On the 8th, in the morning, we ascended one of these hills, through a

very rough stony road, and again came into the plain, wherein stood

Axum, once the capital of Abyssinia, at least as it is supposed. For

my part, I believe it to have been the magnificent metropolis of the

trading people, or Troglodyte Ethiopians called properly Cushites, for

the reason I have already given, as the Abyssinians never built any

city, nor do the ruins of any exist at this day in the whole country.

But the black, or Troglodyte part of it, called in the language of

scripture Cush, in many places have buildings of great strength,

magnitude, and expence, especially at Azab, worthy the magnificence and

riches of a state, which was from the first ages the emporium of the

Indian and African trade, whose sovereign, though a Pagan, was thought

an example of reproof to the nations, and chosen as an instrument to

contribute materially to the building of the first temple which man

erected to the true God.

The ruins of Axum are very extensive; but, like the cities of ancient

times, consist altogether of public buildings. In one square, which

I apprehend to have been the center of the town, there are forty

obelisks, none of which have any hieroglyphics upon them[8]. There is

one larger than the rest still standing, but there are two still larger

than this fallen. They are all of one piece of granite; and on the top

of that which is standing there is a patera exceedingly well carved

in the Greek taste. Below, there is the door-bolt and lock, which

Poncet speaks of, carved on the obelisk, as if to represent an entrance

through it to some building behind. The lock and bolt are precisely the

same as those used at this day in Egypt and Palestine, but were never

seen, as far as I know, in Ethiopia, or at any time in use there.

I apprehend this obelisk, and the two larger that are fallen, to be

the works of Ptolemy Evergetes. There is a great deal of carving upon

the face of the obelisk in a Gothic taste, something like metopes,

triglyphs, and guttæ, disposed rudely, and without order, but there are

no characters or figures. The face of this pyramid looks due south;

has been placed with great exactness, and preserves its perpendicular

position till this day. As this obelisk has been otherwise described as

to its ornaments, I have given a geometrical elevation of it servilely

copied, without shading or perspective, that all kind of readers may

understand it.

After passing the convent of Abba Pantaleon, called in Abyssinia,

Mantilles, and the small obelisk situated on a rock above, we proceed

south by a road cut in a mountain of red marble, having on the left a

parapet-wall about five feet high, solid, and of the same materials.

At equal distances there are hewn in this wall solid pedestals, upon

the tops of which we see the marks where stood the Colossal statues of

Syrius the Latrator Anubis, or Dog Star. One hundred and thirty-three

of these pedestals, with the marks of the statues I just mentioned,

are still in their places; but only two figures of the dog remained

when I was there, much mutilated, but of a taste easily distinguished

to be Egyptian. These are composed of granite, but some of them appear

to have been of metal. Axum, being the capital of Siris, or Sirè, from

this we easily see what connection this capital of the province had

with the dog-star, and consequently the absurdity of supposing that

the river derived its name from a Hebrew word[9], signifying _black_.

[Illustration: _Obelisk at Axum._

_London Publish’d Dec^r. 1^{st}. 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]

There are likewise pedestals, whereon the figures pf the Sphinx have

been placed. Two magnificent flights of steps, several hundred feet

long, all of granite, exceedingly well-fashioned, and still in their

places, are the only remains of a magnificent temple. In the angle of

this platform where that temple stood, is the present small church of

Axum, in the place of a former one destroyed by Mahomet Gragné, in the

reign of king David III.; and which was probably remains of a temple

built by Ptolemy Evergetes, if not the work of times more remote.

The church is a mean, small building, very ill kept, and full of

pigeons dung. In it are supposed to be preserved the ark of the

covenant, and copy of the law which Menilek son of Solomon is said, in

their fabulous legends, to have stolen from his father Solomon in his

return to Ethiopia, and these were reckoned as it were the palladia of

this country. Some ancient copy of the Old Testament, I do believe, was

deposited here, probably that from which the first version was made.

But whatever this might be, it was destroyed, with the church itself,

by Mahomet Gragnè, though pretended falsely to subsist there still.

This I had from the king himself.

There was another relique of great importance that happened to escape

from being burnt, by having, in time, been transferred to a church in

one of the islands in the lake Tzana, called Selé Quarat Rasou. It is

a picture of Christ’s head crowned with thorns, said to be painted by

St Luke, which, upon occasions of the utmost importance, is brought

out and carried with the army, especially in a war with Mahometans

and Pagans. We have just seen, it was taken, upon Yasous’s defeat

at Sennaar, and restored afterwards upon an embassy sent thither on

purpose, no doubt, for a valuable consideration.

Within the outer gate of the church, below the steps, are three small

square inclosures, all of granite, with small octagon pillars in the

angles, apparently Egyptian; on the top of which formerly were small

images of the dog-star, probably of metal. Upon a stone, in the middle

of one of these, the king sits, and is crowned, and always has been

since the days of Paganism; and below it, where he naturally places his

feet, is a large oblong slab like a hearth, which is not of granite,

but of free stone. The inscription, though much defaced, may safely be

restored.

ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΕΥΕΡΓΕΤΟΥ

ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ

Poncet has mistaken this last word for Basilius; but he did not pretend

to be a scholar, and was ignorant of the history of this country.

Axum is watered by a small stream, which flows all the year from a

fountain in the narrow valley, where stand the rows of obelisks. The

spring is received into a magnificent bason of 150 feet square, and

thence it is carried, at pleasure, to water the neighbouring gardens,

where there is little fruit, excepting pomegranates, neither are these

very excellent.

The present town of Axum stands at the foot of the hill, and may have

about six hundred houses. There are several manufactures of coarse

cotton cloth; and here too the best parchment is made of goats skins,

which is the ordinary employment of the monks. Every thing seemed later

at Axum, and near it, than at Adowa; the teff was standing yet green.

On the 19th of January, by a meridian altitude of the sun, and a mean

of several altitudes of stars by night, I found the latitude of Axum to

be 14° 6´ 36´´ north.

The reader will have observed, that I have taken great pains in

correcting the geography of this country, and illustrating the accounts

given us by travellers, as well ancient as modern, and reconciling them

to each other. There are, however, in a very late publication, what I

must suppose to be errors, at least they are absolutely unintelligible

to me, whether they are to be placed to the account of Jerome Lobo,

the original, or to Dr Johnson the translator, or to the bookseller,

is what I am not able to say. But as the book itself is ushered in by

a very warm and particular recommendation of so celebrated an author

as Dr Johnson, and as I have in the course of this work spoke very

contemptibly of that Jesuit, I must, in my own vindication, make some

observations upon the geography of this book, which, introduced into

the world by such authority, might else bring the little we know of

this part of Africa into confusion, from which its maps are as yet very

far from being cleared.

Caxume[10] is said to mean Axum, to be a city in Africa, capital of

the kingdom of Tigrè Mahon in Abyssinia. Now, long ago, Mr Ludolf had

shewn, from the testimony of Gregory the Abyssinian, that there was no

such place in Abyssinia as Tigrè Mahon. That there was, indeed, a large

province called Tigrè, of which Axum was the capital; and Le Grande,

the first publisher of Jerome Lobo, has repeatedly said the same. And

Ludolf has given a very probable conjecture, that the first Portuguese,

ignorant of the Abyssinian language, heard the officer commanding that

province called Tigrè Mocuonen, which is governor of Tigré, and had

mistaken the name of his office for that of his province. Be that as it

will, the reader may rest assured there is no such kingdom, province,

or town in all Abyssinia.

There still remains, however, a difficulty much greater than this, and

an error much more difficult to be corrected. Lobo is said to have

sailed from the peninsula of India, and, being bound for Zeyla, to have

embarked in a vessel going to Caxume, or Axum, capital of Tigrè, and

to have arrived there safely,and been well accommodated. Now Zeyla,

he says, is a city in the kingdom of Adel, at the mouth of the Red

Sea[11]; and Axum, being two hundred miles inland, in the middle of

the kingdom of Tigrè, a ship going to Axum must have passed Zeyla 300

miles, or been 300 miles to the westward of it. Zeyla is not a city,

as is said, but an island. It is not in the kingdom of Adel, but in

the bay of Tajoura, opposite to a kingdom of that name; but the island

itself belongs to the Imam of Sana, sovereign of Arabia Felix; so that

it is inexplicable, how a ship going to Zeyla should choose to land 300

miles beyond it; and still more so, how, being once arrived at Axum,

they should seek a ship to carry them back again to Zeyla, 300 miles

eastward, when they were then going to Gondar, not much above a hundred

miles west of Axum. This seems to me absolutely impossible to explain.

Still, however, another difficulty remains; Tigré is said, by the

Jesuits, and by M. Le Grande their historian, to be full of mountains,

so high that the Alps and Apennines were very inconsiderable in

comparison. And suppose it was otherwise, there is no navigable river,

indeed no river at all, that runs through Tigré into the Red Sea, and

there is the desert of Samhar to pass, where there is no water at all.

How is it possible a ship from the coast of Malabar should get up 200

miles from any sea among the mountains of Tigré? I hope the publisher

will compare this with any map he pleases, and correct it in his

_errata_, otherwise his narrative is unintelligible, unless all this

was intended to be placed to the account of miracles--Peter walked upon

the water, and Lobo the Jesuit sailed upon dry land.

Dr Johnson, or his publisher, involves his reader in another strange

perplexity. “Dancala is a city of Africa in Upper Ethiopia, upon the

Nile, in the tract of Nubia, of which it is the capital;” and the

emperor wrote, “that the missionaries might easily enter his dominions

by the way of Dancala[12].” It is very difficult to understand how

people, in a ship from India, could enter Abyssinia by the way of

Dancala, if that city is upon the Nile; because no where, that I know,

is that river in Abyssinia within 300 miles of any sea; and, still

more so, how it could be in Nubia, and yet in Upper Ethiopia. Dongola

is, indeed, the capital of Nubia; it is upon the Nile in 20° north

latitude; but then it cannot be in Upper Ethiopia, but certainly in the

Lower, and is not within a hundred miles of the Red Sea, and certainly

not the way for a ship from India to get to Abyssinia, which, sailing

down the Red Sea, it must have passed several hundred miles, and gone

to the northward: Dongola, besides, is in the heart of the great desert

of Beja, and cannot, with any degree of propriety, be said to be

easily accessible to any, no, not even upon camels, but impossible to

shipping, as it is not within 200 miles of any sea. On the other hand,

Dancali, for which it may have been mistaken, is a small kingdom on

the coast of the Red Sea, reaching to the frontiers of Abyssinia; and

through it the patriarch Mendes entered Abyssinia, as has been said in

my history; but then Dancali is in lat. 12°, it is not in Nubia, nor

upon the Nile, nor within several hundred miles of it.

Again, Lobo has said, (p. 30. 31.) “that a Portuguese galliot was

ordered to set him ashore at Paté, whose inhabitants were man-eaters.”

This is a very whimsical choice of a place to land strangers in, among

man-eaters. I cannot conceive what advantage could be proposed by

landing men going to Abyssinia so far to the southward, among a people

such as this, who certainly, by their very manners, must be at war,

and unconnected with all their neighbours. And many ages have passed

without this reproach having fallen upon the inhabitants of the east

coast of the peninsula of Africa from any authentic testimony; and I

am confident, after the few specimens just given of the topographical

knowledge of this author, his present testimony will not weigh much,

from whatever hand this performance may have come.

M. de Montesquieu, among all his other talents a most excellent and

accurate geographer, observes, that man-eaters were first mentioned

when the southern parts of the east coast of the peninsula of Africa

came to be unknown. Travellers of Jerome Lobo’s cast, delighting in the

marvellous, did place these unsociable people beyond the promontory

of Prassum, because nobody, at that time, did pass the promontory of

Prassum.

Above 1200 years, these people were unknown, till Vasques de Gama

discovered their coast, and called them the civil or kind nation. By

some lucky revolution in that long period, when they were left to

themselves, they seem most unaccountably to have changed both their

diet and their manners. The Portuguese conquered them, built towns

among them, and, if they met with conspiracies and treachery, these all

originated in a mixture of Moors from Spain and Portugal, Europeans

that had settled among them, and not among the natives themselves. No

man-eaters appeared till after the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope,

when that of the new world, which followed it, made the Portuguese

abandon their settlements in the old; and this coast came as unknown to

them as it had been to the Romans, when they traded only to Raptum and

Prassum, and made Anthropophagi of all the rest. One would be almost

tempted to believe that Jerome Lobo was a man-eater himself, and had

taught this custom to these savages. They had it not before his coming;

they have never had it since; and it must have been with some sinister

intention like this, that a stranger would voluntarily seek a nation

of man-eaters. It is nonsense to say, that a traveller could propose,

as Lobo did, going into a far distant country, such as Abyssinia, under

so very questionable a protection as a man-eater.

I will not take up my own, or the reader’s time, in going through the

multitude of errors in geography to be found in this book of Lobo’s;

I have given the reader my opinion of the author from the original,

before I saw the translation. I said it was a heap of fables, and full

of ignorance and presumption; and I confess myself disappointed that it

has come from so celebrated a hand as the translator, so very little

amended, if indeed it can be said to be amended at all.

Dr Johnson, in the preface to the book, expresses himself in these

words:--“The Portuguese traveller (Jerome Lobo, his original) has

amused his reader with no romantic absurdities, or incredible fictions.

He seems to have described things as he saw them; to have copied nature

from the life; and to have consulted his senses, not his imagination.

He meets with no basilisks that destroy with their eyes; and his

cataracts fall from the rock, without deafening the neighbouring

inhabitants.”

At first reading this passage, I confess I thought it irony. As to what

regards the cataract, one of the articles Dr Johnson has condescended

upon as truth, I had already spoken, while composing these memoirs in

Abyssinia, long before this new publication saw the light; and, upon a

cool revisal of the whole that I have said, I cannot think of receding

from any part of it, and therefore recommend it to the reader’s

perusal. What we have now only to note, is the fidelity of Jerome Lobo,

so strongly vouched in the words I have just cited, in the article

of basilisks, or serpents, which Dr Johnson has chosen as one of the

instances of his author’s adhering to fact, contrary to the custom of

other writers on such subjects.

“In crossing a desert, which was two days journey over, I was in

great danger of my life; for, as I lay on the ground, I perceived

myself seized with a pain which forced me to rise, and saw, about four

yards from me, one of those serpents that _dart their poison from a

distance_. Although I rose before he came very near me, I yet felt the

effects of his poisonous breath; and, if I had lain a little longer,

had certainly died. I had recourse to bezoar, a sovereign remedy

against those poisons, which I always carried about me. These serpents

are not long, but have a body short and thick, their bellies speckled

with brown, black, and yellow. They have a wide mouth, with which they

draw in a great quantity of air, and, having retained it some time,

eject it with such force, that they kill at four yards distance. I only

escaped by being somewhat farther from him.” (Chap. xii. p. 124.)

Now, as this is warranted, by one of such authority as Dr Johnson, to

be neither imagination nor falsehood, we must think it a new system of

natural philosophy, and consider it as such; and, in the first place, I

would wish to know from the author, who seems perfectly informed, what

species of serpent it is that he has quoted as darting their poison

at a distance. Again, what species it is that, at the distance of 12

feet, kills a man by breathing on his back; also, what they call that

species of serpent that, drawing in the same outward air which Jerome

Lobo breathed, could so far pervert its quality as with it to kill at

the distance of four yards. Surely such a serpent, if he had no other

characteristic in the world, would be described by a naturalist as the

serpent with the foul stomach.--I never saw a poisonous serpent in

Abyssinia whose belly is not white; so this one being speckled, brown,

black, and yellow, will be a direction when any such is found, and

serve as a warning not to come near him, at least within the distance

of four yards.

Jerome Lobo continues, “that this danger was not to be much regarded

in comparison of another his negligence brought him into. As he was

picking up a skin that lay upon the ground, he was stung by a serpent

that left its sting in his finger; he picked out an extraneous

substance about the bigness of an hair, which he imagined was the

sting. This slight wound he took little notice of, till his arm grew

inflamed all over; his blood was infected; he fell into convulsions,

which were interpreted as the signs of inevitable death.” (Chap. xii.

p. 125.)

Now, with all submission to Jerome Lobo, the first serpent had brought

him within a near view of death; the second did no more, for it did not

kill him; how comes it that he says the first danger was nothing in

comparison to the second? The first would have certainly killed him, by

blowing upon his back, if he had been nearer than 12 feet. The other

had nearly killed him by a sting. Death was the end of them both. I

cannot see the difference between the two dangers.