Although Warelissan proved nearly seventeen hundred feet above the level
of the blue water, a suffocating south-westerly wind, which blew
throughout the tedious day, rendered the heat more awfully oppressive
than at any preceding station. The camp, unsheltered, occupied a naked
tract of table-land, some six miles in circumference, on the shoulder of
Jebel Goodah--its barren surface strewed with shining lava, and bleached
animal bones; sickly acacias of most puny growth, sparingly invested
with sun-burnt leaves, here and there struggling through the fissures,
as if to prove the utter sterility of the soil; whilst total absence of
water, and towering whirlwinds of dust, sand, and pebbles, raised by the
furnace-like puffs that came stealing over the desert landscape,
completed the discomfiture both of man and beast.
During the dead of night, when restless unrefreshing slumbers on the
heated ground had hushed the camp in all its quarters, the elders, in
great consternation, brought a report that the Bedouin war-hawks, who
nestle in the lap of the adjacent wild mountains, were collecting in the
neighbourhood with the design of making a sudden swoop upon the kafilah,
for which reason the European escort must be prepared for battle, and
muskets be discharged forthwith, to intimidate the lurking foe. They
were informed, in reply, that all slept upon their arms, and were in
readiness; but Mohammad Ali came shortly afterwards to announce that
matters had been amicably adjusted with the aid of a few ells of blue
cloth; and under the care of a double sentry, the party slept on without
further disturbance until two in the morning, prior to which hour, the
moon, now on her wane, had not attained sufficient altitude to render
advance practicable.
The aid of her pale beams was indispensable, in consequence of the
existence of the yawning pass of Rah Eesah, not one hundred yards
distant from the encampment just abandoned, but till now unperceived.
It derives its appellation, as "the road of the Eesahs," from the fact
of this being the path usually chosen by that hostile portion of the
Somauli nation, on the occasions of their frequent forays into the
country of the Danakil, with whom, singularly enough, an outward
understanding subsists. Its depths have proved the arena of many a
sanguinary contest, and are said, after each downpouring of the heavens,
to become totally impassable, until again cleared of the huge blocks of
stone, the detritus from the scarped cliffs, which so choke the bed of
the chasm, as to impede all progress. The labour of removing these,
secures certain immunities to the wild pioneers, who levy a toll upon
every passing caravan, and who in this instance were propitiated, on
application, by the division of a bale of blue cotton calico, a
manufacture here esteemed beyond all price.
A deep zig-zagged rent in the plateaux, produced originally by some
grand convulsion of nature, and for ages the channel of escape to the
sea of the gathered waters from Jebel Goodah, winds like a mythological
dragon through the bowels of the earth, upwards of three miles to the
southward. Masses of basalt of a dark burnt brown colour, are piled
perpendicularly on either side, like the solid walls of the impregnable
fortresses reared by the Cyclops of old; and rising from a very narrow
channel, strewed with blocks of stone, and huge fallen fragments of
rock, tower overhead to the height of five or six hundred feet. One
perilous path affords barely sufficient width for a camel's tread, and
with a descensus of one foot and a half in every three, leads twisting
away into the gloomy depths below, dedicated to the son of Chaos and
Darkness, and now plunged in total obscurity.
It was a bright and cloudless night, and the scenery, as viewed by the
uncertain moonlight, cast at intervals in the windings of the road upon
the glittering spear-blades of the warriors, was wild and terrific. The
frowning basaltic cliffs, not three hundred yards from summit to summit,
flung an impenetrable gloom over the greater portion of the frightful
chasm, until, as the moon rose higher in the clear vault of heaven, she
shone full upon huge shadowy masses, and gradually revealed the now dry
bed, which in the rainy season must often-times become a brief but
impetuous torrent.
No sound was heard save the voice of the camel-driver, coaxing his
stumbling beasts to proceed by the most endearing expressions. In parts
where the passage seemed completely choked, the stepping from stone to
stone, accomplished with infinite difficulty, was followed by a drop
leap, which must have shaken every bone. The gun was twice shifted to
the back of a spare camel, provided for the purpose; and how the
heavily-laden, the fall of one of which would have obstructed the way to
those that followed, kept their feet, is indeed subject of profound
astonishment. All did come safely through, however, notwithstanding the
appearance of sundry wild Bedouins, whose weapons and matted locks
gleamed in the moonbeam, as their stealthy figures flitted in thin
tracery from crag to crag. A dozen resolute spirits might have
successfully opposed the united party; but these hornets of the
mountains, offering no molestation, contented themselves with
reconnoitring the van and rear-guards from heights inaccessible through
their natural asperity, until the twilight warned them to retire to
their dens and hiding places; and ere the sun shone against the summits
of the broken cliffs, the straggling caravan had emerged in safety from
this dark descent to Eblis.
Goobut el Kharab, with the singular sugar-loaf islet of Good Ali,
shortly opened to view for the last time, across black sheets of lava,
hardened in their course to the sea, and already rotten near the water's
edge. Many years have not elapsed since the Eesah made their latest
foray to the north of the pass, which has since borne their name; and
sweeping off immense booty in cattle, halted on their return at
Eyroladaba, above the head of the bay. Under cover of the pitchy
darkness, five hundred Danakil warriors, passing silently through the
gloomy defile, fell suddenly in the dead of night upon the marauders,
when, in addition to the multitude slain by the spear and creese,
numbers in the panic created by the surprise, leapt in their flight over
the steep lava cliffs, and perished in the deep waters of the briny
basin.
The schooner, although riding safely at anchor near the western
extremity, was altogether concealed by precipitous walls that towered
above her raking masts, and kept the party in uncertainty of her
arrival. Crossing the lone valley of Marmoriso, a remnant of volcanic
action, rent and seamed with gaping fissures, the road turned over a
large basaltic cone, which had brought fearful devastation upon the
whole surrounding country, and here one solitary gazelle browsed on
stubble-like vegetation scorched to a uniform brown. Skirting the base
of a barren range, covered with heaps of lava blocks, and its foot
ornamented with many artificial piles, marking deeds of blood, the lofty
conical peak of Jebel Seearo rose presently to sight, and not long
afterwards the far-famed Lake Assal, surrounded by dancing mirage, was
seen sparkling at its base.
The first glimpse of the strange phenomenon, although curious, was far
from pleasing. An elliptical basin, seven miles in its transverse axis,
half filled with smooth water of the deepest caerulean blue, and half
with a solid sheet of glittering snow-white salt, the offspring of
evaporation--girded on three sides by huge hot-looking mountains, which
dip their bases into the very bowl, and on the fourth by crude
half-formed rocks of lava, broken and divided by the most unintelligible
chasms,--it presented the appearance of a spoiled, or at least of a very
unfinished piece of work. Bereft alike of vegetation and of animal
life, the appearance of the wilderness of land and stagnant water, over
which a gloomy silence prevailed, and which seemed a temple for ages
consecrated to drought, desolation, and sterility, is calculated to
depress the spirit of every beholder. No sound broke on the ear; not a
ripple played upon the water; the molten surface of the lake, like
burnished steel, lay unruffled by a breeze; the fierce sky was without a
cloud, and the angry sun, like a ball of metal at a white heat, rode
triumphant in a full blaze of noontide refulgence, which in sickening
glare was darted back on the straining vision of the fainting wayfarer,
by the hot sulphury mountains that encircled the still, hollow, basin.
A white foam on the shelving shore of the dense water, did contrive for
a brief moment to deceive the eye with an appearance of motion and
fluidity; but the spot, on more attentive observation, ever remained
unchanged--a crystallised efflorescence.
As the tedious road wound on over basalt, basaltic lava, and amygdaloid,
the sun, waxing momentarily more intensely powerful, was reflected with
destructive and stifling fervour from slates of snow-white sea-limestone
borne on their tops. Still elevated far above the level of the ocean, a
number of fossil shells, of species now extinct, were discovered; a deep
cleft by the wayside, presenting the unequivocal appearance of the lower
crater of a volcano, situated on the high basaltic range above, whence
the lava stream had been disgorged through apertures burst in the rocks,
but which had re-closed after the violence of the eruption had subsided.
Dafari, a wild broken chasm at some distance from the road, usually
contains abundance of rain-water in its rocky pool, but having already
been long drained to the dregs, it offered no temptation to halt.
Another most severe and trying declivity had therefore to be overcome,
ere the long and sultry march was at an end. It descended by craggy
precipices many hundred feet below the level of the sea, to the small
close sandy plain of Mooya, on the borders of the Lake--a positive
_Jehannam_, where the gallant captain of the "Constance" [Lieutenant
Wilmot Christopher, I N] had already been some hours ensconced under the
leafless branches of one poor scrubby thorn, which afforded the only
screen against the stifling blast of the sirocco, and the merciless rays
of the refulgent orb overhead.
Adyli, a deep mysterious cavern at the further extremity of the plain,
is believed by the credulous to be the shaft leading to a subterranean
gallery which extends to the head of Goobut el Kharab. Deeni, most
expert and systematic of liars, even went so far as to assert that he
had seen through it the waters of the bay, although he admitted it to be
the abode of "gins and efreets," whose voices are heard throughout the
night, and who carry off the unwary traveller to devour him without
remorse. The latest instance on record was of one Shehem, who was
compelled by the weariness of his camel to fall behind the caravan, and,
when sought by his comrades, was nowhere to be found, notwithstanding
that his spear and shield had remained untouched. No tidings of the
missing man having been obtained to the present hour, he is believed by
his disconsolate friends to have furnished a meal to the gins in Adyli;
but it seems not improbable that some better clue to his fate might be
afforded by the Adrusi, an outcast clan of the Debeni, acknowledging no
chief, though recognising in some respects the authority of the Sultan
of Tajura, and who wander over the country for evil, from Sagallo to the
Great Salt Lake.
Foul-mouthed vampires and ghouls were alone wanting to complete the
horrors of this accursed spot, which, from its desolate position, might
have been believed the last stage in the habitable world. A close
mephitic stench, impeding respiration, arose from the saline exhalations
of the stagnant lake. A frightful glare from the white salt and
limestone hillocks threatened destruction to the vision; and a sickening
heaviness in the loaded atmosphere, was enhanced rather than alleviated
by the fiery breath of the parching north-westerly wind, which blew
without any intermission during the entire day. The air was inflamed,
the sky sparkled, and columns of burning sand, which at quick intervals
towered high into the dazzling atmosphere, became so illumined as to
appear like tall pillars of fire. Crowds of horses, mules, and fetid
camels, tormented to madness by the dire persecutions of the poisonous
gad-fly, flocked recklessly with an instinctive dread of the climate, to
share the only bush; and obstinately disputing with their heels the
slender shelter it afforded, compelled several of the party to seek
refuge in noisome caves formed along the foot of the range by fallen
masses of volcanic rock, which had become heated to a temperature seven
times in excess of a potter's kiln, and fairly baked up the marrow in
the bones. Verily! it was "an evil place," that lake of salt: it was
"no place of seed, nor of figs, nor yet of vines; no, nor even of
pomegranates; neither was there any water to drink."
Volume One, Chapter XIV.