Scarcely had the moon dipped her first flickering beam into the
unruffled surface of the oval lake, and lighted the bluff cliffs for
some hours previously shrouded in gloomy obscurity, than a loud war-cry
from the adjacent heights echoed the assembly to arms, and the shrill
blast of the Adaiel conch summoned all to the rescue. Abandoning his
occupation, each stalwart warrior seized spear and buckler, which had
been laid aside whilst he aided in the task of reloading the camels for
the approaching night-march, and with respondent yells rushed towards
the spot whence the alarm proceeded. The Europeans, springing from
their broken slumbers on the parched sands, stood to their arms. A long
interval of silence and suspense succeeded, which was at last relieved
by the return of Mohammad Ali, one of whose beasts had unfortunately
slidden with its burden over a steep precipice, when the water-skins
bursting incontinently, had scattered the filthy but precious contents
over the thirsty soil--an irreparable catastrophe which had occasioned
the call for assistance, believed by all to indicate a hostile gathering
of the wild Bedouin clans.
Of two roads which lead to Goongoonteh from the shores of the dreary
Bahr Assal, one skirts the margin of the lake by a route utterly
destitute of fresh water; whilst the other, although somewhat more
circuitous, conducts over high lava banks stretching some distance
inland to Haliksitan, and past the small well of Hanlefanta, where the
drained pitcher of the fainting wayfarer may be refilled. On finally
quitting the bivouac under the scraggy boughs of the dwarf acacia, where
the tedious and most trying day had been endured--which each of the
half-stifled party did with an inward prayer that it might never fall to
his lot to seek their treacherous shelter more--a fierce dispute arose
amongst the leaders of the caravan as to which path should be adopted.
"What matters it," urged the intolerant Mohammadan from Shoa, who had
accidentally been found starving at Ambabo, and been since duly fed by
the embassy--"what matters it if all these Christian dogs should happen
to expire of thirst? Lead the Kafirs by the lower road, or, _Allahu
akbar_, God is most powerful, if the waters of the well prove low, what
is to become of the mules of the Faithful?"
But the breast of the son of Ali Abi fortunately warmed to a more humane
and charitable feeling than the stony heart of the "red man." With his
hand upon the hilt of his creese, he swore aloud upon the sacred Koran
to take the upper path, and stoutly led the way, in defiance of all,
after Izhak and the ruthless bigots in his train had actually entered
upon a route, which the event proved must have involved the destruction
of all less inured than the savage to the hardships of the waste
wilderness.
'Twas midnight when the thirsty party commenced the steep ascent of the
ridge of volcanic hills which frown above the south-eastern boundary of
the fiery lake. The searching north-east wind had scarcely diminished
in its parching fierceness, and in hot suffocating gusts swept fitfully
over the broad glittering expanse of water and salt whereon the moon
shone brightly--each deadly puff succeeded by the stillness that
foretells a tropical hurricane--an absolute absence even of the smallest
ruffling of the close atmosphere. Around, the prospect was wild,
gloomy, and unearthly, beetling basaltic cones and jagged slabs of
shattered larva--the children of some mighty trouble--forming scenery
the most shadowy and extravagant. A chaos of ruined churches and
cathedrals, _eedgahs_, towers, monuments, and minarets, like the ruins
of a demolished world, appeared to have been confusedly tossed together
by the same volcanic throes, that when the earth was in labour, had
produced the phenomenon below; and they shot their dilapidated spires
into the molten vault of heaven, in a fantastic medley, which, under so
uncertain a light, bewildered and perplexed the heated brain. The path,
winding along the crest of the ridge, over sheets of broken lava, was
rarely of more than sufficient width to admit of progress in single
file; and the livelong hours, each seeming in itself a century, were
spent in scrambling up the face of steep rugged precipices, where the
moon gleamed upon the bleaching skeleton of some camel that had proved
unequal to the task--thence again to descend at the imminent peril of
life and limb, into yawning chasms and dark abysses, the forbidding
vestiges of bygone volcanic agency.
The horrors of that dismal night set the efforts of description at
defiance. An unlimited supply of water in prospect, at the distance of
only sixteen miles, had for the brief moment buoyed up the drooping
spirit which tenanted each way-worn frame; and when an exhausted mule
was unable to totter further, his rider contrived manfully to breast the
steep hill on foot. But owing to the long fasting and privation endured
by all, the limbs of the weaker soon refused the task, and after the
first two miles, they dropped fast in the rear.
Fanned by the fiery blast of the midnight sirocco, the cry for water,
uttered feebly and with difficulty by numbers of parched throats, now
became incessant; and the supply of that precious element brought for
the whole party falling short of one gallon and a half, it was not long
to be answered. A tiny sip of diluted vinegar for a moment assuaging
the burning thirst which raged in the vitals, and consumed some of the
more down-hearted, again raised their drooping souls; but its effects
were transient, and after struggling a few steps, overwhelmed, they sunk
again, with husky voice declaring their days to be numbered, and their
resolution to rise up no more. Dogs incontinently expired upon the
road; horses and mules that once lay down, being unable from exhaustion
to rally, were reluctantly abandoned to their fate; whilst the
lion-hearted soldier, who had braved death at the cannon's mouth,
subdued and unmanned by thirst, finally abandoning his resolution, lay
gasping by the wayside, and heedless of the exhortation of his officers,
hailed approaching dissolution with delight, as bringing the termination
of tortures which were not to be endured.
Whilst many of the escort and followers were thus unavoidably left
stretched with open mouths along the road, in a state of utter
insensibility, and apparently yielding up the ghost, others, pressing on
to arrive at water, became bewildered in the intricate mazes of the wide
wilderness, and recovered it with the utmost difficulty. As another day
dawned, and the round red sun again rose in wrath over the Lake of Salt,
towards the hateful shores of which the tortuous path was fast tending,
the courage of all who had hitherto home up against fatigue and anxiety
began to flag. A dimness came before the drowsy eyes, giddiness seized
the brain, and the prospect ever held out by the guides, of quenching
thirst immediately in advance, seeming like the tantalising delusions of
a dream, had well nigh lost its magical effect; when, as the spirits of
the most sanguine fainted within them, a wild Bedouin was perceived,
like a delivering angel from above, hurrying forward with a large skin
filled with muddy water. This most well-timed supply, obtained by
Mohammad Ali from the small pool at Hanlefanta, of which, with the
promised guard of his own tribe, by whom he had been met, he had taken
forcible possession in defiance of the impotent threats of the ruthless
"red man," was sent to the rear. It admitted of a sufficient quantity
being poured over the face and down the parched throat, to revive every
prostrate and perishing sufferer; and at a late hour, ghastly, haggard,
and exhausted, like men who had escaped from the jaws of death, the
whole had contrived to straggle into a camp, which, but for the
foresight and firmness of the son of Ali Abi, few individuals indeed of
the whole party would have reached alive.
A low range of limestone hillocks, interspersed with strange masses of
coral, and marked by a pillar like that of Lot, encloses the well of
Hanlefanta, where each mule obtained a shield full of water. From the
glittering shores of the broad lake, the road crosses the saline
incrustation, which extends about two miles to the opposite brink.
Soiled and mossy near the margin, the dull crystallised salt appears to
rest upon an earthy bottom; but it soon becomes lustrous and of a purer
colour, and floating on the surface of the dense water, like a rough
coarse sheet of ice, irregularly cracked, is crusted with a white
yielding efflorescence, resembling snow which has been thawed and
refrozen, but which still, as here, with a crisp sound, receives the
impress of the foot. A well trodden path extends through the prismatic
colours of the rainbow, by the longitudinal axis of the ellipse, to the
northeastern extremity of the gigantic bowl, whence the purest salt is
obtainable in the vicinity of several cold springs, said to cast up
large pebbles on their jet, through the ethereal blue water.
At some distance from the beach was a caravan of Bedouin salt-diggers,
busily loading their camels for the markets of Aussa and Abyssinia,
where it forms on article of extensive traffic and barter. Two other
basins of a similar stamp, but inferior extent, which exist at no great
distance to the northward, are styled "Ullool" and "Dus." The first of
these producing salt of most exquisite lustre, is preferred by the
Mudaito tribes, from whose capital Aussa, it is not more remote than
Doba, as they term the Bahr Assal, the right to frequent which is
asserted as an exclusive privilege by the Danakil, who for centuries
have actually held the monopoly undisputed. Transferred in bulk in long
narrow mat bags, wrought of the date-leaf, it is exchanged for slaves
and grain, and not only forms, as in other climes, one of the chief
necessaries of life, but possesses a specific value for the rock salt of
the north, which, cut into rectangular blocks, passes as a circulating
medium.
A second low belt of hills, gypsum and anhydrite, succeeded by limestone
overstrewed with basaltic boulders, forms the western bank of the molten
sea, and opens into a mountain ravine. Taking its source at Allooli,
the highest point of the Gollo range, this torrent strives to disembogue
into the extremity of the lake, although its waters seldom arrive so
far, save during the rainy season. The high basaltic cliffs that hem in
the pebbly channel, approximating in the upper course as they increase
rapidly in altitude, form a narrow waist, where the first running stream
that had greeted the eye of the pilgrims since leaving the shores of
Asia, trickled onwards, leaving bright limpid pools, surrounded by
brilliant sward.
Bowers, for ever green, enlivened by the melodious warbling of the
feathered creation, and the serene and temperate air of the verdant
meadows of Elysium, were absent from this blessed spot, but it was
entered with feelings allied for the moment to escape from the horrors
of purgatory to the gates of Paradise; and under the shade cast by the
overhanging cliffs, which still warded off the ardent rays of the
ascending sun, it was with thankful hearts that the exhausted party,
after the terrors of such a night, turned their backs upon the deadly
waters of the stagnant lake, to quaff at the delicious rivulet of
Goongoonteh an unlimited quantity of cool though brackish fluid.
Here terminated the dreary passage of the dire Tehama--an iron-bound
waste, which, at this inauspicious season of the year, opposes
difficulties almost overwhelming in the path of the traveller. Setting
aside the total absence of water and forage throughout a burning tract
of fifty miles--its manifold intricate mountain passes, barely wide
enough to admit the transit of a loaded camel, the bitter animosity of
the wild bloodthirsty tribes by which they are infested, and the uniform
badness of the road, if road it may be termed, everywhere beset with the
huge jagged blocks of lava, and intersected by perilous acclivities and
descents--it is no exaggeration to state, that the stifling sirocco
which sweeps across the unwholesome salt flat during the hotter months
of the year, could not fail, within eight and forty hours, to destroy
the hardiest European adventurer. Some idea of the temperature of this
terrible region may be derived from the fact of fifty pounds of well
packed spermaceti candles, having, during the short journey from Tajura,
been so completely melted out of the box as to be reduced to a mere
bundle of wicks. Even the Danakil, who from early boyhood have been
accustomed to traverse the burning lava of the Tehama, never speak of it
but in conjunction with the devouring element, of whose properties it
partakes so liberally, and when alluding to the Lake of Salt, invariably
designate it "Fire."
Volume One, Chapter XVI.