Goongoonteh, a deep gloomy zig-zagged fissure, of very straitened
dimensions, is hemmed in by craggy lava and basaltic walls, intersected
by dykes of porphyry, augitic greenstone and pistacite, with decomposed
sulphate of iron, all combining to impart a strangely variegated
appearance. Scattered and inclined in various directions, although
towering almost perpendicularly, they terminate abruptly in a rude pile
of rocks and lulls, through a narrow aperture in which the path to the
next halting ground at Allooli, where the torrent takes its source,
strikes off at an angle of 90 degrees.
Huge prostrate blocks of porphyry and basalt, which have been launched
from the impending scarps, and now reduce the channel to this narrow
passage, are in places so heaped and jammed together by some mighty
agency, as to form spacious and commodious caverns. In the rainy season
especially, these doubtless prove of wonderful convenience to the
wayfarer; and no tent arriving until late the following day, the
re-assembled party were fain to have recourse to them for shelter
against the fierce hot blast from the Salt Lake, which, unremitting in
its dire persecutions, now blew directly up the ravine. But the rocks
soon became too hot to be touched with impunity, and the oblique rays of
the sun, after he had passed the meridian, darting through every
aperture, the caves were shortly converted into positive ovens, in which
the heat, if possible, was even more intolerable than ever. Unlike
former stations, however, there was, in this close unventilated chasm, a
luxurious supply of water to be obtained from the living rill which
murmured past the entrance, and although raised to the temperature of a
thermal spring by the direct influence of the solar rays, and withal
somewhat brackish to the taste, it was far from being pronounced
unpalatable.
Notwithstanding that the neighbourhood afforded neither the smallest
particle of forage nor of fuel, it became necessary, in consequence of
the non-arrival of one half of the camels, no less than from the
exhaustion of many of the party, to halt a day in the hot unhealthy
gully; and this delay afforded to the treacherous creese of the lurking
Bedouin an opportunity of accomplishing that which had only been
threatened by drought and famine. The guides objecting strongly to the
occupation of the caves after nightfall, on account of the many
marauding parties of Eesah and Mudaito, by whom the wady is infested,
every one, as a measure of precaution, slept in the open air among the
baggage, half a mile lower down the ravine, where the caravan had
halted. The dry sandy bed of the stream was here narrow, and the
cliffs--broken for a short distance on either side into hillocks of
large distinct boulders--again resumed their consistency after an
interval of one hundred yards, and enclosed the camp in a deep gloom.
The straitened figure of the bivouac rendered it impossible to make
arrangements with much regularity in view to defence. The horses were
picketted in the centre of the ravine. The European escort occupied a
position betwixt them and the northern side, and the scanty beds of the
officers of the party were spread close to the southern bank. A strong
picket of the Danakil was placed a little distance in advance; and, in
addition to the numerous other native guards in various quarters, the
usual precaution was observed of mounting a European sentry, whose beat
extended the length of the front of the encampment. Old Izhak slept
close to the beds of the embassy, and, evidently in a state of
considerable trepidation, solaced himself until a late hour by
recounting bloody tales of murder and assassination, perpetrated, within
his knowledge, by the mountain _Buddoos_ haunting the ravine of
Goongoonteh, which, being the high road to the Salt Lake, forms the
resort of numerous evil disposed ruffians, who are ever on the prowl to
cut throats, and to do mischief.
The first night, although awfully oppressive from the heat exhaled from
the baked ground, and the absence of even the smallest zephyr, passed
quietly enough; and after another grilling day, which seemed to have no
termination, spent within the caverns, the same nocturnal arrangement as
before was observed with undiminished precaution. An hour before
midnight a sudden and violent sirocco scoured the wady, the shower of
dust and pebbles raised by its hot blast, being followed by a few heavy
drops of rain, with a calm, still as the sleep of death. The moon rose
shortly afterwards, and about two o'clock a wild Irish yell, which
startled the whole party from their fitful slumbers, was followed by a
rush of men, and a clatter of hoofs, towards the beds of the Embassy.
Every man sprang instinctively on his feet, seized a gun, of which two
or three lay loaded beside each, and standing on his pillow with weapon
cocked, prepared for the reception of the unseen assailants. Fortunate
was it that no luckless savage, whether friend or foe, followed in the
disorderly retreat, or consequences the most appalling must inevitably
have ensued; but the white legs of half-naked and unarmed artillerymen
having passed at speed, were followed only by a crush of horses and
mules that had burst from their pickets. So complete was the panic
caused by a sudden start from deep sleep to witness the realisation of
the murderous tales of midnight assassination which had been poured into
their ears, that the flying soldiery, who in the battle field had seen
comrades fell thick around them, and witnessed death in a thousand
terrific forms, were rallied with difficulty. But a panic is of short
duration if officers perform their duty, and the word "Halt!" acted like
magic upon the bewildered senses of the survivors, who, falling in,
formed line behind the rifles.
Hurrying to the spot which they had occupied, a melancholy and
distressing sight presented itself. A sergeant and a corporal lay
weltering in the blood with which their scanty beds were deeply stained,
and both were in the last agonies of death. One had been struck with a
creese in the carotid artery immediately below the ear, and the other
stabbed through the heart; whilst speechless beside their mangled bodies
was stretched a Portuguese follower, with a frightful gash across the
abdomen, whence the intestines were protruding. Aroused in all
probability during this act of cold-blooded murder, and attempting to
give the alarm, he had received a fatal slash as the dastards retreated;
but almost instantaneous death had followed each previous blow of the
creese, which, whilst the back of the sentinel was turned, had been
dealt with mortal and unerring precision.
Two human figures being perceived at the moment the alarm was first
raised, crossing the lower gorge of the ravine, and absconding towards
the hills which bounded the further extremity of the camp, were promptly
pursued by Mohammad Ali and his band of followers, who had seized spear
and shield with the utmost alacrity; but although the moon shone bright,
and the stars twinkled in the clear firmament, the broken and stony
nature of the ground facilitated the escape of the miscreants under the
deep shadow cast by the overhanging mountains, where objects could not
be distinguished.
This afflicting catastrophe gave birth in the breast of all to a by no
means unnatural feeling of distrust towards the escort engaged on the
sea-coast, not only as to their ability, but also as to their intention
to afford protection. The European party had lain down in full and
entire confidence, only to be aroused by the perpetration of this most
diabolical and fiendish deed; and although those who had been so
fortunate as to escape might, now that they had become aware of the
existing peril, defend their own lives, yet such an alternative,
involving the abandonment of all the government property in charge, was
far from being enviable. Upon after investigation, however, it appeared
probable, as well from the evil character borne by the gloomy ravine, as
from the numberless murders known to be annually committed under similar
circumstances of wanton atrocity amongst the native kafilahs _en route_,
that a party of the Eesah Somauli, inhabitants of the opposite coast of
Goobut el Kharab, but who, to gratify an insatiate thirst for human
blood, are in the habit of making frequent incursions into the country
of the Danakil, had seized the opportunity afforded by the absence of
the sentry at the further extremity of his beat, to steal unperceived
down the inumbrated bank of the hollow, and perpetrate the dastardly and
cold-blooded outrage.
No attempt to plunder appeared as an excuse for the Satanic crime, and
the only object doubtless was the acquisition of that barbarous
estimation and distinction which is only to be arrived at through deeds
of assassination and blood. For every victim, sleeping or waking, that
falls under the murderous knife of one of these fiends in human form, he
is entitled to display a white ostrich plume in the woolly hair, to wear
on the arm an additional bracelet of copper, and to adorn the hilt of
his reeking creese with yet another stud of silver or pewter--his
reputation for prowess and for bravery rising amongst his clansmen in
proportion to the atrocity of the attendant circumstances. At perpetual
strife with the Danakil, although the chiefs of the tribes are on
outward terms of friendship, and even of alliance, no opportunity is
lost of retaliating upon the mountain Bedouin--every fresh hostility
creating a new blood feud, and each life taken on either side, being
revenged two-fold, _ad infinitum_.
Ere the day dawned the mangled bodies of the dead, now stiff and stark,
were consigned by their sorrowing comrades to rude but compact
receptacles of boulder stones--untimely tombs constructed by the native
escort, who had voluntarily addressed themselves to the task. And a
short prayer, suited to the melancholy occasion, having been repeated as
the mortal remains of each gallant fellow, enveloped in a blood-stained
winding sheet, were lowered to their wild resting-place, three volleys
of musketry, paying the soldier's last tribute, rang among the dark
recesses of the ravine, when the hurried obsequies were concluded by
scaling the entrance to the cemeteries, in which, however, it is not
probable that the dastardly sons of Satan--still doubtless watching with
savage satisfaction from some inaccessible cranny--long suffered their
victims to sleep.
In the grave-like calm of the night, under the pale light of the wan
moon, which only partially illumined the funereal crags that hemmed in
the dreary chasm, and rose in gloomy sadness over the vaults of the
departed, the scene was mournful and impressive. Mohammad Ali, Izhak,
and Hajji Kasim, with all their retainers, appeared deeply touched by
the fatal occurrences that had so thinned the ranks of a party for whose
lives they had made themselves responsible; but they referred the event
to fate and to the Almighty fiat, adding that, although they were unable
to restore the dead to life, or undo that which by the will of Heaven
had been done, their own eyes should never close in sleep so long as
danger was to be apprehended from the dreaded Eesah, whose only honour
and wealth consists in the number of foul butcheries with which their
consciences are stained, and whom even savages concur in representing as
sanguinary and ferocious monsters, "fearing neither God nor Devil."
Volume One, Chapter XVII.
THE STRICKEN FOLLOWER DIES--CAIRNS OF THE MURDERED--ALLOOLI AND BEDI
KURROOF.
It had been intended to march at break of day to Allooli, the source of
Wady Goongoonteh; but the absence of several of the camels, which had
gone astray during the nocturnal confusion, caused delay in this den of
iniquity until ten o'clock. The altered deportment of the chiefs
meanwhile tended materially to banish from the mind suspicion of
treachery. Heretofore, with the single exception of Mohammad Ali, all
had been cold, unfriendly, or insulting; but from the moment of the late
catastrophe their manner was visibly changed, and the anxiety evinced
for the safety of the survivors under their charge was unremitting.
They formed a circle round the party whensoever seated, and not a single
white face was for a moment suffered to wander beyond their sight
unattended by a clump of spears.
The wound of the unfortunate Portuguese had been pronounced mortal, and
his dissolution was hourly expected; but life still glimmering in the
socket, he lingered on with fearful groans, although speechless, and too
nearly insensible to be aware of what had passed. Placed upon a litter,
arranged as comfortably as circumstances would permit, the attempt was
made to convey him to the next ground, but the rough motion of the camel
doubtless hastened the termination of his sufferings; and the wretched
man breathing his last ere he had journeyed many miles from the scene of
his misfortunes, was interred under a date tree by the road-side, in a
grave ready prepared for his reception.
The last rains having washed away an artificial bank of stones which had
formerly facilitated the ascent of the difficult and dangerous passage
leading from Goongoonteh into the Wady Kelloo--as the upper course is
denominated--a delay of two hours was at first starting experienced in
the bed of the torrent, during which all were on the alert. Two huge
pointed rocks abutting on opposite angles of the acute zig-zag, reduced
it to a traversed waist, so narrow, that room for the load to pass was
only afforded when the long-legged dromedary swung its unwieldy carcass
alternately from side to side--the steepness of the acclivity rendering
it very frequently necessary to perform this inconvenient evolution upon
the knees. Many became jammed, and were unladen before they could
regain an erect position; whilst others were, with infinite difficulty,
by the united efforts of a dozen drivers, who manned the legs and tail,
saved from being launched with their burthens over the steep side of the
descent, which consisted of a treacherous pile of loose rubbish.
To the surprise of every spectator the train passed through the defile
without any material accident, and thence proceeded to pick their steps
among the rocks, pools, and fissures, which abound in every mountain
torrent whose course is short and precipitous. Flanked by perpendicular
sheets of basalt and porphyry, of unwholesome sulphury appearance,
beneath which many deep pools of cool water had collected, the tortuous
road was at intervals enlivened by clumps of the _doom_ palm, environed
by patches of refreshing green turf--sights from which the eye had long
been estranged. Nine miles of gradual ascent brought the caravan safely
to the encamping ground at the head of the stream--a swamp surrounded by
waving palms and verdant rushes, occupying high table-land, and
affording abundance of green forage to the famished cattle. Most
fortunately the sky had proved cloudy, or the march, performed during
the hottest hours of the day, would indeed have been terrific.
Hence to Sagallo, the dismal country is in the exclusive occupation of a
wandering race of the Danakil, who, notwithstanding that the Sultan of
Tajura claims the sovereignty of the entire waste, only acknowledge his
impotent authority during their occasional temporary sojourn among the
huts of that sea-port. The guides asserted, with many imprecations,
that from time immemorial few kafilahs had ever halted at Allooli
without losing one or more of its members by the Adrusi creeses, or by
those of the Eesah; and on the bank opposite to the shady clump of
_doom_ palms, under whose canopy the residue of the day was passed,
numerous cairns, consisting of circular piles of stone, similar to those
left at Goongoonteh to commemorate the outrage of the preceding night,
stood memorials of the dark deeds that had been perpetrated.
During about three years the road from Abyssinia to the sea-coast was
completely closed by hordes of these ruffian outcasts, who continued
their murderous depredations on every passer-by, until Loheita, the
present Akil of the Debeni, a young, daring, and warlike chieftain,
succeeding to the rule on the demise of his father, routed the banditti
after a severe struggle, and re-opened the route. The Wady Kelloo is,
however, still permanently infested by parties of wild Bedouins, who
skulk about the rocky passes: lie in wait for stragglers from the
caravan: assassinate all who fall into their ruthless clutches: and,
when time permits, further gratify their savage propensities, by
mangling and mutilating the corpse.
"See how the cowardly scoundrels marked me," exclaimed the fiery old
warrior Ibrahim Shehem Abli, drawing aside his checked kilt, and
displaying sundry frightful seams, which had doubtless been the work of
a sharp knife. "Behold these tokens of Eesah steel upon my thigh; I
received them in this wild wady; but, by Allah, I had a life for every
one of them. We have a blood feud now, and it behoves all who are not
weary of the world, to look well to their own throats."
Lurking bandits excepted, who prowl about like the midnight wolf, the
Adaiel tribes, although sufficiently barbarous and quarrelsome by
nature, are fortunately in a great measure restrained from deeds of
ferocity by the certain consequences of spilling blood. None are
anxious to involve their family or tribe in a mortal feud, nor would any
warrior, incurring the almost inevitable consequences of a two-fold
retribution, find support from his clansmen, unless sufficient cause
could be shown; and thus, even in the most lawless states of society,
are checks imposed by absolute necessity, which prove almost as powerful
as the more civilised legal restraint upon the human passions.
Although Allooli was represented to be even more perilous than
Goongoonteh, it possessed, in point of locality, immense superiority;
and every advantage that could be devised, was taken of its capabilities
for defence. The baggage, formed in a compact circle on an open naked
plain, was surrounded by a line of camels, and the mules and horses were
placed in the centre next to the beds of the party. Guards and
sentinels patrolled under an officer of the watch; and at the
solicitation of the Ras el Kafilah, who was exceedingly anxious to avoid
the inconvenient consequences of a blood feud, a musket was discharged
every hour at the relief of sentries, in order to intimate to the
evil-minded that all within the breastwork were not asleep.
Notwithstanding the presence, in the immediate neighbourhood, for
several days previously, of a large band of Eesah, the hot night passed
without any alarm. The non-arrival, until long after daybreak, of the
camels lost at Goongoonteh, added to the length of the next march,
obliging the abandonment of the intention entertained, to speed beyond
the pale of this site of assassination, the party halted on the 10th.
Allooli stands two hundred and twenty-eight feet above the sea, and
although intensely hot, and its waters saline, it proved a paradise when
compared with every preceding station. Here animal life was once more
abundant. A horde of pastoral savages, who from time to time appeared
on the adjacent heights, were made acquainted with the effect of rifle
bullets, by the slaughter from the tent door of sundry gazelles that
visited the swamp; and the venison afforded a most seasonable accession
to the empty larder, which was further replenished from the trees
overhead, whose fan-like leaves gave shelter to a beautiful variety of
the wood pigeon.
Shortly after midnight the march was resumed by the moon's light over a
succession of small barren terraces, confined by conical and rounded
hills. In the lone valley of Henraddee Dowar, which opens into the wide
level plain of Gurguddee, there stood by the wayside a vast pile of
loose stones, half concealed among the tall jaundice-looking flowers of
the senna plant. Towards this spot ensued a general race on the part of
escort and camel-drivers, who each added a pebble whilst repeating the
Arabic auguration, "_Nauzu billahi mina Shaytani r rajim_."--"Let us
flee for refuge to God from Satan the stoned." A tragic legend was
attached to the cairn, which, from the dimensions attained, must have
dated from a remote epoch. A hoary old man, accused in days long gone
of incestuous intercourse with his own daughter, was arraigned before a
tribunal of his assembled tribe, and, being fully convicted, was on this
spot stoned to death, together with his fair partner in guilt.
Throughout Syria and Palestine it is to this day the practice of all who
pass the mounds raised over those who die in crime, and whose memory it
is intended to dishonour, thus to contribute a stone, as well with a
view to perpetuate the monument, as to shield themselves from evil by
manifesting the detestation entertained of the infamy commemorated.
Gurguddee, eight miles in length, and stretching on either hand to the
far horizon, is bounded by steep mountain ranges, whence an alluvial
deposit washed down by the rains, presented over the whole of the level
plain a surface of cracked and hardened mud, like that of a
recently-dried morass. From the southern side, where the clayey tract
is thickly clothed with stunted tamarisk and _spartium_, a road strikes
up the valley in a north-westerly direction to the Mudaito town of
Aussa, distant some three days' journey for a caravan. As the day
dawned, the steeple necks of a troop of ostriches were perceived nodding
in the landscape, as the gigantic birds kicked the dust behind their
heavy heels; and a herd of graceful gazelles were seen scouring towards
a belt of stony hillocks which skirted the dry pebbly bed of a river,
that expends its waters on the sun-dried plain. Ascending this stream,
in which were a few stagnant pools of bitter unpalatable water, a human
figure was detected skulking behind some thick green tamarisks by which
they were overshadowed. But on being perseveringly hunted down by
Mohammad Ali and his wild myrmidons, the prisoner proved to be a Debeni
in quest of truant camels--his attempt at concealment having, according
to his own account, arisen from the appearance of so many mounted
cavaliers, whom he had mistaken for a foraging party of the Eesah, and
was naturally desirous of eluding.
The caravan halted early at Bedi Kurroof, after a march of sixteen
miles, and the camp was formed on a stony eminence of basalt and lava,
affording neither tree nor shade. A day of fierce heat succeeded.
There was no forage for the cattle; the water was of the most brackish
description; and the spot being of old infested by Bedouins, the party
passed a restless and watchful night.
A legend of blood too was attached to this wild bivouac, as to most
others on the road, and thus it was related. One of the young men of a
Danakil caravan returning from Abyssinia, fatigued by the hot journey,
lay down to rest his weary limbs beneath the shadow of a rock, near
which the tent of the Embassy now stood. It was yet broad daylight, but
a band of lurking Eesah presently pounced upon the wayfarer, like the
eagle on its prey, and, ere he could resume his weapons, had stabbed him
to the heart. The dying groans of the murdered man being heard by his
comrades, a number of warriors started in hot pursuit of the flying
assassins, and after a severe chase, succeeded in capturing the whole
gang. Two were immediately speared to death upon the principle of two
drops of blood for one; and the remaining miscreants, four in number,
having been stripped of their clothes and arms, were kicked forth out of
the place.
"The Eesah of these lulls," continued the narrator of this tale, as, by
the light of the blazing watch-fire, he fashioned a rude wooden bolster
for the preservation of his greasy peruke during approaching slumbers,
"are perfect _Shaytans_. Outcasts from their tribe, bands of ten or
more here wander up and down like wild beasts, cutting the throats of
all they meet, whether infidels or true believers--not for the sake of
gain or plunder, but purely to gratify an innate propensity to murder.
The monsters train for these blood forays upon raw flesh and marrow,
and, well anointed with sheep's-tail fat, can travel day and night,
during the hottest season, without suffering from fatigue. _Allahu
akbar_! but they are devils incarnate!"
"Who has seen the Eesah, who has heard the Eesah?" wildly challenged
Mohammad ibn Izhak, starting upon his feet, and clashing his now
finished bolster against his buckler, as he concluded this harangue.
"Who has seen the Eesah, who has heard the Eesah?" shouted a dozen
voices in various quarters of the extended camp. "Uncover your shields,
uncover your shields! Count well their spears, that not a man of them
escape!"
"We have not seen them, we have not heard them," responded the patroles
on duty. "No Eesah are here. Sleep on in peace!"
Volume One, Chapter XVIII.
TERRITORIES OF THE DANAKIL DEBENI--SUGGADERA, MURRAH, DUDDEE, AND
GOBAAD.
Some hours before dawn on the 12th, the kafilah was again loaded and in
motion across a low belt of stony eminences which gradually descend to
the Kori Wady, a long water-course, varying in width from two to four
hundred yards. Threading the moist channel of this stream, where the
foot often absolutely left an impression on the sand, and passing the
watering pool of Leile, the road ascended a deep valley to the halting
ground at Suggadera, in the country of the Danakil Debeni. The entire
borders were flanked by dwarf palms and drooping tamarisk, bounded by
low hills with cliffs of conglomerate and sandstone, which disclosed
dykes of porphyry at an acute angle. Flocks of goats, diligently
browsing on the fat pods which fall at this season from the acacia, were
tended by ancient Bedouin crones in greasy leathern petticoats, who
plaited mats of the split date-leaf; whilst groups of men, women, and
children, lining the eminences at every turn, watched the progress of
the stranger party.
A pastoral race, and subsisting chiefly upon the fermented juice of the
palm, and upon the milk derived from numerous flocks of sheep and goats,
or from a few breeding camels, the Debeni, a division of the Danakil,
are during certain months of the year engaged in the transportation of
salt from the deadly Bahr Assal to the Mudaito town of Aussa, where it
is bartered for grain. Architecture affords no term applicable to a
structure of any kind inferior to a hut or hovel, or it might with
propriety be applied to the base jumble of rough stone and shavings of
the date stalk, tenanted by these nomade savages, who are divided into
clans, and have no fixed habitations. Nevertheless there was something
cheering in the aspect even of these frail edifices, the first human
tenement which had greeted the eye since leaving the sea-coast, now
ninety miles distant. Bare, desolate, and fiery, the entire intervening
tract, although infested by the lurking robber and the midnight
assassin, may be pronounced in all its sultry parts, utterly unfitted
for the location of man.
Water of rather an improved description was obtained at Suggadera, under
basaltic rock, stained green by carbonate of copper. But not a particle
of forage was to be had; and the heat, reflected from a pebbly hill
beneath which the tent was erected, brought the mercury in the
thermometer to 118 degrees, during the greater portion of the day; and
the evil appearance of the place, surrounded by gloomy hills cast into
the deepest shadow, led to the maintenance of a vigilant watch during
the dark night.
Although disturbed at the early hour of 2 a.m., and denied further
repose save on the bare ground, the loss of a camel, which was not
recovered until late, so far retarded advance, that only four miles were
achieved on the 13th. The road continued to wind with a gentle ascent
along the bed of the Wady Kori, the hills gradually diminishing in
apparent height until they merged into the elevated plain of Murrah,
which exhibited pebbles of pink quartz, with a few scanty tufts of
sweet-scented grass, yellow and withered. Here, at the distance of two
miles from a puddle of dirty rain-water, in defiance of the impotent Ras
el Kafilah, the camel-drivers, who studiously avoid trees and the
vicinity of a pool, resolved to halt, as being a place after their own
hearts.
In the dry water-course just left, the chirruping of some solitary
hermit bird, and the bursting bud of a certain dwarf shrub which clothed
the borders, agreeably reminded the traveller of more favoured climes.
But most completely was the illusion dispelled by the forbidding aspect
of the sultry plain of Murrah. Monotonous fields strewn with black
boulders, glaring in the sun, distressed the gaze wheresoever it was
turned--each cindery mass seeming as though it had been showered down
during a violent eruption of some neighbouring volcano; although, on
nearer inspection, it proved to be the time-worn fragment of an
extensive lava sheet. The bare stony plain was decorated with numerous
cairns, marking deeds of treachery and blood; and at the distance of
twenty miles rose a lofty range of hot table-land, behind which the
Abyssinian river Hawash is lost in the great lake at Aussa.
The presence at the watering-place of a host of wild Bedouins, whose
appearance was far from prepossessing, again induced the cautious elders
to anticipate an attack; and the camp occupying a very unfavourable
position for warlike operations, no little difficulty was experienced in
making defensive dispositions. A gloomy black hill threw its
impenetrable shadow immediately in front; and on the flank, a pile of
half-ruined sheepfolds, constructed of blocks of lava, afforded
extensive concealment. The night however passed away without any alarm,
and the intense heat of the day giving place to a somewhat cooler
atmosphere, admitted of sleep by turns in some comfort--parties of the
Danakil escort contriving by chanting their wild war-chorus, to keep
their heavy eyes longer open than usual.
An hour after midnight the loading commenced, and the steep rocky hill
having been surmounted by a path strewed with loose stones, a terrace of
slow ascent, presenting the same dreary appearance of rocks and lava
boulders, continued during the residue of the moon's reign. At break of
day, however, the aspect of the country began rapidly to improve.
Gaining the higher and more salubrious level of Gulamo, the bare sterile
land, strewed with black blocks of lava which tore the feet with their
jagged edges, was fast giving place to sandy plains covered with dry
yellow grass--a most welcome prospect for the exhausted cattle.
Heretofore, saving in the wadys, no tree had been seen except small
stunted leafless acacias, few and far between, and scarcely deserving of
the name. Several small ravines were now choked with continuous groves,
and a mountain stream termed Chekaito, which rises in the country of the
Eesah, and in the rainy season disembogues into the lake at Aussa, was
thickly clothed on both sides with green belts of tamarisk, wild caper,
and other wood, overhung with creeping parasites, and affording food and
shelter to birds. The pensile nests of the long-tailed loxia depended
from the boughs; and whilst the stems, covered with drift to the height
of fifteen feet, gave evidence of a headlong course during the rains,
water, even at this season, was here and there to be obtained.
Heaps of loose stones thrown carelessly together, mark in almost every
direction the spot where the victim lies who has been cut off by some
cold-blooded miscreant--melancholy monuments connected each with a tale
of assassination. But on the banks of the Chekaito many acres of ground
are covered with stones of memorial, such as were raised over Absalom,
and over Achan the king of Ai, each surrounded by a circular cordon
which bears the stamp of high antiquity, and has evidently witnessed the
passage of ages. These sepulchres are said to cover the bones of the
heroes who fell in a battle fought on the spot at the period that the
country was first wrested from the shepherds. "Hai," the designation of
the spot itself, is applied also to the entire surrounding district,
which is stated to have been formerly peopled by the Gittereza, a
gigantic pastoral race, who, under the chief Sango, were at enmity with
all the surrounding tribes, but are now extinct.
After five times crossing the serpentine bed to the point of junction
with the Sagulli, where ostriches cropped the grass around numerous
deserted sheep-pens, the caravan finally halted at Duddee, no great
distance from Ramudele. For days together the pilgrimage had led across
dreary and desolate wastes, and through sterile ravines where no verdure
relieved the eye, no melody broke upon the ear, and so few living
creatures were to be seen, that the unwonted appearance of a solitary
butterfly which had become bewildered in the desert, was duly hailed as
an event. The general character is that of a stern wilderness, parched
by the intolerable heat of a vertical sun blazing in fierce refulgence
over the naked landscape, of which the chief varieties consist in
immense plains of dry cracked mud, or in barren rocks towering towards
an unclouded and burning sky. The utter sterility of the soil is rather
marked than alleviated by occasional sickly plants of most puny growth,
and by the scanty verdure of the few valleys wherein water is to be
found, generally in a state of stagnation. But at Duddee, forage and
fuel were abundant. The water obtained by digging in the channel of the
stream was no longer brackish. The heat, although the thermometer rose
to 110 degrees, was infinitely more endurable than it had hitherto
proved; and the insatiable thirst by which all had been incessantly
tormented on the lower ground, had well nigh disappeared.
A march of twelve miles over a succession of grassy plains, untenanted
by man or beast, but presenting the first cone of the termites that had
been seen, brought the party on the 15th to the enclosed valley of
Gobaad, a thousand and fifty-seven feet above the ocean. Volcanic
ashes, jasper, chalcedony, and quartz, strewed the sandy route, low
volcanic ridges, of comparatively recent formation, intersecting the
landscape from west to east. The encamping ground, among heaps of hard
gravel, near which water was good and plentiful, had only two years
previously formed the scene of the discomfiture of the Ras el Kafilah
and his party, who had been plundered of all they possessed by two
hundred and fifty mounted Eesah. The recollection of the disaster being
green in his memory, he had, before leaving Duddee, donned his folio
Koran, in the place of a duodecimo edition which previously graced his
shoulder. This was a not-to-be-mistaken sign of "_khouf fee_" [i.e.
There is danger to be apprehended] and with a terror-stricken face he
now came to intimate, that the presence of a band of these lawless
ruffians in the opposite hills, together with a gathering of the Mudaito
at the neighbouring pools of Sabala and Dagateli, leaving no sort of
doubt upon his mind of a meditated attack during the night, it behoved
every man to be more than usually on the alert.
The equanimity of the brother of the Sultan of Tajura was somewhat
disturbed at the assurance in reply to this exhortation, that the
Danakil camel-owners were the thieves most to be dreaded, their dirty
and dishonest fingers being unhesitatingly thrust into the bags of rice
and dates, whensoever opportunity proved favourable; and that the hired
escort, whose business it was to prevent this malappropriation of the
property of the Embassy, far from assisting to keep watch, left the duty
to be performed by the Europeans, and invariably went to sleep on their
posts.
"Not one of them shall close his eyes to-night, at all events," grumbled
the Ras. "I shall myself superintend the business, and see to the
safety of the camp; for, by the life of the Prophet, this is an evil
spot!"
As the red sun went down there was certainly a considerable display of
erect spears; but their number gradually diminished as the night closed
in; and when the ten o'clock sentry was relieved, Izhak was snoring
aloud, according to his wont, whilst each doughty warrior lay fast
asleep, with his greasy head upon his shield, and his broad lance in the
precise position that it assumed, when it fell from the relaxed grasp of
the slumberer.
Volume One, Chapter XIX.