Surrounded by the myrmidons who collect the royal dues, Ayto Kalama Work
was every Friday morning to be seen seated beneath the scanty shelter of
an ancient acacia, which throws its withered arms over the centre of the
market-place. On this day alone are purchases to be made, and the
inhabitants of the adjacent villages pouring from all quarters to lay in
their weekly supplies, a scene of unusual bustle and confusion animates
this otherwise most quiet and uninteresting location.
Shortly after daybreak, wares of every description are displayed under
the canopy of heaven, and crowds of both sexes flocking to the stall of
the vendor, the din of human voices is presently at its height. Honey,
cotton, grain, and other articles of consumption, the produce of the
estate of the Amhara farmer, are exposed for sale or barter. The
Dankali merchant exhibits his gay assortment of beads, metals, coloured
thread, and glass ware. The wild Galla squats beside the produce of his
flocks, and the Moslem trader from the interior displays ostrich
feathers, or some other article of curiosity from the distant tribe.
Bales of cotton cloth, and bags of coffee from Caffa and Enarea, are
strewed in every direction. Horses and mules in numbers are shown off
among the crowd to increase the turmoil; nor is even the wandering
Hebrew wanting to complete the scene of traffic, haggling, and barter,
which continues, without intermission, until a late hour in the
afternoon, when the village relapses again into its wonted six days of
quiet and repose.
Swathed and folded in dirty cotton cloth, behold in the cultivator of
the soil the original of the Egyptian mummy. Greasy and offensive in
person and in habits, he moves cringingly to pay his tax to the governor
of the fair, who sits in conscious dignity upon a stone; and prostrating
himself with shoulders bared among the mud, the serf hands forth the
measure of grain from the leathern scrip, or scoops out the prescribed
meed of butter from the jar--the vassal token of permission enjoyed to
earn his bread by the unceasing hand of labour. No spark of
intelligence illumines his dull features; not a trace of independence
can be discovered in his slouching gait; and the cumbrous robe with
which he is invested would indeed seem far better adapted for the quiet
resting-place in the tomb, than for the bustling avocations of stirring
life.
Here swaggers a valiant gun-man of the king's matchlock guard. The
jealousy of the monarch forbids the removal of the primitive weapon from
the royal presence, but the white _herkoom_ feather floats in all the
pride of blood over clotted tufts moist with the beloved grease; and the
dark scowl and the lowering brow betoken the reckless cruelty which
stains the character of the band. But the man is a poor slave, and his
degraded state has entirely destroyed the few traits of humanity which
might have smiled upon his nativity.
The surly Adaiel brushes past in insolent indifference to examine the
female slaves in the wicker hut of the rover from the south. His
murderous creese ensures from the bystanders a high respect, which
frequent disasters in the low country has riveted on the heart of the
Amhara; and men turn in wonder to gaze upon the mortal who entertaineth
not a slavish adoration for the great monarch of Shoa.
Squatted beside his foreign wares and glittering beads, see the wily
huckster of Hurrur, with his turban and blue-checked kilt. His
dealings, it is true, are of no very extensive amount, and salt, not
silver, is the medium of exchange; but there is still room for the
exercise of his knavery. The countenance both of buyer and seller
exhibits an anxious and business-like expression, and the same noise and
confusion prevails regarding an extra twopence-halfpenny, as if the
transaction involved a shower of golden guineas.
The Christian women flit through the busy fair with eggs and poultry,
and other produce of the farm. Their ill-favoured features are not
improved either by the eradication of the eyebrow, or by the bare shaven
crown dripping with rancid butter; and the dirty persons of all are
invariably shrouded in yet dirtier habiliments, from the tall masculine
damsel of sixteen summers, to the decrepit and wrinkled hag who in
cracked notes proclaims ever and anon, "_amole alliche bir_," "salt to
sell for silver."
The free and stately mien of the oriental female, and the light graceful
garment of the east, are alike wanting. The heavy load is tied as upon
the back of the pack-horse, and the bent and broken figure of the Amhara
dame is debarred by the severe law of the despot from the decoration of
finery or costly ornament. A huge bee-hive-shaped wig, elaborately
curled and frosted, and massive pewter buttons thrust through the lobe
of the ear, constitute her only pride; and nature, alas! has too often
withheld even the smallest portion of those feminine attractions which
in other climes form the charm of her sex.
The inhabitants of Argobba or Efat, under the control of the sinister
eye of the Wulasma, are followers of the false Prophet, and speak a
distinct language. Little difference, however, is observable in the
external appearance of the males from that of the Amhara subject of the
empire; and it is not until the removal of the muffling cloth that the
rosary of bright-spotted beads is displayed in lieu of the dark blue
emblem of Christianity worn throughout Ethiopia. The women, on the
other hand, are at once recognisable, no less by their Arab gypsy
features, than by their long braided tresses streaming ever the
shoulder, the ample smock of red cloth, dyed purple with accumulated
lard, and the nunlike hood of the same material, buttoned close under
the chin.
Fairer, more slender, and better favoured than their coarse Christian
sisters of the more alpine regions, they are still scarcely less greasy
and unattractive. Loaded with amulets and beads, their belief is
proclaimed by the oft-repeated exclamation, "_Hamdu-lillah_!" "Praise
be unto Allah!"--the courteous interrogatories of every passer-by, anent
health, rest, and welfare, being by the burly and masculine ladies of
Shoa, responded by the words "_Egzia behere maskin_!" "Thanks be unto
God!" Unrestricted by harem law they fidget about in every direction,
their great sparkling eyes peering through a mass of coal-black hair,
half concealed by the crimson cowl, and the large shining necklace of
amber reaching nearly to the waist. But the hideous sack chemise veils
every feature of figure and personal beauty, and the naked hands and
feet are alone exhibited, both rather misshapen from hard work and undue
exposure to the climate.
The crowd makes way for a great Christian governor, probably from some
distant province near the Nile. He is surrounded by a boisterous host
of armed attendants, and, like them, paddles with unshod feet through
the stiff black mire. The capacious stomach, and the bright silver
sword with tulip scabbard, betoken high honour and command. An ambling
mule tricked out in brass jingles and chains follows in his path; a long
taper wand towers above his shoulder; and his portly figure is
completely shrouded in the folds of a cotton robe, bedecked from end to
end with broad crimson stripes. The garment might be improved by
ablution; but repose upon the hide of a bullock is no aid to purity of
apparel, and it is white in comparison with those of his unwashed
retinue.
The arrangement of his hair has occupied the entire morning, and the
steam of the fetid butter, which glistens among the minute curls,
pervades the entire atmosphere. Muffled high above the chin, the eyes
and nose of the functionary are alone submitted to the vulgar gaze, and
as he halts for a moment to wonder at the unwonted sight of the Gyptzi
strangers, the bloodshot eye betrays the midnight debauch, and the
wrinkles of his turned-up nose, the scorn of the savage at the
difference of costume and complexion. Approaching the acacia his
shoulders are temporarily bared to the pompous dignitary presiding over
the fair, who rising to receive him, returns the compliment, and there
ensues a tissue of inquiries unknown even to the code of Chesterfield.
Cantering over the tiny plain--a scanty level of an hundred yards--the
wild Galla enters the scene of confusion, his long tresses streaming in
the wind, and his garment blue with the grease of ages. A jar of honey,
or a basket of butter, is lashed to the crupper of his high-peaked
saddle; the steed is lean and shaggy as the rider, and the snort and the
start from either proclaim undefined terror and amazement at the strange
sights, and the rugged rocks and precipices, unknown to the boundless
meadows of their own green land.
Dandies there are none, in aught of outward appearance, for the
arrangement of the hair is the only latitude allowed to the invention of
the would-be fop. The cotton cloth in every degree of impurity, floats
over the swart shoulder both of noble and of serf. Bare heads and naked
feet are the property of all, and the possession of the spear and shield
alone marks the difference of rank. The chief scorns to carry a weapon
except during the foray or the fight, whereas his followers never leave
the threshold of their rude dwellings, without the lance in their hand,
and buckler on their arm.
The terror and abhorrence in which the low country and its attendant
dangers are held by the Abyssinian population, have placed nearly the
entire trade of Alio Amba in the hands of the Danakil, who are treated
by the monarch of Shoa with all deference and respect. Caravans arrive
every month during the fair season from Aussa and Tajura, and the
traffic, considering the manifold drawbacks, may be said to be brisk and
profitable. Numbers of foreign merchants, those of Hurrur especially,
whilst disposing of their goods, hold their temporary residence at the
market-town, the climate of which, many degrees warmer than the cold
summit of the range which towers two thousand feet above, proves far
more congenial to their taste and habits.
With the proceeds of foreign imported merchandise, human beings
kidnapped in the interior countries of Africa are purchased in the
adjacent slave mart of Abd el Russool. These wretched victims are then
taken through the Amhara province of Giddem to the Wollo and Argobba
frontiers, some five days' journey to the north, and resold at a profit
of fifty per cent,--the sums realised being there invested in _amoles_,
or blocks of black salt, the size of a mower's whetstone. Obtained
between Agame and the country of the Dankali, from a salt plain which
not only supplies all the Abyssinian markets, but many also far in the
interior of Africa, they pass as a currency, and, being bought on the
frontier at the rate of twenty-five for a German crown, are retailed in
Alio Amba at a profitable exchange. A large investment of slaves is
finally purchased with the wealth thus laboriously amassed, and the
merchant returns to his native country to traffic in human flesh at the
sea-ports of Zeyla and Berbera, or on the opposite coast of Arabia--anon
to revisit Shoa with a fresh invoice of marketable wares.
Ever ravaged by war and violence, the unexplored regions of the interior
pour forth a continual supply of ill-starred victims of all ages to feed
the demand, and the hebdomadal parade in the market-place under the
ruthless Moslem monsters by whom they are imported, is sufficiently
harrowing to those unaccustomed to such revolting spectacles. Examined
like cattle by the purchaser, the sullen Shankala fetches a price
proportioned to the muscular appearance of his giant frame; and the
child of tender years is valued according to the promise of future
development. Even the shamefaced and slenderly-clad maiden is subjected
to every indignity, whilst the price of her charms is estimated
according to the regularity of her features, the symmetry of her budding
form, and the luxuriance of her braided locks; and when the silver has
rung in confirmation of the bargain, the last tie is dissolved which
could hold in any restraint the appetite of her savage possessor.
Volume One, Chapter XLIII.