In Shoa the preliminaries of a journey are replete with noise,
inconvenience, and confusion. Friends come to "see you off," as an
indispensable piece of etiquette, and the lounging townspeople, who have
at no time much business of their own, flock to assist the traveller by
filling the court-yard, choking the door-way, and amusing themselves by
canvassing the property packed. Should rain be falling, which is too
frequently the case, the rabble take shelter inside the house, subject
every article within their reach to the pollution of greasy paws, leave
the carpet an inch thick in mire, and, unless by dint of shoving and
elbowing, debar all egress to the lawful proprietor.
It was in the midst of attentions such as these on the part of the
idlers of Ankober, on a raw, cold, foggy morning in September--the last
of the Ethiopic year--that we took the road to Debra Berhan. The sun
was already high when the sure-footed mules were mounted, and as the
retiring mist scudded over the face of the mountains, many were the bold
beauties revealed. Cascades tumbled down the stupendous range on the
one hand, amid snug houses and tufted knolls, and on the other, at the
foot of perpendicular crags thundered the river Airara. On its bank
stands the only piece of machinery in the kingdom--a rude watermill
constructed by an Albanian visitor; but the intolerant and ignorant
priesthood pronouncing the revolution of the wheel to be the work of
devils and genii, its use was interdicted after three days, and it has
since remained silent.
Beyond the ford of the foaming torrent the road becomes extremely rough,
steep, and difficult. The first traveller had been unable to breast the
mountain side outright; and his zigzag route remains untouched by the
hand of the pioneer. The craggy rock must be surmounted, and the narrow
and slippery channel be still threaded with the same risk as when the
first bold foot was planted on the serrated ridge; and the torrent of
centuries, whilst indenting the furrow yet deeper, has added the
impediment of slimy residuum.
The range whereof the Chaka forms a part divides the streams that flow
into the Nile, from those which are tributary to the Hawash; and the
ascent above Ankober being not less than two thousand feet, the
difference in temperature on the summit was fully perceptible. Half an
hour was occupied in the scramble to a crumbling basaltic pillar styled
"_Room dingai_," "the standing stone," which very aptly transfers its
name to this most indifferent pass to the new capital of Shoa. Mamrat
still towered overhead full three or four thousand feet, making its
total height above the level of the sea at least thirteen thousand; yet
is snow a stranger to its cloud-capped summit, and indeed to the
language of all Amhara, south of the cold mountains of Simien.
It is from June to September that old Father Nilus carries plenty into
"the land of marvels"--and rolling on to its mouths in solitary
grandeur, without receiving a single tributary in its long course of
thirteen hundred and fifty nautical miles below the junction of the
Tacazze, it may fairly be stated that Abyssinia holds in her Christian
hands the inexhaustible riches of Egypt. Hatze Tekla Haimanot the
Great, had therefore reason on his side when, in the beginning of the
twelfth century, he wrote under the style of "Son of the King of the
Church of Ethiop to the Pacha and the Lords Commanders of the Militia at
Grand Cairo, desiring attention to the fact that in himself for the time
being was vested power to render the Nile an instrument of vengeance for
overt acts of hostility--the Almighty having given into his hands its
fountains, its passage, and its increase, and thus entrusted him with
power to make the river work good or evil."
Among the numberless fictions recorded of this emperor, it is said that
when he was about to relinquish the cares of government in order to
retire to a cloister, he divided his countless wealth with his feet into
two parts, the one designed as an offering to the Church, the other to
be distributed in alms among the poor: and both heaps, although mountain
high, were, on being weighed, found exactly equal. Lalibela, one of his
successors, is believed to have attempted the diversion to the Indian
Ocean and to the Lake Zooai, of all those principal tributaries to the
Nile which take their source in the highest table land. The measure was
in resentment for the persecutions exercised towards the Christians in
Egypt after the Saracen conquest, and the monarch was only induced to
relinquish his gigantic project by the earnest remonstrance of the
monks, who strongly urged the impolicy of fertilising the arid Moslem
countries that intervene betwixt the mountains and the sea.
On the summit of the Chaka commences an uninterrupted terrace,
stretching hundreds of miles to the southward, through the fair
territories of the Galla. Glimpses of blue sky, of a brightness unseen
for months, now gave happy presage of coming fine weather, and a cold
bracing breeze from the eastward announced the termination of the
protracted season of rain. The country had assumed the uninteresting
character inseparable from elevated downs--rich swampy meadows, clothed
with camomile, clover, and trefoil, and covered with oxen, horses, and
sheep, being intersected by gentle undulations of moor-land, with
occasional oviform hills. Bare-banked rills, streaming through the
lower tracts, succeed each other in quick succession, and drain the
table-land to the sources of the Bereza; whilst the great extent of
ground under cultivation, waving crops of wheat, beans, and barley, with
independent farm-houses scattered over the face of the landscape,
proclaim a government which cannot be of a very bad description, and
regions long exempt from the presence of an inimical power.
Across the Toro Mesk, the principal streamlet that intersects the road,
and the sources of which are visible at a great distance to the
north-east, is a rude pile of stones bearing the dignified appellation
of "the King's Bridge." Johannes, the Armenian architect, received the
hand of a high-born dame in reward of his skill, and by no foot save
that of the despot, is the barred entrance ever passed. Two other
bridges, upon the same primitive principle, have since been constructed
over nameless but rapid rivulets, and if not very durable, they serve
greatly to facilitate the royal progress at periods when the country is
inundated.
During the reign of the sire and grandsire of the present monarch, the
entire tract between Ankober and Debra Berhan was in the hands of the
heathen Galla; and Tenna Kaloo, the last daring chieftain who disputed
its possession, has left in the minds of the present generation the
recollection of the prowess in arms that he evinced to their fathers,
numbers of whom fell in the strife. Not a tree, nor even a shrub higher
than the Abyssinian thistle, is to be seen, save here and there a
solitary "cosso," whose venerable boughs, the witnesses of idolatrous
rites, mark the ancient site of villages now gone to decay. Flourishing
Christian hamlets have risen in their stead; yet the visible population
is small, and the long naked sweeping plains, silent and lonesome,
present a stern and melancholy appearance, which the absence of groves
and hedges and singing birds tends materially to heighten. The vulture
and the eagle are alone seen wheeling above the green cliffs, or a
solitary buzzard soaring in quest of his prey over the great sheets of
cultivation. Shepherds, wearing high conical hempen caps, lay
ensconced, with their large shaggy dogs, under the shelter of knolls and
caves; and in some few of the fields, where last year's crops were yet
unhoused, or the land remained untilled, the peasantry pursued their
industrious occupation.
At length the monotonous view opened over a wide plateau sloping gently
to the west. The blue peaks of Sallala Moogher, beyond which flows the
infant Nile, rose faintly in the distance, and the intervening country,
still destitute of wood, was traversed by broad, broken, precipitous
ravines. On a hill to the northward is visible the extensive
market-place of Bool Worki, "the cave of gold," a great mart for horses,
mules, and woollen cloths, which, with grain, asses, and horned cattle,
are brought every Saturday by the adjacent Galla tribes. and, when sold,
pay a heavy duty to the crown. To account for the name of the place,
there is a tradition extant, that in days of yore, many holy arks with
vast quantities of the purest gold were deposited by the emperors of
Ethiopia in a certain deep cave having a bottomless lake interposed to
save them from the grasp of the avaricious. Its waters form the abode
of a legion of evil spirits, whose Alaka gratuitously exhibited himself
one market-day, mounted upon an ambling mule loaded with massive golden
trappings, and attended by a black cat wearing about its neck a bell of
the same costly metal--a sight quite sufficient to deter intrusion on
the part of the curious.
A cluster of white-roofed houses, straggling beyond the walled palace
and the church of the Holy Trinity--long indistinctly visible--now rose
rapidly to view; and a small eminence having been ascended, the goal was
presently attained. As we passed the royal lodge, a page mounted on one
of the king's horses rode forth to reconnoitre, and, taking a hasty
glance, galloped off to make his report. The customary announcement
through an Afero, who has always access to the palace, elicited a pair
of monstrous Galla rams, which were thrust into observation while the
message which follows--one strictly in accordance with Abyssinian
etiquette--was delivered with shoulders bare by him to whom it had been
confided:--"Are you well? Are you well? Are you well? Have you been
quite well since our last interview? Are you all well? Have my
children had a good journey? Have they entered in safety? My love
amounts to heaven and earth; therefore the king said, they might eat
these sheep."
Awnings, wrought of goats' hair, and resembling the black tents of
Kedar, had meanwhile been erected for us on the green-sward, and we had
no sooner taken up our quarters than there came, by a succession of
maids of honour, bread in wicker baskets, old hydromel in coloured
decanters, pots of honey, and compliments in profusion from the queen.
Many of the courtiers visited us in the evening, too evidently fresh
from the royal banquet, which is daily spread in the great hall, and
from which few ever rise in a state of sobriety--their amount of
friendship professed, and the modicum of flattery that they bestowed,
being in the exact ratio of the potations swallowed during their revel.
Glimmering lights soon illumined the straggling hamlet--dancing and
singing occupied both sexes of the inhabitants--and with almost as much
pomp and ceremony as in more civilised lands, the departed year was
consigned to its last long resting-place in the relentless tomb of Time.
Volume Two, Chapter VII.