Shortly after our departure from Ankober, a robbery was committed in the
residency; and the delinquents having been duly traced out by the
Lebashi, were sent in chains to Angollala, and incarcerated in one of
the palace court-yards. The principal party proved to be a slave of the
king, aided and abetted by a scribe, who had been for some time employed
in copying manuscripts for Dr Roth; and the greater portion of the
stolen property was shortly returned by the hands of the chief smith,
who succeeded the disgraced page in the office of _baldoraba_.
"Strangers have visited me from a far country," was the message
wherewith he was charged, "and whilst residing under my protection they
have been plundered by my subjects. My name has become tarnished. I
have beaten the culprits with sticks, and shall cut off the ears of the
slave Wooseni, and sell him to the merchants of Hurrur."
Intercession, backed by presents, was successfully made with the king
and queen, in behalf of the offender, a lad of ten years of age, and he
was liberated after severe castigation. "God must be angry with me,"
sobbed the juvenile thief, who had once before been detected beneath a
bed with a pair of scissors in his possession--"God _must_ be angry with
me, for I have only twice attempted to rob, and on both occasions have I
been punished."
Among the articles stolen, which consisted chiefly of beads, were
sovereigns of William the Fourth and of Queen Victoria, and suspicions
arising in the royal mind that these were not of gold, as asserted by
Lieutenant Barker, His Majesty proposed testing the metal by the ordeal
of fire. A coin of the former reign was accordingly thrust into the
forge, and having then been immersed in water, was broken with a chisel
by the conclave of smiths. "Call you this English gold?" exclaimed the
Negoos: "here then is a piece of Abyssinian gold for you,"--and throwing
upon the ground the brass foil of a sword scabbard, he laughed
immoderately. A fourpenny piece was then exhibited, as a somewhat more
portable and commodious medium of exchange than blocks of fossil salt,
and the figure on the obverse immediately elicited the inquiry whether
the queens of England went forth with their armies to battle, since
Britannia was equipped with spear and shield, and was about to set a
_sareti_ in her crown like the warrior king of the Amhara.
[The _sareti_ is a sprig of wild asparagus worn in Shoa as a token of
victory, as will be seen presently.]
A quarrel of long standing between Ayto Melkoo and the
commander-in-chief of the gun-men, who ranked among the foremost of the
court sycophants, had been this day brought for adjustment before the
royal tribunal. The award being found in favour of the appellant, the
Master of the Horse, although a great favourite, was handcuffed, and
imprisoned in the brewery, but after a few hours' durance he was set at
large, and his punishment commuted to a fine of seven hundred and fifty
pieces of salt. "It is of no consequence," he remarked somewhat
unwisely, "I shall carry a _mamalacha_ to the `commander,' Captain
Harris, and he will pay the amount for me."
This boast had given occasion to malicious insinuations on the part of
his enemies, and after dark a confidential message was brought to me
from the palace, to the effect that Ayto Melkoo stood suspected of
concealing certain "pleasing things" understood to have been received
from my hands. But this imputation, which, if confirmed, must have
involved disgrace and confiscation of property, proved, fortunately for
the accused, to have no foundation.
A better instance could scarcely have been adduced to illustrate the
fleeting and precarious nature of the despot's smiles. The mother of
this tottering favourite, a native of Ambasel in the province of Lasta,
was for many years the mistress of Hatze Yasoo, then Emperor of Gondar,
on whose demise she became an inmate of the seraglio of Asfa Woosen.
Ayto Wadi, the distinguished Galla governor of Angollala, being thrown
into prison by the latter monarch, contrived to solace himself with the
presence of the lady, and the Master of the Horse was the result of the
intrigue. No disgrace whatever attaching to his illegitimate origin, he
was regarded in the light of a member of the royal family; and, being
brought up in the palace, has succeeded during three several reigns in
maintaining a position at court, which might now have been sacrificed by
the clandestine possession of a dozen ells of English broad-cloth. The
_amende_ was, nevertheless, made to him in the course of a few days, by
the addition of another village to his landed possessions at Doba.
Such paltry proofs of espionage were invariably followed by some
especial token of the royal goodwill, ushered in by a goat, or a jar of
honey, as a peace-offering. In this instance, after the despot had been
fully satisfied of the groundless nature of his surmises, I received a
special invitation to accompany him the next day on a shooting
excursion, a Galla ram, the size of a well-grown calf, having first been
thrust into the tent by the bearer of the message--the dirty page
Besabeh--who, as usual, composed himself to sleep in a corner after the
due performance of his errand.
Saturday, being the Jewish Sabbath, brings rest from all labour, and is
invariably devoted by the king to excursions abroad. Starting on
horseback at an early hour, a gallop of several miles led us across the
Chacha, and over the border of the Galla dependencies, to an extensive,
but narrow sheet of water, where an otter had lately been seen. "It has
hands, and nails, and fingers like a man," observed the monarch gravely,
"and a head like a black dog, and a skin like velvet; and it builds its
house at the bottom of the river, and plucks grass, and washes it in the
water; and all my people thought it was the devil, and would destroy
them with strong medicine. Now is this animal found in your country,
and how do they call its name?"
We amused ourselves by killing snipe, much to the entertainment of the
monarch, who displayed little talent for shooting birds on the wing, and
made no secret of many very unsportsmanlike ideas. Numerous ducks and
geese soon arrested his attention. Drawing up with his retinue, and
resting his weapon over the shoulder of an attendant to insure steady
aim, he kept up a murderous fire with ball, shot, and slugs, during a
full half hour. The weather was passing cold, and ever and anon His
Majesty blew his nose betwixt his thumb and fore-finger, and wiped them
on the mantle of the governor of Bulga, who eagerly proffered it for
acceptance. A serious diminution in the numerical strength of the
feathered fools resulted in no attempt to take flight or even to shift
position. Incredible though it may appear, the living still paddled
among the floating carcasses of their slaughtered comrades, as if
nothing had happened, until the destroyer, weary of persecuting the
"unclean birds," which were not even taken out of the water, remounted
and crossed the country at speed to a wide meadow, traversed by the
serpentine Chacha.
Bald coots were here playing at hide-and-seek, whilst red-headed divers
peeped warily forth for an instant, as the noisy cavalcade advanced.
The spoonbill, and the leather-necked ibis of Egyptian veneration,
displayed their white plumage along the sedge-grown borders. The heron,
the snakebird, and the redshank, waded through the shallow drifts; and
geese, widgeon, teal, and mallard, rose whirring in the air at every
step. But amidst all this inviting variety, the snowy egret was the
object of the king's ambition; and although, after many unsuccessful
attempts, he failed in adorning his head with her unsullied plumes, he
retired perfectly satisfied with his skill as a rifleman, after a long
stray shot had perforated the eye of an "_alata furda_." This is a
gigantic slate-coloured crane, with eccentric red wattles; and several
pairs that were marching over the mead had previously elicited most
notable displays of gunmanship on the part of Ayto Berkie and others of
the royal favourites.
Abogaz Maretch, with his feudal train of Abitchu, joined the _cortege_
as it passed Wona-badera, his seat of government. The treeless expanse
passed over--a type of the entire Galla territory north of Moolo-Falada,
where forest land commences--consists of wide valleys clothed with a
verdant carpet of grass, clover, and trefoil, which, from their
redundant luxuriance, almost impede progress. Every little intersecting
eminence is completely covered with flourishing fields of barley and
wheat, and crowned with villages fortified with strong stockades; and
one ancient _woira_ excepted, whose venerable boughs formed in days gone
by a trysting-place to the hostile pagans, not a single bush or tree was
visible during the long ride.
An extensive barrier of loose stones hastily thrown up during the
rebellion of Medoko, fortifies the south-eastern environs of Angollala;
and although confessedly inferior to the great wall of China, it is
calculated to offer temporary opposition to horsemen who are no Nimrods.
Some of the lower parts were cleared by Captain Graham and myself
without the slightest difficulty, and much to His Majesty's amazement;
but every attempt on the part of the Amhara to follow our example proved
a complete failure. On our return we passed through a palisaded wicket
in this breastwork, which is dignified with the title of "the King's
Gate," and forms the scene of the few public executions that take place.
Chiefs and governors were also accorded the privilege of squeezing
through with the crowned head, but followers and people of low degree
were compelled by the stick of the doorkeeper to adopt a circuitous
route over a belt of stony hills adjoining, which form a continuation of
the defences.
The ascent to the palace was accomplished under a wild choral chant,
laudatory of the monarch, which invariably announces his return from an
excursion abroad. The road was lined with pilgrims clothed in yellow
garments, and having each a cross of blue clay upon his forehead. They
had been to perform their vows, or redeem their pledges left, at the
sanctuary of Debra Libanos [Mount Lebanon], chief seat of learning in
Shoa, and the renowned scene of the miracles of Tekla Haimanot, its
founder. Hard pressed by his enemies, the patron and lawgiver of
Ethiopia is said to have leapt through the trunk of a venerable tree, a
seam in which yet vouches for the truth of the legend that it
spontaneously clave asunder at his holy bidding, but closed to foil the
sacrilegious assailants who sought his life. Being athirst, he prayed
unto God, whereupon the archangel Michael, who was his mediator, caused
a fountain to rise at his feet, supplied by the stream of the river
Jordan. A cross which he carried in his hand had been swept away during
the passage of a neighbouring torrent, but no sooner did he curse the
waters, than they were dried up, and have never since flowed above the
channel!
The remains of the saint still cast a halo over the spot in which they
he interred, and the pool which he blessed, retains to this day the
property of cleansing the leper, and healing every disease on either of
the three days annually devoted to the commemoration of his birth,
death, and ascension. Famous as the most holy of shrines throughout
Southern Abyssinia, men of every rank, from the monarch to the meanest
peasant, if unable to repair thither in person, delegate their
substitute with offerings according to their wealth. Having on his way
bathed in the "Segga Wadum," or "river of flesh and blood"--a tributary
to the Nile, formed by the confluence of the Sana Robi and the Sana
Boka--the pilgrim quaffs the waters of the mineral well, describes upon
his forehead the sacred emblem of Christianity, and after kissing, at
the adjacent church of Saint Mary, a cross which is asserted by the
priesthood to have fallen from heaven, he is secure against sickness and
witchcraft. The very earth from Debra Libanos is carried away as an
antidote to maladies, and all who meet the returning pilgrim, fall
prostrate upon the ground, and kiss the dust from off his feet.
No sooner had His Majesty entered the palace-gate, than the sound of the
imperial kettle-drum announced the presence of the herald, and crowds
collected to listen to the royal edict. Standing upon the hill-side
beneath the shadow of a solitary stunted tree, which, had it a tongue,
could unfold many a tale of woe and oppression, he thus proclaimed in a
loud voice to the multitude assembled; "Hear, oh, hear! Thus saith the
King. Behold, we have foes, and would trample upon their necks.
Prepare ye every one for war. On the approaching festival of Abba
Kinos, whoso faileth to present himself at Yeolo as a good and loyal
subject, mounted, armed, and carrying provisions for twenty-one days,
shall be held as a traitor, and shall forfeit his property during seven
years."
Volume Two, Chapter XX.