In connection with the foregoing remarks respecting the inhabitants of
the lowlands, it is now desirable to sketch, for the reader's
information, some of those early hostilities between the Mohammadans and
Christians, which find a record in the meagre annals of Abyssinia. They
led, in the sixteenth century, to an event so often alluded to in these
pages,--the invasion of Graan, "the Left-handed," whose irruptions
proved the greatest calamity that ever befel the country.
The allegiance claimed from the Adaiel by the emperors of Ethiopia is
known to have been evaded at a very remote period. Ages ago gold was
returned for gold, apparel for apparel; and the intractable Moslems were
studiously kept in good humour whensoever they thought proper to visit
the Christian court. Their revenues arose chiefly from the supply of
camels for the transport of merchandise to various parts of Africa, and
from the importation of fossil salt, which then, as now, passed instead
of silver currency, and for which they purchased slaves, together with
the rich staples of the interior. Thus the interests of Adel and of
Abyssinia have always been so intimately linked, that the declaration of
war was certain to prove disastrous alike to the victor and to the
vanquished, since it must have interfered equally with the commerce by
which both were enriched. Nevertheless, upon all suitable
opportunities, the fanatic lowlanders, urged by religious hate,
plundered the Christian churches, and massacred or tortured the priests,
until they at length drew upon themselves a war of extermination.
The Abyssinian chroniclers state that Amda Zion, who died at Tegulet
about the middle of the fourteenth century, first made a retributive
inroad, in consequence of his rebellious vassals having, amongst many
other derogatory expressions, taunted him as "an eunuch, fit only to
take care of women." But the Emperor was never beaten. He overran and
laid waste the plains from the mountains to the borders of the ocean,
and swept off to the highlands a prodigious amount of cattle. Every
species of enormity appears to have been practised in retaliation by the
Amhara, who were commanded to "leave nothing alive that drew the breath
of life." This behest was obeyed with all the rage and cruelty that
revenge and a difference of religion could inspire; and before the
termination of the campaign, the dauntless young King of Wypoo had been
slain, together with Saleh, the King of Mara, who boasted descent in a
direct line from the Apostle.
Constant commercial intercourse had long been maintained between Cairo
and Abyssinia, both across the desert and by way of the Red Sea. Great
caravans, composed formerly of Pagans, but now of Mohammadans, passed in
without molestation, and dispersed Indian manufactures through the heart
of Africa. Friars, priests, nuns, and pious laymen, in vast numbers,
also set out annually on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, whither, with drums
beating before the holy cross, they proceeded by the route of Suakem,
making long halts for the performance of divine service. But with the
power of the Mamelukes, all communication across the desert, whether for
commercial or religious purposes, was closed to the Christians. After
the conquest of Egypt and Arabia by Selim the First, caravans were
invariably attacked, the old were butchered, and the young swept into
slavery; for the Emperor of the Ottomans, fully imbued with the
merciless bigotry of his creed, held it a sacred duty to convert by the
sword the subjects of a monarch whose ancestor had been honoured with
the correspondence of the great founder of the Saracen empire. Many
Arabian merchants, flying about the same period from the violence and
injustice of the Turkish tyrants, had sought an asylum in the opposite
African states, whereupon the Ottomans took possession, from Aden, of
the seaport of Zeyla, and not only laid the Indian trade under heavy
contributions, by means of their galleys cruising in the narrow straits
of Bab el Mandeb, but threatened the conquest both of Adel and
Abyssinia.
Betwixt these countries there subsisted peace from the death of Amda
Zion to the middle of the fifteenth century. Towards the close of the
reign of Zara Yacoob, who founded Debra Berhan, the flame of discord was
again fanned by a certain queen of Zeyla, who is said to have aspired to
the hand of the Emperor; but the Christian arms were still in the
ascendant. Baeda Mariam, the next occupant of the throne, passed his
life in a constant struggle to assert supremacy over the low country;
and, on his death-bed, he caused himself to be so turned that his face
might be towards the sandy deserts of the Adaiel, to whose subjugation
his whole energies had for ten years been devoted.
Mafoodi's inroads, it has been seen, commenced during the reign of
Alexander. They continued, with increasing horrors, throughout that of
his successor Naod. Nebla Dengel being only eleven years of age when
called to the throne, Helena, his mother, ruled during his minority.
Albuquerque was at that period viceroy of India, and to him the
queen-dowager sent to implore assistance for troubled Abyssinia.
Arriving at Goa, the ambassador announced himself to be the bearer of "a
fragment of wood belonging to the true Cross on which Christ died, which
relic had been sent, as a token of friendship to her brother Emmanuel,
by the Empress over Ethiopia;" and this overture was in due time
followed by the arrival at Massowah of an embassy from the King of
Portugal.
Father Alvarez has recorded the unfavourable reception experienced in
Shoa at the hands of the young emperor, who could never be brought to
recognise his mother's proceedings, which had led to this influx of
foreigners. At the age of sixteen, having adopted the title of _Wanag
Suggud_, signifying "feared among the lions," he had taken the field in
person against Mafoodi, who, backed by the rebellious King of Adel,
still continued his wasting inroads on the Christian frontier. At the
opening of the campaign, this fanatic, who had resolved either to
conquer or to die a martyr to his religion, threw the gauntlet of
defiance to the Christian chivalry, and it was instantly accepted. The
infidel was slain in single combat by the monk Gabriel, a soldier of
tried valour, who had assumed the monastic cap during the preceding
reign in consequence of having been deprived of the tip of his tongue
for treasonable freedom of speech. Cutting off the head of this
vanquished antagonist, he now threw it at the feet of his royal master,
and exclaimed, "Behold, sire, the Goliath of the Infidels!" The green
standard of the Prophet and of the faith was taken, twelve thousand of
the Moslem were slain, and the youthful emperor, in defiance, struck his
lance through the door of the King of Adel. The monk who had thus
delivered Abyssinia from her worst scourge, was welcomed with the
applause of the whole nation. Maidens pressed forward to strew flowers
in his path, and matrons celebrating his achievements with songs, placed
garlands on his head, and held out their babes to gaze at the warrior as
he passed.
It was shortly after the departure of the Portuguese embassy that Graan,
"the Left-handed"--then King of Adel--made his first appearance on the
Ethiopian stage, where he was long the principal actor. In league with
the Turkish Bashaw on the coast of Arabia, this mighty warrior sent his
Abyssinian prisoners to Mecca, and in return was furnished with a large
body of Janissaries, at the head of whom he burst into Efat and Fatigar,
drove off the population, and laid waste the country with fire. In 1528
he took possession of Shoa, overran Amhara, burnt all the churches, and
swept off immense booty. In his next campaign the invader wintered in
Begemeder, and the following year hunted the emperor like a wild beast
through Tigre to the borders of Sennaar, gave battle to the royal troops
on the banks of the Nile, with his own hand slew the monk Gabriel, who
had vanquished Mafoodi in single combat, cut the army to pieces,
practised every species of atrocity, and set fire to half the churches
in Abyssinia.
Famine and plague now raged, and carried off those whom the sword had
spared. The princes of the blood were all destroyed; Axum was burnt,
and the monarch himself, after being compelled to take refuge in the
wilderness, was finally slain. With him died also the boasted splendour
of the Abyssinian court, for he was the last monarch of Ethiopia who
displayed the magnificence of a "king of kings."
Markos, the aged Archbishop, had, on his deathbed, appointed as his
successor John Bermudez, a Portuguese who had been detained in the
country, and at the request of Claudius, who succeeded to the empire, he
now proceeded to Europe to obtain assistance. Don Christopher de Gama,
with five hundred soldiers, obtained possession of Massowah, slew the
governor, and sent his head to Gondar, where, as an early pledge of
future victory, it was received with raptures by the queen. The general
was shortly confronted by Graan in person. Artillery and muskets were
for the first time opposed in Abyssinia; and the Portuguese leader being
wounded, took refuge in a cave. Deaf to persuasion, he refused to seek
safety in flight; and a Turkish lady of extraordinary beauty, whom he
had made prisoner, and who had affected conversion to Christianity,
shortly betrayed him to the enemy. He was carried before Graan, who,
with his left hand cut off his head, and sent it to Constantinople, his
body being quartered, and sent in portions to Arabia.
But the Portuguese were far from being disheartened by this grievous
misfortune, and the armies were shortly in a position again to try their
strength. Before the engagement had well commenced, Peter Lyon, a
marksman of low stature, but passing valiant withal, who had been valet
to Don Christopher, having stolen unperceived along the dry channel of a
ravine, shot Graan through the body. He fell from his horse some
distance in advance of the troops, and the soldier, cutting off one of
the infidel's ears, put it into his pocket. This success was followed
by the total rout of the Mohammadans; and an Abyssinian officer of rank
finding the body of the redoubted chief, took possession of his
mutilated head, which he laid at the feet of the Emperor in proof of his
claim to the merit of the achievement. Having witnessed in silence the
impudence of his rival, the valet produced the trophy from his pocket,
with the observation that His Majesty doubtless knew Graan sufficiently
well to be quite certain, "that he would suffer no one to cut off his
ear that possessed not the power to take his head also."
Delivered from his enemy, Claudius now sought to repair the ravages
which had been committed in his country. A total eclipse of the sun
shortly afterwards threw both army and court into consternation--every
ignorant monk who practised divination declaring the phenomenon to
portend another invasion from the lowlanders. But in spite of this
prophecy an interchange of prisoners took place. Del Wumbarea, the
widow of Graan, had thrown herself into the wilds of Atbara, and her son
Ali Jeraad, who was made prisoner after his father fell, being now set
at liberty, Prince Menas, only brother to the emperor, was released from
his captivity in the sultry deserts of Adel, whither he had been carried
during the reign of Nebla Dengel. I Noor, the Ameer of Hurrur, who was
deeply enamoured of Del Wumbarea, had proved the means of her escape
from the fatal field whereon her husband died. The heroine now pledged
her hand in marriage to him who should lay the head of Claudius at her
feet; and Noor instantly sent a message of defiance to the emperor, who
was engaged in rebuilding the celebrated church of Debra-work, "the
mountain of gold," which had been burnt by the infidels. Claudius, who
had almost by a miracle rescued Abyssinia from the Mohammadans, marched
instantly to accept the challenge. Many prophecies were current amongst
the soldiery that the campaign was to prove unfortunate, and the
hot-headed monarch to lose his life; but he laughed at these monkish
predictions, declaring an honourable death to be infinitely preferable
to the longest and most prosperous reign.
The rival armies were on the point of engaging, in the year 1559, when
the high priest of Debra Libanos rushed before the emperor to declare a
vision, in which the angel Gabriel had warned him not to suffer the king
of the church of Ethiopia to expose himself in a needless fight. Thus
discouraged, the cowardly Abyssinians instantly fled, leaving Claudius
supported only by a handful of Portuguese soldiers, who were soon slain
around his person, and he immediately afterwards fell, covered with
wounds. His head was cut off, and laid by Noor at the feet of Del
Wumbarea, who, in observance of her pledge, became his wife, and with
truly savage ferocity commanded the trophy to be suspended by the hair
to the branches of a tree before her door, in order that her eyes might
continually be gladdened by the sight. It hung in this position during
three years, ere it was purchased by an Armenian merchant, who caused it
to be interred in the holy sepulchre of Saint Claudius at Antioch; and
the name of the hero who had been victorious in every action save that
in which he died, has since been enrolled in the voluminous catalogue of
Abyssinian saints, where it now occupies a conspicuous place, as the
destroyer of Mohammad, surnamed "the Left-handed."
To the present day the most preposterous legends are believed with
reference to the personal prowess of this fierce invader, his gigantic
stature, and the colossal size of his steed. He is said to have wielded
a brand twenty feet in length; and although it is matter of notoriety
that he fell in the manner above narrated, by the hand of a Portuguese
soldier, he is represented to have received no fewer than four thousand
musket bullets before yielding up the ghost. The supernatural
achievements of Graan are handed down to posterity in an extant Amharic
volume; and his inroads gave birth in the mind of the people of Shoa to
a superstitious dread of the Adaiel, such as was long entertained of the
Turks in Northern Europe, and which it has been seen extends even to the
warlike monarch.
Volume Two, Chapter XXIX.