The day following our victory over the monarch of the forest was passed
in the laborious operation of hewing out the ponderous tusks, each of
which formed the load of a donkey, and was valued at one hundred German
crowns. A strong force was in attendance to keep the peace; and owing
to the inferiority of the tools at command, and the existing necessity
of cutting completely through the head to the root of the lower tusk,
which was half-buried in the soil with the violence of the fall, the
trophies were not borne off until the sun had set. The wounded man had
meanwhile been conveyed to the camp for surgical aid. The edges of the
laceration in his thigh had been by an amateur practitioner neatly
brought together with acacia thorns fastened by threads of wiry grass;
and a handful of silver easily reconciled the patient to a few weeks of
confinement to his bed.
An Armenian, acting in capacity of dragoman to the Embassy, had been the
Esculapius--a man who, without the smallest pretensions, gratuitously
set up also to be a first-rate Nimrod; and the merriment made throughout
this day at his expense had covered him with confusion. When setting
out from Ankober with a borrowed musket, he had rubbed his hands and
feigned the highest spirits at the prospect of resuming his "old sport,"
for he had slain elephants by the dozen in Northern Abyssinia; and their
tails, he contended, "like the tails of all elephants, were not tufted
at the extremity, as I asserted, but covered with long hair, after the
fashion of the horse!" A mouse wandering from an adjacent granary at
Dokaket, and unwisely scampering over his bed, fell a sacrifice to the
well-aimed staff of the hero, who, by virtue of this brilliant exploit,
stuck a white feather in his hair, and whooped the war-song during half
the ensuing march.
Nevertheless, in the course of the first day's unsuccessful hunting, he
had been seen to hide himself in a manner far from creditable to his
nerves; he had been heard to exert his voice in earnest supplications
for assistance at the rumoured approach of the animal for whose life he
had previously affected to thirst; and when at last actually confronted
with the defunct monster, he was fain to confess that he had only once
beheld a live elephant "from the summit of a very high tree, when he
discharged his matchlock as the beast retreated, and the people declared
that it would die."
This curious confession on the part of the impostor, whose statements
had heretofore been credited, led to further disclosures. He had been
addicted to shooting at hyenas by night in the suburbs of Adowa; and
having once been so fortunate as to overturn the object at which he
fired, he flew enraptured to the spot, and was somewhat disagreeably
surprised to find a Christian man weltering in blood, which flowed from
a perforation through the heart. For this untoward murder he was
sentenced to pay two hundred pieces of salt, by Oubie the usurper, who,
however fond of putting his own subjects to death, permitted no one else
to do so with impunity; and being unable to raise the amount of this
fine among his numerous friends, he wisely adopted the alternative of
flight.
In Shoa he set up as a physician, and practised medicine, until so many
patients died under his hands, that the king was compelled to issue an
interdiction. It formed the veteran's boast, that although well
stricken in years, he could still bolt ten pounds of raw beef at one
sitting, whereas, if subjected to a culinary process, three were more
than he could contrive with comfort. Notwithstanding all his
exaggerations, he had witnessed strange sights, which are but too well
corroborated. He had seen the monster Oubie, when his conscience was
stained by fewer foul crimes than it now is, put out the eyes of his
elder brother, who, as the searing-iron hissed over the unflinching
orbs, thanked God that he had so long been spared the use of them; and
he had seen Ras Subagadis, under whom he once held a petty government in
Tigre, executed by the hands of a pagan Galla, who undertook the task
for some bread and a barille of hydromel, after numerous Amhara had
refused to become headsman to so humane a prince.
Every object in visiting Giddem having been fully and satisfactorily
accomplished, we bade adieu to the hospitable old governor, whose
parting request was, that he might be favourably mentioned to his royal
master. This I unhesitatingly promised; and Ayto Elbeshar was deputed
to lead the way to the celebrated thermal springs of Feelamba, situated
within his government, and which I had determined to visit as we
returned to Ankober. Descending by an extremely steep footpath to a
deep dell below the Aito hill, the road wound above a mile along the
sunken channel of the narrow river, through which meandered a rippling
brook of crystal water, varied at intervals by miniature cascades, and
shaded throughout its tortuous course by trees and flowering creepers of
luxuriant beauty. In an angle formed by a sudden bend are the hot
wells, five in number, rising at some distance from each other--the
remnants of old volcanic action, which has long entirely disappeared in
other parts of its theatre, but has left behind it, in this secluded and
highly picturesque spot, a salubrious fountain of life.
Aragawi, the most celebrated of these springs, derives its name from one
of the nine missionaries of the Greek church, who, at the close of the
fifth century, completed the conversion of Abyssinia during the reign of
Alameda. He is styled also Za Michael; and is said to have been
conveyed on the tail of a huge serpent to the summit of the lofty and
then inaccessible rock on Debra Damo, where he founded a convent, of
which he is the tutelar saint, and which is still one of the most
renowned in Ethiopia. It is recorded of Aragawi that he raised the
dead, and caused the blind to see; and among the manifold notable
miracles ascribed to him, the not least remarkable is the conversion to
Christianity of the Devil himself, whom he persuaded to take the
monastic cap for forty years!
Selassie, the Holy Trinity, is another open pool or basin situated close
to Aragawi, and like it rising in bubbles from the sandy bank and bed of
the stream. In both the temperature stood at 118 degrees of Fahrenheit.
Mariam, the blessed Virgin, at 115 degrees, issues from a cave,
provided with a rude door, and partitioned by a bar of wood into two
cells for new and old complaints, and in these patients were in the act
of immersion. Abbo, at 120 degrees, percolates from the centre of a
steep bank of soft red sandstone, covering basaltic wacke, through an
artificial spout inserted for the convenience of drinking the waters.
Numbers of dreadfully diseased wretches, the lame, the halt, and the
blind, who were here assembled, with victims who had suffered under the
Galla knife, formed a horrible spectacle, which called vividly to mind
the scriptural account of the pool of Bethesda.
The superintendence of the numerous patients who thus flock hither to
undergo the discipline of the baths, is limited to the collection of one
piece of salt, value two-pence halfpenny sterling, for the use of the
wells, which are believed to possess the highest sanative virtues in a
great variety of disorders. The waters possess a slight taste and smell
of sulphuretted hydrogen; but they may be drunk hot from the spring
without creating nausea. There is no precipitate whatever; and not five
yards from their source they mingle with a strong current of cold pure
mountain water, to which no perceptible alteration is imparted in
colour, temperature, or taste.
Here we obtained many rare and beautiful birds; amongst others, the
Adagoota, a superb black-crested falcon, which had been first seen in
the wilderness of Giddem. Following the course of the Feelamba to its
junction with the Jow-waha, whereof it forms the principal source, the
main road was gained at no great distance from the ford, and the steep
Gozi range again surmounted to the village of Telim Amba. It is
situated on a height divided by a deep valley from the opposite
residence of the governor of Mahhfood, whose lady presently sent me,
through a slave girl, the expression of her regret, that "the king's
guests" should have chosen to halt at so great a distance; and although
it exceeded four miles, she finally insisted upon supplying us with a
huge pepper pie, and other ready-cooked provisions. "You might eat
these," was the message delivered by the Abigail: "they were prepared
for you, but you have taken another road."
On the banks of the Robi we had again met Ayto Abaiyo, superintending
operations at one of the royal threshing-floors, where all the
inhabitants of the district were assembled; and self-interested motives
induced him very uncivilly to oppose a day's hunting on that river, upon
the score of alleged hostilities with Anbassa Ali. In order to free
himself from any further importunity, he clandestinely instructed our
guide to lead us by the most direct route, and hence arose the offence
which I had committed against the "_Emabiet_."
Volume Two, Chapter XLIII.