Easter day, instead of being celebrated on the Sunday following the
first full moon after the vernal equinox, is in Abyssinia kept one
lunation later. On its recurrence, we received a special invitation to
the annual public banquet held in the palace; and, whilst ascending the
hill in full uniform, were preceded by the capering leader of the royal
band. "Let me sing--I will sing," he exclaimed, as the attendants would
have restrained his antics--"why should not the father of song dance
before the fathers of gold?" Tents had been erected in the courtyard,
and a separate repast provided for the members of the British Embassy.
Countless crowds, decked out in their gayest apparel, filled every
avenue and enclosure; and long files of slaves, with jars, baskets, and
trenchers, hurrying to and fro from the kitchens and magazines,
proclaimed the extensive nature of the preparations making for the regal
entertainment.
In the morning at eight o'clock, the doors of the great hall were thrown
open, and a burst of wild music from the royal band ushered in the
company to a spacious barn-like apartment, the dingy aspect of which
formed a strong contrast to the galaxy of light that illumines regal
hospitality in Europe. Holding high festival to the entire adult
population of the metropolis, who for six weeks past had subsisted on
cow-kail and stinging-nettles, the king reclined in state within a
raised alcove, furnished with the wonted velvet cushions and tapestries,
and loaded with silver ornaments--the abridgement of ancient Ethiopic
magnificence. Priests, nobles, warriors, baalomaals, and pages, stood
around the throne, which was flanked by a long line of attendants,
bearing straight silver falchions of antique Roman model, belonging to
the different churches. Bull-hides carpeted the floor; and the lofty
walls of the chamber, although destitute of architectural decoration,
were hung throughout with a profusion of richly-emblazoned shields, from
each of which depended a velvet scarf or cloak of every colour in the
rainbow.
A low horse-shoe table of wicker-work, supported upon basket pedestals,
extended the entire length of the hall. Thin unleavened cakes of sour
teff heaped one upon the other served as platters. Mountains of wheaten
bread piled in close contiguity, and crowned with fragments of stewed
fowls, covered the groaning board. Bowls containing a decoction of red
pepper, onions, and grease, were flanked by long-necked decanters of old
mead; and at short intervals stood groups of slaves carrying baskets
crammed with reeking collops of raw flesh just severed from the
newly-slain carcass.
Taking their seats in treble rows upon the ground, the crowded guests
were each provided with his own knife, fashioned like a reaping-hook,
and serving him equally in the battlefield and at the banquet. Four
hundred voracious appetites, whetted by forty days of irksome
abstinence, were constantly ministered to by fresh arrivals of quivering
flesh from the courtyard, where oxen in quick succession were being
thrown down and slaughtered in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost. Barilles and capacious horns filled with hydromel of
intoxicating age were rapidly drained and replenished under the eye of
the monarch; and strings of eunuchs with the females pertaining to the
royal kitchen, clad in gala dresses and striped cotton robes, passed and
repassed continually with interminable supplies of bread to rebuild the
demolished fabric on the uprising of each satiated group.
Again the great doors were thrown open, and another famished set
entered, amid the increasing din. Harpers and fiddlers played, danced,
and sang with untiring perseverance; and ever and anon one of the king's
female choristers lifted up her shrill voice with the most extravagant
panegyric on the hospitality and munificence of her royal master, or
burst forth into unqualified eulogy on the liberality of his British
guests.
"In stature like the lance he bears,
His godlike mien the prince declares;
And fam'd for virtue through the land,
All bow to Saloo's just command.
"The sabre feels the royal grasp.
And Pagans writhe in death's cold clasp;
The Galla taste the captive fare.
And dread the vengeance which they dare."
"Our warriors tremble at the sight of the mighty elephant, but he
sinks prostrate beneath the guns of the white men--Weiho, weiho,
"They are a brave nation.
"We have been loaded with strange gifts, for the white men hold in
their hands the keys of health and wealth--Weiho,
"They are a great nation.
"Then hail to the friends who came o'er the wide water,
Strangers and guests from a far distant land;
And welcome to Shoa, the fortune which brought her
The lords of the daring and generous hand."
The royal band, which occupied the vacant space between the tables, is
composed of many wind instruments of various lengths and sizes--the
_embilta_ having a perforation to which the lips are applied as in the
flute, whilst the _malakat_ is fashioned after the form of a trombone.
No performer possesses above one pipe, nor, like the Russian, is he
master of more than one note. Tune there is none--each playing
according to the dictates of his own taste, unguided by any musical
scale. After the hoarse and terrible blast of the trumps, the symphony
falls soft upon the ear; and it was on this occasion curiously
contrasted with the deep thunder of the _kubbero_, which pealed without
intermission from the secret apartments of the queen.
The harp, styled _bugana_, is a truly strange fabrication of wood,
leather, and sheep's entrails. It presents the appearance of an old
portmanteau which has been built upon by children with the rudest
materials, in imitation of the lyre of the days of Jubal. Possessing
five strings, and used only as an accompaniment to the voice, the
monotonous notes produced are in strict unison with the appearance of
the instrument; and even in the halls of Menilek, where the chords are
struck by a master finger, they shed "no soul of music," and might be
mute with advantage.
What then is to be said of the Abyssinian fiddle, whose squeaking voice
presided at this festive board? Alas! the inharmonious sounds elicited
by the grating contact of the bow might lead to the conclusion that the
unhappy spirit of music was confined in the interior, and uttered harsh
screams and moans as fresh tortures were inflicted upon her agonised
sinews! A gourd, or a hollow square of wood, is covered with a skin of
parchment as a sounding-board, and furnished with a rude neck and a
single string. Years of practice have imparted to Daghie, the court
buffoon, an extraordinary degree of excellence; but even he is not
Paganini; and every amateur performer in the realm considering himself
at perfect liberty to scrape throughout the day with soul-harrowing
perseverance, unlucky, indeed, must be pronounced the site of that
residence which is adjacent to the proprietor of a _masanko_.
As Easter day drew on to its close, the riotous mirth of uncontrolled
festivity waxed louder and louder within the palace walls, whilst
quarrels and drunken brawls prevailed throughout the city. The carousal
continued until dark, by which time the bones of three hundred and fifty
steers had been picked--countless measures of wheat had been consumed--
and so many hogsheads of potent old hydromel had been drained to the
dregs, that, saving the royal and munificent host, scarcely one sober
individual, whether noble or plebeian, was any where to be seen.
Volume 3, Chapter XXXIV.