At Kondie, in the church dedicated to the patron saint of England, lie
interred the remains of Woosen Suggud, and thither, according to wont,
the despot proceeded on Saint George's day. The sepulchre of the
departed monarch is screened from gaze amid a sombre grove of evergreen
juniper, assuming the shapes, some of the cedar, others of the cypress
and the yew:--
"Dark trees still sad when others' grief is fled,
The only constant mourners o'er the dead."
Kings alone are honoured with a coffin. Manufactured of sweet wood, and
perforated with many apertures, it is placed on stone trestles amid
clouds of frankincense, and after a season removed into the mausoleum;
the walls of which are usually bedaubed with clumsy designs, intended to
commemorate the exploits in the hunting field, the military actions, and
the heroic achievements of the royal occupant. His Majesty's orisons at
the shrine of his father being concluded, he turned his steps to the
palace, now fast falling to decay, which formed the scene of the
assassination of the despotic tyrant. Surrounded by the former capital
of Shoa, it occupies the bleak summit of one of the loftiest mountains
in the range, and commands a magnificent prospect over the greater
portion of Efat. Mamrat, now diminished from thirteen to one thousand
feet, no longer loomed a giant. Through the clouds which flitted across
its stern bosom lay revealed the only path by which the royal treasures
are accessible; and the white peak of Woti, rising from dense masses of
timber, and terminating in a basaltic column, now formed the most
conspicuous feature in the rugged landscape.
"You observe those woods," inquired His Majesty, pointing after a long
silence to the gloomy forests which stretched away towards the long
white storehouses of Aramba: "they conceal a cavern into which no
creature can enter and five. The man who should venture one step beyond
the entrance would be seen no more. If a dog goes in, or a bird, or
even a serpent, it will surely die. There is no bottom to that cave,
and none can say whither it leads. Formerly people went to cut wood in
the neighbourhood. A man lost his way, and was unheard of for months.
His friends believed him dead. They mourned for him, and scratched
their temples, and he was forgotten. Suddenly he re-appeared, reduced
to a skeleton, and looking like a ghost. They brought him to me to know
what should be done with him. He had lived like the _gureza_ upon wild
berries, and when I asked him what he had seen, he replied that he had
seen the devil. Woti is a bad place, and the forests take fire, and all
my subjects fear to go thither."
A catastrophe of this nature had recently taken place; and a quantity of
fuel stored for the royal kitchen having been destroyed, it was the
king's present object to ascertain the extent of damage sustained. Ayto
Wolda Hana exerted his cracked voice in loud complaints of others, and
so that himself escaped the much-dreaded censure, the old man evidently
cared not much who suffered. Herein he was so far successful, that the
sub-governor of the district was fined in the amount of one hundred
dollars, about ten times the value of property destroyed, and every male
inhabitant of the neighbourhood received sentence of imprisonment.
The cold summit of Kondie is clothed with heather and with the _jibera_,
a lofty species of _lobelia_, which attains the height of fifteen or
twenty feet. As it is believed to exert a prejudicial effect upon the
passer by, and often to cause death, the royal cortege waged active war
against every plant by the way-side--His Majesty in person sustaining a
part in hostilities designed to counteract the evil influence. Bands of
warriors charging on horseback, delivered their spears simultaneously,
and the doomed tree, if not cut over, was at least transfixed by a score
of shafts. Excelling in skill, the monarch betted heavily upon every
throw, and rarely did he lose. At forty yards the lance left his hand
with unerring precision, and perforating the soft pulpy stem immediately
below the bushy head, often passed quite through, to fall on the other
side.
"Where did the commander learn to throw a spear?" he suddenly exclaimed
in merry mood, elevating his voice, and looking round towards the spot
on which I was taking share in the proceedings. "Now, _Gaita_," he
continued, as I approached, "I will give you a mule if you hit that
tree, and if you do not, by the death of Woosen Suggud you shall forfeit
your best rifle." Frequent practice having rendered me tolerably
expert, my first lance fortunately passed through the stem, and the
second threw its crown upon the ground. His Majesty was obviously
satisfied; but whilst the mule completely escaped his treacherous
recollection, my "best rifle," alas! had been already doomed to change
hands. It remained but a brief period in those of the lawful
proprietor, and Ayto Habti, the master armourer, was to be seen the very
next morning engraving on the barrel with punch and hammer certain
ominous Amharic characters, signifying, "Sahela Selassie, who is the
Negoos of Shoa, Efat, and the Galla."
Hunting down the partridge with dogs occupied the residue of the day.
Parties stationed themselves at intervals along the heather-grown slopes
of the hills, where the bird abounds, and by dint of unceasing
persecution kept the victim selected so perpetually on the wing, that
after three or four long flights it was unable to rise again. Many were
thus killed with sticks, or taken alive; but wherever His Majesty was
forthcoming, he rested a long double-barrelled fowling piece over the
shoulder of an attendant to insure steady aim--and the wearied quarry,
believing itself safe in a bush, was suddenly blown to atoms.
Northern Abyssinia was now in a more disturbed state than ever; and
numerous youths who had attempted to proceed to Gondar for the purpose
of being ordained, had been compelled to abandon the journey, and return
to Ankober. They brought tidings of an engagement between Ras Ali and
Dedjasmach Oubie [see Note 1], which had been fought at Salem Okko, in
the vicinity of Debra Tabor. The Ras being personally opposed to his
rebel vassal, was believed to have fallen early in the day. His
rumoured death proving the signal for disorder and retreat, the camp was
left in possession of the enemy, who consigned it to the flames, under
the conviction that victory was theirs. But the leader had merely fled;
and as the evening closed, his partisans, recovering from their panic,
rallied, and fell with irresistible fury on the victors, who were little
prepared for further hostilities, and the execrated tyrant Oubie, who
carries with him the curses of his oppressed subjects, was, with his two
sons, made prisoner.
Abba Salama, the Abuna, who is equally respected by all parties, was in
the camp of the vanquished, but the holy man found an honourable asylum.
The spiritual despotism exercised by the primate from the first moment
of his arrival in Abyssinia calls vividly to mind the period when the
mandates of the pope were as implicitly obeyed, and his ghostly
influence similarly dreaded, by the potentates of Europe; and
independently of his spiritual power, which exalts him greatly above the
most potent of the rulers of the land, his holiness is far from being
contemptible as a temporal prince. The hundred and eighth successor to
Saint Mark the Evangelist, reclining in his humble divan within the
Coptic quarters at Grand-Cairo, surrounded by the dignity of coffee and
pipes, would ill recognise his juvenile delegate at Gondar, where both
these luxuries are held in abomination, could he behold him in the
enjoyment of revenues many times in excess of his own--ordaining a
thousand priests in a single day--and receiving the homage of all the
proud actors engaged in the troubled drama of Abyssinian politics.
War had not visited Shoa; but the peace of many a family was yet
destined to be disturbed by an arbitrary proceeding on the part of the
crown. As the period of the king's departure from the capital drew
nigh, many of the royal slaves who had voluntarily sold their liberty
during the great famine of Saint Luke, [each year is in Abyssinia
dedicated to one of the four Evangelists, according to the order of the
Gospels,] casting themselves at the footstool of the throne, implored
the restoration of their freedom in consideration of many long years of
servitude. Enraged at what he termed the ingratitude of those whom he
had fed when they must otherwise have starved, His Majesty, labouring
under a strange infatuation, bade them "begone," and, in utter defiance
of all the existing laws of the realm, that day promulgated an edict
through the royal herald, that from thenceforth the progeny of all his
numerous slaves, whether the offspring of free fathers or of free
mothers, should be accounted his sole property, and forthwith render
themselves to be enrolled by his drivers, in order to have their daily
task allotted.
The capital was in a state of wild confusion and consternation. Weeping
and wailing resounded in every hut, and no Abyssinian possessed
sufficient courage to oppose the dictates of the angry despot. The
presence of the British Embassy now proved of that salutary and
commanding influence which humanity and civilisation must ever exert
over barbarity and savage ignorance. Deeming the opportunity
imperative, and considering the chance of success to be well worth the
risk of a misunderstanding with the court, I earnestly entreated His
Majesty to reflect, "that the name of Sahela Selassie, hitherto so
beloved of all, would lose a portion of its lustre and brightness. That
all men are mortal. That kings do not reign for ever; and that the
groans of his unhappy subjects, the props of his power and kingdom, who
had heretofore lived in the enjoyment of the liberty to which they were
born, but were now pining heart-broken in the thraldom of slavery, would
add little to the comfort of the close of his illustrious life."
My petition was accompanied by the enquiry, "how I should be able to
represent his proceedings to the Government by which I had been sent?"
and it was attended with the most satisfactory results. The king, who
had still the fear of God before his eyes, avowed, "that the act had
proceeded in a hurried moment of wrath, and that his European children
had made him thoroughly sensible of its injustice and cruelty." The
offensive proclamation was on the instant annulled; and four thousand
seven hundred unfortunate victims to its promulgation, released from the
house of bondage, and from the degrading shackles of slavery, after they
had renounced all hope of redemption, returned to their homes and to
their families, blessing as they went the name of "the white men."
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Note 1. Dedjasmach, often contracted to Dedjach, signifies "the warrior
of the door," and is the title of governors under the puppet emperor of
Ethiopia. As in the Ottoman empire the Pacha is distinguished by the
number of his tails, so is the Dedjasmach by the number of his
kettle-drums. He is entitled to one for each province under his
control, and loses no opportunity of finding his account in the troubled
waters by asserting independence.
Volume 3, Chapter XXXV.