Another dreary season of rain, and of mist, and of heavy fog, had now
set in; the lance and the shield of the Christian had been suspended in
the dark windowless hall, and the war-steed ranged loose over the swampy
meadow. During three long months the weather seldom permitted us to
quit our damp miserable habitation at Ankober, but I found ample
occupation in endeavouring to put into some kind of order the notes from
which these three volumes have been prepared. My assistants were also
busily engaged in the various departments which I had allotted to them,
and in spite of the gloomy light afforded by oiled parchment, a highly
valuable collection of maps, drawings, and reports, had been completed
before any change was observable in the weather. Within the memory of
the oldest inhabitant, the floods had never continued longer nor wuth
greater violence. Morning after morning the heavy white clouds still
clung above the saturated metropolis. Every hollow footpath had been
converted into a muddy stream, and each deep valley had become a morass,
impassable to the equestrian; whilst the swollen Hawash had inundated
the lowlands for many miles on either side of its serpentine banks.
Amongst the few events which occurred to disturb the monotony of our
second winter in Shoa, was the annual audience given, towards the close
of July, by the king to the Adaiel and Hurrurhi, residing in the market
town of Alio Amba. Our old acquaintance, Kalama Work, having been
detected in practising extensive peculation, had first undergone
imprisonment in the _madi beit_, under the watchful eye of Wolda Hana,
and was eventually stripped of his property, and turned forth upon the
wide world a beggar. Abd el Yonag, the Hurrur consul, who possessed in
eminent perfection the arts of fawning and flattery, had, during the
_interregnum_, turned to good account his insatiable taste for power and
intrigue. He was formally nominated to the vacant government, and when
we entered the raised balcony occupied by the king, the wily old
slave-dealer, duly girded with the silver badge of office and authority,
occupied the disgraced governor's seat at the footstool of the throne.
Armed with creese, and spear, and shield, the kilted band whirled
howling into the courtyard, performing their savage war-dance. The
precincts of the palace rung to their wild yells; and the vivid
pantomime of throat-cutting and disembowelment was enacted to the life,
in all its pleasing varieties. "_Moot! moot! moot_!" shouted each
prevailing warrior of note, shaking his sun-blanched locks, and
ominously quivering his heavy lance, as he sprang in turn to the front,
for the approval of the Christian monarch. "Is he dead? Is he dead?"
"_Burdhoo! Burdhoo_! you've slain him! you've slain him!" returned the
turbaned pedlar, facetiously clapping his hands on behalf of his royal
patron--"_Burdhoo! Burdhoo_!" and ere the hero of this gratifying
applause had retired, another and another brave had commenced his
vaunting exhibition in front of the sable ranks, or was in the act of
ripping up the foe who in mock conflict had sprung like a tiger across
his adversary's loins, to grasp him as in a vice betwixt the muscles of
his thighs. The court buffoon was meanwhile diligently plying his
occupation, by capering through the ranks with his unsheathed
reaping-hook, and chattering in ludicrous imitation of the Moslem
barbarians--his successful mimicry eliciting shouts of applause,
notwithstanding that the reality, as enacted in the hot valleys below,
had, on more occasions than one, been calculated to leave no very
agreeable recollections in the mind of the Amhara audience.
At the motion of the herald, the assembled warriors now squatted their
meagre, wiry forms before the raised alcove, each resting upon his
spear-staff, and peering over his shield, according to the undeviating
custom of the Bedouin savage. "Are you all well? Are you well? Are
you quite well?" repeated the dragoman who interpreted His Majesty's
salutations.--"How have you passed your time? Are your wives and all
your children happy, and are your houses prosperous? Have your flocks
and your herds multiplied, and are your fields and your pastures covered
with plenty?"--"_Humdu lillah! Humdu lillah_!" "Praise be unto God!"
was the unvarying reply.--"How are you, and how have you been? We are
the friends of Woosen Suggud, your father, who ruled before you, and we
will always deal with you as our fathers dealt with your fathers who are
now dead. We are near neighbours. May Allah keep our people and their
children's children at peace the one with the other!" Cloths were now
presented to the principal men, and oxen having been apportioned to
their retainers, each rose in turn, and patted the extended hand of the
monarch with his own palm; one atrocious old ruffian, who concluded the
ceremony raising himself in his sandals and grasping the fingers of the
king so firmly, that he had nearly succeeded in plucking him from his
elevated throne.
His Majesty, although obviously little pleased at the practical joke,
had sufficient command of temper to take it in good part, but no doubt
inwardly congratulated himself upon the happy termination of the wild
levee. It had been fully illustrative of the tact and diplomatic
sagacity employed in the maintenance of ascendency over the more
intractable portion of his nominal subjects, and in the cultivation of
amicable political relations with the neighbouring states. Wulasma
Mohammad, as chief agent, sat in regal dignity on this important
occasion, and his dragoman, a native of Argobba, was the medium of
communication. The throat of this man exhibited from ear to ear a
conspicuous seam, pointed out by the by-standers as the work of his own
hands. Great, indeed, must have been the desperation which at the
present day could impel such an attempt at self-destruction on the
frontiers of Shoa. One mile beyond, in any direction, would of a surety
supply numbers of volunteers for the task, from amongst those whose
throat-cutting proficiency had so creditably been displayed during the
recent pantomime.
Early in the month of August, the festival of Felsata brought a
repetition of the customary skirmishes between the town's people and the
slave establishment of the king. For the edification of a numerous
concourse of spectators, the miry lane leading to the church of "Our
Lady" was attacked and defended with heavy clubs, shod with rings of
iron; and after a severe conflict, the servile invaders were finally
driven from the field, with blood streaming from numerous broken heads,
which were brought to the Residency to be repaired. During the
fortnight's fast that ensued in celebration of the Assumption, the rough
diversion was frequently repeated, and abstinence from food appeared to
have soured the temper of the entire population. On the succeeding
festival of the Transfiguration, styled "Debra Tabor," the capital was
illuminated. Whilst boys, carrying flambeaux, ran singing through the
streets, every dwelling displayed such a light as its inmates could
afford,--none, however, of the old cotton rags besmeared with impure
bees'-wax shining very luminously through the thick drizzling mist.
One of the principal of the royal storehouses at Channoo, on the
frontier, was at this period struck by lightning, and totally burnt to
the ground. The king as usual was keeping fast at Machal-wans, and
thither, according to custom, every nobleman and governor in the land
flocked to offer condolence. Many were the long faces on the road, for
the greatest consternation pervaded all classes; and the fat Wulasma in
particular, on his way to break the dismal tidings to his despotic
master, having the consequences of the late conflagration at Woti still
fresh in his recollection, was observed to be in a state of extreme
mental perturbation and anxiety.
"Alas!" exclaimed the king, when, in accordance with etiquette, we
contributed our mite of consolation--"Alas! that magazine was built by
my ancestor Emmaha Yasoos. It measured six hundred cubits in length,
and ninety spans in breadth, and it was piled with salt to the very
roof. There is no salt in my country. I feared a rupture with the
Adaiel who bring it from below, and I therefore stored up large
quantities that my people might never want. Now the lightning has taken
all; but who can repine?--for it was the will of God."
Volume 3, Chapter XLI.