ALONG THE AFRICAN COAST
The two chief ports on the African coast of the Red Sea are Port Sudan
and Suakim. They were nothing until the completion of the Red Sea road.
The original plan was to use Suakim as the terminus of the Sudan railway.
The English surveyors, however, finding a much better harbour at Port
Sudan, extended the railroad to that point. The town which was a mere
village a few years ago has now several thousand people, and grows like
one of the mushroom settlements of the Canadian west.
Going on southward we passed the Italian possessions on the west coast
of the Red Sea, where they have a colony known as Eritrea. This colony
begins about one hundred and fifty miles south of Suakim and runs down
almost to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. It is not wide, extending back
from the coast only to where the Abyssinian hills begin. The Italians
tried to add to Eritrea a large part of Abyssinia but failed, owing to
the resistance of King Menelik. The land they have now is of small value.
There are only a few tracts that can be irrigated, and the exports are
unimportant. The strip is inhabited by nomads, who raise camels, oxen,
sheep, and goats. As the pasturage is scanty, the shepherds have to move
about from place to place with their stock. Some of the tribes live in
tents. Their wants are simple to an extreme.
The chief Italian port is Massawa, a little town situated on a coral
island joined to the mainland by a causeway. Its two short railways,
which connect it with the Abyssinian hills, comprise about forty-eight
miles of track. One road is to be continued to the town of Asmara, near
which some gold mines have been opened.
The Italians have built a telegraph line from their port to Addis Abbaba,
the capital of Abyssinia, and they are trying to increase their trade
with that country. They are shipping considerable salt, which, strange
to say, is so relished by the Abyssinians that it brings more than sugar
and takes much the same place among them as candy and tobacco with us.
The average Abyssinian carries a stick of rock salt with him and takes a
suck of it between whiles. If he meets a friend, he asks him to have a
taste of his salt stick and his friend brings out his individual stick
and they take lick about. It is just as it was with snuff in the days of
our forefathers, when everyone offered his friends a pinch of his choice
macaboy.
Besides Eritrea Italy owns another and larger strip of East Africa. This
is Italian Somaliland, which begins at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden and
runs down to the border of the British coast possessions. We shall pass
it on our way to Mombasa. Italian Somaliland, though about three times
as large as Ohio, has a population only two thirds that of the city of
Cleveland, and is of little value. The people, who are largely nomadic,
are engaged in cattle raising and agriculture.
If you will look on the map, you will see that the Gulf of Aden seems to
rest on a shelf-like projection jutting out from the African continent.
This projection reaches into the Indian Ocean for a distance of seven
hundred and eighty miles, and is sometimes called the “Great Horn of
Africa.” It ends in Cape Guardafui, of which we shall have a good view
from our steamer as it leaves the gulf and starts south.
The cape is a mighty bluff rising almost straight up from the blue waters
of the Indian Ocean. Its sides are of black rock, ragged and rugged, and
its top is covered with sand. There is sand at its foot and lodged in
the crevices, making yellow streaks against the black background. Beyond
the cape extend sandy hills which swell over one another until they are
lost in the distance. The country all about is desert. Neither trees,
bushes, habitations, nor animals are to be seen. The clouds hang low
over the cape, and out at sea the air is as moist as that of Virginia in
April. Seen from the ocean, the bluff assumes the outlines of a sleeping
lion with its tail in the sand. Still farther out it looks like a
fortification towering over the sea. One hundred and thirty miles to the
eastward, on the direct route to India, is Sokotra Island, owned by the
British.
We went on southward, passing British Somaliland, a country a little
larger than the State of Missouri, with a population of several thousand
Mohammedan nomads who roam about from pasture to pasture with their
cattle and camels. The colony came into the hands of the British after
the war with the Mahdi, having belonged before that to Egypt. It was
first administered by the government of India, but it is now managed
directly from London.
[Illustration: Fifty years ago Suez, where canal and Red Sea meet and
“East of Suez” begins, was a miserable Arab village. Now it is a city
where several thousand Europeans share the general dreariness of this hot
and desolate spot.]
[Illustration: When two ships meet, one usually stops close to the bank
and lets the other pass. In places the sides are lined with stones to
prevent slides, and dredges are at work all the time keeping the channel
clear.]
Back of the European colonies that fringe the coast lies Abyssinia,
one of the most interesting countries of the Black Continent. With the
exception of Liberia, it is the only one that is independent of Europe.
Recognized by the Powers as a self-governing state, it has been able to
preserve its native monarchy. Everyone in America has heard of the famous
King Menelik II, founder of the present government, and the name is still
one to conjure with in that country. It is said that an Abyssinian can
stop another from whatever he happens to be doing by calling out to him:
“Ba Menelik,” or “In the name of Menelik.” There are penalties for using
this formula frivolously, and the one so doing may be called upon to
justify his action before a judge.
The empire of Abyssinia consists of a mighty plateau ten times as large
as the State of Ohio, from which rise many high mountains. The country
might be called the roof of the continent, and has so much beautiful
scenery that it has been dubbed the African Switzerland. The plateau
consists of great tablelands rising one above the other and cut up by
great gorges and mighty canyons somewhat like those of the Rockies. In
the centre of the plateau is Lake Tsana, and down its sides flow great
rivers, some of which are lost in the sands while others, such as the
Atbara and the Blue Nile, give food and water to Egypt. The Blue Nile has
its source in Lake Tsana.
Abyssinia has some of the best soil of Africa. It is, in fact, a fertile
island in the midst of a sea of deserts and swamps. It will grow almost
anything, including sugar and cotton in the lowlands, coffee higher up,
and still higher the hardy grains of the temperate zone.
This country is said to be the first home of the coffee plant. It has
a province called Kaffa, whence the first coffee beans were carried to
Arabia. The word “coffee” comes from the name of that province. In Kaffa,
coffee trees grow so large that they are used for timber. In some places
they grow wild. In others the coffee is cultivated.
At present Abyssinia is almost unexplored, but its opening and
development are assured, and it may become one of the tourist and hunting
resorts of the future. The land is especially interesting to us in that
most of the Abyssinians are Christians, their religion being about the
same as that of the Copts of Egypt.