During the advance Henty relates that three of the officers of the 4th
Regiment of Foot were witnesses of a horribly barbarous custom practised
among the natives of Abyssinia, a custom which shows the callousness of
the natives to the sufferings of the animals in domestic use. The
practice was recorded by James Bruce as witnessed by him during his
travels in Abyssinia, towards the end of the eighteenth century, in
connection with his attempts to discover the sources of the Nile. Upon
his return, when he described the manners and customs of the people of
Abyssinia, his narratives were received with mingled incredulity and
ridicule, and the practice now in question was treated as an outrageous
traveller's tale. Certainly the problem whether nature would readily
heal the wound described gave some excuse for want of faith in what
approaches the marvellous.
The operation described by Bruce, but which has been denied by all
subsequent travellers, and by the Abyssinians themselves, probably
through some feeling of shame at their own barbarity, was that of
cutting a steak from the body of a living ox. Our officers came upon
the natives just as they were engaged in the act. The unfortunate
bullock was thrown down, and its four legs were tied together. The
operator then cut an incision near the spine, just behind the hip joint.
Next, separating the skin from the flesh, he cut two other incisions at
right angles to the first, this enabling him to lift up a flap of skin
four or five inches square. After this, by cutting with his knife
diagonally, so as to pass the keen instrument partly under the skin, he
cut out a lump of flesh larger in length and width than the flap of
skin. The hole made was then filled with a particular preparation, and
the flap of skin was replaced and plastered over with mud. Finally, the
feet of the poor animal, which had kept up a low moaning while the
operation was going on, were untied, and it was given a kick to make it
get up. It should be mentioned that the operator cut two or three
gashes in the neighbourhood of the wound, apparently as a sign to show
that the animal had been operated upon in that part. The officers
observed that several of the other cattle of the same herd were marked
in a precisely similar manner. It was remarked, too, that during the
operation the poor animal bled very little, and half an hour afterwards
was found walking about and feeding quietly.
Anatomists have denied, Henty continues, the possibility of an animal
being able to walk after such treatment; but here was the indisputable
fact. There is the possibility that the antiseptic nature of the huge
plaster, used to fill up the vacancy from which the piece of flesh had
been cut, was sufficient to make it heal in the pure clear air of
mountain Africa.
Fortunately, from our few losses--unfortunately, from a scientific point
of view--we have no record of how clean-cut wounds in the human being
fared in Abyssinia. On the other hand, the rapid healing of flesh and
muscle on the lofty tablelands of the Transvaal during the Boer War was
almost marvellous.
Everywhere on his way to the front Henty found something fresh to
describe. One day there was to be rocket practice, the operators being
the Naval Brigade, with its frank-looking, free-and-easy Jacks, who were
anxious to be ready to astonish the natives with their singular
missiles. There was not room in the valley where they were in camp, so
the plan was tried of drawing the tubes up one hill and firing across to
the next hill, about two thousand yards away.
There were twelve mules, each with a tube and a supply of ninety
rockets. There were four men to each tube, besides the one who led the
bearer. At the word "Unload!" the tubes, each about three feet in
length, were taken off the mules and arranged in line upon a sort of
stand, with an elevator, which could be adjusted to any required angle.
The order first given was to try ten degrees of elevation, and at the
command "Fire!" a stickless rocket rushed from the tube like a firework,
and buzzed through the air to the opposite hill. Three rockets were
fired at this elevation, and then three from an elevation of five
degrees, all apparently passing to their mark in a way likely to strike
terror into the hearts of the defenders of Magdala.
These men of the Naval Rocket Brigade, who had come up to join the
military, proved to be an admirable body of men, ready to endure fatigue
and hardship with the good temper peculiar to sailors. Contrary to what
might have been expected, seeing how little marching a man-of-war's man
is accustomed to get, they marched better than soldiers, and never fell
out, even on the most fatiguing journeys. Their quaint humour provided
great amusement to the troops, and the way in which they talked to their
mules, which they persisted in treating as ships, was irresistibly
comic.
Henty mentions one sailor who was leading a mule with a messmate walking
behind, when they came to where a body of soldiers was stationed. This
did not seem to concern the sailors, who had been given orders to carry
out, and so they went straight on. "Hallo, Jack!" cried one of the
soldiers good-humouredly. "Where are you coming to?"
"Coming?" said Jack. "I ain't a-coming anywheres. I am only towing the
craft. It's the chap behind who does the steering. Ask him." It was
always the same with the tars. The mule's halter was either the
tow-rope or the painter. They starboarded or ported their helm, tacked
through a crowd, or wore the ship round, in a most amusing way. On one
occasion an officer called out: "Sergeant-major!" There was no answer.
"Sergeant-major!" (louder). Still no reply. A third and still louder
hail produced no response. "Boatswain, I say, where _are_ you?"
"Ay, ay, sir!" was the instant answer from the man who was close by, but
who had quite forgotten that in the service ashore of the Rocket Brigade
he took the new rank of Sergeant-major.
The Jacks made curious friendships during the advance, and a good deal
of comradeship soon existed between them and the Punjabis, although
neither understood a word of the other's language. During a halt the
cheerful sailors would sometimes get up a dance to the music of the band
of the soldiers from the Five Rivers Region. The band played well,
seated in a circle and looking extremely grave, while the sailors would
stand up in couples or octettes and solemnly execute quadrilles,
waltzes, and polkas, to the great astonishment of the natives, who
crowded round looking on in wonder at what to them seemed a profound
mystery.
The Punjab Pioneers seem to have been a splendid regiment, and their
services under their gallant major proved to be most valuable during the
expedition, for their leader divined the spots where water ought to be
found, and it was dug for until a gushing supply of the precious
necessary was forthcoming.