Residence in Aliu Amba.--Settlement with the Hy Soumaulee.--
Proceed to Ankobar.--Obtain the requisite sum.--Relapse of
intermittent fever.--Occupation.--Geographical information.--
Course of the Gibbee.--Character of table land of Abyssinia.
_June 18th._--I had now been three days in Aliu Amba, and had begun
to be familiar with the circumstances around me, when the presence of
several of my Hy Soumaulee friends recalled the promise I had made to
them, and rendered it again necessary to undertake the toilsome ascent
to Ankobar. My Dongola acquaintance, Hadjji Abdullah, lent me his mule,
and off I started, leaving the Hy Soumaulee, who accompanied me across
the market-place, to amuse themselves how they could during my absence.
Walderheros walked by my side, and by nine o’clock we arrived at the
Residency where a little flag, displayed, telegraphed the presence of
the Ambassador, Captain Harris, who had come into town the night before
from Angolahlah. I was compelled to solicit, as a personal favour, that
which was denied as an act of justice; on the strong representation
that “these thirty dollars would be the price of my blood,” our
singularly constituted Ambassador reluctantly consented to advance
me that sum from the treasury. Let it be observed, that not one word
of approbation was bestowed upon the endeavours I had made to obtain
the restoration of the boxes, &c., left by Messrs. Bernatz and Scott
at Hiero Murroo; and when I alluded to that circumstance, the reply I
received was, “that any other party coming up would have brought them
on.” The irritation and excitement consequent upon this interview aided
the predisposition to a relapse, and to that I principally attribute
the long illness which, from this date, afflicted me for many months.
My request, however, in the end being acceded to, after breakfast I
prepared to return immediately to Aliu Amba. Mr. Assistant-Surgeon Kirk
brought me a polite invitation from Captain Harris to remain at least
for the day. Being the anniversary of Waterloo, some _appropriate_
entertainment was proposed, but as I received the message in no very
friendly spirit it was not repeated.
Of the thirty Hy Soumaulee engaged at Herhowlee, only seventeen came to
receive their additional dollars, the remainder having left Channo with
a Kafilah that started before my first return to Aliu Amba. The Ras had
engaged them to accompany him across the disturbed country between the
Hawash and Hiero Murroo, and after this party had received the dollar
and tobe from Ohmed Mahomed, believing they should obtain no more, they
had taken the opportunity of returning home. The remainder came in
parties for the two or three succeeding days, and went away satisfied
with me, but with some feeling of resentment against my worthy Ras ul
Kafilah, Ohmed Mahomed.
The first decided recurrence of a fit of the intermittent fever, the
paroxysms returning every other day, from which I had suffered so
much in Bombay and Aden, came on during the afternoon of the day I
returned from Ankobar. My illness, however, did not completely lay
me up; for although on the day when the ague fits occurred it was
with the greatest difficulty I could leave my bed, still, during
the intermediate ones I could always occupy myself in obtaining
information, either in the Amharic language, or respecting the
interesting circumstances of novel character which surrounded me.
Many instructive conversations have I had with the numerous retired
slave merchants who reside in Aliu Amba. The knowledge these men
possessed of the country to the south of Shoa, the kingdoms of
Gurague, of Enarea, of Zingero and of Limmoo, with others still more
remote, was extensive and valuable, and was the result of actual
visits to these places for the purpose of procuring slaves. Successful
slave merchants have this character in common with horse dealers,
that they are generally intelligent and shrewd men, and when they
have no object to serve by concealing the truth, they may be relied
upon to a considerable extent; for none know better the value of a
straightforward tale to secure confidence and good opinion. Profound
judges of human nature from their habits and occupation, no one
speaks truth like a clever cheating slave-dealer when it will suit
his purpose. One of them in particular, however, I chose to be my
geographical instructor,--an old man named Ibrahim, a native of
the city of Hurrah, who possessed every mental requisite to have
been recognised as a first rate traveller, had he only possessed
opportunities to record the observations he had made upon men and
countries that he had visited.[5]
Ibrahim had evidently amused himself during his journeys into slave
districts by examining the characters of the very different people
with whom he came in contact, and the striking contrasts he observed
had led his attentive mind to the consideration of the probable causes
for the anomalies he witnessed of the black Shankalli, the red Amhara,
and the yellow Gonga, all inhabiting a plateau of limited extent. In
the course of his long life having traversed in different directions
the whole of the table land from Enarea to Gondah, he had been enabled
by comparison and re-observation to check and correct himself upon
many points which would otherwise have been very obscure. It was not
unusual for him to repeat to me instances of such errors that he had at
first fallen into, but which he was subsequently enabled to correct by
other opportunities of observation. His ideas upon ethnology were also
exceedingly interesting and curious, and I am convinced myself that
many conclusions he had arrived at on this subject are correct, for by
comparing my book-acquired information with the remarkable knowledge he
had collected from facts, I could confirm many of the singular truths
that seemed to have enlightened his mind, and which contributed greatly
to my own progress in that science.
My aged instructor would frequently draw upon the earth floor of my
residence a rude diagram of the elevated plateau of Abyssinia, which
was supposed for our purposes to extend to the parallel of Massoah in
the north, and to that of Zanzibar in the south. East and west its
extent was represented to be about half this distance. In a large
depression in the eastern border, the sources of the river Hawash
were represented to be, and opposite, upon the west, was a similar
indentation, where the waters of the various rivers that drain this
table land fall from above to join the Nile below. Abyssinia, in
fact, stands prominently upon the low land around it, like an island
in a dried-up sea, and it is this which has given occasion for the
Abyssinians to compare their country with the orange red flower of the
Soof, (_Carthamus tinctorius_,)[6] the compound corolla surrounded
by sharp thorns, which are supposed aptly enough to represent the
barbarous Galla tribes that beset Abyssinia on every side.
In this delineation of Abyssinia by Ibrahim I first observed the
discrepancy between the present received opinions of our geographers,
that that country is connected on the south with a supposed extensive
table land in the interior of Africa, and that which is entertained
by the natives themselves, of the well defined and distinctly marked
isolated plateau they inhabit.
Upon the represented surface of Abyssinia two principal streams were
now delineated, one called the Abiah, flowing from the east and the
south; and the other from the north, the Abi, or Bruce’s Nile, which
falls into the Abiah immediately after leaving the table land in the
vicinity of Fazuglo. From the rivers Abi and Abiah is derived the name
Abisha, the original of our word Abyssinia, signifying the country
of the Abi; “cha” or “sha,” country, being a frequent compound of
the names of large localities, as Dembeacha, the country of Dembea;
Angotcha, the country of Angot; Damotcha, and many others.
We now came to the more interesting examination of the sources and
course of the river Gibbee, the great geographical problem connected
with this country as yet undecided by any competent authority. There
is no doubt, however, that the Gibbee of the present day is the Zibbee
of the Portuguese travellers of the seventeenth century, and the
Kibbee of Bruce. Recent visitors to these countries, Krapf, Beke, and
Harris, all bear testimony to the correctness of the account given
by their predecessors, that this river runs to the south and empties
itself into the Indian Ocean. I have ventured to differ altogether
from these travellers; and, as will be perceived in my diagram map at
the commencement of this volume, I direct the stream of the Zibbee or
Gibbee to the north and west, contributing to form the much larger
river Abiah, which is the main branch of Assa-abi, or red river, most
erroneously written in all European maps Bahr ul Assareek, or the Blue
Nile. It is impossible to say with whom this error originated, but
probably with some speculative geographer; for by distorting the words
“assa arogue” in Amharic, the old red river, a word, similar in sound
to a Turkish one, signifying blue, has been manufactured; and Assareek,
or Blue Nile, is now the generally received name of the time-honoured
Assa-abinus, the Jupiter of the ancient Ethiopians, and the original,
I believe, of the Egyptian god Serapis. The true blue river is, in
fact, the Nile itself, “nil” being the name of indigo at the present
day all along the valley of that river; and in the same language, let
it be borne in mind, as every other important designation of this
interesting part of the world, the word “nil” is still the word for
blue, and with such a signification we find it in many names of places
both in India and Persia, of which a familiar example is the celebrated
Sanatarium station, near Madras, of Neilgherry, from _Nila gira_, the
blue hills. The sacred colour, also, that which distinguished the
priests of ancient Egypt, was blue, and no doubt bore some reference
to the name of the river, which was originally the object of their
worship, for in the names of two of its principal branches, Apis
and Serapis, we have the elements of the words Abi and Assaabi, the
terminal sigma being the usual Grecian affix to foreign names.
In this manner I bring in the authority of Herodotus, and of the
Egyptian priest who informed him of the origin of the Nile, in support
of my views respecting the rivers of Abyssinia.[7] It is generally
admitted that the Bahr ul Abiad was scarcely known to the ancients;
at all events it held but a very inferior rank in any account of
the rivers of Africa that has been transmitted to our times. I am,
therefore, led to believe that the scribe of the sacred treasury of
Minerva, who willingly informed Herodotus of what he knew respecting
the sources of the Nile, alluded to the two streams of the table land
of Abyssinia, the Abi flowing from the north, and the Abiah flowing
from the south; which rivers uniting formed the Assa-abi of ancient
days, the Assa-arogue of modern times, and which most certainly was the
object of religious worship among the ancient Ethiopians.
I would not dare to advance an opinion so directly opposed to the
apparently well-considered conclusions arrived at by previous
travellers, but that I am convinced that those which they now advocate
have been the result of biassed consultations in the closet, where
ingenious, but not travelled, geographers have successfully combated
the actual results of information derived upon the spot. Krapf, Beke,
and Harris, all sent home maps and information, in which the river
Gibbee is made to join the Nile, and each have successively given
way to subsequent influences. The fact of the Assa-abi, or Assareek,
flooding in May, according to the observation of Mr. Inglish, who
accompanied the expedition of Mahomed Allee to Sennaar, could not
be accounted for by Abyssinian travellers without, in fact, leading
the Gibbee, or some other large river, to join the Abi, or Bruce’s
Nile, for this latter does not commence to swell before the latter
end of June, and could not therefore contribute to the rise of the
waters of the Assa-abi in May. This was another reason that should
have influenced these travellers to adhere to their Abyssinian
information, for no argument that could be brought to bear against
it could stand for a moment. But, it has been observed, there is the
positive testimony of the Father Antonio Fernandez, who, in 1615,
passed over the Kibbee twice in his journey to Enarea and Zingero. To
this I answer, that the historiographer of “The Travels of Jesuits
in Abyssinia,” F. Balthazer Tellez, so represents it, but not, I
think, upon the authority of Fernandez, but merely as an opinion
of his own; but asserted with so much positiveness, that it might
readily be supposed part of the information which he derived from
Fernandez. Compare what Tellez says in his summary of the rivers of
Ethiopia--“There is another celebrated river called Zebee, _said to be
greater than the Nile itself_, rising in a territory called Bora, in
the kingdom of Narea, which is the most southerly, and whereof we shall
speak hereafter. It begins its course westward, a few leagues farther
turns to the northward, and runs about the kingdom of Zingero, of which
we shall also give an account, making it a sort of peninsula, as the
Nile does the kingdom of Gojam. After leaving this kingdom, it takes
its course to the southward; and some say, it is the same that falls
into the sea at Mombaza.” Tellez alludes to the course of the Zebee
again, when recounting the visit of Fernandez to the Court of Zingero;
but merely observes, that it encompasses the kingdom of Zingero, making
it a sort of peninsula, and then runs to empty itself towards the coast
of Melinda; thus embodying, as it were, in an account of the southern
parts of Abyssinia, professed to be given by Fernandez, that view of
the course of the river he had previously advocated and represented in
the small map placed at the commencement of his volume.
Tellez, whilst he is minute enough upon the manners and customs of the
people of Abyssinia, and dilates upon the history of the labours of
his order in that country, contrives to mystify us considerably in the
geography and politics. I cannot help thinking he was directed by some
Government to write as he did for a particular purpose, or was jealous
of other nations reaping the benefits of the ill-judged policy of the
Jesuits, which had terminated in their exclusion from the country;
and, which, he was fully conscious, was a very available and a wide
field for religious zeal or commercial enterprise to reap rich rewards
for the trouble of exploring.
It is a matter of the greatest notoriety, that even in the present
enlightened times, it does not follow, because the emissaries of any
Government visit and observe unknown countries, that they give correct
geographical or political information for the benefit of other nations.
Least of any, can such disingenuousness be expected from the Portuguese
Court of the seventeenth century; and I cannot therefore, but believe,
confirmed as the opinion is by the internal evidence of the book
itself, that the imperfect, incorrect, and distorted account of the
travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, was written for the political
purpose of misleading the enterprising spirits of other nations. Most
effectually did it accomplish this object, and for two more centuries
was this important country consigned to that obscurity, in which,
for so many ages previous to its re-discovery by the Portuguese, its
history had been involved. This, however, was not the only injury done
to the progress of human civilization; for whilst the natives were thus
allowed to fall still lower in barbarism, the Jesuitical statements
interfered with European enlightenment; and geographers and men of
letters have been misled in many particulars respecting the character
of the country, and of the disposition of the various people who
inhabit Abyssinia. I can ill afford the space, but to illustrate the
manner in which Tellez endeavours to mislead, as regards geographical
matters, I will here introduce a most glaring instance, which, I trust,
may be received as my apology and excuse for presuming, as I have done,
to question the integrity of the great authority of recent Abyssinian
travellers; for, without Tellez, they have no authenticated evidence to
oppose against that, which I can bring forward to prove that the Gibbee
flows, not to the south, and to the Indian ocean, but to the north,
and into the Nile. Even Bruce, much as I respect him, as the prince of
travellers, evidently follows Tellez in his account of the Gibbee; and
it is curious to remark, that not only as regards this river, but upon
other subjects where he has exaggerated so much as to be supposed to
be drawing upon his imagination, he is actually using almost the very
words of the Jesuit historian.
Speaking of the Embassy dispatched to Portugal in the year 1613, by the
Emperor Segued, which consisted of some natives of rank, accompanied
by the father Antonio Fernandez, and ten other Portuguese, Tellez
informs us, “These men were directed to take a route through Narea
to Melinda, upon the coast, the Emperor believing (and he, it may be
supposed, would be very likely to have the best information) that the
road was shorter and easier than the one to Massoah.” This opinion we
find still farther confirmed when the Embassy arrived at Narea, for
there the Bonero, or Governor, determined the party should not proceed
“by the way they designed, which was the best, lest the Portuguese
should become acquainted with it.” These native authorities, however,
are deemed of no value by Tellez, who thus decides the matter at once,
“Now, to deal plainly, the way the father (Fernandez) proposed through
Cafah was no better than this (the road back again to the north and
east); because, proceeding south from Narea, there is no coming to the
sea without travelling many hundred leagues to the Cape of Good Hope,
as may appear by all modern maps, so that the whole project had nothing
of likelihood.”
Father Antonio Fernandez himself does not appear, in Tellez, to have
kept any regular account of the journey; and yet there is internal
evidence in what is given to the reader in the “Travels of the
Jesuits,” that in reality the greatest attention was paid to every
subject of interest; and as we must conceive that the first object
of the Government, who supported and encouraged the Jesuits in
Abyssinia, was to obtain correct geographical knowledge of that part
of Africa, I cannot but believe that this was particularly attended to
by their agents; but that when afterwards the travels were published
to satisfy public curiosity, it was found convenient to suppress the
most important information. This reason is sufficient also to account
for the mysterious disappearance of the greater part of the documents
which assisted Tellez in drawing up his compilation, a suspicious
circumstance of itself, that the object of this book was anything
but to give a correct description of the physical character and
capabilities of the country of Abyssinia.
I have dwelt too long, perhaps, upon an unimportant subject, but it
is necessary, because modern geographers invariably advance Tellez
as an unquestionable authority upon the subject of the water-shed of
the Gibbee; and with his assistance they have already obliged more
than one Abyssinian traveller to throw aside information received in
the country, and instead of adhering to opinions advocated whilst
there, to repudiate the whole, and follow in supporting errors they
thus confessed themselves unable to refute. This is not the only
evil of their inconsistency, for their present opinions are so many
important authorities which have an equal claim to the attention of the
scientific world as my own, and render it impossible for my testimony,
even were it demonstrated to be correct, to be received against the
conjoined evidence of two or three others who have visited Abyssinia
as well as myself. This I admit to be fair, but not so the attempts
which have been made to convince me of my geographical errors, not by
argument, but by threats of all kinds of critical pains and penalties,
for my presumption in advancing views so contrary to generally received
accounts. Be it so, I feel quite assured there is some portion of the
reviewing press, who will scorn to be made the instruments of unfair
attacks upon any one, contending only for what he believes to be true,
and for no other motive, but the instruction of himself and others.
Around his rude outline of Abyssinia, my native informant Ibrahim
placed representatives of the Shankalli, who surrounded that country,
except upon its eastern side, where another black race, the Dankalli,
testify by their skins, to a similar low elevation of the country
they inhabit. Ibrahim thus undesignedly proved the correctness of
his information, for it struck me, that no physical feature is so
conclusive as to the character of a country, whether high or low
land, than the complexion of its inhabitants. An exception, however,
to thus entirely surrounding the high land of Abyssinia with the two
nations of blacks was made to the north and south of the country of
Adal, where two oppositely situated water-sheds are drained by the
two rivers, the Tacazza and the Whabbee, the former flowing into the
Nile, the latter into the Indian Ocean at Jubah. The character of both
the countries through which these rivers flow are, in one respect,
similar; their elevation being intermediate between the low plains of
Adal, and the table land of Abyssinia, or about six thousand feet high
above the level of the sea. The inhabitants of either water-shed also
resemble each other in their colour, being a dark brown, modified by
parentage and descent, for the complexion of the inhabitants of Tigre
and Angotcha, approaches to the red colour of the real Abyssinian,
whilst the skins of the Gallas around the sources of the Whabbee have a
duskier inclination towards the original colour of their Dankalli and
Shankalli parents.
To the north of Dembeacha, around the lower course of the Tacazza,
European travellers attest the existence of Shankalli, whilst the
officers attached to the exploring armies of Mahomed Allee, found them
also all along the course of Bahr ul Assareek to Fazuglo, and report
them as extending an indefinite distance to the south. On the other
hand, I have seen and spoken with Shankalli or negroes who had been
brought into Shoa from beyond Kuffah, Enarea, and Limmoo; and Ibrahim
also was most particular in stating that all around those places to
the south was the black country, _Tokruah_, the Amharic name for that
colour, and which is the origin of the general native designation of
interior Africa, and is synonymous with _Sudan_, derived from the
Arabic _Asward_, black.
The inference that is to be derived from this fact, of the Shankalli
being found in the immediate neighbourhood of a very light complexioned
people, is, that the high table land of Abyssinia suddenly slopes, on
its south and west sides, from the elevation of ten or twelve thousand
feet, to a low country of less than three thousand feet high, a
scarp of perhaps thirty miles only intervening between the two very
differently situated countries.
I take it for granted the reader is aware that the light
yellow-coloured people of Enarea and Zingero attest, by their skin,
the elevation I have assumed for these southern Abyssinian kingdoms.
It is, I think, undeniable that the table-land increases in elevation
to the south, for all travellers agree that the complexion of the
inhabitants becomes fairer as they increase in distance from Shoa in
that direction; and I need not observe the contrary would naturally
be expected as we approach nearer to the equator. Several people I
have seen, however, who came from within five degrees of the line,
and were much lighter coloured than the generality of Spaniards. This
would not be the case with a people living only upon a mountain ridge,
even if the delicate frames of the yellow Zingero people attested, by
a different character, the hardy life of a mountaineer. There must
be, therefore, I should suppose, a considerable continuity of surface
to seclude a large family of man from the otherwise unavoidable
intercourse with the darker skinned inhabitants of the low land, and
to have enabled a very ancient people to continue unchanged their fair
complexion nearly in the centre of a continent of blacks.
These are the principal reasons which have led me to contend for the
tabular character of Abyssinia to the south, instead of, as modern
travellers invariably represent it, as being divided through its
extent by an anticlinal axis, which divides the waters that flow to
the north-west and to the Nile, from those which, on the contrary,
proceed to the south-east and to the Indian Ocean. This impression,
and Tellez’s apparently positive statement that the Zibbee flows to
the southward, I am afraid, however will still be proof against my
arguments, and until some enterprizing traveller visits the countries
of Enarea and Zingero, and decides by actual observation, my readers
may still amuse themselves by forming opinions upon this debatable
subject. For their assistance I have, therefore, recorded the results
of my observations, and the information I received in a country
scarcely one hundred miles from these interesting and remote localities.
The Gibbee, or Zibbee, by Ibrahim’s account, rose in Enarea, where its
sources were called _Somma_, which, in the Gonga language signifies,
“head.” At this place, annually, many superstitious practices are
observed, the last remains, I expect, of the ancient river worship
that was once general throughout the whole of Abyssinia. The Agows of
Northern Abyssinia, who are of Gonga origin, still profess to worship
the Abi, although no traveller has yet given us any account of their
ceremonies; the more to be regretted, as it would throw considerable
light upon the ancient customs of an early state of society, when
Abyssinia was the centre of all civilization in the world.
After flowing some distance to the south and east, the Gibbee was
represented to me as taking a course similar to that of the Abi around
Gojam, nearly encircling the kingdom of Zingero, which is separated
from Gurague by this very stream, then a large river, and still flowing
to the south. After passing westward between Zingero and Kuffah, the
Gibbee then takes the name of Ankor from the principal province of
Zingero which borders upon it, and in which the King resides; it then
bends towards the north and west, passing to the south of Enarea, where
it is called Durr, and receives a large river, the Omo, coming from
Kuffah. From several reasons I believe the Omo to be the main branch,
and the Durr merely another name for it; however, as some large stream
does join the Gibbee from the south, I have so designated in my map one
which I have laid down as coming from that direction. After the Gibbee
has passed Enarea, it flows to the west of Limmoo, where it is best
known as the Abiah, the common Galla name of the large river which, in
that situation, breaks from the table-land, and then proceeds towards
the north some distance through the country of the Shankalli before
it receives, in the neighbourhood of Fazuglo, the waters of the Abi,
which drains northern Abyssinia. After the junction of these two, the
name Gibbee then re-assumes in part its most ancient name Assa-arogue,
the original of Assareek, meaning in Amharic the old Assa, or red
river, so called from flowing through the country of the red people,
in contradistinction to that portion of the Nile supposed to flow from
a country of the whites: hence, the name of Ab-Addo, the principal
western branch of the Bahr ul Abiad, which, as in Arabic, signifies
“the river of the whites.”
Gibbee, the modern form of Zibbee, lends its name to assist in
unravelling the mystery of its course, for I derive it from the word
Azzabe, or Assabi; the origin of the Assabinus, whom Latin authors
represent to have been the Jupiter of the Ethiopians, by which is
meant, I presume, the principal god of the people. If it be admitted
that its name and that of the Zibbee are the same, there can be but
little doubt of their streams being one, and that the latter is
the early course of the former. Strange rumours reach the ears of
travellers in Abyssinia, of human sacrifices being still practised
by the Pagan inhabitants of Zingero, whilst even in the Christian
kingdom of Enarea it is not unusual for slave Kafilahs, on crossing
the Gibbee, to propitiate the god of that river by immolating the most
beautiful of the virgin slaves in its waters. A similar custom was
formerly practised in Egypt; for an Arab geographer, quoted by Mr.
Cooley, either in his Notes to “Larcher’s Herodotus,” or “The Negroland
of the Arabs,” records this circumstance. This coincidence of an
inhuman practice seems also to point to a connexion between the sacred
character of the Gibbee and that of the Nile. Another ceremony also, in
which, on the election of a king, the inhabitants of Zingero collect
upon the banks of the Gibbee, until upon some one’s head a bee should
rest, who is immediately proclaimed to be the sovereign, I have some
idea was the reason of that little insect being made the hieroglyphical
representative of king or chief among the ancient Egyptians, and
perhaps at one period of their history a similar custom prevailed among
them.
The Gibbee is at the present time a holy river, as was the Assabi among
the Ethiopians, and which was also the original of the Egyptian god,
Serapis. This latter supposition is confirmed by the fact that, in
some parts of its course, the Abi of Northern Abyssinia at the present
day is similarly worshipped, and that its sources, in the time of the
Portuguese missionaries, were actually the scene of Pagan sacrifices.
The ancient Apis I consider to have been no other; for the Grecian
terminal being rejected, the identity of the two names Abi and Api is
manifest, whilst that of Assabi and Serapi is equally evident.
That the river Gibbee cannot be the earlier tributary of the Gochob of
Dr. Beke, is proved by what we are told by Major Harris, of a river so
called, entering the sea at Jubah. If this be the case there can no
longer be any doubt of the identity of the Gochob with the Whabbee, and
which I feel more assured of, from the information I have received,
compared with the accounts sent to the Geographical Society of Paris,
by M. d’Abbadie, from Berberah, on the Soumaulee coast, respecting the
entrance of the Whabbee into the sea at Jubah.
Nor is this idea at all affected by the discoveries of Lieut.
Christopher on the coast near Brava, respecting a river said to be
the Whabbee, which runs parallel to the sea-coast in that situation
for more than one hundred miles, and then terminates in a fresh-water
lake, some short distance inland; for this may be the northern arm of
a delta-formed termination of the river, which has been prevented from
reaching the sea in that situation, by the strong marine current known
to exist along that coast, to the south-west. This has occasioned the
silting up of this entrance of the river, so that it is only in very
high seasons indeed of flood, that the fluvatile water bursts through,
or overflows the barrier, and escapes to the sea. The mouths of
several other African rivers present similar phenomena. The discovery
of the Haines branch of the delta of the Whabbee proves, in fact, the
correctness of all native accounts, who represent a large branch as
leaving the main trunk of the Whabbee at Ganana, and terminating in a
lake of fresh water, not far distant from Brava, and which intercepted
river is supposed to resemble “_a tail_,” and hence the name, “Ganana.”
All informants agree, however, that the principal stream, still called
the Whabbee, proceeds to Jubah, so that unless the Gochob is admitted
to be that river, some other _embouchure_ must be procured for the
latter.
Denying, in this manner, the connexion of the Gibbee with the Gochob
of Dr. Beke, for every Abyssinian informant states positively that the
Gibbee does not go to the Whabbee, and which, as far as I can judge,
appears to be the original of the Gochob, there is but one other river
flowing to the south, which the Gibbee can be supposed to join. This is
the Kalli, which empties itself into the Indian Ocean by many mouths,
about three degrees south of the equator, the principal of which
appears to be that of Lamoo. No traveller gives any account of this
river, though certainly it is a most important one in connexion with
our future intercourse with the high land of Abyssinia. It is, as its
name, Kalli, implies, a river of the black people, as the Assabi, or
Zebee, of the table land above belongs exclusively to the country of a
red race. The Portuguese name, Killimancy, is merely the addition of a
word, signifying river in the Shankalli language, to the original Arian
term, Kalli. The sources of this river are upon the southern scarp of
the Abyssinian table land, in the same manner as the tributaries of
the Hawash arise upon the eastern border. The two principal branches
of the Kalli, I was told, enclose or receive in the bifurcation, the
termination of the table land to the south.
A considerable degree of interest attaches itself to this river, and
I could wish to see the attention of our geographers and politicians
directed to its examination. All the red Abyssinian slaves, after a
month’s journey through the country about the upper part of its course,
are then embarked and conveyed down this river to Lamoo, to be carried
away and disposed of in the Asiatic markets. It is by this channel
also the Abashee colonies on the Malabar coast, of which Major Jervis
has written some notices in a late volume of the “Bombay Geographical
Society’s Journal,” are recruited. Those of the native Christians on
the same coast I have seen myself are decidedly of Abyssinian origin,
and perhaps that religion may have been introduced into India by
missionaries from that country. It was singular that when an important
and expensive Political Mission was about being sent into Abyssinia,
some inquiries were not made respecting this southern route, along
which a considerable intercourse at the present day exists between
India and Abyssinia.
Independently of the table land to the south of the Gibbee increasing
considerably in elevation, every other circumstance connected with
its name and situation tends to show that the direction of its stream
cannot be towards the south to join the Kalli. The stream of the
Gibbee, in fact, is a large and navigable river, crossed immediately
by slave Kafilahs from Enarea and Zingero during their journey to
Lamoo, and they have then to proceed an entire month before they come
to another river, the Kalli, to convey them to their destination. The
Whabbee and the Kalli, therefore, can neither of them be supposed to
be the lower stream of the Gibbee; but there is a large river of which
every Galla speaks who comes from Limmoo, Jimma, and other districts
in that neighbourhood; and which flows south, say Mr. M’Queen and
Major Harris, whilst Dr. Beke denied its existence altogether, until
my views were laid before the Geographical Society. He admitted
certainly having heard, the small stream of the Dedassa, flowing into
the Abi, in one instance called the Abiah. This gentleman appears to
have confounded the names Abi and Abiah, believing that the latter was
the Galla pronunciation of the former, and his Geography of Southern
Abyssinia being founded upon this supposition, he fell into the
opposite error to Major Harris; and crowded into a position too close
upon the south of the Abi, countries which, upon the authority of the
latter, have been carried to a situation not far from the equator;
and the Abiah, contrary to any sound information that could possibly
have been received, is taken away, to flow through unknown lands to
the south and west, where it is made to join the _Bahr ul Abiad_. Such
are travellers’ reports, and I profess to give no better, only that I
cannot afford to sacrifice the information I have obtained upon this
subject, to the speculative ideas of geographers, however learned, and
therefore obstinately persist in what they consider to be error, when
it has more the appearance of truth, than have the theories which they
can only advance in opposition.
The Abiah, which is almost denied to exist by one traveller, and taken
into remote countries by another, I believe to be the main branch of
the Gibbee, and have accordingly so laid it down in the sketch map of
the different water-sheds of Abyssinia I have projected to assist me in
explaining my ideas upon the subject.
I will not, as I am almost tempted, recapitulate the evidences that the
Gibbee, the Abiah, and the ancient Assabi, are one and the same river,
and the principal branch of the Abyssinian Nile; for if that which I
have said is not sufficient to convince; to continue would only be to
fatigue the reader with suppositions, probabilities, and beliefs, that
would still, in the end, leave the subject in quite as unsatisfactory a
state as it remains at present.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] This individual figures in Major Harris’s “Highland of
Ethiopia” as Hadjji Mahomed; and the whole occurrence
there related happened during the journey to the coast
in 1843. It is difficult, therefore, to understand how
it could be recorded as an incident of a journey in
1841, and in an account stated to have been written
in the heart of Abyssinia. Numerous other instances
of this kind of interpolation of adventure could
be pointed out which would be immaterial, only, as
I shall probably allude to the same circumstances
myself, of course I am anxious not to be supposed to
borrow them from the work of a cotemporary.
[6] By the old Portuguese writers denominated “the flower
Denguelet.”
[7] None of the _Egyptians_, or _Africans_, or _Grecians_,
with whom I had any discourse, would own to me their
knowledge of the fountains of the Nile, except only a
scribe of the sacred treasury of Minerva, in the city
_Sais_ in Egypt. He, indeed, cheerfully told me that
he certainly was acquainted with them. But this was
the account he gave, that there were two mountains,
with peaked tops, situated between Syene, a city of
Thebais, and Elephantina; the name of one of which was
_Krophi_, of the other _Mophi_; that from the midst
of these two mountains arose the bottomless fountains
of the Nile; one part of its stream ran towards Egypt
and the north, the other part towards Ethiopia and
the south. But that the fountains were bottomless, he
said that Psammeticus, a King of Egypt, had made the
experiment; after having tied ropes of great length
and let them down into the fountains, he could not
reach the bottom.--_Herodotus_, book ii.