Visit from Sheik Tigh.--Strange news.--Arrival of Abdoanarch.--
Situation of my house.--Wallata Gabriel.--Baking bread.--
Vapour bath.--Cure for hernia.
After my visit to the market, I was confined to my house for two
or three days by illness, but feeling a little better this morning
(August 1st), I brought out a small saw I was possessed of, and began
to amuse myself, in giving the last finish to the roof, by removing
the projecting ends of the cane rafters, which made the low eaves look
very ragged. Whilst thus employed, Sheik Tigh, who had been absent some
days at a “_tescar_,” or funeral feast of a frontier Islam Governor,
called, and after congratulating me upon having come into some property
at last, gave me the astounding information that Tinta had been removed
from the government of the town, and a rich Hurrah merchant, who had
come as an Ambassador to Sahale Selassee, from the Imaum of that city,
was now the Governor.
The day that I left Miriam’s house, I heard that a Hurrahgee kafilah
was coming into Shoa, and learnt then, that Aliu Amba was the town
appointed for the people belonging to it, as Channo was for the Adal
kafilahs. I sent Walderheros to Tinta’s house to get more information,
but he had already left the town and gone to Angolahlah to see the
Negoos; as I supposed, to remonstrate. I did not tell Sheik Tigh I was
very sorry at the news he brought me, because, as he was a Mahomedan,
he seemed so to enjoy the circumstance of having a governor of his own
religion, and my regret, as a Christian, I was afraid, would only elate
him the more. I did the good man wrong by my unworthy suspicion, for he
was certainly one of the best-hearted men I ever met. On asking him who
the new governor was, and what business he had come upon to Shoa, he
told me that his name was Abdoanarch, and the Wizeer of Sheik Houssein,
Imaum of Hurrah, and that he had come to induce the Negoos to join in a
league with all the other monarchs of Southern Abyssinia to prevent the
ingress of Europeans into that country. I was not well enough to ask
many questions, but felt glad, that the return of the Embassy to the
coast had been decided upon, previous to the arrival of Abdoanarch from
Hurrah, and that consequently he could not boast of having effected
such a desideratum among the Mahomedans of Shoa.
The bestowal of the government of Aliu Amba upon the Hurrah ambassador,
was a proof of very high regard; and as the language of that
celebrated but little known city is a dialect of the Geez, similar
to the Amharic, Abdoanarch was not considered to be altogether a
foreigner. Besides, he was, as I have remarked, a Mahomedan, and as
three-fourths of the inhabitants of Aliu Amba professed the same
belief, his appointment caused great satisfaction. With him, a large
kafilah of his countrymen had arrived, at least, two hundred, so that
they made a sensible addition to the population, which, at most, did
not exceed three thousand people. Indeed, accommodations for them could
not be found, and they were obliged to erect a number of straw huts, on
the other side of the cemetery in the market-place. This new village
consisted of about fifty houses, all of them, merely thatched roofs,
resting upon the ground, with a low entrance, not three feet high, cut
out in front.
Sheik Tigh sat with me nearly all day; the singularly situated and
nearly unknown city of Hurrah affording an inexhaustible subject of
conversation. As, however, he had never visited it, and I subsequently
received more accurate information respecting this interesting place
from a native, I shall not now attempt to describe it.
_August 2._--My house was situated on the western face of the rock of
Aliu Amba standing upon its own little terrace, which was enclosed
partially by a thick-leaved hedge, and where this failed by a row of
the yellow-stalks of the high Indian corn plant. It overlooked and
was overlooked by a number of other houses similarly constructed,
each built upon its own garden platform, one above the other, like
a series of high steps, from half way down the steep hill-side, to
the summit of a bluff, cone-like eminence, in which the northern
extremity, of the otherwise flat-topped hill of Aliu Amba terminated.
On this exalted point, the long thatched roof of the largest house of
the town was visible over a strong palisading of splintered ted, and
over which two tall mimosas towered like giant sentinels. To go near
here was considered a crime, and to break through the enclosure would
have been a sacrilege. This of course was royal property, the “gimjon
bait,” where was preserved until the annual account was made by the
Governor to the King, all the fines, lapses by death, and duties, that
had accumulated during that time. Beneath this public storehouse was a
long terrace, divided into several enclosures, in each of which stood a
snug cottage; and these again looking upon one below, the top of which
scarcely reached the level of the ground, the upper ones were built
upon. Here dwelt a most respectable man, an Islam slave-merchant, who
kept a gratuitous school for boys, whom he instructed in Arabic, that
is to say, in reading and writing passages of the Koran. Far beneath
the level of this my own house stood, and before it, and on either
hand, were several others whose gardens all surrounded mine. The hill
at this point, too, seemed to assume a more umbrageous aspect, for
high “_shuahlah_,” sycamore fig-trees, and mimosas, sheltered beneath
their foliage the unassuming roofs of thatch, which less and less,
diminishing as they descended the slope of the hill-side, seemed at a
very short distance from my garden to have dropped into the yawning
valley that separated Aliu Amba from the opposite height; which still
higher, differed in its more gently sloping ascent, and its ridge
being occupied by a village inhabited exclusively by Christians. Over
this again could be seen still more elevated crests, and beyond these
others, until the eye reached the last, the commanding height of
Ankobar; which, extending some ten or twelve miles north and south,
each extremity then curved towards the east in one vast amphitheatre,
that encircled, as in an embrace, an extensive valley of little
village-crowned hills and sunny slopes of cultivated fields.
This afternoon, having another serious attack of my fever fit, one of
my first acquaintances in Aliu Amba, Hadjji Abdullah, undertook to
provide me with a certain cure. He went away, and returned after a
short time with a large bundle of green odoriferous herbs. Walderheros
was directed to boil these well in my tea-kettle, and having poured
out the decoction into an open-mouthed earthen vessel. I was wrapt
up in a large tobe, underneath the folds of which the remedy was
placed. In this manner I sat for about a quarter of an hour, until a
profuse perspiration resulted from this primitive kind of vapour bath,
which had certainly one good effect, that of producing at night a
long-continued sleep.
_August 3d._--As I felt a good deal better this morning, I took a
walk as far as the market-place, to see the houses of the new come
Hurrahgee people. A great many turned out for my inspection, to gratify
themselves by looking at me; which party was most entertained, I or
them, at the mutual novelty of our appearance, I do not know, but after
exchanging salutations with an old man belonging to them, I returned
home with Walderheros.
Finding that I was still laying myself under great obligations to
Miriam, who came for a few hours every day to grind flour and bake
bread, I determined that Walderheros should send for his wife to come
and take up her abode with him as housekeeper. Goodaloo was accordingly
sent on this errand, and before night they returned together. As a kind
of offering upon the occasion she brought, hanging in her tobe upon her
back, a large pumpkin. She was a good-looking girl of about seventeen
or eighteen years of age, and had been married to Walderheros for
five years. Her father was one of the King’s watchmen, holding a farm
for that service, which required his absence one week out of four,
at whichever palace of Ankobar or Angolahlah the King should be then
absent from.
She was very soon down upon her knees before a broad circular pan
of earthenware placed upon three stones, which was being heated for
baking-bread over a glaring fire of sticks. Taking a short horn, in
which was contained the well-powdered dust of the oily seed of the
cotton plant, she scattered a small portion over the surface of the
nearly flat dish, which was about a foot and a-half in diameter. She
then rubbed this well over the whole with a rag. The leavened batter
had been made ready in the morning by Miriam, so Wallata Gabriel, my
new housekeeper, had only to take a little out in a basin, and from
this pour it upon the heated dish, quickly spreading it into a thin
layer, and then placing over all a hollow shield-like cover, also of
earthenware, the edges of which, where it rested upon the pan, being
luted with wet rags that stood by contained in another spare basin of
water.
Sticks, a bundle of which had been brought in by Goodaloo, lay upon the
floor of the house, and with these a bright fire was kept flaring away
for about five minutes, when the cover being taken off a nice-looking
crumpet curled up its edge all round, as if anxious to be taken off and
eaten. This was adroitly done by Wallata Gabriel placing upon her lap
as she knelt a neat straw mat, something larger than the baking-dish
itself, made of a band of grass folded around one end as a centre, and
stiched into that situation. Upon this was pulled, by a quick jerk, the
warm cellular-surfaced bread, and then getting up, my new handmaiden
presented it to me as it lay on the mat, with a look that said “Taste
it yourself, and see if I cannot bake bread.”
In this manner she soon turned over six or eight of these pan-cakes,
and a fowl having been boiled to-day for the sake of the broth, of
which alone I could partake, no other food was cooked for my three
servants, they so far observing the fast, and soon after their meal
they retired to rest; Walderheros and his wife occupying an ox-skin
upon the floor, Goodaloo making his bed in the porch, which was formed
by the passage into the house leading through the outer and inner wall,
being closed in on either side by a mud-plastered partition.
_August 4th._--I was glad to find Tinta come back this morning, he
having returned with a message, that if I knew how to make gunpowder,
the Negoos wished me to manufacture some for him. On inquiring, I
found that my balderabah still continued in the good graces of the
Negoos, who, instead of the town of Aliu Amba, which convenience had
required should be given to Abdoanarch, had put Tinta into possession
of a much more valuable one called Ramsey, in sight from my garden. He
was instructed, however, to live as usual in Aliu Amba, to communicate
between the Negoos and myself, and to keep, at the same time, a
careful watch upon the outgoings and incomings of the great Abdoanarch
himself.
I soon satisfied him about the gunpowder, and the next day was
appointed for taking the first step in the process, by making some
charcoal, for I was led to suppose that the inferiority of the coarse
grey-looking sort of native manufacture was owing to the badness of
that article. Two of Tinta’s servants were immediately despatched for
wood of the “ted” (_Juniperus oxycedrus_) tree, which I had chosen as
best calculated for charcoal. The ted tree is a species of pine, and
grows in the characteristic form of that tree. The wood smells exactly
like cedar, and is extensively used for fuel in the royal residences.
It does not grow on the table land, but only in the upper portions of
the valleys of Efat and corresponding situations, at an elevation of
between six and eight thousand feet above the level of the sea.
A large euphorbia called kol-qual, sometimes thirty feet high, with
strong spreading arms, bearing at their extremities a little red
fig-like fruit, was pointed out to me by the Shoans as the tree
supposed to produce the best charcoal. This cannot be the tree that
Bruce asserts yielded so much milk-like juice upon striking it with
his scimitar, although I have heard it asserted that it is. On making
the experiment myself on several of different ages, I never could
produce more than a mere exudation of a white fluid, which collected
in drops, and which I found upon inspissation turned black, and formed
a substance not unlike Indian rubber. The most singular circumstance
respecting this tree is the four-sided character of its branches, being
as angular as if put together by a carpenter. On examining the interior
of a decayed portion, I found a shell of hard wood not more than
three-fourths of an inch in thickness; and the interior sometimes, from
side to side, several inches wide, hollow, but divided into chambers by
partitions, consisting of a substance like the paper formed by wasps in
constructing their tree-suspended nests.
I was called in to a singular case to-day; for in Aliu Amba, I must
observe, my professional services were in great request, and I had
stated hours of attendance daily at my house, from sunrise to nine
o’clock, during which time my door was regularly thronged. I went to
see my new patient with Walderheros, and found a youth about sixteen
years old, afflicted with a rupture in the groin, but the protruded
intestine had been returned by the boy’s father just previously to
my going into the house. The people I found there, wanted me to do
something to prevent the recurrence of the complaint, but as I had
no trusses with me, I only recommended rest and future care against
violent exertion. Understanding that I could do nothing more, it was
determined among them to proceed with an operation customary in their
country, and which I was invited to witness. I accordingly sat down
whilst the boy was laid upon his back on the alga. The father then
took a red burning stick, Walderheros and others holding the patient
down, and restraining him whilst the former placed the rude searing
instrument over the diseased part, blowing it with great vigour all the
time to keep it alight. In less than a minute the painful operation was
over; and the boy, who had been previously reminded that he was a man,
bore it with great fortitude.
The Shoans assert, that after this application of the actual cautery
rupture does not again occur; and I could readily conceive it probable,
considering the great contraction sometimes consequent upon burns, that
this effect produced over the parts affected in hernia might, in such
cases, counteract the relaxation of muscular fibre which occasions this
disease. At all events, where so few practical preventives for a most
serious complaint are known, I have considered this observation worth
recording, and as a medical man even recommend the operation.
_August 5th._--Three long bundles of splintered ted, carried upon the
head of as many slaves of the Negoos, were brought to my house this
morning. Cutting and carrying wood is the principal occupation in
Shoa of the male slaves, as carrying water is of the females; and the
prophets, when they say of the Jews carried into captivity, that “they
will be cutters of wood and drawers of water,” convey the allusion
that both sexes will be oppressed alike, and suffer equally the
laborious hardships of a state of slavery.
It rained too much to-day to be able to make any charcoal; and as I
required the pieces of wood brought me to be cut into more convenient
lengths, Walderheros and Goodaloo occupied themselves doing this within
doors. Sheik Tigh having gone to reside at Bulga for a month, had given
up his office as my teacher in Amharic, so I determined to look out
for a duptera, or Christian scribe, as I was anxious not only to speak
Amharic as quickly as possible, but also to read the Geez character,
and get some knowledge of that very interesting but neglected language.
To-day commences a long fast for fifteen days, called “Felsat.” No meat
is allowed to be eaten, and the first food taken daily must be after
three o’clock in the afternoon. Walderheros grants me an indulgence,
as I am very ill and weak. It seems children and sick people are not
required to fast. I never saw the members of any Church less bigoted
than the Christians of Shoa, but I am given to understand that more
to the north much less toleration is exhibited towards Mahomedans
and individuals of other faiths. I have often thought, civilized as
I considered myself to be, that had I been in the place of Sahale
Selassee, I should not have acted quite so fairly to my Mahomedan
subjects; and when we consider that they are far inferior in numbers
to the Christians, in the proportion of about three to one, a great
deal more credit is due.
_August 6th._--Being a very fine morning, I had my alga brought into
the garden, and superintended Walderheros and Goodaloo making the pile
of wood for burning it into charcoal; covering it with the stalks of
the thorn apple-plant, which alone seemed to flourish around my house
to the exclusion of every other kind of herb. Upon this green kind
of thatch a layer of earth was placed, and all being completed, fire
was applied below, and the aperture through which it was introduced
immediately closed up; a vent, or chimney, through the centre alone
being left open.
Instead of any length of time being necessary, I found my charcoal-heap
blazing away as if air entered at twenty places. Being my first attempt
as a practical burner, I somehow expected this, and therefore carried
off the failure as a thing intended, for Walderheros began to think his
learned master a bit of a quack when he found that I was ignorant of
the simple native cure for hernia; and he would now have been downright
sure of it had he not supposed that all my present proceedings,
regarding the charcoal-burning, was necessary to produce the excellent
article required to make gunpowder as it was manufactured in my
country. I therefore sat and looked at the blazing pile, revolving in
my mind what could possibly have caused the failure, for I believed
I had observed every particular, that I had been taught was necessary
to convert wood into charcoal. Fortunately for my credit, just when I
concluded that I knew nothing about it, and had best say so, and before
the whole heap had been consumed, a sudden shower of rain poured down;
this of course spoiled all my arrangements, and among other things,
to all appearance put out the fire. Here was a case for condolence;
and Walderheros, thinking I must want something to support me under
the disappointment, when the rain had ceased, which was not for some
hours, took a straw basket and went to examine the ruins. One effect
of the rain, it seems, had been to beat down the dome of earth and
moist stalks of the thorn apple, when the support of the wood inside
had been lost by the combustion. This buried considerable portions
of unburnt extremities of the pieces of ted, and as they continued
smouldering underneath the fallen cover, the result was that, much to
my surprise, Walderheros brought me back the basket full of beautifully
close-grained shining black and very light pieces of charcoal. As
Walderheros thought it was all quite natural and right, I made no other
remark than merely asking him “if the people in Shoa ever made charcoal
like that.”
Having succeeded so well in this, it encouraged us to proceed,
and I sent to Tinta to say, that on the morrow he must supply me
with hand-mills and mortars to grind down and pulverize the other
ingredients, sulphur and saltpetre, of which a large quantity of each
had been brought to my house from Ankobar during the day.
Both sulphur and saltpetre abound in Shoa, the former being obtained
from the volcanic country immediately to the west of the Hawash,
near Azbottee. From an extinct crater, nearly half a mile from our
halting-place at Lee Adu, I had brought to me a piece of the purest
sulphur, that required no farther process of refinement than the
natural sublimation by which it had been deposited in the fissures of
the cone. The Adal Bedouins who occupy that neighbourhood bring it to
the Negoos of Shoa as a kind of tribute, and sometimes a demand is made
upon them for a certain quantity, which is delivered in a few days, so
plentifully is it found, to the Wallasmah Mahomed, who forwards it to
the Negoos.
Saltpetre is found in many places, both on the table-land of Shoa,
and in the valley countries to the south and east. It is principally
brought from Bulga, where the grey rubbly earth it forms is ploughed
over, and the disturbed soil containing more than fifty per cent. of
the salt is placed in immense earthenware jars containing water, in
which, by frequent agitation, the saltpetre becomes suspended. The
liquor is then decanted, and in large saucers allowed to evaporate,
when the finest needle-formed crystals of the salt are formed.