Chapter C: O N T E N T S (10)

In the autumn of 1282, Barhebræus received in Tabríz a letter, in which the patriarch told him of his serious illness, and besought him to come and relieve him of the cares of his office; this was clearly intended to convey the wish that Barhebræus should be his successor. Winter being at hand, and the roads dangerous, the maphrián, however, did not comply with this invitation. Ignatius died of dropsy on Tuesday, 17th November, and the party of Simeon hastened to elect bishop Philoxenus to the patriarchate (2nd February 1283). The election was held in the Barsaumá monastery, and only three bishops, all belonging to depopulated dioceses in the neighbourhood, took part in it. But confirmation was obtained without delay from Alatag. Humble apologies were now tendered to the maphrián for the uncanonical procedure, and he was entreated to give it his after-concurrence, without which the election could not hope for the approval of a majority of the bishops; but he turned the messengers away. Even when Simeon the physician came in person, he continued steadfast. It was not until the son of Simeon, a pupil of his own, with whom he was on personally friendly terms, had a meeting with him (August 1284) that he condescended to accept the offered presents and to sanction the appointment. We can well believe the assurance he then gave that he was far from wishing to be himself made patriarch, the secure and influential post he actually held being worth more to him than the headship of the Jacobite Church in the West, which had been entirely desolated by war; hard as the times were, he was better off than his predecessors. But he had to maintain the maphrián’s dignity, and his self-esteem also had been undoubtedly hurt, for he was well entitled to consider himself the foremost of the Jacobite clergy. The meeting referred to took place as Barhebræus was once again travelling in the caravan of a princess from Tabríz to the district of Mosul.

Near the village of Bartellé, not far from the monastery of St. Matthew, he had built to the martyr “John the carpenter’s son” a new church, which he caused to be decorated by an artist from Constantinople, one of two painters whom the widow of Abaga, a natural daughter of the Greek emperor Michael, had fetched from the imperial city to adorn the church of her own denomination (the Greek “Orthodox”) in Tabríz. But the old church had been searched in vain for the relics of the martyr. After every one else had failed it was given to the maphrián, as he himself tells us, to discover the marble sarcophagus, in consequence of a vision for which he had prepared himself by prayer and fasting (23rd November 1284). How far self-deception entered into this, we can hardly say. Barhebræus was a cool-headed person, but like all his contemporaries he had sucked in belief in miracles and wonders with his mother’s milk; on the other hand, we shall hardly be doing an injustice even to the best representative of the Oriental clergy of that day if we deem him not incapable of a little pious fraud.

In 1285-86,[113] Barhebræus, as we learn from one of his verses, was led by astrological calculations to expect his end; a presentiment which proved true. His brother Barsaumá, who was constantly beside him, and took charge of his building undertakings, sought to withdraw him as far as possible from danger by inducing him to quit the neighbourhood of Mosul, which was now yearly harassed by marauding bands from Syria, and to return to Merághá. Here he continued to labour for a while; but on the night of 29th-30th July 1286 he died after a short illness of three days. He had previously expressed his regret for having left his proper place from fear of the death that was inevitable. It may be supposed that he had felt some warnings of weakness, although his brother declares him to have been at the time in exceptionally good health.

There were then in Merághá only four Jacobite priests to conduct the funeral obsequies. But the Nestorian patriarch Yavalláhá, who happened to be also in the place, enjoined a day of strict mourning on all those in his obedience, and sent the bishops who were with him to the funeral. The Armenian and even the Greek clergy also took part in it; there were altogether about two hundred mourners, and for once the Christians showed a united front in face of the Moslems to do honour to a person so distinguished. With solemnities which lasted over nine hours, Barhebræus was buried at the spot where he had been wont to pray and administer the sacrament; but at a later date his body was removed to the monastery of St. Matthew, where his grave is still shown.

We do not need to make very great deductions from the high praise lavished on the character of Barhebræus by Barsaumá, his brother and successor. Had he not been amiable and humane, he would hardly have stood in such pleasant relations with those of other Christian communions. And yet he was no weakling, but a thoroughly forceful man, not without ambition; and in point of character, with all his imperfections, he certainly stood far above the large majority of the higher clergy of the East.

His great activity is attested by his ecclesiastical buildings, already begun when he was bishop of Aleppo, and by his literary works. From his twentieth year down to his last hour, his brother tells us, he studied and wrote without intermission. Barsaumá’s list, which is not quite exhaustive, enumerates thirty-one writings of Barhebræus, among which are several works of some compass. They are mostly in Syriac, but some in Arabic. Manuscripts of most of them can be found in European libraries, and sometimes there are more copies than one—a sign that they were much read. His books embrace almost all branches of the knowledge of his day. It would indeed be idle to expect much original thought or independent research in such a mediæval and Eastern scholar. His principal object was to make accessible to the Syrians the productions of Arabian and older science. Most of his encyclopædic and separate scientific works are for the most part, accordingly, merely intelligent compilations or excerpts from earlier treatises in Syriac or Arabic. Some are simply translations; thus he rendered some works of the famous Aristotelian Avicenna from Arabic into Syriac. Barhebræus wrote on philosophy, medicine, astronomy and astrology, geography, history, jurisprudence, grammar, and so on; among the subjects treated, the secular sciences are on the whole more prominent than theology proper. He even compiled two little books of anecdotes. He earned the respect of learned Moslems by his writings, and no doubt also by his skill in oral teaching and disputation. An odd proof of this is the foolish rumour that Barhebræus on his deathbed had turned Moslem; the thought was the expression of the wish to gain for Islam and eternal blessedness so distinguished a scholar.

Some works of Barhebræus are still of great value, particularly his Sacred and Profane History, drawn from older Arabic, Syriac, and Persian works, and especially from the Syriac Church History of Michael, his fellow-townsman of Melatia, who was Jacobite patriarch from 1166 to 1199.[114] It is distinguished by an apt selection of materials, contains much that is not to be found elsewhere, and is an important authority for the author’s own period. In his very last days Barhebræus wrote at Merághá, at the request of some Moslems, an Arabic edition of the Profane History, which is shorter than the Syriac work, but contains some new matter. Next in importance to the History is his larger Syriac Grammar, in which he tries to combine the method not very happily borrowed by the older Syrians from the Greek grammarians with the Arabian system. Viewed in the light of modern philology the book shows great defects, but it is far ahead of the works that preceded it, and still very instructive. Further, his Scholia to the Bible, which are more philological than theological, are of value (especially for the history of the Syriac text); and so is his collection of Jacobite Canon Law.

Barhebræus wrote metrical pieces also. He has certainly none of the gifts of the heaven-born poet. These compositions have neither fancy nor passion. He writes them with his understanding, partly after the pattern of older Syrians, partly on Arabian and Persian models. The didactic wordiness of the Syrian poetry is often also apparent. But the skill and elegance with which he handles the unpromising materials of the ecclesiastical language is worthy of recognition, and he shows spirit and taste, especially in the short epigrammatic poems. He is further entitled to the credit of being almost entirely free from the verbal conceits which were so greatly affected in the poetry of that time. Generally speaking, he can fairly be put on a level with the average Arabic poets of his age, and certainly above most of the Syriac. Altogether he was one of the most eminent men of his Church and nation.

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[104] They derived the name from Jacobus Baradæus, who gave permanent form to the Monophysite Church of Syria in the sixth century.

[105] See below, p. 246.

[106] I am not sure of the exact pronunciation either of Gubos or of Lakabín.

[107] See below, p. 244.

[108] In a little Syriac treatise, which, gross forgery though it is, seems to have been popular, God says: “To every believer who gives of the earnings of his hand to the holy Church, I make it good in this world, and repay him thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold in the world to come, and write his name in the book of life;” and again: “Honour God’s priests, who sacrifice the living lamb, so that ye may find mercy in the world to come. He who despises them shall fall under my wrath, for my priests are the salt of the earth.” The Jews, who contribute handsomely to their synagogues, are cited as patterns for Christians.

[109] The Christians of the Sásánian empire originally had bishops only, without any single head. Even after they had placed themselves under the catholicus of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, the Church of Persia proper, for some time, continued to maintain its independence. The statement that the patriarchal authority of Antioch had been delegated from the earliest times to the bishop of Seleucia and Ctesiphon is, of course, a mere fiction, resting upon the later conception of the unity of the Church in its outward organisation.

[110] The relations of the Jacobites with the Monophysite Copts were better.

[111] This miracle recalls that of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius at Naples, and no doubt admits of a similar natural explanation.

[112] Similar expectations were sometimes cherished in the West also.

[113] The Syrian Julian year begins with 1st October.

[114] A work hitherto known only by an abridged and interpolated Armenian translation. The original has been recently discovered, but is not yet accessible.

IX.
KING THEODORE OF ABYSSINIA.[115]

ABYSSINIA, that marvellous mountain land in which the advantages of the tropical and temperate zones are united, was for centuries a single monarchy. The only African country which retained its Christianity, it had not escaped without grievous injury the many external assaults and inward struggles through which it had passed; and the bond which held together its different provinces, ruled by local princes, and in part separated by well-marked physical features, was by no means strong. But, with all this, it still was a powerful kingdom, governed by a race which an alleged descent from Solomon, and still more a rule that had continued without interruption from the thirteenth century, had invested with a nimbus of sanctity. But shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century the power of its sovereigns broke down. Petty princes asserted independence, and sought to extend their own dominions; rude soldiers grasped a royal authority, and there was a constant succession of civil wars. The unspeakable atrocities connected with these contests completed the ruin of the Abyssinian civilisation, which, it must not be forgotten, had never stood very high. The prestige of the Solomonic dynasty was so great that the actual rulers, some of them Mohammedans and Gallas, maintained it in name; but its sovereigns, set up or dethroned at the pleasure of the conqueror for the time being, had not the faintest shadow of power. When Rüppell visited the capital Gondar in 1833, the reigning “king of the kings of Ethiopia” hardly had the revenue of a tolerably well-to-do private citizen. The clergy, who were extraordinarily numerous, were the only class who continued to flourish; in the never-ending warfare a church might be destroyed or a sanctuary desecrated here and there, but the old endowments were so rich, and the holders so skilful in working upon the superstitions of the people, that their interests never seriously suffered. They themselves were grossly superstitious, and for the most part little superior to the laity in culture. With some worthy exceptions the degenerate clergy have been, and still are, along with a brutal soldiery, the worst curses of this unhappy country, so richly gifted by nature.

Towards the middle of the present century, Abyssinia was partitioned into three main principalities. The north was firmly and strongly held by the cunning Ubié, hereditary chief of the Alpine district of Semyén, who had taken possession of Tigré, the seat of the oldest kingdom of Abyssinia and of the most ancient Abyssinian civilisation. The largest portion of the country was under Ras Ali, a Galla by race. Though a Mohammedan by origin, he had received baptism; but he was regarded as a lukewarm Christian,—not because his life was irregular, for the same could be said of many good Christians, but because he tolerated Moslems: there were even whispers that, dreadful to relate, he had more than once eaten of the flesh of animals that Mohammedans had killed. He was good-humoured and indolent, permitted the local chiefs to do what they pleased, and was never able to bring some of the more powerful princes to obedience. The chiefs of the unruly Wollo-Gallas, some of them related to him, acknowledged his suzerainty on the tacit condition that he should never trouble himself about anything they did. In the extreme south was Shoa, completely independent, under a dynasty which had been in power from the beginning of the eighteenth century, and had at last assumed the royal title. Shoa, governed with considerable firmness, had no share in the confusions of the rest of Abyssinia, from which it is separated both by natural barriers and by wild Galla tribes. If, now, these chief rulers had remained contented with the territory that each had acquired, the division would have been to the positive advantage of the country; for Abyssinia, with its Alpine ranges and deep erosion valleys, which put a stop to all intercourse during the rainy season (our summer), is not fitted by nature to be a single State with effective administration from a single centre. But each ruler strove to extend his own authority by violence, or fraud and perjury, at the expense of his neighbour. It was only with difficulty that Ras Ali, the lord of the central portion, resisted the encroachments of Ubié, and the everlasting turbulence of great vassals and petty insurgents.

In this condition of affairs a powerful upstart suddenly arose and overthrew all the princes of Abyssinia. Few Europeans had so much as heard Kasa’s name as long as he continued to be a mere governor or rebel against his lord; and even to them it was a surprise when Kasa suddenly restored the old monarchy as “Theodore, king of the kings of Ethiopia,” and united the entire country under his sway. The kingdom seemed once more to have a future before it; for the new ruler was a man of exceptional endowments, a mighty warrior, and a friend of progress. This anticipation was unfortunately not realised. Theodore had to carry on a constant struggle for his authority, and his power had already been restricted almost to his own camp when the conflict with the English began. This conflict, through which his name first came to be really known in Europe, reduced him to the alternatives of surrender or death; nor did he hesitate in his choice, dying as a king and a hero by his own hand,—a death which in the remembrance of posterity will ever place him in a different category from that of the many other rulers of savage peoples whom the British arms have subdued.

Theodore was a barbarian, a frightful despot, and yet a great man. If ever there was a tragedy, it is to be seen in the story of this child of the wilderness, who was called to, and achieved, the highest position; but after unceasing struggle was overthrown by error, passion, and crime, more than by a foreign power. It will not be unprofitable to look for a little at his life. For his earlier history we are so fortunate as to possess, not merely the notices of various European travellers, but also a consecutive narrative down to the year 1860, written in Amharic (the chief dialect of modern Abyssinia) by Debtera Zenab, a cleric with whom he had personal relations.[116]

Kasa was born about the year 1820 in the land of Quara, in the extreme west of Abyssinia; his mother-tongue was doubtless the non-Semitic Agau there prevalent, and it is probable that his blood was mainly Agau. His origin was not low, as has sometimes been asserted; his father, Hailu (or Haila Maryam), was a great noble, and for some time ruled Quara, in the capacity of governor, for his powerful brother Kenfu. Kasa’s mother, however, seems to have been of humble condition. As the loosest kind of polygamy prevails among the nobles of Abyssinia, it is impossible for them to take very great care of all their offspring. But it is not uncommon for the obscurer children of princely fathers by mothers of lower rank to rise to distinction. Ubié also was the son of a peasant girl. The youthful Kasa had been designed for a modest career; it was intended that he should be trained for the Church in a monastery not far from Gondar, the capital. But he had early experience of war and its desolations. The governor for the time being had rebelled against his master, Ras Imám (uncle and predecessor of Ras Ali), who invaded the province in 1827. In the invasion Kasa’s monastery was destroyed, and Imam’s Galla soldiers made eunuchs of its forty-eight pupils, Kasa alone escaping. In this he must afterwards have recognised the hand of God, who had designed him for another career than the clerical, and delivered him from danger; for his faith in his “star” scarcely ever failed him to the last. I very much doubt the assertion of many Europeans, that his monkish education deeply influenced him. At an age of less than eight years, the boy cannot have become a theological scholar. His literary acquirements, measured even by Abyssinian standards, were never high. The use of Biblical expressions which he affected is not necessarily to be regarded in a man of his temperament as a result of direct teaching; in words all Abyssinians are excellent Christians.

Kasa now entered the household of his uncle Kenfu, who ruled an extensive territory, and after his death, that of one of his sons. But Kasa’s cousins soon came to open war with each other, and in this he also took part. The cousin on whose side he was had the worst of it; Kasa was made a prisoner, but released by the victor in consideration of their youthful companionship. Misfortune upon misfortune now befell Kasa. On one occasion, when he again was unlucky enough to be on the losing side, he had to remain in hiding for a month, and this within the territory that belonged to his own family; as a scion of a princely house he bore the pretentious title of Ledj (“Youth,” _i.e._ “Junker” or “Prince”), and if discovered he would hardly have been spared by the enemy. In later prosperous days he conferred high honour and princely rewards on the countrymen who had sheltered him in this strait. Kasa served under a variety of captains great and small, and distinguished himself by his boldness and skill in battle and in the chase. For example, he once on horseback killed two elephants; but in doing so he so roused the jealousy of his less fortunate chief that he found it necessary to quit his service without delay. On such lines zeal and patience might easily have raised him to high position; but he had a mind to be a master, not a servant, and became the leader of a robber band. In these parts, to be sure, it is difficult to draw the line between a robber chief and a petty prince. For years Kasa conducted plundering raids, great and small, in Western Abyssinia. His Abyssinian biographer, a peaceable man, with great seriousness and visible satisfaction, describes his “first triumph” as follows. Kasa had come to a sworn agreement with seventy robbers that all booty was to be common property. But on learning that they had secretly slaughtered for their own use a cow which they had stolen, he with twelve others fell upon his perjured “brethren,” put them to flight, and cruelly mutilated seven of their number who fell into his hands. In this he was no doubt already acting in his character as a God-appointed judge; breach of oath demanded severe punishment. But it is too obvious how hardening must have been the tendency of such a life upon the future sovereign. It may be conjectured that he justified his robber life by the consideration that his energies were mainly directed against Mohammedans and heathen. The great trading caravans are chiefly in the service of Mohammedan merchants; and the neighbours of Abyssinia are almost all Moslem tribes, partly Arab, partly pure Africans. In these parts the two religions have been at enmity for many centuries. No one dreams of establishing peace between them; and Kasa could not doubt that he served God better the more energetically he fought against the infidel. And he hated Islam all his life with his whole soul. Enlightened as he was in many respects, and profound as was the contempt he ultimately came to feel for the Christian priests of his nation, he was constant in regarding himself as an instrument of God for the humiliation or extirpation of Islam, and in ever looking for the forgiveness of all his sins as the reward of his merit as champion against the enemies of Christ. Yet in the course of his freebooting life he was occasionally led to make alliance with Moslems, especially in undertakings against heathen negroes, who from time immemorial had been the objects of plundering expeditions and slave hunts on the part of Christians and Mohammedans, great sovereigns and petty princelings alike.[117] Of course, in dealing with heathen, no more pity was shown than if they had been wild beasts, or rather less, for the hunted blacks often had the audacity to defend themselves with bravery. Active participation in operations of this kind was no school of clemency or amiable qualities, but it served to train Kasa as a general in prudence, promptitude, and solicitous care for his warriors.

He and his companions were often in great straits, especially for want of food; but he gradually acquired the position of a considerable prince in his native land of Quara. Though the terror of his enemies and of trading caravans, he even thus early gave attention to the cultivation of the soil, and protected the husbandmen. He further extended his influence by matrimonial alliances. His reputation steadily increased, and the mother of Ras Ali, Menen, began to see that her best policy would be to put a good face on a bad business and formally bestow upon Kasa the governorship of Quara, which he already exercised in fact. This energetic and immoral woman ruled Gondar and its neighbouring lands for her son; in her old age (1844) she married a member of the old royal family, whom she caused Ras Ali to proclaim as sovereign, herself assuming the title of Itégé (“great queen” or “empress”). Soon afterwards Menen even offered her granddaughter Tewabetch, daughter of Ras Ali, to Kasa in marriage. Such unions in the case of Abyssinian princes are of even less political consequence than they are in Europe; nevertheless it was a great elevation for Kasa to be brought in this way into such close connection with the most powerful family in the kingdom. He accordingly dismissed all the wives he had already married—an ordinary proceeding in Abyssinia, requiring no special formalities—and espoused Tewabetch, who was still very young. The union was solemnised in the face of the church,—which is seldom done in these parts,—and Kasa remained faithful to his admirable consort as long as she lived,—a thing unheard of in the case of an Abyssinian grandee. Even after her death he kept her in tender remembrance; she was his good genius. But the marriage had not the effect of making Kasa an obedient subject; in the autumn of 1846 he became a declared rebel, and defeated army after army. In one instance he even made a naval expedition, attacking an island on Lake Tana, where a general opposed to him had taken refuge, with five hundred light reed-rafts, the only craft known in Abyssinia; each raft carried a musketeer, a spearman, and a slinger. One of Menen’s generals had grossly insulted Kasa. All over the country the story went that Kasa’s mother had in early life followed the humble calling of a dealer in kousso, the well-known remedy for tape-worm, a very common trouble in Abyssinia. The general in question had boastfully said before Menen and her people: “Never fear; I shall bring you this son of the kousso-seller with a string round his neck like an ichneumon.” But it was his evil fortune to be defeated and taken; whereupon his conqueror caused a large quantity of pounded kousso to be brought, and thus addressed him: “My mother has unfortunately not sold any kousso to-day, and so has no money to buy corn; please therefore accept by way of refreshment the kousso that is left.” He then compelled the unfortunate man to swallow a large quantity of the nasty stuff.[118]

In June #847, Menen took the field in person, but was wounded and made prisoner. As a ransom for his mother, Ras Ali handed over to Kasa her whole territory, reserving his own suzerainty. Kasa, who now assumed the title of Dejaz-match or Dejaz, borne by rulers of large provinces, and by those in higher military commands (thus corresponding partly to our “duke” and partly to our “general”), in this way became one of the most powerful princes in the country. As such he followed alike his inclination and his conscience in leading an expedition against the “Turks”—that is, the Egyptians. He penetrated far into Senaar, but learned, in the neighbourhood of Deberki, how powerless the bravest Abyssinian warriors were against soldiers who had European weapons and some elements of discipline. He was beaten, and compelled to retreat—a humiliation he never forgot. His hatred against all Moslems, and especially all Turks, became blind. As our ancestors once used to regard the possession of the Holy Land by the infidel as a personal reproach to themselves, so also did Kasa, along with many of his countrymen; but what vexed him still more was the thought that the coasts bordering upon Abyssinia, as well as so many other lands of Africa which he (in some cases rightly and in others wrongly) regarded as the ancient property of his own country, were in the hands of Turks or other Moslems. He laid deeply to heart the lesson that European arms and European discipline give an army overpowering superiority, and it was always to him a matter of bitter regret that he could do so little to introduce real discipline among his troops.

A new rebellion of Kasa’s ended less fortunately than his previous ones. He hoped to be a match for the numerous cavalry of his suzerain by the use of a kind of mines, and of wooden cannons bound with iron rings—his first attempt at gun-making, a pursuit that latterly became a passion with him. But the enemy found out his secret, and he had to submit himself without striking a blow. For two years he kept quiet; but in 1852 a quarrel again arose. Ras Ali stirred up against his son-in-law the powerful Goshu of Gojam, who had often been a thorn in his own side. Doubtless he hoped that the two troublesome vassals would wear out their strength against one another. But on 27th November 1852, Kasa surprised and defeated Goshu by one of those bold and rapid marches over difficult country which were the special terror of his foes. Goshu himself, one of the most distinguished warriors of Abyssinia, perished. The fame of the victor rose to a high pitch. He made as if he desired peace with Ras Ali, but the Austrian vice-consul Reiz, who was with him in January 1853, saw even then that the ambitious prince would soon be at blows, not only with him, but also with Ubié. And so it fell out. In two bloody battles the power of Ras Ali was utterly broken. From the battle of Aishal (28th June 1853), Kasa’s biographer reckons the fall in Central Abyssinia of the Galla power, that is to say, of the dynasty of the Gallas, with their hordes of Mohammedan Galla cavalry. Ras Ali retired to a remote corner of the territory of his tribesmen, the Yeju-Gallas, where, it would seem, by the sufferance of his son-in-law, he continued to live for some ten years, and at last died in utter obscurity.

After this (26th May 1854) a stratagem placed Beru, the son of Goshu, the bravest hero in all Abyssinia, in the hands of Kasa, who thus became master of the whole south-west. Beru, deserted by his army, prostrated himself before Kasa, with a stone on his neck, after the custom of the country; but his conqueror seated him beside him, and asked, “What would you have done to me, had I been your prisoner?” “I would not have allowed you to come into my presence, but would have taken good care to have you put to death without an audience,” was the answer; upon which Kasa thanked God aloud for his victory. Beru remained in custody until the death of his conqueror.

Of the same expedition the following anecdote is told. One of his servants boasted, after the fashion of Abyssinian warriors, “No one, O Kasa, can look even thy servants in the face, not to speak of thyself.” The prince happened to have in his hand at the moment one of the very brittle glass vessels in use among the Abyssinians. This, by way of confirmation of what the man had said, he dashed upon a wooden dish; the glass remained unbroken, but the wood Fell into pieces. He now drew his sword, and proudly said, “I, Christ’s servant, hold by Christ; who can stand before my face?” He then offered prayer, and drank mead from the glass. The story is no doubt an adorned version of something that really happened; it is of interest to us as showing that people had already begun to regard Kasa as invincible.

In the same summer (1854) Kasa attacked Ubié, the most powerful of his rivals, resorting not only to arms, but to cunning and diplomacy. By the favour which he ostentatiously showed to the Roman Catholic bishop, an Italian named De Jacobis, he contrived to rouse the fears of Abba Selama, the spiritual head (Abuna) of the Abyssinian Church, that in the end Kasa’s territory was to be withdrawn from him, and brought into connection with the Roman Church; to prevent this the Abuna made a rapid change of front, and went over from Ubié, his benefactor, to Kasa, promising to crown him as sovereign. On this Kasa now expelled De Jacobis[119] and all the other Catholic priests, as Ubié had previously banished the Protestant missionaries.

On 9th February 1855 a decisive battle was fought, in which Ubié was made prisoner, and his whole dominions fell under the power of Kasa. Almost immediately (11th February) Kasa had himself anointed and crowned in the church of Deresgé Maryam, by Abuna Selama, under the name of Theodore, as “king of the kings of Ethiopia.” The choice of the name, which, confident of victory, he had announced to his soldiers before the battle, was well considered. Throughout the country hopes had long been cherished of the appearance of a Messianic ruler, Theodore, who should restore the glories of the kingdom and subdue unbelievers, and this was the character which Kasa now took on himself to represent; but, curiously enough, he did not assume the proper imperial title of Hatsé (or Haté, Até), leaving it to the old and feeble John, husband of Menen, who survived Theodore, and was always treated by him with the greatest respect, doubtless from some superstitious idea. The defect of Kasa’s ancestry was made good by courtly genealogists, who soon supplied a pedigree establishing the descent of his mother from Solomon (that of his father was perhaps too well known), and thus making him to some extent a legitimate sovereign in the eyes of the people.

But he attached no value to the outward display of royalty. He dressed like an ordinary officer, slept almost invariably in a military tent, and went barefoot like all his subjects. At the same time, like some other great warrior kings, he had a touch of the theatrical in his character, which doubtless helped to enhance his reputation with the Abyssinians. Thus, for example, he had a fancy for keeping tame lions. There must have been something kinglike in the whole aspect of the man; he was of the middle height, very dark even for an Abyssinian, with aristocratic features, aquiline nose, and fiery black eyes; almost all Europeans who came before him were much impressed by him at first sight. Some of them also detected a trace of cunning in his face, and this was no doubt correct. Of insinuating address in his friendly moods, he could be terrible in the outbursts of his wrath. Possibly this wrath may sometimes have been merely assumed, as in the case of Napoleon I.

One of his first acts as king was to renew the old laws against the slave trade and polygamy. But unfortunately his constant wars made it impossible to give full effect to the former prohibition; and a real reformation of the frightfully loose marriage relations which prevail in this very “Christian” State could not be effected by edicts apart from a movement of moral reformation. The law remained a dead letter, all the more that he himself personally in after years violated it grossly.

Theodore threw himself with all his might into the maintenance of justice. All the oppressed, so far as was at all possible, betook themselves directly to him. In Abyssinia the head of the State still personally discharges the functions of judge. He sought to protect the country folk against the excesses of the soldiers. His punishments were frightfully severe, but at the same time often milder than the laws prescribed. We would not excuse the excessive and shocking severity of Theodore’s punishments, such as the chopping off of hands and feet, and so on; but it is fair to remember that it is only modern humanitarianism that has finally put a stop to similar atrocities among ourselves, and that in Europe revolting corporal punishments were still sanctioned by law in an age where they were much less in harmony with the prevailing civilisation than in modern Abyssinia. It ought to be added, that he not unfrequently pardoned vanquished foes. In his legal judgments he showed good sense. Decisions of his are quoted which are much better entitled to the epithet “Solomonic” than his genealogy is.

Immediately after the subjugation of Ubié, Theodore marched against the Wollo-Gallas, reduced them to apparent subjection at the very first onset, and pushed farther to the south into the kingdom of Shoa, which, as we learn from the missionary Krapf, feared no assailant from the north, being covered (as it deemed) by the Wollos. Such an opinion would have been justified in the case of any ordinary Abyssinian prince, but not in that of Theodore. He was soon master of all Shoa, and, the native king dying at the time, nominated a member of the same family, not as king, but as governor. Thus within less than a year Theodore had added to his old provinces all that remained of Abyssinia.

But to conquer and to hold are not quite the same. Had Theodore been a cool-headed and highly-educated European, he would from the first have called a halt at the natural northern frontier of the Wollo country, the valley of the Beshelo. Really to subjugate this people was a much heavier task than he could have supposed. The Wollos have long been Mohammedans, and are proud of their faith, although they know but little of the doctrines of Islam, and have retained much that is of pagan origin. They are divided against themselves in genuine African fashion; tribe is at war with tribe, clan with clan, but they were all at one in their love of independence and in hatred of the Christian conqueror. All the Gallas (all, at least, who live in or near Abyssinia) are savage and bloodthirsty, with all the instincts of the robber, not very courageous in open fight, but dangerous in guerilla warfare. The Wollos have the reputation also of being exceptionally treacherous. Their country, somewhat less, perhaps, than the kingdom of Saxony, is broken up by great mountain ranges rising close to the snow line, and by numerous deep valleys, so as to make the reduction of a recalcitrant population under a united rule an excessively difficult task. On the other hand, it offers abundant cover for rebels and robbers; and any one acquainted with the byways can easily incommode even considerable bodies of troops. The Wollos are born horsemen, and gallop along the steepest hillsides on their hardy ponies. Theodore carried on his war with them year after year. He was never defeated by them, and, in fact, they were afraid so much as to look him in the face.[120] His generals also were for the most part successful against them. Great parts of the country, and even prominent chiefs, were often subdued by him, but he never became master of the whole. Sometimes with kindness, often with severity rising to atrocious cruelty, he sought to bring them under his sway; but the result was always the same, that in the end in Walloland he could call nothing his own except garrisoned fortresses like Makdala.[121]

Meanwhile arose, now in one province, now in another, various rebels, some of them members of old princely families, sometimes bold soldiers of fortune. None of them was at all a match for him. Wherever he made his appearance the armies of the insurgents were scattered like dust. By force or by artifice he succeeded in getting several of them into his power, and among them one who, as it seemed, was the most formidable of all—Negusié of Tigré (beginning of 1861), with whom France had already entered into relations as “King of Abyssinia.” Others took refuge in inaccessible deserts, or in steep rocky fastnesses, of which so many are found in Abyssinia. Had he not been hampered by the Wollos, he would doubtless have got the better of them all; but his war of extermination against these savages crippled him completely. He found no exceptional difficulty indeed in recruiting his armies, decimated though they were by the sword, and still more by periodical pestilence; for Abyssinia has no lack of men with a taste for war and plunder, and Theodore’s name acted like a charm. The very size of his armies was his misfortune. He could not feed them in any regular way. Though at the outset he strictly repressed all plundering in friendly districts, he soon had to concede everything to his hungry soldiers, and even to order the systematic robbery of prosperous regions. In this way the veneration of his people was turned into hatred; the poverty-stricken peasants went to swell the ranks of the rebels, or, at least, robbed and murdered in secret.

Theodore’s embarrassments were further increased by his relations with the ecclesiastical authorities. At the head of the Abyssinian Church, a branch of the Coptic (the whole civilisation of Abyssinia, so far as it is Christian, is derived from the impure Coptic source), stands a bishop, who must be, not a native, but a Copt, sent by the (Monophysite) patriarch of Alexandria. This “Abuna,” in power and consideration, stands almost on a level with the king, has much larger revenues, and is reverenced by the masses as a god. Since November 1841 this position had been occupied by Abba Selama, mentioned above, a man of about the same age as Kasa-Theodore. Having as a child attended an English mission school, many English and German Protestants cherished great hopes regarding him; but other Europeans who happened to be in Abyssinia at the time of his arrival there,—Ferret and Galinier (French), and Mansfield Parkins (English),—who had no ecclesiastical preoccupations, at once perceived him to be an insignificant, narrow-minded individual. Nowhere, moreover, could a prelate, with any serious inclination to reformation, have a more difficult position than in the wretched Church of Abyssinia: to make any progress with the laity would be difficult; with the priesthood, impossible. As Abba Selama at the outset had the immeasurable advantage over the natives of a somewhat higher education and a much greater knowledge of the world, he ought certainly to have been able, in conjunction with such a man as Theodore, to improve many things, had he shown intelligence and adaptability. But he cared for nothing except his own spiritual independence. The king was very amenable to good advice, and had also laid him under special obligations by forcibly repressing a large party of the priests that for dogmatic reasons was hostile to him; but instead of exercising a moderating influence upon him, the prelate soon brought matters to a complete breach. When the German missionary Krapf met the king in the heyday of his victorious career, in the spring of 1855, he still appeared to be in heart and soul at one with the Abuna; but any one who is acquainted with the quarrels that subsequently arose can mark the root of them in the jealous temper which the language of the bishop, reported by Krapf, even then revealed. Soon afterwards a mutiny broke out in the army in Shoa, which to all appearance had been stirred up by the Abuna and the second spiritual authority in the kingdom, the supreme head of the monks. This was repressed without leading to an open conflict with the clerics. But soon a worse controversy arose. The king began to lay hands on the vast revenues of the Church to meet the demands of his army,—a measure certainly contrary to every usage of the country, and dictated only by sheerest necessity. Further, he required the priests to uncover in his presence (he being filled with the Spirit of God), just as they uncovered in presence of the ark (or altar), which was the Seat of God. In these controversies the king had to give way at first, but soon it went hard with the clergy. The biographer, though as respectful in his feeling towards the bishop as towards the king, accumulates all sorts of details fitted to make plain the contempt and hatred which Theodore gradually and increasingly came to feel towards the haughty head of the Church and the entire clergy. Even the supreme head of that Church, the patriarch of Alexandria, on one occasion when he visited Abyssinia, had seriously compromised himself in the king’s eyes. Moreover, the Abuna appears to have been far from exemplary in his private life. Theodore, accordingly, in the course of time, broke loose from all clerical restraints. In his later years he deliberately set fire to sacred buildings, burned down the town of Gondar precisely because it was “the city of the priests,” threw the Abuna into prison, and finally even, on his own authority, issued to himself and his soldiers a dispensation from fasting, perhaps the most important duty of Abyssinian Christianity; and all this the priesthood had silently to endure. On the other hand, of course, their hatred helped to alienate the people from the king, and the Abuna in his prison maintained close relations with the more important rebels.

In the first years of his reign Theodore had two faithful counsellors in Plowden, the British consul, and John Bell, who had come into the country along with Plowden, had almost become an Abyssinian, and adhered with touching fidelity to the master whose service he had joined. These two had a great influence in stimulating his desire for the introduction of European manners, or rather of the arts of Europe; when he compared them and what he learned from them about Europe with his own Abyssinians, the latter could not but fall greatly in his estimation, and perhaps in the end he even came to value his own people too lightly, and to judge them too severely. Plowden, unfortunately, was recalled by his Government to the port of Massowa, and on his journey (March 1860) fell into the hands of a rebel, a cousin of the king, receiving wounds of which he soon afterwards died. Theodore at once set out against the miscreant, who fell in the battle that followed, slain, it is said, by the hand of Bell, who in his turn was killed while shielding the king with his own person. Theodore terribly avenged his two friends, whose loss was never repaired to him. Queen Tewabetch, to whom, as we have seen, he clung with all his soul, had died previously on 18th August 1858; Flad tells us that he regarded her death as a divine judgment on him for having shortly before caused the wife of an arch-rebel who had fallen into his hands to be cruelly butchered.

Continual conflicts left the king no leisure to carry out reforms, however much his heart may have been set on them. Before everything else the construction of roads, bridges, and viaducts was a necessity for the country, and with road-making he did actually make a beginning. The first section was completed in 1858, under the direction of Zander, a German painter. When he complained that the necessary assistance was not being given to him, the king caused the governor of the district to be whipped and laid in irons, rewarding Zander richly. Theodore desired nothing more ardently than the immigration of European artisans and mechanics. With more of these and fewer missionaries, much disaster would have been averted and much good done.

To outward seeming Theodore was at the height of his power between 1861 and 1863. It was only in these years that he actually wielded authority, through his governor, over the whole of Tigré, the one province which has tolerably easy communications with the coast. But his struggles with the Wollos wasted his strength, and continually gave rebels renewed opportunities to rise. From 1863 onwards, his difficulties increased day by day. At the same time the king’s disposition steadily became gloomier. From the first he had been capricious, subject to violent outbursts of wrath, and in his passion capable of the most dreadful actions. But now he experienced disappointment after disappointment. Prince Menilek of Shoa escaped from Makdala in 1865, and again set up the kingdom of his fathers; Theodore attempted to dethrone him once more, but was compelled to retire from Shoa without accomplishing his object. One province after another was lost, temporarily or permanently. Even in the earlier years of his sovereignty many of his grandees in whom he had reposed perfect confidence had left him and become rebels. This made him ever more mistrustful, and increased his contempt for his fellow-countrymen. Ultimately, on the slightest suspicion, or even out of mere caprice, he would put in irons, for a longer or shorter time, his most faithful servants, some of whom in the long-run proved their fidelity by dying with him. In his youthful days as robber chief and adventurer he had resembled David, who, secure of his future, had led a freebooter life among the mountains of southern Judah (of course one must remember that the African character is much ruder still than that of ancient Israel); now, in one aspect at least, he often resembled Saul when the evil spirit had come upon him. When Theodore sat gloomily brooding, every one who knew him took care to avoid him; kindly attendants sought to keep off visitors with the transparent pretence that the king was asleep.

It is no more true of Theodore than of any other extraordinary man, that his whole character was suddenly transformed. All his faults showed themselves at an early period, some of them in a very marked way; but in late years his bad qualities became more and more prominent, and overgrew his better nature. Terunesh, the proud daughter of the aged Ubié, whom he married some five years after the death of the beloved Tewabetch, was unable to hold his affections; and with the full consciousness that he was doing wrong he abandoned himself to the usual polygamy of the native princes. Like most of the Abyssinian grandees, he had always been a heavy drinker; but in his last years, contrary to his earlier practice, he often got drunk, and when in this condition gave orders of the most bloody description, which he afterwards bitterly repented. But this man, who sometimes in anger or drunkenness, sometimes with the clear conscience of a ruler or judge sacrificing to the public weal or to the cause of righteousness, butchered thousands of people, and burned churches and cities to the ground—this very man played in the most genial way with little children, in his expeditions was scrupulously careful that the women and children, numbers of whom always accompany an Abyssinian army, should come to no harm, and was ready to assist personally the exhausted soldier who had fallen out of the ranks.