Chapter V: Part 5

Slowly flapped the leaden wings of Time on that dismal day. Each weary hour brought a grievous accession, but no alleviation, to the fearful torments endured. The stagnation of the atmosphere continued undiminished; the pangs of thirst increased, but no water arrived; and the sun's despotic dominion on the meridian, appeared to know no termination. At four o'clock, when the heat was nothing abated, distressing intelligence was received that one of the seamen, who during the preceding night had accompanied the captain of the schooner-of-war from Goobut el Kharab, and had unfortunately lost his way, could nowhere be found--the gunner, with six men, having long painfully searched the country side for their lost messmate, but to no purpose; Abroo, the son of whom old Aboo Bekr was justly proud, and who was indeed the flower of his tribe, immediately volunteered to go in quest of the missing sailor, and he subsequently returned with the cheering intelligence that his efforts had been crowned with success. Overwhelmed by heat and thirst, the poor fellow, unable to drag his exhausted limbs further, had crept for shelter into a fissure of the heated lava, where he had soon sunk into a state of insensibility. Water, and the use of a lancet, with which the young midshipman who heroically accompanied the exploring party had been provided, restored suspended animation sufficiently to admit of his patient being conveyed on board the "Constance" alive; but, alas! he never reached Tajura; neither did one of the brave tars who sought their lost comrade under the fierce rays of the sun, nor indeed did any of the adventurous expedition, escape without feeling, in after severe illness, the unwholesome influence upon the human constitution of that waste and howling wilderness.

But the longest day must close at last, and the great luminary had at length run his fiery and tyrannical course. String after string of loaded camels, wearied with the passage of the rugged defile of Rah Eesah, were with infinite difficulty urged down the last steep declivity, and at long intervals, as the shadows lengthened, made their tardy appearance upon the desert plain; those carrying water, tents, and the greater portion of the provisions most required, being nevertheless still in the rear when the implacable orb went down, shorn of his last fierce ray. The drooping spirits of all now rose with the prospect of speedy departure from so fearful a spot. The commander of the friendly schooner, which had proved of such inestimable service, but whose protecting guns were at length to be withdrawn, shortly set out on his return to the vessel with the last despatches from the Embassy, after bidding its members a final farewell; and in order to obtain water, any further deprivation of which must have involved the dissolution of the whole party, no less than to escape from the pestilential exhalations of the desolate lake, which, as well during the night as during the day, yielded up a blast like that curling from a smith's forge--withering to the human frame--it was resolved as an unavoidable alternative, to leave the baggage to its fate, and to the tender mercies of guides and camel-drivers, pushing forward as expeditiously as possible to Goongoonteh, a cleft in the mountains that bound the opposite shore, wherein water was known to be abundant. Pursuant to this determination, the European escort, with the servants, followers, horses, and mules, were held in readiness to march so soon as the moon should rise above the gloomy lava hills, sufficiently to admit of the path being traced which leads beyond the accursed precincts of a spot, fitly likened by the Danakil to the infernal regions.

Dismal, deadly, and forbidding, but deeply interesting in a geological point of view, its overwhelming and paralysing heat precluded all possibility of minute examination, and thus researches were of necessity confined to the general character of the place. Latitude, longitude, and level were however accurately determined [These will be found in the Appendix, Number One], and many were the theories ventured, to account for so unusual a phenomenon. Obviously the result of earthquake and volcanic eruption--a chaos vomited into existence by

"Th' infuriate hill that shoots the pillar'd flame,"

Dame Nature must indeed have been in a most afflicting throe to have given birth to a progeny so monstrous; and there being no locality to which the most vivid fancy could assign aught that ever bore the name of wealth or human population, little doubt can exist that the sea must have been repelled far from its former boundaries. The oviform figure of the bowl, hemmed in on three sides by volcanic mountains, and on the fourth by sheets of lava, would at the first glance indicate the site of an extensive crater, whose cone having fallen into a subterranean abyss, had given rise to the singular appearance witnessed. But it is a far more probable hypothesis that the Bahr Assal, now a dead sea, formed at some very remote period a continuation of the Gulf of Tajura, and was separated from Goobut el Kharab by a stream of lava six miles in breadth, subsequently upheaved by subterranean action, and now forming a barrier, which, from its point of greatest elevation, where the traces of many craters still exist, gradually slopes eastward towards the deep waters of the bay, and westward into the basin of the Salt Lake. Whilst no soundings are found in the estuary of Tajura, Goobut el Kharab gives one hundred and fifteen fathoms, or six hundred and ninety feet; and premising the depression of the lake to have been formerly correspondent therewith, one hundred and twenty feet may be assumed as its present depth. To this it has been reduced by the great annual evaporation that must take place--an evaporation decreasing every year as the salt solution becomes more intensely concentrated, and evinced by the saline incrustation on the surface no less than by a horizontal efflorescence, in strata, at a considerable height on the face of the circumjacent rocks.

In the lapse of years, should the present order of things continue undisturbed from below, the water win probably disappear altogether, leaving a field of rock salt, which, when covered in by the debris washed down from the adjacent mountains, will form an extensive depot for the supply of Danakil generations yet unborn; and the shocks of earthquakes being still occasionally felt in the neighbourhood, it seems not improbable--to carry the speculation still further--that Goobut el Kharab, divided only by a narrow channel from the Bay of Tajura, will, under subterranean influence, be, in due process of time, converted into a salt lake, in no material respect dissimilar from the Bahr Assal-- another worthy type of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Volume One, Chapter XV.

DISMAL NIGHT-MARCH ALONG THE INHOSPITABLE SHORES OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE.

Scarcely had the moon dipped her first flickering beam into the unruffled surface of the oval lake, and lighted the bluff cliffs for some hours previously shrouded in gloomy obscurity, than a loud war-cry from the adjacent heights echoed the assembly to arms, and the shrill blast of the Adaiel conch summoned all to the rescue. Abandoning his occupation, each stalwart warrior seized spear and buckler, which had been laid aside whilst he aided in the task of reloading the camels for the approaching night-march, and with respondent yells rushed towards the spot whence the alarm proceeded. The Europeans, springing from their broken slumbers on the parched sands, stood to their arms. A long interval of silence and suspense succeeded, which was at last relieved by the return of Mohammad Ali, one of whose beasts had unfortunately slidden with its burden over a steep precipice, when the water-skins bursting incontinently, had scattered the filthy but precious contents over the thirsty soil--an irreparable catastrophe which had occasioned the call for assistance, believed by all to indicate a hostile gathering of the wild Bedouin clans.

Of two roads which lead to Goongoonteh from the shores of the dreary Bahr Assal, one skirts the margin of the lake by a route utterly destitute of fresh water; whilst the other, although somewhat more circuitous, conducts over high lava banks stretching some distance inland to Haliksitan, and past the small well of Hanlefanta, where the drained pitcher of the fainting wayfarer may be refilled. On finally quitting the bivouac under the scraggy boughs of the dwarf acacia, where the tedious and most trying day had been endured--which each of the half-stifled party did with an inward prayer that it might never fall to his lot to seek their treacherous shelter more--a fierce dispute arose amongst the leaders of the caravan as to which path should be adopted. "What matters it," urged the intolerant Mohammadan from Shoa, who had accidentally been found starving at Ambabo, and been since duly fed by the embassy--"what matters it if all these Christian dogs should happen to expire of thirst? Lead the Kafirs by the lower road, or, _Allahu akbar_, God is most powerful, if the waters of the well prove low, what is to become of the mules of the Faithful?"

But the breast of the son of Ali Abi fortunately warmed to a more humane and charitable feeling than the stony heart of the "red man." With his hand upon the hilt of his creese, he swore aloud upon the sacred Koran to take the upper path, and stoutly led the way, in defiance of all, after Izhak and the ruthless bigots in his train had actually entered upon a route, which the event proved must have involved the destruction of all less inured than the savage to the hardships of the waste wilderness.

'Twas midnight when the thirsty party commenced the steep ascent of the ridge of volcanic hills which frown above the south-eastern boundary of the fiery lake. The searching north-east wind had scarcely diminished in its parching fierceness, and in hot suffocating gusts swept fitfully over the broad glittering expanse of water and salt whereon the moon shone brightly--each deadly puff succeeded by the stillness that foretells a tropical hurricane--an absolute absence even of the smallest ruffling of the close atmosphere. Around, the prospect was wild, gloomy, and unearthly, beetling basaltic cones and jagged slabs of shattered larva--the children of some mighty trouble--forming scenery the most shadowy and extravagant. A chaos of ruined churches and cathedrals, _eedgahs_, towers, monuments, and minarets, like the ruins of a demolished world, appeared to have been confusedly tossed together by the same volcanic throes, that when the earth was in labour, had produced the phenomenon below; and they shot their dilapidated spires into the molten vault of heaven, in a fantastic medley, which, under so uncertain a light, bewildered and perplexed the heated brain. The path, winding along the crest of the ridge, over sheets of broken lava, was rarely of more than sufficient width to admit of progress in single file; and the livelong hours, each seeming in itself a century, were spent in scrambling up the face of steep rugged precipices, where the moon gleamed upon the bleaching skeleton of some camel that had proved unequal to the task--thence again to descend at the imminent peril of life and limb, into yawning chasms and dark abysses, the forbidding vestiges of bygone volcanic agency.

The horrors of that dismal night set the efforts of description at defiance. An unlimited supply of water in prospect, at the distance of only sixteen miles, had for the brief moment buoyed up the drooping spirit which tenanted each way-worn frame; and when an exhausted mule was unable to totter further, his rider contrived manfully to breast the steep hill on foot. But owing to the long fasting and privation endured by all, the limbs of the weaker soon refused the task, and after the first two miles, they dropped fast in the rear.

Fanned by the fiery blast of the midnight sirocco, the cry for water, uttered feebly and with difficulty by numbers of parched throats, now became incessant; and the supply of that precious element brought for the whole party falling short of one gallon and a half, it was not long to be answered. A tiny sip of diluted vinegar for a moment assuaging the burning thirst which raged in the vitals, and consumed some of the more down-hearted, again raised their drooping souls; but its effects were transient, and after struggling a few steps, overwhelmed, they sunk again, with husky voice declaring their days to be numbered, and their resolution to rise up no more. Dogs incontinently expired upon the road; horses and mules that once lay down, being unable from exhaustion to rally, were reluctantly abandoned to their fate; whilst the lion-hearted soldier, who had braved death at the cannon's mouth, subdued and unmanned by thirst, finally abandoning his resolution, lay gasping by the wayside, and heedless of the exhortation of his officers, hailed approaching dissolution with delight, as bringing the termination of tortures which were not to be endured.

Whilst many of the escort and followers were thus unavoidably left stretched with open mouths along the road, in a state of utter insensibility, and apparently yielding up the ghost, others, pressing on to arrive at water, became bewildered in the intricate mazes of the wide wilderness, and recovered it with the utmost difficulty. As another day dawned, and the round red sun again rose in wrath over the Lake of Salt, towards the hateful shores of which the tortuous path was fast tending, the courage of all who had hitherto home up against fatigue and anxiety began to flag. A dimness came before the drowsy eyes, giddiness seized the brain, and the prospect ever held out by the guides, of quenching thirst immediately in advance, seeming like the tantalising delusions of a dream, had well nigh lost its magical effect; when, as the spirits of the most sanguine fainted within them, a wild Bedouin was perceived, like a delivering angel from above, hurrying forward with a large skin filled with muddy water. This most well-timed supply, obtained by Mohammad Ali from the small pool at Hanlefanta, of which, with the promised guard of his own tribe, by whom he had been met, he had taken forcible possession in defiance of the impotent threats of the ruthless "red man," was sent to the rear. It admitted of a sufficient quantity being poured over the face and down the parched throat, to revive every prostrate and perishing sufferer; and at a late hour, ghastly, haggard, and exhausted, like men who had escaped from the jaws of death, the whole had contrived to straggle into a camp, which, but for the foresight and firmness of the son of Ali Abi, few individuals indeed of the whole party would have reached alive.

A low range of limestone hillocks, interspersed with strange masses of coral, and marked by a pillar like that of Lot, encloses the well of Hanlefanta, where each mule obtained a shield full of water. From the glittering shores of the broad lake, the road crosses the saline incrustation, which extends about two miles to the opposite brink. Soiled and mossy near the margin, the dull crystallised salt appears to rest upon an earthy bottom; but it soon becomes lustrous and of a purer colour, and floating on the surface of the dense water, like a rough coarse sheet of ice, irregularly cracked, is crusted with a white yielding efflorescence, resembling snow which has been thawed and refrozen, but which still, as here, with a crisp sound, receives the impress of the foot. A well trodden path extends through the prismatic colours of the rainbow, by the longitudinal axis of the ellipse, to the northeastern extremity of the gigantic bowl, whence the purest salt is obtainable in the vicinity of several cold springs, said to cast up large pebbles on their jet, through the ethereal blue water.

At some distance from the beach was a caravan of Bedouin salt-diggers, busily loading their camels for the markets of Aussa and Abyssinia, where it forms on article of extensive traffic and barter. Two other basins of a similar stamp, but inferior extent, which exist at no great distance to the northward, are styled "Ullool" and "Dus." The first of these producing salt of most exquisite lustre, is preferred by the Mudaito tribes, from whose capital Aussa, it is not more remote than Doba, as they term the Bahr Assal, the right to frequent which is asserted as an exclusive privilege by the Danakil, who for centuries have actually held the monopoly undisputed. Transferred in bulk in long narrow mat bags, wrought of the date-leaf, it is exchanged for slaves and grain, and not only forms, as in other climes, one of the chief necessaries of life, but possesses a specific value for the rock salt of the north, which, cut into rectangular blocks, passes as a circulating medium.

A second low belt of hills, gypsum and anhydrite, succeeded by limestone overstrewed with basaltic boulders, forms the western bank of the molten sea, and opens into a mountain ravine. Taking its source at Allooli, the highest point of the Gollo range, this torrent strives to disembogue into the extremity of the lake, although its waters seldom arrive so far, save during the rainy season. The high basaltic cliffs that hem in the pebbly channel, approximating in the upper course as they increase rapidly in altitude, form a narrow waist, where the first running stream that had greeted the eye of the pilgrims since leaving the shores of Asia, trickled onwards, leaving bright limpid pools, surrounded by brilliant sward.

Bowers, for ever green, enlivened by the melodious warbling of the feathered creation, and the serene and temperate air of the verdant meadows of Elysium, were absent from this blessed spot, but it was entered with feelings allied for the moment to escape from the horrors of purgatory to the gates of Paradise; and under the shade cast by the overhanging cliffs, which still warded off the ardent rays of the ascending sun, it was with thankful hearts that the exhausted party, after the terrors of such a night, turned their backs upon the deadly waters of the stagnant lake, to quaff at the delicious rivulet of Goongoonteh an unlimited quantity of cool though brackish fluid.

Here terminated the dreary passage of the dire Tehama--an iron-bound waste, which, at this inauspicious season of the year, opposes difficulties almost overwhelming in the path of the traveller. Setting aside the total absence of water and forage throughout a burning tract of fifty miles--its manifold intricate mountain passes, barely wide enough to admit the transit of a loaded camel, the bitter animosity of the wild bloodthirsty tribes by which they are infested, and the uniform badness of the road, if road it may be termed, everywhere beset with the huge jagged blocks of lava, and intersected by perilous acclivities and descents--it is no exaggeration to state, that the stifling sirocco which sweeps across the unwholesome salt flat during the hotter months of the year, could not fail, within eight and forty hours, to destroy the hardiest European adventurer. Some idea of the temperature of this terrible region may be derived from the fact of fifty pounds of well packed spermaceti candles, having, during the short journey from Tajura, been so completely melted out of the box as to be reduced to a mere bundle of wicks. Even the Danakil, who from early boyhood have been accustomed to traverse the burning lava of the Tehama, never speak of it but in conjunction with the devouring element, of whose properties it partakes so liberally, and when alluding to the Lake of Salt, invariably designate it "Fire."

Volume One, Chapter XVI.

AFFLICTING CATASTROPHE AT GOONGOONTEH.

Goongoonteh, a deep gloomy zig-zagged fissure, of very straitened dimensions, is hemmed in by craggy lava and basaltic walls, intersected by dykes of porphyry, augitic greenstone and pistacite, with decomposed sulphate of iron, all combining to impart a strangely variegated appearance. Scattered and inclined in various directions, although towering almost perpendicularly, they terminate abruptly in a rude pile of rocks and lulls, through a narrow aperture in which the path to the next halting ground at Allooli, where the torrent takes its source, strikes off at an angle of 90 degrees.

Huge prostrate blocks of porphyry and basalt, which have been launched from the impending scarps, and now reduce the channel to this narrow passage, are in places so heaped and jammed together by some mighty agency, as to form spacious and commodious caverns. In the rainy season especially, these doubtless prove of wonderful convenience to the wayfarer; and no tent arriving until late the following day, the re-assembled party were fain to have recourse to them for shelter against the fierce hot blast from the Salt Lake, which, unremitting in its dire persecutions, now blew directly up the ravine. But the rocks soon became too hot to be touched with impunity, and the oblique rays of the sun, after he had passed the meridian, darting through every aperture, the caves were shortly converted into positive ovens, in which the heat, if possible, was even more intolerable than ever. Unlike former stations, however, there was, in this close unventilated chasm, a luxurious supply of water to be obtained from the living rill which murmured past the entrance, and although raised to the temperature of a thermal spring by the direct influence of the solar rays, and withal somewhat brackish to the taste, it was far from being pronounced unpalatable.

Notwithstanding that the neighbourhood afforded neither the smallest particle of forage nor of fuel, it became necessary, in consequence of the non-arrival of one half of the camels, no less than from the exhaustion of many of the party, to halt a day in the hot unhealthy gully; and this delay afforded to the treacherous creese of the lurking Bedouin an opportunity of accomplishing that which had only been threatened by drought and famine. The guides objecting strongly to the occupation of the caves after nightfall, on account of the many marauding parties of Eesah and Mudaito, by whom the wady is infested, every one, as a measure of precaution, slept in the open air among the baggage, half a mile lower down the ravine, where the caravan had halted. The dry sandy bed of the stream was here narrow, and the cliffs--broken for a short distance on either side into hillocks of large distinct boulders--again resumed their consistency after an interval of one hundred yards, and enclosed the camp in a deep gloom.

The straitened figure of the bivouac rendered it impossible to make arrangements with much regularity in view to defence. The horses were picketted in the centre of the ravine. The European escort occupied a position betwixt them and the northern side, and the scanty beds of the officers of the party were spread close to the southern bank. A strong picket of the Danakil was placed a little distance in advance; and, in addition to the numerous other native guards in various quarters, the usual precaution was observed of mounting a European sentry, whose beat extended the length of the front of the encampment. Old Izhak slept close to the beds of the embassy, and, evidently in a state of considerable trepidation, solaced himself until a late hour by recounting bloody tales of murder and assassination, perpetrated, within his knowledge, by the mountain _Buddoos_ haunting the ravine of Goongoonteh, which, being the high road to the Salt Lake, forms the resort of numerous evil disposed ruffians, who are ever on the prowl to cut throats, and to do mischief.

The first night, although awfully oppressive from the heat exhaled from the baked ground, and the absence of even the smallest zephyr, passed quietly enough; and after another grilling day, which seemed to have no termination, spent within the caverns, the same nocturnal arrangement as before was observed with undiminished precaution. An hour before midnight a sudden and violent sirocco scoured the wady, the shower of dust and pebbles raised by its hot blast, being followed by a few heavy drops of rain, with a calm, still as the sleep of death. The moon rose shortly afterwards, and about two o'clock a wild Irish yell, which startled the whole party from their fitful slumbers, was followed by a rush of men, and a clatter of hoofs, towards the beds of the Embassy. Every man sprang instinctively on his feet, seized a gun, of which two or three lay loaded beside each, and standing on his pillow with weapon cocked, prepared for the reception of the unseen assailants. Fortunate was it that no luckless savage, whether friend or foe, followed in the disorderly retreat, or consequences the most appalling must inevitably have ensued; but the white legs of half-naked and unarmed artillerymen having passed at speed, were followed only by a crush of horses and mules that had burst from their pickets. So complete was the panic caused by a sudden start from deep sleep to witness the realisation of the murderous tales of midnight assassination which had been poured into their ears, that the flying soldiery, who in the battle field had seen comrades fell thick around them, and witnessed death in a thousand terrific forms, were rallied with difficulty. But a panic is of short duration if officers perform their duty, and the word "Halt!" acted like magic upon the bewildered senses of the survivors, who, falling in, formed line behind the rifles.

Hurrying to the spot which they had occupied, a melancholy and distressing sight presented itself. A sergeant and a corporal lay weltering in the blood with which their scanty beds were deeply stained, and both were in the last agonies of death. One had been struck with a creese in the carotid artery immediately below the ear, and the other stabbed through the heart; whilst speechless beside their mangled bodies was stretched a Portuguese follower, with a frightful gash across the abdomen, whence the intestines were protruding. Aroused in all probability during this act of cold-blooded murder, and attempting to give the alarm, he had received a fatal slash as the dastards retreated; but almost instantaneous death had followed each previous blow of the creese, which, whilst the back of the sentinel was turned, had been dealt with mortal and unerring precision.

Two human figures being perceived at the moment the alarm was first raised, crossing the lower gorge of the ravine, and absconding towards the hills which bounded the further extremity of the camp, were promptly pursued by Mohammad Ali and his band of followers, who had seized spear and shield with the utmost alacrity; but although the moon shone bright, and the stars twinkled in the clear firmament, the broken and stony nature of the ground facilitated the escape of the miscreants under the deep shadow cast by the overhanging mountains, where objects could not be distinguished.

This afflicting catastrophe gave birth in the breast of all to a by no means unnatural feeling of distrust towards the escort engaged on the sea-coast, not only as to their ability, but also as to their intention to afford protection. The European party had lain down in full and entire confidence, only to be aroused by the perpetration of this most diabolical and fiendish deed; and although those who had been so fortunate as to escape might, now that they had become aware of the existing peril, defend their own lives, yet such an alternative, involving the abandonment of all the government property in charge, was far from being enviable. Upon after investigation, however, it appeared probable, as well from the evil character borne by the gloomy ravine, as from the numberless murders known to be annually committed under similar circumstances of wanton atrocity amongst the native kafilahs _en route_, that a party of the Eesah Somauli, inhabitants of the opposite coast of Goobut el Kharab, but who, to gratify an insatiate thirst for human blood, are in the habit of making frequent incursions into the country of the Danakil, had seized the opportunity afforded by the absence of the sentry at the further extremity of his beat, to steal unperceived down the inumbrated bank of the hollow, and perpetrate the dastardly and cold-blooded outrage.

No attempt to plunder appeared as an excuse for the Satanic crime, and the only object doubtless was the acquisition of that barbarous estimation and distinction which is only to be arrived at through deeds of assassination and blood. For every victim, sleeping or waking, that falls under the murderous knife of one of these fiends in human form, he is entitled to display a white ostrich plume in the woolly hair, to wear on the arm an additional bracelet of copper, and to adorn the hilt of his reeking creese with yet another stud of silver or pewter--his reputation for prowess and for bravery rising amongst his clansmen in proportion to the atrocity of the attendant circumstances. At perpetual strife with the Danakil, although the chiefs of the tribes are on outward terms of friendship, and even of alliance, no opportunity is lost of retaliating upon the mountain Bedouin--every fresh hostility creating a new blood feud, and each life taken on either side, being revenged two-fold, _ad infinitum_.

Ere the day dawned the mangled bodies of the dead, now stiff and stark, were consigned by their sorrowing comrades to rude but compact receptacles of boulder stones--untimely tombs constructed by the native escort, who had voluntarily addressed themselves to the task. And a short prayer, suited to the melancholy occasion, having been repeated as the mortal remains of each gallant fellow, enveloped in a blood-stained winding sheet, were lowered to their wild resting-place, three volleys of musketry, paying the soldier's last tribute, rang among the dark recesses of the ravine, when the hurried obsequies were concluded by scaling the entrance to the cemeteries, in which, however, it is not probable that the dastardly sons of Satan--still doubtless watching with savage satisfaction from some inaccessible cranny--long suffered their victims to sleep.

In the grave-like calm of the night, under the pale light of the wan moon, which only partially illumined the funereal crags that hemmed in the dreary chasm, and rose in gloomy sadness over the vaults of the departed, the scene was mournful and impressive. Mohammad Ali, Izhak, and Hajji Kasim, with all their retainers, appeared deeply touched by the fatal occurrences that had so thinned the ranks of a party for whose lives they had made themselves responsible; but they referred the event to fate and to the Almighty fiat, adding that, although they were unable to restore the dead to life, or undo that which by the will of Heaven had been done, their own eyes should never close in sleep so long as danger was to be apprehended from the dreaded Eesah, whose only honour and wealth consists in the number of foul butcheries with which their consciences are stained, and whom even savages concur in representing as sanguinary and ferocious monsters, "fearing neither God nor Devil."

Volume One, Chapter XVII.

THE STRICKEN FOLLOWER DIES--CAIRNS OF THE MURDERED--ALLOOLI AND BEDI KURROOF.

It had been intended to march at break of day to Allooli, the source of Wady Goongoonteh; but the absence of several of the camels, which had gone astray during the nocturnal confusion, caused delay in this den of iniquity until ten o'clock. The altered deportment of the chiefs meanwhile tended materially to banish from the mind suspicion of treachery. Heretofore, with the single exception of Mohammad Ali, all had been cold, unfriendly, or insulting; but from the moment of the late catastrophe their manner was visibly changed, and the anxiety evinced for the safety of the survivors under their charge was unremitting. They formed a circle round the party whensoever seated, and not a single white face was for a moment suffered to wander beyond their sight unattended by a clump of spears.

The wound of the unfortunate Portuguese had been pronounced mortal, and his dissolution was hourly expected; but life still glimmering in the socket, he lingered on with fearful groans, although speechless, and too nearly insensible to be aware of what had passed. Placed upon a litter, arranged as comfortably as circumstances would permit, the attempt was made to convey him to the next ground, but the rough motion of the camel doubtless hastened the termination of his sufferings; and the wretched man breathing his last ere he had journeyed many miles from the scene of his misfortunes, was interred under a date tree by the road-side, in a grave ready prepared for his reception.

The last rains having washed away an artificial bank of stones which had formerly facilitated the ascent of the difficult and dangerous passage leading from Goongoonteh into the Wady Kelloo--as the upper course is denominated--a delay of two hours was at first starting experienced in the bed of the torrent, during which all were on the alert. Two huge pointed rocks abutting on opposite angles of the acute zig-zag, reduced it to a traversed waist, so narrow, that room for the load to pass was only afforded when the long-legged dromedary swung its unwieldy carcass alternately from side to side--the steepness of the acclivity rendering it very frequently necessary to perform this inconvenient evolution upon the knees. Many became jammed, and were unladen before they could regain an erect position; whilst others were, with infinite difficulty, by the united efforts of a dozen drivers, who manned the legs and tail, saved from being launched with their burthens over the steep side of the descent, which consisted of a treacherous pile of loose rubbish.

To the surprise of every spectator the train passed through the defile without any material accident, and thence proceeded to pick their steps among the rocks, pools, and fissures, which abound in every mountain torrent whose course is short and precipitous. Flanked by perpendicular sheets of basalt and porphyry, of unwholesome sulphury appearance, beneath which many deep pools of cool water had collected, the tortuous road was at intervals enlivened by clumps of the _doom_ palm, environed by patches of refreshing green turf--sights from which the eye had long been estranged. Nine miles of gradual ascent brought the caravan safely to the encamping ground at the head of the stream--a swamp surrounded by waving palms and verdant rushes, occupying high table-land, and affording abundance of green forage to the famished cattle. Most fortunately the sky had proved cloudy, or the march, performed during the hottest hours of the day, would indeed have been terrific.

Hence to Sagallo, the dismal country is in the exclusive occupation of a wandering race of the Danakil, who, notwithstanding that the Sultan of Tajura claims the sovereignty of the entire waste, only acknowledge his impotent authority during their occasional temporary sojourn among the huts of that sea-port. The guides asserted, with many imprecations, that from time immemorial few kafilahs had ever halted at Allooli without losing one or more of its members by the Adrusi creeses, or by those of the Eesah; and on the bank opposite to the shady clump of _doom_ palms, under whose canopy the residue of the day was passed, numerous cairns, consisting of circular piles of stone, similar to those left at Goongoonteh to commemorate the outrage of the preceding night, stood memorials of the dark deeds that had been perpetrated.

During about three years the road from Abyssinia to the sea-coast was completely closed by hordes of these ruffian outcasts, who continued their murderous depredations on every passer-by, until Loheita, the present Akil of the Debeni, a young, daring, and warlike chieftain, succeeding to the rule on the demise of his father, routed the banditti after a severe struggle, and re-opened the route. The Wady Kelloo is, however, still permanently infested by parties of wild Bedouins, who skulk about the rocky passes: lie in wait for stragglers from the caravan: assassinate all who fall into their ruthless clutches: and, when time permits, further gratify their savage propensities, by mangling and mutilating the corpse.

"See how the cowardly scoundrels marked me," exclaimed the fiery old warrior Ibrahim Shehem Abli, drawing aside his checked kilt, and displaying sundry frightful seams, which had doubtless been the work of a sharp knife. "Behold these tokens of Eesah steel upon my thigh; I received them in this wild wady; but, by Allah, I had a life for every one of them. We have a blood feud now, and it behoves all who are not weary of the world, to look well to their own throats."

Lurking bandits excepted, who prowl about like the midnight wolf, the Adaiel tribes, although sufficiently barbarous and quarrelsome by nature, are fortunately in a great measure restrained from deeds of ferocity by the certain consequences of spilling blood. None are anxious to involve their family or tribe in a mortal feud, nor would any warrior, incurring the almost inevitable consequences of a two-fold retribution, find support from his clansmen, unless sufficient cause could be shown; and thus, even in the most lawless states of society, are checks imposed by absolute necessity, which prove almost as powerful as the more civilised legal restraint upon the human passions.

Although Allooli was represented to be even more perilous than Goongoonteh, it possessed, in point of locality, immense superiority; and every advantage that could be devised, was taken of its capabilities for defence. The baggage, formed in a compact circle on an open naked plain, was surrounded by a line of camels, and the mules and horses were placed in the centre next to the beds of the party. Guards and sentinels patrolled under an officer of the watch; and at the solicitation of the Ras el Kafilah, who was exceedingly anxious to avoid the inconvenient consequences of a blood feud, a musket was discharged every hour at the relief of sentries, in order to intimate to the evil-minded that all within the breastwork were not asleep.

Notwithstanding the presence, in the immediate neighbourhood, for several days previously, of a large band of Eesah, the hot night passed without any alarm. The non-arrival, until long after daybreak, of the camels lost at Goongoonteh, added to the length of the next march, obliging the abandonment of the intention entertained, to speed beyond the pale of this site of assassination, the party halted on the 10th. Allooli stands two hundred and twenty-eight feet above the sea, and although intensely hot, and its waters saline, it proved a paradise when compared with every preceding station. Here animal life was once more abundant. A horde of pastoral savages, who from time to time appeared on the adjacent heights, were made acquainted with the effect of rifle bullets, by the slaughter from the tent door of sundry gazelles that visited the swamp; and the venison afforded a most seasonable accession to the empty larder, which was further replenished from the trees overhead, whose fan-like leaves gave shelter to a beautiful variety of the wood pigeon.

Shortly after midnight the march was resumed by the moon's light over a succession of small barren terraces, confined by conical and rounded hills. In the lone valley of Henraddee Dowar, which opens into the wide level plain of Gurguddee, there stood by the wayside a vast pile of loose stones, half concealed among the tall jaundice-looking flowers of the senna plant. Towards this spot ensued a general race on the part of escort and camel-drivers, who each added a pebble whilst repeating the Arabic auguration, "_Nauzu billahi mina Shaytani r rajim_."--"Let us flee for refuge to God from Satan the stoned." A tragic legend was attached to the cairn, which, from the dimensions attained, must have dated from a remote epoch. A hoary old man, accused in days long gone of incestuous intercourse with his own daughter, was arraigned before a tribunal of his assembled tribe, and, being fully convicted, was on this spot stoned to death, together with his fair partner in guilt. Throughout Syria and Palestine it is to this day the practice of all who pass the mounds raised over those who die in crime, and whose memory it is intended to dishonour, thus to contribute a stone, as well with a view to perpetuate the monument, as to shield themselves from evil by manifesting the detestation entertained of the infamy commemorated.

Gurguddee, eight miles in length, and stretching on either hand to the far horizon, is bounded by steep mountain ranges, whence an alluvial deposit washed down by the rains, presented over the whole of the level plain a surface of cracked and hardened mud, like that of a recently-dried morass. From the southern side, where the clayey tract is thickly clothed with stunted tamarisk and _spartium_, a road strikes up the valley in a north-westerly direction to the Mudaito town of Aussa, distant some three days' journey for a caravan. As the day dawned, the steeple necks of a troop of ostriches were perceived nodding in the landscape, as the gigantic birds kicked the dust behind their heavy heels; and a herd of graceful gazelles were seen scouring towards a belt of stony hillocks which skirted the dry pebbly bed of a river, that expends its waters on the sun-dried plain. Ascending this stream, in which were a few stagnant pools of bitter unpalatable water, a human figure was detected skulking behind some thick green tamarisks by which they were overshadowed. But on being perseveringly hunted down by Mohammad Ali and his wild myrmidons, the prisoner proved to be a Debeni in quest of truant camels--his attempt at concealment having, according to his own account, arisen from the appearance of so many mounted cavaliers, whom he had mistaken for a foraging party of the Eesah, and was naturally desirous of eluding.

The caravan halted early at Bedi Kurroof, after a march of sixteen miles, and the camp was formed on a stony eminence of basalt and lava, affording neither tree nor shade. A day of fierce heat succeeded. There was no forage for the cattle; the water was of the most brackish description; and the spot being of old infested by Bedouins, the party passed a restless and watchful night.

A legend of blood too was attached to this wild bivouac, as to most others on the road, and thus it was related. One of the young men of a Danakil caravan returning from Abyssinia, fatigued by the hot journey, lay down to rest his weary limbs beneath the shadow of a rock, near which the tent of the Embassy now stood. It was yet broad daylight, but a band of lurking Eesah presently pounced upon the wayfarer, like the eagle on its prey, and, ere he could resume his weapons, had stabbed him to the heart. The dying groans of the murdered man being heard by his comrades, a number of warriors started in hot pursuit of the flying assassins, and after a severe chase, succeeded in capturing the whole gang. Two were immediately speared to death upon the principle of two drops of blood for one; and the remaining miscreants, four in number, having been stripped of their clothes and arms, were kicked forth out of the place.

"The Eesah of these lulls," continued the narrator of this tale, as, by the light of the blazing watch-fire, he fashioned a rude wooden bolster for the preservation of his greasy peruke during approaching slumbers, "are perfect _Shaytans_. Outcasts from their tribe, bands of ten or more here wander up and down like wild beasts, cutting the throats of all they meet, whether infidels or true believers--not for the sake of gain or plunder, but purely to gratify an innate propensity to murder. The monsters train for these blood forays upon raw flesh and marrow, and, well anointed with sheep's-tail fat, can travel day and night, during the hottest season, without suffering from fatigue. _Allahu akbar_! but they are devils incarnate!"

"Who has seen the Eesah, who has heard the Eesah?" wildly challenged Mohammad ibn Izhak, starting upon his feet, and clashing his now finished bolster against his buckler, as he concluded this harangue. "Who has seen the Eesah, who has heard the Eesah?" shouted a dozen voices in various quarters of the extended camp. "Uncover your shields, uncover your shields! Count well their spears, that not a man of them escape!"

"We have not seen them, we have not heard them," responded the patroles on duty. "No Eesah are here. Sleep on in peace!"

Volume One, Chapter XVIII.

TERRITORIES OF THE DANAKIL DEBENI--SUGGADERA, MURRAH, DUDDEE, AND GOBAAD.

Some hours before dawn on the 12th, the kafilah was again loaded and in motion across a low belt of stony eminences which gradually descend to the Kori Wady, a long water-course, varying in width from two to four hundred yards. Threading the moist channel of this stream, where the foot often absolutely left an impression on the sand, and passing the watering pool of Leile, the road ascended a deep valley to the halting ground at Suggadera, in the country of the Danakil Debeni. The entire borders were flanked by dwarf palms and drooping tamarisk, bounded by low hills with cliffs of conglomerate and sandstone, which disclosed dykes of porphyry at an acute angle. Flocks of goats, diligently browsing on the fat pods which fall at this season from the acacia, were tended by ancient Bedouin crones in greasy leathern petticoats, who plaited mats of the split date-leaf; whilst groups of men, women, and children, lining the eminences at every turn, watched the progress of the stranger party.

A pastoral race, and subsisting chiefly upon the fermented juice of the palm, and upon the milk derived from numerous flocks of sheep and goats, or from a few breeding camels, the Debeni, a division of the Danakil, are during certain months of the year engaged in the transportation of salt from the deadly Bahr Assal to the Mudaito town of Aussa, where it is bartered for grain. Architecture affords no term applicable to a structure of any kind inferior to a hut or hovel, or it might with propriety be applied to the base jumble of rough stone and shavings of the date stalk, tenanted by these nomade savages, who are divided into clans, and have no fixed habitations. Nevertheless there was something cheering in the aspect even of these frail edifices, the first human tenement which had greeted the eye since leaving the sea-coast, now ninety miles distant. Bare, desolate, and fiery, the entire intervening tract, although infested by the lurking robber and the midnight assassin, may be pronounced in all its sultry parts, utterly unfitted for the location of man.

Water of rather an improved description was obtained at Suggadera, under basaltic rock, stained green by carbonate of copper. But not a particle of forage was to be had; and the heat, reflected from a pebbly hill beneath which the tent was erected, brought the mercury in the thermometer to 118 degrees, during the greater portion of the day; and the evil appearance of the place, surrounded by gloomy hills cast into the deepest shadow, led to the maintenance of a vigilant watch during the dark night.

Although disturbed at the early hour of 2 a.m., and denied further repose save on the bare ground, the loss of a camel, which was not recovered until late, so far retarded advance, that only four miles were achieved on the 13th. The road continued to wind with a gentle ascent along the bed of the Wady Kori, the hills gradually diminishing in apparent height until they merged into the elevated plain of Murrah, which exhibited pebbles of pink quartz, with a few scanty tufts of sweet-scented grass, yellow and withered. Here, at the distance of two miles from a puddle of dirty rain-water, in defiance of the impotent Ras el Kafilah, the camel-drivers, who studiously avoid trees and the vicinity of a pool, resolved to halt, as being a place after their own hearts.

In the dry water-course just left, the chirruping of some solitary hermit bird, and the bursting bud of a certain dwarf shrub which clothed the borders, agreeably reminded the traveller of more favoured climes. But most completely was the illusion dispelled by the forbidding aspect of the sultry plain of Murrah. Monotonous fields strewn with black boulders, glaring in the sun, distressed the gaze wheresoever it was turned--each cindery mass seeming as though it had been showered down during a violent eruption of some neighbouring volcano; although, on nearer inspection, it proved to be the time-worn fragment of an extensive lava sheet. The bare stony plain was decorated with numerous cairns, marking deeds of treachery and blood; and at the distance of twenty miles rose a lofty range of hot table-land, behind which the Abyssinian river Hawash is lost in the great lake at Aussa.

The presence at the watering-place of a host of wild Bedouins, whose appearance was far from prepossessing, again induced the cautious elders to anticipate an attack; and the camp occupying a very unfavourable position for warlike operations, no little difficulty was experienced in making defensive dispositions. A gloomy black hill threw its impenetrable shadow immediately in front; and on the flank, a pile of half-ruined sheepfolds, constructed of blocks of lava, afforded extensive concealment. The night however passed away without any alarm, and the intense heat of the day giving place to a somewhat cooler atmosphere, admitted of sleep by turns in some comfort--parties of the Danakil escort contriving by chanting their wild war-chorus, to keep their heavy eyes longer open than usual.

An hour after midnight the loading commenced, and the steep rocky hill having been surmounted by a path strewed with loose stones, a terrace of slow ascent, presenting the same dreary appearance of rocks and lava boulders, continued during the residue of the moon's reign. At break of day, however, the aspect of the country began rapidly to improve. Gaining the higher and more salubrious level of Gulamo, the bare sterile land, strewed with black blocks of lava which tore the feet with their jagged edges, was fast giving place to sandy plains covered with dry yellow grass--a most welcome prospect for the exhausted cattle. Heretofore, saving in the wadys, no tree had been seen except small stunted leafless acacias, few and far between, and scarcely deserving of the name. Several small ravines were now choked with continuous groves, and a mountain stream termed Chekaito, which rises in the country of the Eesah, and in the rainy season disembogues into the lake at Aussa, was thickly clothed on both sides with green belts of tamarisk, wild caper, and other wood, overhung with creeping parasites, and affording food and shelter to birds. The pensile nests of the long-tailed loxia depended from the boughs; and whilst the stems, covered with drift to the height of fifteen feet, gave evidence of a headlong course during the rains, water, even at this season, was here and there to be obtained.

Heaps of loose stones thrown carelessly together, mark in almost every direction the spot where the victim lies who has been cut off by some cold-blooded miscreant--melancholy monuments connected each with a tale of assassination. But on the banks of the Chekaito many acres of ground are covered with stones of memorial, such as were raised over Absalom, and over Achan the king of Ai, each surrounded by a circular cordon which bears the stamp of high antiquity, and has evidently witnessed the passage of ages. These sepulchres are said to cover the bones of the heroes who fell in a battle fought on the spot at the period that the country was first wrested from the shepherds. "Hai," the designation of the spot itself, is applied also to the entire surrounding district, which is stated to have been formerly peopled by the Gittereza, a gigantic pastoral race, who, under the chief Sango, were at enmity with all the surrounding tribes, but are now extinct.

After five times crossing the serpentine bed to the point of junction with the Sagulli, where ostriches cropped the grass around numerous deserted sheep-pens, the caravan finally halted at Duddee, no great distance from Ramudele. For days together the pilgrimage had led across dreary and desolate wastes, and through sterile ravines where no verdure relieved the eye, no melody broke upon the ear, and so few living creatures were to be seen, that the unwonted appearance of a solitary butterfly which had become bewildered in the desert, was duly hailed as an event. The general character is that of a stern wilderness, parched by the intolerable heat of a vertical sun blazing in fierce refulgence over the naked landscape, of which the chief varieties consist in immense plains of dry cracked mud, or in barren rocks towering towards an unclouded and burning sky. The utter sterility of the soil is rather marked than alleviated by occasional sickly plants of most puny growth, and by the scanty verdure of the few valleys wherein water is to be found, generally in a state of stagnation. But at Duddee, forage and fuel were abundant. The water obtained by digging in the channel of the stream was no longer brackish. The heat, although the thermometer rose to 110 degrees, was infinitely more endurable than it had hitherto proved; and the insatiable thirst by which all had been incessantly tormented on the lower ground, had well nigh disappeared.