Chapter IV

Politically, Gallabat is a place of much importance, as the principal station on the frontier between Abyssinia and the Anglo-Egyptian dominions. It is the terminus of the telegraph line whose course we had followed along a part of our route, and I shall presently explain why I think it would be difficult to carry the wire from this point into Menelek’s country.

The town consists of two main thoroughfares and of the scattered “tokhuls” which form the villages throughout Abyssinia and the Eastern Soudan. It contains about eight hundred inhabitants. Formerly, I have no doubt, there was a larger population, but this place, like all other trading centres in the land, suffered severely in the days of the Dervish ascendency. The “shops,” which abut upon the main roads, are hovels in a row under a heavily thatched roof, and are separated by rough and ragged partitions of cane thatch. They are “business premises” only, and the proprietor and his family dwell elsewhere. A considerable trade is carried on by Abyssinians who come to Gallabat to sell coffee; sometimes they have a leopard’s skin or other hunter’s trophy to barter in addition. They exchange their goods chiefly for cotton, which is used in the making of _shamas_ and other garments worn in Abyssinia. Sir S. Baker mentions a commerce in bees’-wax and hides, but I saw no evidence of it in Gallabat, and I think it must have declined.

The traffic in coffee proceeds regularly during the dry season, but ceases, of course, when the rains make the neighbouring Abyssinian hill-country impassable. A square, in which there are booths, is set apart for the use of the Abyssinian traders. In the middle of it are the large scales in which the coffee is weighed, and I was much interested to learn that not only the amount of the import duty payable to the Egyptian Customs, but also the sum charged as export duty by the Abyssinian Government, was here determined by the weight of the bundles. The latter tax is retained at the time in the hands of the Anglo-Egyptian officials, and is afterwards remitted by them to Menelek’s Revenue Department. I need hardly add that this is a recent arrangement, and it seems to show that British influence in the Soudan has inspired confidence at Addis Abiba.

The town of Gallabat is five miles distant from the bed of the Atbara. It is built on the slope above a small watercourse. This rivulet and the adjacent supply of drinking water which the inhabitants use are—in all but details—as they were in Sir Samuel Baker’s time. He thus described them:—“We were horribly disgusted at the appearance of the water. A trifling stream of about two inches in depth trickled over a bed of sand, shaded by a grove of trees. The putrefying bodies of about half a dozen monkeys, three or four camels, and the remains of a number of horses, lay in and about the margin of the water. Nevertheless, the natives had scraped small holes in the sand as filters, and thus they were satisfied with this poisonous fluid; in some of these holes the women were washing their filthy clothes.”[21] There are three wells in the town from which good water is obtained. The soldiers of the garrison use this supply, and it is available for all who will take the trouble to draw from it. But generally, the inhabitants, either because they are too indolent to pull up buckets or from mere adherence to custom, prefer the “poisonous fluid” procured in the traditional way.

Our quarters were in the dismantled Dervish fort, which lies on the summit of the hill, above the town. The thick brick wall which surrounded it is now ruinous. In the enclosure are barracks for a detachment of the Arab Battalion, a small rest-house, and the telegraph station.

We set our boys to pitch three tents for us, and before long I had the indescribable delight of tubbing in my portable rubber bath.

After this we received, in the rest-house, the interpreter whom Menelek had sent to await us. His name was Johannes. I learned that he had been three weeks in Gallabat, so perhaps it had been expected that we should travel more rapidly than we did. With him were an assistant, by name Walda Mariam, officially attached to his “mission,” and a servant.

Johannes was a tall, handsome man, with grizzled hair and beard. In person he seemed cleanly, but his _shama_—the toga-like robe, also known as “quarry,”[22] which is universally worn by Abyssinians—was soiled. It is unfashionable, and even a breach of established custom, for a man to appear in a clean _shama_ except at rare intervals. As all sorts and conditions of men in the country are infested by vermin it may be imagined that an Abyssinian’s clothes usually add nothing to the pleasure of his company.

Our interpreter had spent three years in Marseilles, and we found that he and his followers conformed to the requirements of civilization as regards dirt much more closely than the generality of his countrymen. I do not know whether Parkyns’s description of the use of butter as pomade still holds good in parts of Abyssinia; probably not very widely, as Mr. Wylde tells us that “European hats are getting very common, and are generally of the bowler, wideawake, or Terai patterns,”[23] but in the western provinces, where nearly all the people whom we met were peasants, we saw no sign either of this innovation or that the dairy had been drawn upon to smarten the _coiffure_. Nevertheless, greasiness of person was the rule.

I may mention here that bodily cleanliness is not only unusual in Abyssinia, but raises a doubt as to the genuineness of a man’s religious profession. In this respect matters have not changed since Parkyns’s time. “St. John’s is the only cleanly day in the calendar; for in the evening the whole population, male and female, old and young, go down to bathe. It is a fact, that, excepting on this occasion, there are many of the number, who, beyond washing their hands before and after meals, and their feet after a journey, never trouble the water from one year’s end to another. My habit of washing every day in the European fashion gave rise to much scandal on my first arrival; and it was constantly inquired, ‘Is he a Mussulman, that he thus washes, and so often?’”[24] The Abyssinians are fond of shaking hands, and it is impossible to avoid this civility without giving serious offence. Nearly all, owing to their independence of soap, suffer from a complaint once associated—wrongly, no doubt—with a highland region nearer home, and the result was that none of the Europeans of our party escaped _scabies_.

Johannes possessed a felt sombrero, which he held in his hand when we received him in the rest-house. Like most of his countrymen, he wore a cartridge-belt around his middle. He also carried a revolver in his belt. His “boy” held his rifle. Altogether the interpreter was a picturesque but piratical figure, and it occurred to me that a group of Abyssinian “villains” would be effective in a melodrama.

The interpreter bowed to the earth each time we addressed him. He had brought letters for us from Menelek and from Colonel Harrington, the British Minister at Addis Abiba, which is now the capital of the country. The king’s letter is a kind of superior passport, which is generally granted to Europeans who enter his realm with his consent. It is useful, but is not too obsequiously respected in all parts of the land. Johannes had a fair knowledge of French—a matter of importance to one of his calling, seeing that the Abyssinians and the French are neighbours, and that an increasing amount of the commerce and traffic of the country is likely to pass through Jibuti. A railway has been commenced from that point, and a concession obtained from Menelek for its extension into his dominions. Mr. Herbert Vivian has recently pointed out the important developments which may be brought about by the construction of the line.[25]

The Dervish fort at Gallabat is literally a “cockatrice den.” We speared eight or nine fine specimens upon the walls, using our knives, and among them was the largest black scorpion I had seen. The rest-house swarmed with these disquieting arthrogastra, and one of our servants was stung during the evening. Parkyns remarked that, though he had several times endured the sting himself without serious consequences, he had heard of many instances which had ended fatally.[26] Our boy probably had in his mind a similar dismal record, for he howled till midnight. I had very little sympathy with him, especially as he prevented me from sleeping. He, like the other servants, had been provided with boots but persisted in running about the fort barefoot.

I was delighted by the change of scenery which commenced at Gallabat after the long tracts of desert and mimosa forest. To the eastward, the Abyssinian mountains were visible, and there is a most stirring splendour in the sight of the distant peaks when one beholds them in the pink, hot glow of sunset.

An escort of ten men had been appointed for us. All these were Abyssinians by race, but “naturalized” Egyptians, serving in the Arab Battalion, and they spoke Arabic in addition to their native tongue. There was an odd significance in the fact that our journey to Lake Tsana familiarized the inhabitants of the western provinces of Menelek’s kingdom with an Italian uniform which had become British.

On December 27 we “lazed” and enjoyed our indolence. Our only activity was to make trial of our patent donkey saddles. We had seventy of these, and found them anything but serviceable. The natives fasten the loads on the donkeys by long thongs of hide, giving about six girths for each animal. Our saddles allowed but one girth, and, as the consequence, the loads slipped round. On the 28th my companions went to take measurements in the course of the Atbara. I remained in Gallabat and superintended the conversion of camel loads into donkey loads. This involved getting the right weight of flour and corn—fifty pounds—into the sacks. It was troublesome work done by trying people, and the supervision of it would have taxed the patience of a saint.

On the 29th we were all busy with the baggage, sorting our supplies. We took with us sufficient for six weeks. The remainder was left in the zaptieh,[27] and we fully expected that the rats and the white ants would clear it up for us before our return. Our cook had a touch of malarial fever, and during the day I gave him thirty grains of phenacetine and nine grains of quinine. These quantities were effective.

We were to start on the following morning, and sat longer than usual over dinner, and many yarns were told about Egyptian officials. One—I hope it is not a stale story to my readers—ran as follows:—An Egyptian battalion, under a native officer, had been sent to a remote district. The commander had orders to telegraph to head-quarters if anything unusual occurred. He sent off a message announcing that one of his soldiers had died suddenly, and that he awaited instructions. The reply was, “Bury the man, but make sure he is dead first.” The native officer thereupon reported by telegram, “Have buried soldier, and know he is dead, because I hit him on the head with a fishplate.” It need hardly be said that the fishplate was not of the kitchen but the railway kind.

On the following morning, December 30, we had further proof of the defects of the saddles which had been provided as baggage-gear for the donkeys. When, after much tedious work, we had balanced the load on an animal, we started it on the road and turned our attention to another. Five minutes later, the beast that had been despatched was brought back with its load under its stomach. My companions toiled on through the heat of the day; but I fear my services became rather like those of the fly on the wheel, for the malarial fever had got hold of me, and the commencement of a bout with it nearly took me off the list of effectives.

We made a start at last, a little after eleven o’clock, with the intention of travelling about eight miles, and crossed the stream below Gallabat by a stony ford, over which water a few inches deep was running. I was told that this rivulet is never quite dry, and I observed that in the bed of it were the stagnant pools usually found in the watercourses of this district. We had seen the last of the camels at Gallabat, and my companions and I now rode mules. They are the best mounts in the rough, steep, and almost trackless region which forms the western border of Abyssinia. Horses would be useless here for a journey, either to carry men or for purposes of haulage; and I doubt if ponies could anywhere be found that would be more than an encumbrance, at least for long and steady travelling at a fair pace. I believe that the Abyssinians of the Highlands use horses in their hunting expeditions and slave-raiding forays—at all events they do in their campaigns in their own country—and I have little doubt that the inhabitants of the lofty hill district adjoining the border tract, who are of mixed race and bandits by immemorial tradition, use any animals they can lay their hands on when they, like Roderick Dhu and his men, “with strong hands redeem their share” from travelling merchants or Soudanese villagers. But these are “spurts” of work, rapid dashes made by unencumbered men, not plodding regular marches, and, generally speaking, those who cannot pass through this country on a mule or an ass must use their own feet or not go at all.

When my companions and I had advanced about four miles, we halted for lunch at a pleasant spot beside a brook. After the meal, some guinea-fowl were seen, and one was bagged. No doubt many more were hit and lost, as usual, among the high grass. We were in the saddle again at three o’clock, and reached our camping-ground an hour and a half later.

The fever had a grip of me by this time, and I rested in bed, and soon felt the benefit of a dose of quinine. It enabled me to tackle my dinner, and that is no small boon to a sick traveller.

Our boys had cut down trees and formed a zareba, within which the donkeys were penned to prevent them from straying and give them protection from hyenas.[28] I lay idly watching the camp-fires and listening to the occasional outbreaks of scuffling and braying among the donkeys, and presently fell asleep till dawn.

The country which we entered on that day is full of rounded hills. Boulders crop out from the surface of them, and they are separated by ravines with sandy beds. There is no regularity in the configuration of these hills, and no uniformity in their size. When I saw them they were covered either with dried grass or with mimosa scrub.

The region which we had now reached is, as I have said, impassable in the wet season, and Abyssinia is then impregnable as far as its western boundary is concerned. The violence of the storms and the rush of rain are such that it is doubtful whether even a line of telegraph posts and wires could be carried through the district with a likelihood that it would be in working order for any length of time between May and September. The floods would probably be as prohibitive to an underground system of wires as to one overhead, and in both cases allowance would have to be made for the extreme electrical disturbances which often occur at brief intervals during the rainy season.

I have already referred to the raids that take place from the Abyssinian side when the country can be traversed, and will only add here that they are carried out frequently enough to maintain a supply of slaves for all persons in the country whose prosperity raises them above the degree of a peasant. For example, when we reached Gallabat on the return journey we found that eighty-three Soudanese had been carried off during an incursion which had been made since we left the place. It is needless to insist on the difficulties that may arise from raids of this kind undertaken by people who are, nominally at least, subjects of the Negus.

I can testify that slaves are found everywhere in Western Abyssinia, but among the female victims I never had the good fortune to behold one of the class which impressed Sir Samuel Baker so pleasantly at Gallabat. He wrote, “On my return to camp I visited the establishments of the various slave merchants; these were arranged under large tents formed of matting, and contained many young girls of extreme beauty, ranging from nine to seventeen years of age. These lovely captives, of a rich brown tint, with delicately formed features and eyes like those of the gazelle, were natives of the Galla, on the borders of Abyssinia, from which country they are brought by the Abyssinian traders to be sold for the Turkish harems. Although beautiful, these girls are useless for hard labour; they quickly fade away and die unless kindly treated. They are the Venuses of that country, and not only are their faces and figures perfection, but they become extremely attached to those who show them kindness. There is something peculiarly captivating in the natural grace and softness of these young beauties, whose hearts quickly respond to those warmer feelings of love that are seldom known among the sterner and coarser tribes. They are exceedingly proud and high-spirited, and are remarkably quick at learning. At Khartoum, several of the Europeans of high standing have married these charming ladies, who have invariably rewarded their husbands by great affection and devotion. The price of one of these beauties of nature at Gallabat was from twenty-five to forty dollars.”[29]