Chapter VII

On the morning of January 12, we fulfilled our promise to the priest of Tschenkar and went to see the church. It has the reputation of being an exceptionally holy place, because the Dervishes made several attempts to burn it down when they raided the village during their incursion after the battle of Gallabat, and their endeavour failed. I cannot tell how the roof fared, for it was made of the ordinary thatch used in Abyssinia when I saw it and looked very inflammable. But it was hardly necessary to attribute the preservation of the rest of the fabric to a miracle. In many cases the entire structure consists of a timber framework with a covering of thatch, and I never heard that these buildings possessed the immunity of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But the church at Tschenkar is built in part of hard baked mud bricks and in part of stone, and the doorways are made of an extremely tough wood which is found in the country. This had also furnished the beams within the building. Under these circumstances the only marvel seems to be that the Dervishes repeated their attempt to kindle the materials.

The church is round and stands in a circular enclosure, according to the custom in Abyssinia. The wall of the churchyard is of stone, and there are four entrances, facing north, south, east, and west. Cypresses—which I did not observe in other places—were growing in the enclosure, which, as usual, is just a small grassy expanse. No tombstones or other monuments to the dead are seen in it. The church also has four doors and is divided into two parts. These do not closely correspond to nave and chancel; for the _sanctum sanctorum_ of an Abyssinian place of worship is walled in, and makes a third enclosure. Moreover, it does not contain an altar but a representation of the Jewish Ark of the Covenant, which is called a _tabot_. I shall have occasion to allude to this custom and its origin in a later chapter.

The priest showed us round the building. The walls are decorated with the usual extraordinary “sacred subjects,” treated in the manner which convention strictly prescribes. St. George and the Dragon and the Virgin Mary are almost invariably depicted, and I was fortunate enough to obtain some clear photographs in the church at Korata,[60] which exemplify the singular devotional art of the Habashes. At Tschenkar there were some rude carvings of cherubim and designs of the Virgin drawn with burnt wood on the doorways. We were not admitted to the _sanctum sanctorum_.

Outside I obtained a photograph of the theological class, which was composed of one teacher and four pupils. Their library consisted of a single book. I could not, of course, decipher the text, but the volume had the appearance of a very dirty and greasy manuscript missal. Probably it was a copy of the Scriptures, in the Gheez language. There was a quaint thatched belfry in a tree, which looked like a primitive bee-hive or an old bird’s-nest.

We had ordered that the baggage donkeys should be loaded and take the road while we were at the church. But we found that confusion always arose if no European was present at the start, and on this occasion, when we had spent some forty minutes with the priest, and then made our way to the track which we were to follow, we beheld no trace of the expedition. When the train did draw in sight we found that one part had been separated from the other, and the two divisions were approaching from opposite sides. It was only a slight _contretemps_, but we lost an hour by it on a day when we had a long march before us. Matters were righted and we moved ahead.

Dupuis and I were bringing up the rear. At half-past eleven we found that the whole expedition had halted on the bank of the river Magetsch, and one of the guides was insisting that we must camp there. He seemed to have no reason for the choice except that there was water in the stream and that the place which we purposed to reach, called Ambo, was, in his opinion, too far off. All the Habashes were of the same mind as the guide, but we did not take their view, and set to work to cross the river.

Here—about a mile and a half from the lake—the current was some twenty feet wide. It was clear and shallow, running over a shingly bed in a ravine. We forded it without difficulty, and moved on towards the camping-ground which we had selected. We arrived at the place shortly after two o’clock.

Our route crossed the two effluents of the lesser Gumara River not far below Wansage. A concise and interesting account of the geology and botany of the river-valley at that place has been given by Dr. Stecker.[61] This morning while we were on the road we met the “Sultan of Delgi.” The “Sultan,” notwithstanding his title, is a subordinate official, the tax-collector of a district. It was this man whose “Deputy” had met us when we arrived on the plateau and raised difficulties. We found the “Sultan” a very affable old man. He shook hands with us, asked if matters went well with the expedition, and if we were in need of anything. This was the more satisfactory as he was then returning from a visit to the feudal lord of the district, Ras Gouksha.

The village of Ambo was destroyed by the Dervishes, and had not been rebuilt. The site of it is on a beautiful little bay of the lake, which at one part has a sandy beach that shelves into the clear water and at another is bordered by a thick fringe of reeds. Snipe swarm in these. There was no cultivated ground at this spot, and no timber or “scrub.” Tall grass was growing everywhere, and I have no doubt that the soil is extremely fertile.

The tents were pitched, and after lunch we took out our guns to replenish the larder. We made a bag of some half-dozen snipe, and saw an abundance of geese—but they are not very good eating—herons, and other large and small water-fowl. On the way back to camp we put up a flock of crown crane and could have brought down some of them. They are excellent at table; but it seemed a scandal to kill such fine fellows, and we did not shoot. These are noble-looking birds.

In the afternoon some natives passed the camp, who had shot a tree-boa. They were carrying the skin. Without the head, which they had cut off, the snake measured ten and a half feet. As we had avoided camping at a village—a course by which we cheated innumerable vermin—we had no evident claim on any hamlet for free viands. But I found that a fowl and some eggs had been brought into camp, and, to do the Habashes justice, I do not think they grudged the tribute in kind which our presence exacted from them. It is a custom of the country to offer a gift in order to receive one of greater value in return, but the rural folk of the lake country had no such motive—as far as I could see—in furnishing supplies.

We started on the following morning at a quarter to eight. The temperature was then below the freezing-point, and we felt the cold keenly. Our road lay, for some distance, through the tall jungle grass, but when we emerged from it the scenery changed completely. We entered a broken, mountainous district, where the heights rise directly from the lake, and the traveller passes from one surpassingly lovely vista to another. Many palms grow here, and the banks and dells are covered with wild flowers—a varied, abundant growth excelling even that which we had seen on reaching the lake plateau. Great numbers of butterflies, large and small, familiar and unfamiliar, some of sober hue, others brightly gorgeous, were flitting among the blossoms. The giant hemp abounds here, and the stems, some eighteen feet high, tower above one. At that season the daytime and the evening were alike cloudless. The whole region is fertile and charming.[62]

It is—for that country—thickly populated. There are many villages, groups of scattered _tokhuls_, and as we advanced we found these yet more numerous. They lie, perhaps, four miles apart on an average. Cattle are seen in all. Very few cases of serious sickness came to my notice hereabout, and the people generally seemed healthy, as well as prosperous. I saw no money in circulation, and all trade appears to be carried on by barter.

As we drew near to our halting-place for the night, those who were leading our column came upon two _tokhuls_ full of Habashes. They were about fifteen in number, and, as they carried rifles of an old French pattern, there is very little doubt that they were soldiers. I was in the rear, and when I passed them they were squatting on the ground and staring at those who rode by in a manner that was evidently meant to be grossly insulting. Moreover, they had kindled the grass on both sides of the track, and we were obliged to trot ahead in the midst of smoke and flames. Oddly enough, both the donkeys and mules took the adventure quite quietly, though the fire was close enough to singe their hair and burn their feet. The Abyssinian “regulars” are a class apart, and are unpopular; they are mostly rapacious, hectoring, and ill-conditioned, and are a bane to all from whom they can levy exactions.

Our camping-ground was close to the village of Tschera, which stands on an islet near the lake-shore. It is reached by wading through about fifty yards of water lying over firm sand. Further out is the pretty island of Mitraha, on which we could see houses and a church. My companions took out the boat and their guns and brought back a brace of duck and a green pigeon. Earlier in the day five guinea-fowl had been added to the larder.

We sent two soldiers to buy meat for the men. They purchased five sheep, for which they paid four dollars. This works out at a rate of about one and sixpence per sheep, English money.

We did not intend to resume the march on the following morning, so none of us rose before half-past six, when “the day was aired” a little. The lowest reading of the thermometer at night had been thirty-two degrees. After breakfast, we three Englishmen and Johannes the interpreter started in the boat to visit Mitraha. It is a hilly, tree-clad little island with a population consisting of six families. The people welcomed us on our approach and guided us through a channel between rocks to a good landing-place. They seemed pleased to show us over the ground.[63] It is a perfectly pretty islet, with quaint thatched cottages among foliage and a ruinous old church, and—for historic interest—it contains the tomb of an ancient king of Abyssinia, John by name. We visited the sepulchre and saw the open coffin, which was full of an agglomeration of bones. If they belonged to the dead monarch, he must have been the boniest man that ever lived, and embarrassed, into the bargain, by possessing two right arms. However, it was an article of belief with everybody on the island, including the priest, that nature had once contrived to stow all that “anatomy” into one human body.

The island is traversed in all directions by narrow tracks marked by trodden leaves, and there is a thick undergrowth of weeds, thistles, and thorns. In this tangle I saw numbers of large spiders’ webs, from three to four feet in circumference. The spiders are about the size of a shilling, with a speckled abdomen and legs of enormous length. I saw none of this species on the mainland.

The islanders had poultry but no cattle. We asked them about their food. They said, “We eat durrha when we can get it.”

“Don’t you eat fish?” we asked. “Surely, there are plenty of fish in the lake.”

“_No_,” they answered emphatically. “After King Johannes was killed by the Dervishes[64] all the fish disappeared.”

It is quite likely that these people are too idle even to cast a net,[65] for it is notorious that fish of many kinds and of large size abound in Lake Tsana; but, knowing how superstitious the Habashes are, I would not vouch for it that they did not sincerely believe what they said. Probably they have little intercourse with the mainland and invent their own news.

They took a keen interest in our boat, and asked many questions about it. Their own rafts, called _tankoa_, consist merely of a bundle of papyrus reeds strung together with strips of hippopotamus hide and stiffened by a bamboo in the centre which serves as a kind of keelson. They do not use a sail, but punt or paddle with a pole.

When we had finished the tour of the island Dupuis presented five dollars to the church and community and thereupon received the ceremonial blessing of the priest.[66]

We returned to camp. During the afternoon I tried my hand at butterfly-hunting, fly-fishing in a sluggish stream near by called the Kumon, and shooting beside the Lake. It was all pleasant enough sport, but I had poor luck. The butterflies that were worth catching were always seen when we were in “marching order,” and my net was packed up. When I cast in the Kumon my tackle mostly got foul of the reeds and the weeds, and while tramping along the shore I found nothing to shoot, unless it were a huge hippo who was basking in the sun about three hundred yards out. I should have been _impar congressus Achilli_ if we had tried conclusions, so I did nothing to provoke enmity.

In the afternoon I was on medical duty for native patients. The first was a poor little fellow about seven years old, who was covered from head to foot with craw-craw, a kind of aggravated _scabies_. He was brought to me by his father, to whom I gave half a cake of soap, and bade him take the child to the water and wash him. I saw that this was properly done, and then treated the boy’s skin with a weak solution of corrosive sublimate and afterwards smeared boric ointment over him. The father was set to wash his son’s shama with the remainder of the soap—an office of cleanliness which had been neglected at home in accordance with Ethiopian usage.

My other patient was a man whose upper eyelids were inverted (entropion), as a result of ophthalmia. This malady is very common in the country. I removed the eyelashes with a forceps and applied ointment, but the extent of the injury was already so great that little good was likely to come from my intervention. The Russians maintain a Red Cross Mission at Addis Abbiba,[67] which has established a hospital on an adequate scale. Here natives receive treatment free of charge.[68] European medical aid is sorely needed in the country, and I wish that it might be found practicable to support a British medical station in Western Abyssinia. Our popularity and prestige would be increased by this step. An opportunity would be given for valuable observation and research, and the benefit to the inhabitants would be incalculable.

Gifts of bread (teff), eggs, and fowls were brought into our camp in plenty, and some liberal Habash sent us a big jar of honey, the comb and all packed in together. It was a welcome and useful present, and served as a luxury in lieu of jam, of which we had a short supply. The size of the jar—it rather suggested the lurking-places of the Forty Thieves—embarrassed us, and we did not wish to carry quantities of honey-comb through Abyssinia. So we consulted Johannes. He told us to heat the jar until the honey just boiled, skim off the wax and pour the clear liquor into bottles. Fortunately we had saved empty bottles, and we filled up all we had; but half the jar remained after that, and had to be returned to the giver. All three of us were interested and busy in melting the honey and straining it through a piece of mosquito curtain, and were splendidly sticky and messy when we left off.

While we were in the kitchen-quarters, we heard a loud grunting and snorting about twenty yards away, which made the ground tremble, and recognized at once that a hippo was in the reeds there. This badly frightened the cook, who slept in the tent nearest that spot. We had to assure him solemnly that the hippo would not carry out a night attack upon him.

We struck our camp next morning (January 15), and marched to the River Reb. The boat was brought into service in crossing it. At one part the stream was about four feet six inches deep, and though this dip in the bed was only a couple of yards wide, it prevented the baggage animals from walking through. The water was shallow over the rest of the ford, so that they could keep their feet. All the mules and donkeys were unloaded while we lunched. The boat was quickly got ready and about half-past two Crawley pulled across with his first cargo. After he had had about an hour of the work, I took my turn. Dupuis was superintending the pitching of the tents and the stowing of the loads on the further side of the river. Then the fun began with bringing the baggage animals over.

There was no great difficulty with the mules. One gave a lead, and then the rest swam across, the boys swimming beside them. But with the donkeys it was a different matter. The men tried coaxing them, leading them, whacking them. It was all no good. The donkeys settled into the firm, resolute stubbornness of their kind, which is invincible, and it seemed as if the expedition would be left in the condition of a wasp that has been cut through the middle—the active half in one place and the “portage and storage” half in another. Sunset began before progress had been made, and the air was quickly becoming colder. Finally we solved the problem by brute force. Five fixed nooses were tied in a long rope, and five donkeys’ heads were put in the nooses. Then we, on the further side of the stream, hauled on to the rope. It was a “tug of war,” and we moved the donkeys. Then one of us took the rope back in the boat, and the next batch came over by “cable ferry.” There was a chance that the donkeys would struggle and strangle or drown themselves, but all were pulled across without casualties. The last three made the journey just after six o’clock. Of course our men had to be in the water with the beasts to steady them, and keep them in place, and all worked with a will. Some were in the stream, off and on, for three or four hours, and the cold was sharp when the sun sank. Unluckily there was no wood near our camping-ground, so they had no fire to cheer them afterwards, and could not dry their wet clothes. The Habashes, when they cross a ford of this kind, roll all their garments into a bundle, which they carry on their heads while they swim or wade. We were all sorry for the mischance which denied the boys warmth after a wetting, and we served out a nip of green chartreuse to those who had been in the water longest.

On the next day, January 16, we had before us the business of fording the river Gumara, and, to avoid a repetition of the trouble with the donkeys, we determined to strike away from the lakeside, so as to reach the stream where we could go over on foot. Dupuis found that this route would bring him close to the Debra Tabor road, and at once resolved to set off, on the following morning, with a light baggage train, to pay a visit of thanks to Ras Gouksha, who was at that place. Crawley was to accompany him, while I stayed in charge of the camp.

It was a short march from our halting-place beside the Reb to the ford by which we were to cross the Gumara, and we did not start till eleven o’clock. The baggage animals were able to have a feed of grass, and they and the boys alike were warmed by the sun before our journey began. All needed a little rest and comfort after the previous day’s work.

It is a plain country between the Reb and the Gumara, partly covered at that season by tall, dry grass, and partly by swamp-grass standing in ooze. In the wet months the whole tract is a morass.

Many Habashes assembled to see us start. They were tiresome, but quite friendly. I was much struck by the prevalence of eye disease among them; _trachoma_ is very common, and most of the cases which came under my notice were beyond hope of cure. A crowd gathered round me to gaze at my camera, which was an unknown marvel in this land; for Western Abyssinia has seldom been visited by Europeans, and I heard of none who had been in the district since Stecker had passed through it more than twenty years before. Even cigarettes were a novelty. I put one between my lips when I had shut up my camera, and offered another to a young man who was standing close to me. He did not know what it was, and hesitated about taking it. To gratify my curiosity, I pressed it on him, and he held it at arm’s length, and looked at it with wonder and suspicion. But when he saw me light mine and smoke issuing from my mouth, he dropped his cigarette as if it were a live shell with a fuse smouldering in it and ran. Crawley gave a cigarette one day to a Habash, who ate it, paper and all, and said he liked it.

We reached the Gumara at half-past two, and pitched our camp beside the ford; it is an unpleasant place, in the line of a frequented highway. During the afternoon we passed the donkeys in review, and picked out the best for Dupuis’s expedition to Debra Tabor. We also made a selection of stores for the journey, which was expected to last five days in all.