Chapter XXI: Book VI (7)

This Jumper was tall and lean, very sharp faced, with a long nose, small eyes and prodigious large ears; he never looked you in the face, but was rolling his eyes constantly round and round, and never fixing them upon any thing: he resembled very much a lean keen greyhound; there was no sternness nor command in his countenance, but a certain look that seemed to express a vacancy of mind, like that of an idiot. With this he was allowed on all hands to be the most cruel, merciless murderer and spoiler of all the Galla. He was very active on horseback, and very indifferent about food or sleep. I made him a small present, which he took with great indifference; only told Woldo, that if I meant it to pay for the bull he had sent me, it was needless, for it was given me by Fasil’s order, and cost him nothing.

There we learned, that on our way we should meet a party of about 200 men, who had been sent by Fasil to take possession of a post before we came to Roo, left, having intelligence of us, some of the Maitsha people, whose houses had been destroyed, might follow us when we were parted from the army. The jumper told us that his brother had the command of that party, that they were all Galla of Fasil’s own nation, under his brother, who was called the Lamb, and who was just such a murderer and robber as himself. I was just rising to go out of his tent when Zor Woldo, who was sitting behind me, informed me, there were news from Gondar. I asked him how he knew that? He said, he heard the people say so from without. A sudden trepidation now seized me, as I was afraid of some new trick, or obstacle, which might impede the journey, the accomplishment of which I so much longed for.

Upon going towards my tent I was met by Strates, and another Greek, with a servant of Ozoro Esther, with whom I was well acquainted: they had left Fasil at Bamba, whose wild Galla were not yet all dismissed, and he himself seemed not determined whether he should go to Gondar or not. They told me that all was in confusion at Gondar; that Gusho of Amhara, and Powussen of Begemder, had been there, and brought some trifle of money, for a mere pretence, to that wretch Socinios, whom the Iteghé unadvisedly had consented to make king; having called Fasil, Gusho, and Powussen together to reconcile them, that, united, they might attack Michael. The queen herself had been reconciled to Socinios, who led the life of a drunkard, a ruffian, and a profligate, but her chief fears were that Michael should return, the probability of which increased daily.

As for Fasil, he had hitherto answered the queen’s invitation to Gondar evasively, sometimes by complaining that Gusho and Powussen had come to Gondar before him, and that Gusho was made Ras; at other times sending peremptorily to them to leave Gondar, and return to their provinces, or he would burn the town about their ears: and the last message, the day before they left the capital was, that he was then on his march towards Gondar, and consented to Gusho and Powussen’s staying; but as these two chiefs had great reason to suspect that he was in correspondence with the king and Ras Michael in Tigré, as it was known to them that he had fomented disturbances both in Begemder and Amhara, they had gone with Socinios to Koscam, without drums beating, or any sort of parade whatever, and, after taking leave, had the next day set out to their respective provinces. Upon another message from Fasil, they had agreed to return to Gondar, and leave their army at Emfras; but their troops, finding themselves so near, had disbanded, and returned to their homes, leaving Gusho and Powussen attended only by their household servants, who, finding themselves in danger, and that Fasil was actually advancing secretly, left Gondar and separated.

Ozoro Esther’s servant (Guebra Mariam) likewise told me, that Michael, as he believed, waited for nothing but some arrangement with Fasil, for that he had no enemy remaining on the east of the Tacazzé; that his intention was to return by the way of Lasta, not willing to risk the many difficult passages in Woggora, a country full of hardy troops, inveterate enemies to the Ras, and where Ayto Tesfos of Samen had occupied all the defiles, and was resolved to dispute every post with him; it was well known, however, that the passes through the mountain of Lasta, were more dangerous and difficult than those of Woggora and Lamalmon; in a word, Guigarr, chief of the clan of Lasta (called Waag) possessed a strong-hold in those mountains, where many an Abyssinian army had perished, and where it was absolutely impossible to proceed but with the consent and connivance of that clan, or tribe; and tho’ this Guigarr had been Michael’s enemy ever since the war of Mariam Barea, peace was now concluded between them, the Ras having set Guigarr’s brother at liberty, who had been some time a prisoner, and was taken in an incursion which the people of Waag had made into Tigré: excepting this pass in the mountains of Lasta, all the ground was even from thence to Tigré; the territory of Gouliou, indeed, through which the army was to march for four days, was very ill-provided with water; it was inhabited by Galla, whom Michael had suffered to settle there, to be as a barrier between Tigré, Lasta, and Begemder; but this clan was perfectly at his command, so all was easy and secure if Guigarr only remained faithful.

After giving time to Guebra Mariam to refresh himself, I took him alone into the tent to hear Ozoro Esther’s message: she had been ailing after my leaving Gondar, had had a slow fever, which very much affected her nerves, and was now alarmed at a symptom which was but the effect of weakness, startling, or involuntary contraction of her legs and arms, or a kind of convulsion, which frequently awakened her out of her sleep. This she thought was a sure forerunner of death; and adjured me, by every claim of friendship that she had upon me, to return ere it would be too late, She, moreover, pledged herself that her nephew, Aylo of Gojam, should immediately carry me to the head of the Nile the moment she was recovered. Upon closer interrogation, I found that, being abandoned as it were entirely to Fasil’s discretion, by the retreat of Gusho and Powussen her friends, and the absence of her husband Ras Michael, she dreaded falling into the hands of Fasil, who, she well knew, was acquainted how active she had been in instigating Michael to avenge the blood of her late husband Mariam Barea, by the effusion of that of every Galla unfortunate enough to fall into his hands. Besides, the part her mother the Iteghé had acted in settling that wretch Socinios upon the throne, gave her the very best-founded apprehensions that Michael’s resentment would have no bounds; and he had declared so by frequent messages, (the last a very brutal one) that he would hang Socinios, and her mother the Iteghé, with their heads downmost, upon the same tree, before the king’s house, the very day that he entered Gondar. It was well known, besides, to his wife Ozoro Esther, and to the whole kingdom, that his performance upon these occasions never fell short of his threatenings. From all this, and a great sensibility of mind, Ozoro Esther, worn out by her late sickness, and by want of sleep, exercise, and nourishment, had fallen into a very dangerous situation, and of a very difficult cure, even though the cause was perfectly known.

I shall not trouble the reader with what passed in my mind at this juncture. I do believe the pursuit I was then engaged in was the only one which I would not have instantly abandoned upon such a summons. Besides the sincere attachment I had myself to her, as one of the most lovely and amiable women in the world; she was the mother of my most intimate friend Ayto Confu, and the wife of Ras Michael, over whom she had every day more and more influence, and I had long suspected that the young king, my constant benefactor, had contracted a decided tenderness for her. To have returned, would have been nothing had the danger or trouble been much greater; but it was obviously impossible another opportunity should offer: the country was now on the point of being plunged into a degree of disorder greater than that which had occasioned the retreat of the king to Tigré. I therefore resolved to run the risk of continuing for a time under the imputation of the foulest and basest of all sins, that of ingratitude to my benefactors; and I am confident, had it been the will of heaven that I had died in that journey, the consideration of my lying with apparent reason under that imputation would have been one of the most bitter reflections of my last moments. Having, therefore, taken my resolution, I acquainted Guebra Mariam that an immediate return was absolutely impossible; but that I should endeavour, with the utmost of my power, to make a speedy one; in the mean time, I sent word to the Greek priest (who was a sort of physician) how he was to proceed in the interim during my absence.

We had now left Maitsha by crossing the river Kelti. I shall only add, to what I have already said, that it is a very fruitful country, but so flat that the water with difficulty runs off after the tropical rains, and this occasions its being for several months unhealthy. Several tribes of Galla, from the south of the Nile, were settled here by Yasous the Great, and his son David, as a defence for the rich countries of the Agows, Damot, Gojam, and Dembea, against the desolations and inroads of the wild Galla their countrymen, from whom they had revolted; they consist of ninety-nine families; and it is a common saying among them, that the devil holds the hundreth part for his own family, as there is nowhere else to be found a family of men equal to any of the ninety-nine. It has been sometimes connected with Gojam, oftener with Damot and the Agows, who were at this time under the government of Fasil.

The houses in Maitsha are of a very singular construction: the first proprietor has a field, which he divides into three or four, as he pleases, (suppose four) by two hedges made of the thorny branches of the acacia-tree. In the corner, or intersection of the two hedges, he begins his low hut, and occupies as much of the angle as he pleases. Three other brothers, perhaps, occupy each of the three other angles; behind these their children place their house, and inclose the end of their father’s by another, which they make generally shorter than the first, because broader. After they have raised as many houses as they please, they surround the whole with a thick and almost impenetrable abbatis, or thorny hedge, and all the family are under one roof, ready to assist each other on the first alarm; for they have nothing to do but every man to look out at his own door, and they are close in a body together, facing every point that danger can possibly come from. They are, however, speedily destroyed by a stronger enemy, as we easily found, for we had only to set the dry hedge, and the canes that grew round it, on fire, which communicated at once to the houses, chiefly consisting of dry straw. Such is their terror of the small-pox, which comes here seldom more frequently than once in fifteen or twenty years; that when one of these houses is tainted with the disease, their neighbours, who know it will infect the whole colony, surround it in the night, and set fire to it, which is consumed in a minute, whilst the unfortunate people belonging to it (who would endeavour to escape) are unmercifully thrust back with lances and forks into the flames by the hands of their own neighbours and relations, without an instance of one ever being suffered to survive. This to us will appear a barbarity scarcely credible: it would be quite otherwise if we saw the situation of the country under that dreadful visitation of the small-pox; the plague has nothing in it so terrible.

The river Kelti has excellent fish, though the Abyssinians care not for food of this kind; the better people eat some species in the time of Lent, but the generality of the common sort are deterred by passages of scripture, and distinctions in the Mosaic law, concerning such animals as are clean and unclean, ill understood; they are, besides, exceedingly lazy, and know nothing of nets; neither have they the ingenuity we see in other savages of making hooks or lines: in all the time I staid, I never saw one Abyssinian fisher engaged in the employment in any river or lake.

At Kelti begins the territory of Aroossi: it is in fact the southmost division of Maitsha, on the west-side of the Nile: it is not inhabited, however, by Galla, but by Abyssinians, a kindred of the Agow. When therefore we passed the river Kelti, we entered into the territory of Aroossi, bounded on the north by that river, as it is on the south by the Assar, the Aroossi running through the midst of that district.

My anxiety to lose no time in this journey had determined me to set out this afternoon. I had for this purpose dispatched Ozoro Esther’s servant, but when we began to strike our tents, we were told neither beast nor man was capable of going farther that day; in a word, the forced march that we had made of 29 miles without rest, and with but little food, had quite jaded our mules; our men, too, who carried the quadrant, declared, that, without a night’s rest, they could proceed no farther; we were then obliged to make a virtue of necessity, and to confess, that, since we could go no farther, we were in the most convenient halting place possible, having plenty of both food and water, and as to protection, we had every reason to be satisfied that we were masters of the country in which we were encamped. It was generally agreed therefore to relax that day. I set aside an hour to put these memoirs in order, and then joined our servants, who, on such occasions, are always our companions, and who had provided a small horn full of spirits, and a jar full of beer, or bouza, by offering some trifling present to our commandant _the Jumper_, who was much more tenacious of his drink than his meat: we swam and dabbled with great delight in the Kelti, where are neither crocodiles nor gomari; slept a little afterwards, and retired into the tent to a supper, which would have been a chearful one could I have forgot that Ozoro Esther was suffering.

We now began to discuss the motive that had induced our friend Strates again to tempt the danger of the ways. This singular fellow, as we learned from Guebra Mariam, as well as from his own confession, repented of his resolution as soon as we were gone, and had determined on foot to follow us, when he heard of this opportunity of Ozoro Esther’s servant being sent on a message, and that princess was so well pleased with his anxiety that she gave him a mule that he might not retard her servant.

This Greek had known Fasil intimately, both when he was a private man in Kasmati Eshté’s time, and afterwards, when he was governor of Damot, for he was a servant in the palace when Joas was king, as all the Greeks were; had a company of fusileers, and one or two other small appointments, all of which were taken from him, and from most of the other Greeks, upon the death of the dwarf, who, I before mentioned, was shot on the side of Ras Michael by an unknown hand upon his first arrival at Gondar. He now lived upon the charity of the queen-mother, and what he picked up by his buffoonery among the great men at court. We found that in Shalaka Woldo we had got a man of more understanding than our friend Strates, but much about his equal in mimicry and buffoonery.

CHAP. XI.

_Continue our Journey_--_Fall in with a Party of Galla_--_Prove our Friends_--_Pass the Nile_--_Arrive at Goutto, and visit the first Cataract_.

On the second of November, at seven in the morning we pursued our journey in a direction southward, and passed the church of Boskon Abbo; ever memorable to us as being the station of Fasil in May, when he intended to cut us off after our passage of the Nile. This brought on a conversation with our guide Woldo, who had been present with Fasil at his camp behind this church, and afterwards when Michael offered him battle at Limjour, he was there attending his master. He said, that the army of Welleta Yasous was above 12,000 strong; that they were intending to attack the king at the ford, and had no doubt of doing it successfully, as they imagined the King and Ras Michael, with part of both horse and foot, would pass early, but the rest with difficulty and danger; it was at that instant Welleta Yasous was to fall upon those that remained with Kefla Yasous, on the other side of the Nile, in that confusion in which they necessarily must be. Fasil then, with above 3000 horse, and a large body of foot, was ready to inclose both Ras Michael and the King, and to have taken them prisoners; nothing could fall out more exactly, as it was planned, than this did; the king’s black horse, and the other horse of his household, had taken possession of the ford, till the King, the Ras, and the greatest part of the Tigré musqueteers, under Guebra Mascal, had passed.

On the other hand, Kefla Yasous, who had the charge of the rear, and the passing the mules, tents, and baggage, finding so many stragglers constantly coming in, had determined to wait on that side till day-light: this was the moment that would have decided the fate of our army; all was fatigue and despondency; but Welleta Yasous having lingered with the army of execution, and in the mean time the priests having been examined, and the spies detected, the moment Kefla Yasous began his march to Delakus, the favourable instant was lost to Fasil, and all that followed was extremely dangerous to him; for, before Welleta Yasous arrived, Kefla Yasous had passed the Nile, and was strongly posted with his musquetry, so that Welleta Yasous durst not approach him, and this gave Kefla Yasous an opportunity of detaching the best or freshest of his troops to reinforce Michael, whom Fasil found already an overmatch for him at Limjour, when he was forced to retreat before the king, who very willingly offered him battle: add to this, that Welleta Yasous was not acquainted how near this junction of Kefla Yasous with Ras Michael might be, nor where Fasil was, or whether or not he had been beaten. Woldo pretended to know nothing of the spy whom we had left hanging on the tree at the ford when Kefla Yasous marched; but he laid all the blame upon the priests, of whose information he was perfectly instructed.

At three quarters after ten in the morning we passed the small river Aroossi, which either gives its name to, or receives it from the district through which it passes: it falls into the Nile about four miles below; is a clear, small, brisk stream; its banks covered with verdure not to be described. At half an hour before noon we came to Roo; it is a level space, shaded round with trees in a small plain, where the neighbouring people of Goutto, Agow, and Maitsha hold a market for hides, honey, butter, and all kinds of cattle. Gold too is brought by the Agows from the neighbouring Shangalla; all the markets in Abyssinia are held in such places as this in the open fields, and under the shade of trees: every body, while he is there, is safe under the protection of the government where that market is kept, and no feuds or private animosities must be resented there; but they that have enemies must take care of themselves in coming and going, for then they are at their own risk.

In the dry bed of a river, at the foot of a small wood before you ascend the market-place at Roo, we found the _Lamb_, our friend the _Jumper’s_ brother, concealed very much like a thief in a hole, where we might easily have passed him unnoticed; we gave him some tobacco, of which he was very fond, and a few trifles. We asked him what questions we pleased about the roads, which he answered plainly, shortly, and discreetly; he assured us no Maitsha people had passed, not even to the market, and this we found afterwards was strictly true; for such as had intelligence that he and his party were on that road, did not venture from home with their goods, so that the day before, which had been that of the market, no one chose to run the risk of attending it.

Woldo was very eloquent in praise of this officer the _Lamb_; he said he had a great deal more humanity than his brother, and when he made an inroad into Gojam, or any part of Abyssinia, he never murdered any women, not even those that were with child; a contrary custom it seems prevailing among all the Galla. I congratulated him upon this great instance of his humanity, which he took very gravely, as if really intended; he told me that it was he that attacked Michael’s horse at Limjour; and added, that, had it been any other, Ayto Welleta Michael’s life would not have been spared when he was taken prisoner. That want of curiosity, inattention, and absolute indifference for new objects, which was remarkable in the Jumper, was very plainly discernible in this chieftain likewise, and seems to be a characteristic of the nation.

I asked Woldo what became of those 44 Galla who had their eyes pulled out, after the battle of Fagitta, by Michael, on his return to Gondar. Not one of them, said he, ever came into his own country. It was reported the hyæna ate them upon the Angrab, where they were turned out to starve. I saved three of them, said I. Yes, answered he, and others might have been saved too: and then added, in a low voice, the hyænas eating them at the Angrab was a story contrived for the Galla; but we that are Fasil’s servants know they were made away with by his order in Maitsha and the Agow country, that none of them might be seen in their own provinces to terrify the rest of their clans by the mangled appearance they then bore; for this was Ras Michael’s intention in disfiguring them, and yet leaving them alive; to prevent therefore the success of this scheme, Fasil put them to death in their way before they reached their own country. I confess I was struck at the finesse which completed Waragna Fasil’s character in my mind. What, said I, kill his own people taken prisoners whilst fighting for him, merely because their enemies had cruelly deprived them of their sight! indeed, Woldo, that is not credible. O ho, says he, but it is true; your Galla are not like other men, they do not talk about what is cruel and what is not; they do just what is for their own good, what is reasonable, and think no more of the matter. Ras Michael, says he, would make an excellent Galla; and do not you believe that he would do any cruel action which my master Fasil would not perpetrate on the same provocation, and to answer the same purpose?

It now occurred to me why the three Galla, whom I had maintained at Gondar, had constantly refused to return into their own country with the many safe opportunities which at times had presented to them, especially since the king’s retreat to Tigré; neither had I observed any desire in Fasil’s servants, who occasionally came to Gondar, of helping to restore these unfortunate men to their country, because they knew the fate that awaited them.

Although the _Lamb_, and the other Galla his soldiers, paid very little attention, as I have said, to us, it was remarkable to see the respect they shewed Fasil’s horse; the greatest part of them, one by one, gave him handfuls of barley, and the _Lamb_ himself had a long and serious conversation with him; Woldo told me it was all spent in regretting the horse’s ill-fortune, and Fasil’s cruelty, in having bestowed him upon a white man, who would not feed him, or ever let him return to Bizamo. Bizamo is a country of Galla south of the Nile, after it makes its southmost turn, and has surrounded the kingdom of Gojam. I was better pleased with this genuine mark of kindness to the horse, than all the proofs of humanity Woldo had attributed to his chieftain for not frequently putting to death pregnant women. When I remarked this, Bad men! bad men! all of them, says Woldo; but your Ras Michael will be among them one of these days, and pull all their eyes out again; and so much the better.

At Roo we left the direct road which leads to Buré, the residence of the governor of Damot, towards which place the route of the army was directed; so I took leave, as I hoped, for ever of my brethren the Galla, but still continued to drive the horse before me. We turned our face now directly upon the fountains of the Nile, which lay S. E. by S. according to the compass. At a quarter before noon we saw the high sharp-pointed mountain of Temhua, standing single in the form of a cone, at about 18 miles distance, and behind this the mountain of Banja, the place where Fasil almost exterminated the Agows in a battle soon after his return to Buré, and to revenge which the king’s last fatal campaign was undertaken in Maitsha, terminated by his retreat to Tigrè.

Here Strates, whilst amusing himself in the wood in search of new birds and beasts for our collection of natural history, fired his gun at one of the former, distinguished by the beauty and variety of its plumage. I stopt to make a rough sketch of it, which might be finished at more leisure: this was scarcely done, and we again moving forwards on our journey, when we heard a confusion of shrill, barbarous cries, and presently saw a number of horsemen pouring down upon us, with their lances lifted up in a posture ready to attack us immediately. The ground was woody and uneven, so they could not make the speed they seemed to desire, and we had just time to put ourselves upon our defence with our firelocks, musquets, and blunderbusses in our hands, behind our baggage. Woldo ran several paces towards them, knowing them by the cry to be friends, even before he had seen them, which was, Fasil ali, Fasil ali--_there is none but Fasil that commands here_. Upon seeing us without any marks of discomposure, they all stopt with Woldo, and by him we learned that this was the party we had passed commanded by the _Lamb_, who, after we had left him, had heard that five Agow horsemen had passed between the army and his party, and from the shot he had feared they might have attempted something against us, and he had thereupon come to our assistance with all the speed possible.

Thus did we see that this man, who, according to our ideas, seemed in understanding inferior to most of the brute creation, had yet, in executing his orders, a discernment, punctuality, activity, and sense of duty, equal to any Christian officer who should have had a like commission; he now appeared to us in a quite different light than when we first had met him; and his inattention, when we were with him, was the more agreeable, as it left us at our entire liberty, without teazing or molesting us, when he could be of no real service, as every Amharic soldier would have done. On the other hand, his alacrity and resolution, in the moment he thought us in danger, exhibited him to our view as having on both occasions just the qualities we could have desired. We now, therefore, shewed him the utmost civility, spread a table-cloth on the ground by the brook, mixed our honey and liquid butter together in a plate, and laid plenty of teff bread beside it. We invited the Lamb to sit down and breakfast with us, which he did, each of us dipping our hand with pieces of bread alternately into the dish which contained the honey; but Strates, whose heart was open, for he felt very gratefully the Lamb’s attention to save him from being murdered by the Agows, pulled out a large piece of raw beef, part of the bullock we killed at Kelti, which he had perfectly cleared from all incumbrance of bones, this he gave to the Lamb, desiring him to divide it among his men, which he did, keeping a very small proportion to himself, and which he ate before us. Drink we had none, but the water of the brook that ran by, for my people had finished all our other liquors at Kelti after I was in bed, when they were taking their leave of Guebra Mariam, Ozoro Esther’s servant.

It was now time to pursue our journey; and, to shew our gratitude for the real service this Lamb intended to have rendered us, I gave him four times the quantity of tobacco he had got before, and so in proportion of every other trifle; all these he took with absolute indifference as formerly, much as if it had been all his own; he expressed no sort of thanks either in his words or in his countenance; only while at breakfast said, that he was very much grieved that it had been but a false alarm, for he heartily desired that some robbers really had attacked us, that he might have shewn us how quickly and dexterously he would have cut them to pieces though there had been a hundred of them. I mentioned to Woldo my obligations to the Lamb for his good wishes, but that things were quite as well as they were; that I had no sort of curiosity for such exhibitions, which I did not however doubt he would have performed most dexterously.

We were now taking leave to proceed on our journey, and my servant folding up the table-cloth, when the Lamb desired to speak to Woldo, and for the first time ventured to make a request, which was a very extraordinary one; he begged that I would give him the table-cloth to cover his head, and keep his face from the sun. I could not help laughing within myself at the idea of preserving that beautiful complexion from sun-burning; but I gave him the cloth very readily, which he accordingly spread upon his head, till it covered half his face; he then got upon his horse and rode quietly away. Before he went, he detached fifteen men, Woldo said he did not know where, but by what he had gathered, and the route they had taken, he was sure that detachment was meant for our service, and to protect us on the right of our route, not having yet sufficiently quieted his own mind about the five Agows that passed between the army and his post the night we were at Kelti; these, however, being poorly mounted and armed, would not have found their account in meddling with us, though we had no wishes to shew our dexterity in destroying them, as our friend the Lamb was so desirous of doing, and we after discovered they were not quite so despicable as they were represented, nor were they Agows. All this passed in much less time than it is told. We were on horseback again in little more than half an hour; our friends were, like us, willing to meet and willing to part, only I ordered Strates to suspend his firing for that day, lest it should procure us another interview, which we by no means courted.

We had halted by the side of a small river which falls into the Assar; and a little before one o’clock we came to the Assar itself. The Assar, as I have already said, is the southern boundary of Aroossi, as Kelti is the northern; and as Aroossi is the southern district of Maitsha on the west side of the Nile, it follows that the Assar is the southern boundary of Maitsha.

On the other side of this river begins the province of Goutto, which, according to the ancient rules of government before Ras Michael destroyed all distinctions, depended on the province of Damot; whereas Maitsha belonged to the office of Betwudet since Fasil had appropriated both to himself by force, as well as the whole country of the Agows, which he had possessed by the same title ever since the battle of Banja: the inhabitants of Goutto are the ancient natives of that country; they are not Galla as those of Maitsha, but much more civilized and better governed. The language of the Agow and the Amharic are the two chiefly spoken in Goutto, though there are distant places towards the Jemma on the side of the Nile, where they speak that of the Falasha likewise. The people in Goutto are richer and better lodged than those of the neighbouring Maitsha; their whole country is full of cattle of the largest size, exceedingly beautiful, and of all the different colours; there are some places likewise where their honey is excellent, equal to any in the country of the Agows, but the greatest quantity of it is of low price and of little esteem, owing to the lupine flowers on which the bees feed, and of which a great quantity covers the whole face of the country; this gives a bitterness to the greatest part of the honey, and occasions, as they believe, vertigo’s, or dizzinesses, to those that eat it: the same would happen with the Agows, did they not take care to eradicate the lupines throughout their whole country.

All this little territory of Aroossi is by much the most pleasant that we had seen in Abyssinia, perhaps it is equal to any thing the east can produce; the whole is finely shaded with acacia-trees, I mean the acacia vera, or the Egyptian thorn, the tree which, in the sultry parts of Africa, produces the gum-arabic. These trees grow seldom above fifteen or sixteen feet high, then flatten and spread wide at the top, and touch each other, while the trunks are far asunder, and under a vertical sun, leave you, many miles together, a free space to walk in a cool, delicious shade. There is scarce any tree but this in Maitsha; all Guanguera and Wainadega are full of them; but in these last-mentioned places, near the capital, where the country grows narrower, being confined between the lake and the mountains, these trees are more in the way of the march of armies, and are thinner, as being constantly cut down for fuel, and never replanted, or suffered to replace themselves, which they otherwise would do, and cover the whole face of the country, as once apparently they did. The ground below those trees, all throughout Aroossi, is thick covered with lupines, almost to the exclusion of every other flower; wild oats also grow up here spontaneously to a prodigious height and size, capable often of concealing both the horse and his rider, and some of the stalks being little less than an inch in circumference. They have, when ripe, the appearance of small canes. The inhabitants make no sort of use of this grain in any period of its growth: the uppermost thin hulk of it is beautifully variegated with a changeable purple colour; the taste is perfectly good. I often made the meal into cakes in remembrance of Scotland.

The Abyssinians never could relish these cakes, which they said were bitter, and burnt their stomachs, as also made them thirsty. I do, however, believe this is the oat in its original state, and that it is degenerated everywhere with us. The soil of this country is a fine black mould, in appearance like to that which composes our gardens. The oat seems to delight in a moist, watery soil; and, as no underwood grows under the shadow of the trees, the plough passes without interruption. As there is likewise no iron in their plough, (for is it all composed of wood) the furrow is a very slight one, nor does the plough reach deep enough to be entangled with the roots of trees; but it is the north part of Maitsha, however, that is chiefly in culture; south of the Kelti all is pasture; a large number of horses is bred here yearly, for it is the custom among the Galla to be all horsemen or graziers.

All Aroossi is finely watered with small streams, though the Assar is the largest river we had seen except the Nile; it was about 170 yards broad and two feet deep, running over a bed of large stones; though generally through a flat and level country, it is very rapid, and after much rain scarcely passable, owing to the height of its source in the mountains of the Agows; its course, where we forded it, is from south to north, but it soon turns to the north-east, and, after flowing five or six miles, joins the Nile and loses itself in that river.

Immediately below this ford of the Assar is a magnificent cascade, or cataract. I computed the perpendicular height of the fall to be above 20 feet, and the breadth of the stream to be something more than 80; but it is so closely covered with trees or bushes, and the ground so uneven, that it needs great perseverance and attention to approach it nearly with safety; the stream covers the rock without leaving any part of it visible, and the whole river falls uninterrupted down with an incredible violence and noise, without being anyway broken or divided; below this cataract it becomes considerably narrower, and, as we have said, in this state runs on to join the Nile.

The strength of vegetation which the moisture of this river produces, supported by the action of a very warm sun, is such as one might naturally expect from theory, though we cannot help being surprised at the effects when we see them before us, trees and shrubs covered with flowers of every colour, all new and extraordinary in their shapes, crowded with birds of many uncouth forms, all of them richly adorned with variety of plumage, and seeming to fix their residence upon the banks of this river, without a desire of wandering to any distance in the neighbouring fields: But as there is nothing, though ever so beautiful, that has not some defect or imperfection, among all these feathered beauties there is not one songster; and, unless of the rose, or jessamin kind, none of their flowers have any smell; we hear indeed many squalling noisy birds of the jay kind, and we find two varieties of wild roses, white and yellow, to which I may add jessamin (called Leham) which becomes a large tree; but all the rest of the birds or flowers may be considered as liable to the general observation, that the flowers are destitute of odour, and the birds of song.

After passing the Assar, and several villages belonging to Goutto, our course being S. E. we had, for the first time, a distinct view of the high mountain of Geesh, the long-wished-for end of our dangerous and troublesome journey. Under this mountain are the fountains of the Nile; it bore from us S. E. by S. about thirty miles, as near as we could conjecture, in a straight line, without counting the deviations or crookedness of the road.

Ever since we had passed the Assar we had been descending gently through very uneven ground, covered thick with trees, and torn up by the gullies and courses of torrents. At two o’clock in the afternoon of the second of November we came to the banks of the Nile; the passage is very difficult and dangerous, the bottom being full of holes made by considerable springs, light sinking sand, and, at every little distance, large rocky stones; the eastern side was muddy and full of pits, the ground of clay: the Nile here is about 260 feet broad, and very rapid; its depth about four feet in the middle of the river, and the sides not above two. Its banks are of a very gentle, easy descent; the western side is chiefly ornamented with high trees of the salix, or willow tribe, growing straight, without joints or knots, and bearing long pointed pods full of a kind of cotton. This tree is called, in their language, Ha; the use they have for it is to make charcoal for the composition of gunpowder; but on the eastern side, the banks, to a considerable distance from the river, are covered with black, dark, and thick groves, with craggy-pointed rocks, and overshaded with some old, tall, timber trees going to decay with age; a very rude and awful face of nature, a cover from which our fancy suggested a lion should issue, or some animal or monster yet more savage and ferocious.

The veneration still paid in this country for the Nile, such as obtained in antiquity, extends to the territory of Goutto, and I believe very little farther; the reason is, I apprehend, that to this, and no lower, the country has remained under its ancient inhabitants. Below, we know Maitsha has been occupied within these few ages by Pagan Galla, transplanted here for political purposes; at Goutto, however, and in the provinces of the Agows, the genuine indigenæ have not emigrated, and with these the old superstition is more firmly rooted in their hearts than is the more recent doctrine of Christianity; they crowded to us at the ford, and they were, after some struggle, of great use in passing us, but they protested immediately with great vehemence against any man’s riding across the stream, mounted either upon horse or mule: they, without any sort of ceremony, unloaded our mules, and laid our baggage upon the grass, insisting that we should take off our shoes, and making an appearance of stoning those who attempted to wash the dirt off their cloaks and trowsers in the stream. My servants were by this provoked to return rudeness for rudeness, and Woldo gave them two or three significant threats, while I sat by exceedingly happy at having so unexpectedly found the remnants of veneration for that ancient deity still subsisting in such full vigour. They after this allowed us, as well as our horses and mules, to drink, and conducted me across the river, holding me on each side very attentively for fear of the holes; but the want of shoes was very inconvenient, the pointed rocks and stones at the bottom giving me several deep cuts on the soles of my feet; after this the beasts were led all to the same side with myself, also one servant was passed with the greatest care by these poor people. Woldo had tipt me the wink to cross as they desired me: except my single gun, all the fire-arms and servants remained with the baggage and Woldo; and now we soon saw what was his intention, and how well he understood that the country he was in belonged to Fasil his master.

There were between twenty and thirty of the Agows, old and young, some of them armed with lances and shields, and all of them with knives. Woldo took his small stick in one hand, sat down upon a green hillock by the ford with his lighted pipe in the other; he ranged my people behind him, leaving the baggage by itself, and began gravely to exhort the Agows to lose no time in carrying over our baggage upon their shoulders. This proposal was treated with a kind of ridicule by the foremost of the Agows, and they began plainly to insinuate that he should first settle with them a price for their trouble. He continued, however, smoaking his pipe in seeming leisure, and much at his ease, and, putting on an air of great wisdom, in a tone of moderation he appealed to them whether they had not of their own accord insisted on our crossing the river on foot, had unloaded our baggage, and sent the mules to the other side without our consent. The poor people candidly declared that they had done so, because none are permitted in any other manner to cross the Nile, but that they would likewise carry our baggage safely and willingly over for pay; this word was no sooner uttered, when, apparently in a most violent passion, he leapt up, laid by his pipe, took his stick, and ran into the midst of them, crying out with violent execrations, And who am I? and who am I then? a girl, a woman, or a Pagan dog like yourselves? and who is Waragna Fasil; are you not his slaves? or to whom else do you belong, that you are to make me pay for the consequences of your devilish idolatries and superstitions? but you want payment, do ye? here is your payment: he then tuckt his clothes tight about his girdle, began leaping two or three feet high, and laying about him with his stick over their heads and faces, or wherever he could strike them.

After this Woldo wrested a lance from a long, aukward fellow that was next him, standing amazed, and levelled the point at him in a manner that I thought to see the poor peasant fall dead in an instant: the fellow fled in a trice, so did they all to a man; and no wonder, for in my life I never saw any one play the furious devil so naturally. Upon the man’s running off, he cried out to my people to give him a gun, which made these poor wretches run faster and hide themselves among the bushes: lucky, indeed, was it for Woldo that my servants did not put him to the trial, by giving him the gun as he demanded, for he would not have ventured to fire it, perhaps to have touched it, if it had been to have made him master of the province.

I, who sat a spectator on the other side, thought we were now in a fine scrape, the evening coming on at a time of the year when it is not light at six, my baggage and servants on one side of the river, myself and beasts on the other, crippled absolutely in the feet by the stones, and the river so full of pits and holes, that, had they been all laden on the other side and ready, no one could have been bold enough to lead a beast through without a guide: the difficulty was not imaginary, I had myself an instant before made proof of it, and all difficulties are relative, greater or less, as you have means in your hands to overcome them. I was clearly satisfied that Woldo knew the country, and was provided with a remedy for all this; I conceived that this pacific behaviour, while they were unloading the mules, and driving them across the river, as well as his fury afterwards, was part of some scheme, with which I was resolved in no shape to interfere; and nothing convinced me more of this than his resolute demand of a gun, when no persuasion could make him stay within ten yards of one if it was discharged, even though the muzzle was pointed a contrary direction. I sat still, therefore, to see the end, and it was with some surprise that I observed him to take his pipe, stick, and my servants along with him, and cross the river to me as if nothing had happened, leaving the baggage on the other side, without any guard whatsoever; he then desired us all to get on horseback, and drive the mules before us, which we did accordingly; and I suppose we had not advanced about a hundred yards before we saw a greater number of people than formerly run down to where our baggage was lying, and, while one crossed the river to desire us to stay where we were, the rest brought the whole over in an instant.

This, however, did not satisfy our guide; he put on a sulky air, as if he had been grievously injured; he kept the mules where they were, and would not send one back to be loaded at the river-side, alledging it was unlucky to turn back upon a journey; he made them again take the baggage on their shoulders, and carry it to the very place where our mules had halted, and there lay it down. On this they all flocked about him, begging that he would not report them to his master, as fearing some fine, or heavy chastisement, would fall upon their villages. The guide looked very sulky, said but very little, and that all in praise of himself, of his known mildness and moderation; as an instance of which he appealed (impudently enough) to his late behaviour towards them. If such a one, says he, naming a man that they knew, had been in my place, what a fine reckoning he would have made with you; why, your punishment would not have ended in seven years. They all acknowledged the truth of his observation, as well as his moderation, gave him great commendations, and, I believe, some promises when he passed there on his return.

Here I thought our affair happily ended to the satisfaction of all parties. I mounted my horse, and Woldo went to a large silk bag, or purse, which I had given him full of tobacco, and he had his match and pipe in his hand, just as if he was going to fill it before he set out; he then unloosed the bag, felt it on the outside, putting first his three fingers, then his whole hand, pinching and squeezing it both withinside and without; at last he broke out in a violent transport of rage, crying that _his gold_ was gone, and that they had robbed him of it. I had not till this spoke one word: I asked him what he meant by his gold. He said he had two ounces (value about 5l.) in his tobacco purse, and that some person had laid hold of them when the baggage lay on the other side of the water; that the Agows had done it, and that they must pay him for it. The despair and anguish that he had counterfeited quickly appeared in true and genuine colours in the faces of all the poor Agows; for his part, he disdained to speak but in monosyllables--So, so, and very well, and no matter, you shall see--and shook his head. We now proceeded on our journey; but two of the eldest among the Agows followed him to our quarters at night, where they made their peace with Woldo, who, I doubt not, dealt with them according to his usual mildness, justice, and moderation; a specimen of which we have already seen.