Chapter XIV: Book VIII (2)

There now remained but two elephants of those that had been discovered, which were a she one with a calf. The Agageer would willingly have let these alone, as the teeth of the female are very small, and the young one is of no sort of value, even for food, its flesh shrinking much upon drying. But the hunters would not be limited in their sport. The people having observed the place of her retreat, thither we eagerly followed. She was very soon found, and as soon lamed by the Agageers; but when they came to wound her with the darts, as every one did in their turn, to our very great surprise, the young one, which had been suffered to escape unheeded and unpursued, came out from the thicket apparently in great anger, running upon the horses and men with all the violence it was master of. I was amazed; and as much as ever I was, upon such an occasion, afflicted, at seeing the great affection of the little animal defending its wounded mother, heedless of its own life or safety. I therefore cried to them, for God's sake to spare the mother, tho' it was then too late; and the calf had made several rude attacks upon me, which I avoided without difficulty; but I am happy, to this day, in the reflection that I did not strike it. At last, making one of its attacks upon Ayto Engedan, it hurt him a little on the leg; upon which he thrust it through with his lance, as others did after, and it then fell dead before its wounded mother, whom it had so affectionately defended. It was about the size of an ass, but round, big-bellied, and heavily made; and was so furious, and unruly, that it would easily have broken the leg either of man or horse, could it have overtaken them, and jostled against them properly.

Here is an example of a beast (a young one too) possessing abstracted sentiments to a very high degree. By its flight on the first appearance of the hunters, it is plain it apprehended danger to itself, it also reflected upon that of its mother, which was the cause of its return to her assistance. This affection or duty, or let us call it any thing we please, except instinct, was stronger than the fear of danger; and it must have conquered that fear by reflection before it returned, when it resolved to make its best and last efforts, for it never attempted to fly afterwards. I freely forgive that part of my readers, who know me and themselves so little, as to think I believe it worth my while to play the mountebank, for the great honour of diverting them; an honour far from being of the first rate in my esteem. If they should shew, in this place, a degree of doubt, that, for once, I am making use of the privilege of travellers, and dealing a little in the marvellous, it would be much more to the credit of their discernment, than their prodigious scruples about the reality or possibility of eating raw flesh; a thing that has been recorded by the united testimony of all that ever visited Abyssinia for these two hundred years, has nothing unreasonable in itself, though contrary to our practice in other cases; and can only be called in question now, through weakness, ignorance, or an intemperate desire to find fault, by those that believed that a man could get into a quart bottle.

What I relate of the young elephant contains difficulties of another kind; though I am very well persuaded some will swallow it easily, who cannot digest the raw flesh. In both instances I adhere strictly to the truth; and I beg leave to assure those scrupulous readers, that if they knew their author, they would think that his having invented a lie, solely for the pleasure of diverting them, was much more improbable than either of the two foregoing facts. He places his merit in having accomplished these travels in general, not in being present at any one incident during the course of them; the believing of which can reflect no particular honour upon himself, nor the disbelieving it any sort of disgrace in the minds of liberal and unprejudiced men. It is for these only he would wish to write, and these are the only persons who can profit from his narrative.

The Agageers having procured as much meat as would maintain them a long time, could not be persuaded to continue the hunting any longer. Part of them remained with the she-elephant, which seemed to be the fattest; tho' the one they killed first was by much the most valuable, on account of its long teeth. It was still alive, nor did it seem an easy operation to kill it, without the assistance of our Agageers, even though it was totally helpless, except with its trunk.

We sought about for the buffaloes and rhinoceroses; but though there was plenty of both in the neighbourhood, we could not find them; our noise and shooting in the morning having probably scared them away. One rhinoceros only was seen by a servant. We returned in the evening to a great fire, and lay all night under the shade of trees. Here we saw them separate the great teeth of the elephant from the head, by roasting the jaw-bones on the fire, till the lower, thin, and hollow part of the teeth were nearly consumed; and then they come out easily, the thin part being of no value.

The next morning we were on horseback by the dawn of day in search of the rhinoceros, many of which we had heard make a very deep groan and cry as the morning approached; several of the Agageers then joined us, and after we had searched about an hour in the very thickest part of the wood, one of them rushed out with great violence, crossing the plain towards a wood of canes that was about two miles distance. But though he ran, or rather trotted, with surprising speed, considering his bulk, he was, in a very little time, transfixed with thirty or forty javelins; which so confounded him, that he left his purpose of going to the wood, and ran into a deep hole, ditch, or ravine, a _cul de sac_, without outlet, breaking above a dozen of the javelins as he entered. Here we thought he was caught as in a trap, for he had scarce room to turn; when a servant, who had a gun, standing directly over him, fired at his head, and the animal fell immediately, to all appearance dead. All those on foot now jumped in with their knives to cut him up, and they had scarce begun, when the animal recovered so far as to rise upon his knees; happy then was the man that escaped first; and had not one of the Agageers, who was himself engaged in the ravine, cut the sinew of the hind-leg as he was retreating, there would have been a very sorrowful account of the foot-hunters that day.

After having dispatched him, I was curious to see what wound the shot had given, which had operated so violently upon so huge an animal; and I doubted not it was in the brain. But it had struck him nowhere but upon the point of the foremost horn, of which it had carried off above an inch; and this occasioned a concussion that had stunned him for a minute, till the bleeding had recovered him. I preserved the horn from curiosity, and have it now by me[18]. I saw evidently the ball had touched no other part of the beast.

While we were busy with the rhinoceros, Ammonios joined us. A message from the king had carried away Azage Kyrillos the secretary. Two other messengers had arrived from the queen, one to Ayto Confu, and another to Ozoro Esther; and it was Ozoro Esther's commands to her son, to leave the hunting and return. There was no remedy but to obey; Ammonios, however, wanted to have his part of the hunting; and the country people told us, that multitudes of buffaloes were to be found a little to the westward, where there were large trees and standing pools of water. We agreed then to hunt homeward, without being over-solicitous about returning early.

We had not gone far before a wild boar arose between me and Ayto Engedan, which I immediately killed with my javelin. Before he, on his horse, came up to it, another of its companions shared the same fate about a quarter of an hour after. This was the sport I had been many years used to in Barbary, and was infinitely more dextrous at it than any of the present company; this put me more upon a par with my companions, who had not failed to laugh at me, upon my horse's refusal to carry me near either to the elephant or rhinoceros. Nobody would touch the carcase of the boar after it was dead, being an animal which is considered as unclean.

Ammonios was a man of approved courage and conduct, and had been in all the wars of Ras Michael, and was placed about Ayto Confu, to lead the troops, curb the presumption, and check the impetuosity of that youthful warrior. He was tall, and aukwardly made; slow in speech and motion, so much as even to excite ridicule; about sixty years of age, and more corpulent than the Abyssinians generally are; in a word, as pedantic and grave in his manner as it is possible to express. He spent his whole leisure time in reading the scripture, nor did he willingly discourse of any thing else. He had been bred a foot-soldier; and, though he rode as well as many of the Abyssinians, yet, having long stirrup-leathers, with iron rings at the end of them, into which he put his naked toe only, instead of stirrups, he had no strength or agility on horseback, nor was his bridle such as could command his horse to stop, or wind and turn sharply among trees, though he might make a tolerable figure on a plain.

A Boar, roused on our right, had wounded a horse and a footman of Ayto Confu, and then escaped. Two buffaloes were found by those on the right, one of which wounded a horse likewise. Ayto Confu, Engedan, Guebra Mariam, and myself, killed the other with equal share of merit, without being in any sort of danger. All this was in little more than an hour, when our sport seemed to be at the best; our horses were considerably blown, not tired, and though we were beating homewards, still we were looking very keenly for more game. Ammonios was on the left among the bushes, and some large, beautiful, tall spreading-trees, close on the banks of the river Bedowi, which stands there in pools. Whether the buffalo found Ammonios, or Ammonios the buffalo, is what we could never get him to explain to us; but he had wounded the beast slightly in the buttock, which, in return, had gored his horse, and thrown both him and it to the ground. Luckily, however, his cloak had fallen off, which the buffalo tore in pieces, and employed himself for a minute with that and with the horse, but then left them, and followed the man as soon as he saw him rise and run. Ammonios got behind one large tree, and from that to another still larger. The buffalo turned very aukwardly, but kept close in pursuit; and there was no doubt he would have worn our friend out, who was not used to such quick motion. Ayto Engedan, who was near him, and might have assisted him, was laughing, ready to die at the droll figure a man of Ammonios's grave carriage made, running and skipping about naked, with a swiftness he had never practised all his life before; and Engedan continued calling to Confu to partake of the diversion.

The moment I heard his repeated cries, I galloped out of the bushes to the place where he was, and could not help laughing at the ridiculous figure of our friend, very attentive to the beast's motions, which seemed to dodge with great address, and keep to his adversary with the utmost obstinacy. As soon as Engedan saw me, he cried, "Yagoube! for the love of Christ! for the love of the blessed Virgin! don't interfere till Confu comes up." Confu immediately arrived, and laughed more than Engedan, but did not offer to interfere; on the contrary, he clapped his hands, and cried, "Well done, Ammonios," swearing he never saw so equal a match in his life. The unfortunate Ammonios had been driven from tree to tree, till he had got behind one within a few yards of the water; but the brush-wood upon the banks, and his attention to the buffalo, hindered him from seeing how far it was below him. Nothing could be more ridiculous than to see him holding the tree with both his hands, peeping first one way, and then another, to see by which the beast would turn. And well he might be on his guard; for the animal was absolutely mad, tossing up the ground with his feet both before and behind. "Sir, said I, to Ayto Confu, this will be but an ugly joke to-night, if we bring home that man's corpse, killed in the very midst of us, while we were looking on." Saying this, I parted at a canter behind the trees, crying to Ammonios to throw himself into the water, when I should strike the beast; and seeing the buffalo's head turned from me, at full speed I ran the spear into the lower part of his belly, through his whole intestines, till it came out above a foot on the other side, and there I left it, with a view to hinder the buffalo from turning. It was a spear which, though small in the head, had a strong, tough, seasoned shaft, which did not break by striking it against the trees and bushes, and it pained and impeded the animal's motions, till Ammonios quitting the tree, dashed through the bushes with some difficulty, and threw himself into the river. But here a danger occurred that I had not foreseen. The pool was very deep, and Ammonios could not swim; so that though he escaped from the buffalo, he would infallibly have been drowned, had he not caught hold of some strong roots of a tree shooting out of the bank; and there he lay in perfect safety from the enemy, till our servants went round, and brought him out of the pool on the further side.

In the mean time, the buffalo, mortally wounded, seeing his enemy had escaped, kept his eyes intent upon us, who were about forty yards from him, walking backwards towards us, with intent to turn suddenly upon the nearest horse; when Ayto Confu ordered two men with guns to shoot him through the head, and he instantly fell. The two we first killed were females; this last was a bull, and one of the largest, confessedly, that had ever been seen. Though not fat, I guess he weighed nearer fifty than forty stone. His horns from the root, following the line of their curve, were about fifty-two inches, and nearly nine where thickest in the circumference. They were flat, not round. Ayto Confu ordered the head to be cut off, and cleared of its flesh, so that the horns and skeleton of the head only remained; this he hung up in his great hall among the probosces of elephants, and horns of rhinoceroses, with this inscription in his own language, "_Yogoube the Kipt killed this upon the Bedowi_."

We were now within sight of home, to which we went straight without further hunting. Neither the ridicule nor the condolence of the young men could force one word from Ammonios; only when I asked him whether or not he was hurt, he answered from the scripture, "He that loveth danger shall perish in it." But at night Ozoro Esther, either really or feignedly, expressing herself as displeased with her son Ayto Confu, Ammonios, who loved the young man sincerely, could not bear to be the occasion of this; so that all resolved itself into mirth and joke. What added to the merriment was, that the messengers from the Iteghé brought a large increase to our stock of brandy; but brought also positive orders, both from her and the king, to Ozoro Esther, to determine me, by all possible means, to return to Gondar, or else to repair thither instantly herself.

The evening of the day whereon we set out to hunt, some men arrived from Ras el Feel, sent by Yasine, with camels for our baggage, nothing but mules being used at Tcherkin. They brought word, that the Shangalla were down near the Tacazzé, so that now was the time to pass without fear; that Abd el Jeleel, the former Shum of Ras el Feel, Yasine's mortal enemy, had been seen lurking in the country near Sancaho; but as he had only four men, and was himself a known coward, it was not probable he would attempt any thing against us, though it would be always better that we keep on our guard.

Tcherkin has a market on Saturdays, in which raw cotton, cattle, honey, and coarse cotton cloths are sold. The Shangalla formerly molested Tcherkin greatly, but for thirty years past they had done little damage. The small-pox raged so violently for a number of years among them, that it has greatly diminished their numbers, and consequently their power of troubling their neighbours. At Tcherkin we saw a prodigious quantity of black scorpions, of a very small kind, seldom in the houses, but chiefly hid under stones; several of our people were stung by them, but no other mischief followed, but a small swelling, and a complaint of cold in the part, which went away in a few hours.

From the descent of Moura, after leaving Debra Tzai, and Koscam, all was thick woods till we arrived at Tcherkin; the roads very rugged and broken, but the weather was exceedingly pleasant; for though the thermometer was sometimes at 115°, it was always cool in the shade; and by the side of every river there was a fresh gentle breeze from N. E. especially at mid-day. The mornings were always calm, or with little wind at N. E. It regularly changed about nine to N. W. and then fell calm. About four in the afternoon it generally was at west or near it; but two currents were constantly distinguished at night; the lower N. E. veering easterly towards morning; while the white small clouds very thin and high, coming very rapidly from the S. W. shewed the direction and strength of the higher current. The mornings and nights were cloudy from the first of January, but the days perfectly serene.

On Wednesday the eighth of January, having rectified my quadrant with great attention, I found the latitude of Tcherkin, by a meridian altitude of the sun, to be 13° 7´ 30´´ N.; and taking a mean between that and the meridian altitude of eleven different stars, the following night, I found the true latitude of Tcherkin Amba to be 13° 7´ 35´´ north. But though from that time I was ready to depart, I could not possibly get disengaged from my friends, but by a composition, which was, that I should stay till the 15th, the day before Ozoro Esther and her company were to set out on their return to Gondar; and that they, on their part, should suffer me to depart on that day, without further perswasion, or throwing any obstacle whatever in my way. The king had recommended to them this sort of agreement, if I was obstinate, and this being settled, we abandoned ourselves to mirth and festivity.

CHAP. III.

_From Tcherkin to Hor-Cacamoot, in Ras el Feel--Account of
it--Transactions there._

On the 15th of January, at a quarter past eight in the morning, we left Tcherkin, and entered immediately into thick woods; but proceeded very slowly, the road being bad and unknown, if it could be called a road, and our camels overloaded. About an hour afterwards we passed a small village of elephant hunters on our right, and our course was straight north, through dark thick woods, overgrown with long grass, till at half an hour past ten we came to another small village close on our right. We then turned N. W. and continued in that direction, passing several villages, all of elephant hunters, and mostly Mahometans. At three quarters after twelve we came to a small river which runs W. N. W. and falls into the Germa; here we rested. At ten minutes past one we set out again, thro' the thickest and most impenetrable woods I ever saw; and at half past four we encamped about two miles west of Amba Daid, a small village of elephant hunters, often destroyed by the Shangalla, but now lately rebuilt, and strengthened by Agageers and their families under protection of Ayto Confu. We went not to the village, for the sake of a small brook which we had found here, running north, and falling into the Angrab.

On the 16th, at half after seven in the morning we resumed our journey, going westward; about an hour and a half afterwards we arrived at the Germa, a large river which runs N. N. W. and falls into the Angrab; and a quarter after nine we passed the Germa, and going N. W. through the very thickest woods, came to Dabdo, a hill almost deserted, its inhabitants having been so frequently destroyed by the Pagan Shangalla.

At twenty minutes past ten, still going through the thickest woods, and ground all opened by the heat of the sun, we found, in a grassy marsh, a pretty abundant spring of foul water. This is the resort of the hunters of the elephant, as also of their rivals and enemies the Shangalla; and here much human blood has been shed by people whose occupation and intention, when they went from home, were that of slaying the wild beasts only. The Baasa or Dobena Shangalla, possess the country which lies about four days journey N. E. from this.

At a quarter past eleven we came to the river Terkwa; which, after running N. W. falls into the Angrab; it then flood in large deep pools; the banks were covered with tall green grass; the taste of the water foul, and earthy. At twelve we passed the river Terkwa; and going north, about an hour after we came to the Dongola, running east and west; and an hour after that to Jibbel Myrat river, which, running east and west, was once the boundary between Sennaar and Abyssinia. History does not tell us when these boundaries were altered, or upon what occasion. It was probably upon the first invasion that new ones were settled. It should seem that the Abyssinians had then the better of Nubia; for a large accession of territory was ceded by the latter to the former. A few minutes after we came to the river Woodo, larger than the last. It has a rocky bottom, and is full of small fish of a brownish and silver colour. Where we crossed, it runs from west to east, and falls into the Angrab. There we passed the night, not without alarms, as fresh footsteps in the sand were very plainly discovered, which, by the length of the foot, and the largeness of the heels, our people pronounced were surely Shangalla; but nothing disastrous appeared all night.

On the 17th, before seven in the morning we were again upon our journey, our direction N. and N. W. winding to due West. Andoval mountain stood W. N. W. distant from us four miles. At forty minutes past eight, going due west, Andoval mountain lay to the north of us; and Awassa mountains to the south. This is a ridge which, coming from the north, stretches south to Dabda, and Abra Amba. Andoval mountain is a small pointed peek, which constitutes the north end of them. We halted here a few minutes, and resumed our route to the westward, and N. W. till we came to Sancaho, at half an hour past one, and there we rested.

Sancaho is an old frontier territory of Abyssinia. The town may consist of about 300 huts or houses, neatly built of canes, and curiously thatched with leaves of the same. It rises in the midst of a plain, and resembles in shape Tcherkin Amba, though much larger; a considerable district all around belongs to it, of wilds and woods, if such as these, abandoned entirely to wild beasts, can be said to belong to any man. The east end slopes with rather a steep descent into the plain; and through that is a narrow winding road, seemingly the work of art, being obstructed at turns by huge stones, and at different stages, for the purpose of defence by guns or arrows; all the other sides of the rock are perpendicular precipices. The inhabitants of the town are Baasa, a race of Shangalla, converted to the Mahometan religion; it is an absolute government, has a nagareet or kettle-drum for proclamations, yet is understood to be inferior to Ras el Feel, and dependent on it; and always subject to that nobleman, who is Kasmati of Ras el Feel, such as Ayto Confu then was, after he had resumed his government at my departure, though during my stay in Abyssinia it had devolved upon me by his surrendering it.

Gimbaro, the Erbab or chief of Sancaho, was the tallest and stoutest man of his nation; about six feet six inches high, and strongly made in proportion; hunted always on foot; and was said, among his people, to have singly killed elephants with one blow of his spear. The features of his face might well be called hideous; he paid his part of the revenue in buffaloes hides, of which the best shields were made; and with elephants' teeth, and rhinoceros's horns, used for the handles of the crooked knives, which the Abyssinians carry at their girdles. All the inhabitants of Sancaho are hunters of elephants. It is their principal food. Erbab Gimbaro came with Yasine, and brought more than a hundred of the Shangalla to the king's army at Serbraxos, where the Moors alledged he did not any way distinguish himself. I had, however, taken considerable notice of him; and at his earnest desire carried him into the tent, and shewed him the king.

We encamped at the bottom of the hill on the south-west side of the town, on the banks of the river, which rises in the mountains six miles off to the south, and encompasses the half of the hill where Sancaho stands; after which it turns northward, but was now mostly dry. While we were pitching our tent, I sent one of Yasine's men to order Gimbaro to send us the usual quantity of provision for ourselves and camels, and told him also, that my camels were few in number, and weak; desiring he would send two, or one at least, which should be stated in his deftar, or account of rent, for that year. I was astonished to see Yasine's men return, bringing with them only a woolly-headed black, the Erbab's son, as it seemed, who, with great freedom and pertness, and in very good Amharic, said, "My father salutes you; if ye eat what he eats, ye shall be very welcome." I asked him, What that was?--He said, "Elephant killed yesterday; and as for camels ye demand, he tells you he has none; elephants are his camels, and rhinoceroses are his mules."

Ayto Confu's servants, who heard this message delivered, and who were as desirous of getting over this journey to Ras el Feel as I was, advised me to go with him up the hill to the town, and expostulate with the Erbab, who, he said, would be ashamed to refuse. Accordingly, I armed myself with a pair of pistols at my girdle, with a fusil and bayonet in my hand; and took with me two servants with their pistols also, each carrying a large ship-blunderbuss. We mounted the hill with great difficulty, being several times obliged to pull up one another by the hands, and entered into a large room about fifty feet long. It was all hung round with elephants heads and trunks, with skeletons of the heads of some rhinoceroses, and of monstrous hippopotami, as also several heads of the giraffa. Some large lion skins were thrown on several parts of the room, like carpets; and Gimbaro stood upright at one end of it, naked, only a small cloth about his middle; the largest man I ever remembered to have seen, perfectly black, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, and woolly-headed; and seemed to be a perfect picture of those Cannibal giants which we read of as inhabiting enchanted castles in fairy tales.

He did not seem to take notice at my first entering the room, nor till I was very near him. He then came aukwardly forward, bowing, endeavouring to kiss my hand, which I withdrew from him, and said in a firm voice, "I apprehend, Sir, you do not know me." He bowed and said he did, but did not conceive, at the time, it was me that encamped at the brook. "You did know, Sir, when you sent your son with Yasine's servant, and you know that you are considerably in my debt. Besides, if you had any gratitude, you would remember the arrears I remitted you, and the presents I made you when at Serbraxos, even though you misbehaved there. Your message to me while below at the river was the language of a rebel. Are you willing to be declared in rebellion?" He said, "By no means; he had always been a faithful servant to Ayto Confu, Ras Michael, and the king, and had come to Serbraxos upon receiving the first order, and would obey whatever I should command." "Then pay me the meery you owe me, and begin first by bringing two camels." "He said, he never refused the camels, and the message he sent was but in sport." "And was it sport too, Sir, said I, when you said you would send me the flesh of elephants to eat? Did you ever know a Christian eat any sort of flesh that a Mahometan killed?" He answered, "No; and begging my pardon, promised he would send me bread and honey, and the camels should be ready in the morning. They must be ready to-night, said I, and before night too; for I am to dispatch a servant this evening to Ayto Confu to complain of your behaviour, as I do not know what you may meditate against us in our way to Ras el Feel." He begged now, in the most earnest manner, I would not complain; and said, he would have all his spies out to the eastward, that not a Shangalla should pass to molest us, without our being informed of them. Some of his principal people now interfering, I consented to forget and forgive what had passed. We then ate bread, and drank beer, to show the reconciliation was sincere, and so the affair ended.

About six in the evening came two strong camels, and about thirty loaves of bread made of Dora; two large wheat loaves for me, as also a jar of wild honey, of excellent flavour, and with these a present to Ayto Confu's servant.

On the 18th, about six in the morning, Erbab Gimbaro, coming down to our tent, brought thirty loaves of Dora as before, and four of wheat, for the journey; and we had already enough of honey, upon which we breakfasted with the Erbab, who, to confirm the friendship, took two or three glasses of strong spirits, which put him into excellent humour. His son, too, that he might atone for his last night's misbehaviour, brought a better camel than any we had seen, and exchanged it for one of those that came yesterday in the evening. I, on the other hand, gave him a cotton cloth, and some trifles, which made him perfectly happy; and we parted in the most cordial friendship possible, after having made a promise that, at my return, I should stay a week at Sancaho to hunt the elephant and rhinoceros.

Before leaving Sancaho, I had an opportunity of verifying a fact hitherto doubtful in natural history. Mr Hasselquist, the Swedish traveller, when at Cairo, saw the skins of two giraffos stuffed, which came from Sennaar. He gives as minute a description as possible he could from seeing the skins only; but says nothing about the horns, because I suppose he did not see them; on which account the doubt remained undecided, whether the giraffo's horns were solid as the deer's, and cast every year; or whether they were hollow, attached to a core, or bone, like those of sheep, and consequently permanent. The Count de Buffon conjectures them to be of this last kind, and so I found them. They are twisted in all respects like the horns of an antelope.

At ten minutes past eight we set out from Sancaho; but my people took it into their heads, that, notwithstanding the fair behaviour of Erbab Gimbaro, he intended to lay some ambush to cut us off, and rob us on the way. For my part, I was very well satisfied of the contrary; but this did not hinder them from forsaking the accustomed road, and getting among a thick wood of canes; we were obliged to cut our way out of them when our direction was west, or to the southward of west. They were also afraid of Abd el Jileel.

At ten minutes past eleven we crossed the Bedowi, which we had passed twice before; at half past eleven we crossed it again, travelling southward; and a quarter after twelve we were so entangled with woods, and so fatigued with cutting the way for our camels, that we thought we should get no further. We had, however, continued till three quarters past one in a direction south-east, at which time we were not above five miles from Sancaho; and, at half past two, had turned south-west on the banks of the large river Tokoor-Ohha, which signifies the Black River. It comes from the mountains of Awassa on the south-east, and, after winding considerably, it falls into the Guangue, about eight miles from Guanjook.

Tokoor-Ohha is a river famous for the number of buffaloes that are upon its banks, which are covered with large beautiful shady-trees, all of a hard red wood, called Dengui Sibber, or Breaker of Stones. They had neither fruit nor flower on them at this time, by which we might judge to what tribe they belong; but they are not ebony, which in this country is known by the name of Zopé.

On the 19th, at three quarters past six we left our station on Tokoor river, which we crossed about a quarter of an hour after, our direction being nearly S. W. The territory here is called Gilmaber, from Gilma, a small village a mile and a half distant to the southward. Gilmaber is about a mile and a half long, full of tall canes. From the time we left Tokoor river, we had been followed by a lion, or rather preceded by one, for it was generally a small gun-shot before us; and wherever it came to a bare spot, it would sit down and grumble as if it meant to dispute the way with us. Our beasts trembled, and were all covered with sweat, and could scarcely be kept on the road. As there seemed to be but one remedy for this difficulty, I took a long Turkish rifled gun, and crawling under a bank as near as possible, shot it in the body, so that it fell from the bank on the road before us, quite dead, and even without muscular motion. It proved to be a large lioness. All the people in this country eat the flesh of lions; as I have seen some tribes[19] in Barbary do likewise. We left the lioness to the inhabitants of the neighbouring village, skin and all; for we were so tired with this day's journey, that we could not be at the pains of skinning her.

A few minutes after this we passed the river Gilma, twice, which runs to the northward. At half past nine we joined Dabda road, and a few minutes after crossed the Quartucca, a small river running north.

The country here becomes more open, for the thick woods have small plains between them. In the entrance of a wood we found a man that had been murdered, and that very lately, as the wild beasts had not yet begun to touch the body; he had been ham-strung, and his throat cut, a performance probably of the neighbouring Shangalla. At fifty minutes past ten, our route being west, we passed under a hill a quarter of a mile on our right, upon which is a village called Salamgué. At a quarter past eleven we crossed the small river of Kantis; and a quarter of an hour afterwards we ascended a hill upon which stands a village of that name, inhabited by Mahometan Shangalla of the tribe of Baasa.

On the 20th we proceeded but a mile and a half; our beasts and ourselves being equally fatigued, and our cloaths torn all to rags. Guanjook is a very delightful spot by the river side; small woods of very high trees interspersed with very beautiful lawns; several fields also cultivated with cotton; variety of game (especially Guinea fowls, in great abundance) and, upon every tree, perroquets, of all the different kinds and colours, compose the beauties of Guanjook. I saw no parrots, and suppose there were none; but on firing a gun, the first probably ever heard in those woods, there was such a screaming of other birds on all sides, some flying to the place whence the noise came, and some flying from it, that it was impossible to hear distinctly any other sound. It was at this place that I shot that curious bird called the Erkoom[20] in Amhara; the Abba Gumba, in Tigrè; and here at Guanjook, _Teir el Naciba_, or the Bird of Destiny.

On the 22d, at three quarters past six we left Guanjook, and a few minutes after passed a small river called Gumbacca, and afterwards the river Tokoor. At half an hour past eight we rested there, and three hours after came to the Guangue. The Guangue is the largest river we had seen in Abyssinia except the Nile and Taccazé. It rises near Tchelga, or between Tchelga and Nara. It joins the Tacazzé in the Barabra, in the kingdom of Sennaar. The two rivers when joined are called the Atbara, which gives its name to the province. It abounds with hippopotami, and crocodiles, chiefly the former, which however we thought were mostly smaller than those of the Nile.

At a quarter after one we came to Mariam-Ohha, and at half past three arrived at Hor-Cacamoot. Hor in that country signifies the dry deep bed of a torrent, which has ceased to run; and Cacamoot, the shade of death; so that Yasine's village, where we now took up our quarters, is called the Valley of the Shadow of Death: A bad omen for weak and wandering travellers as we were, surrounded by a multitude of dangers, and so far from home, that there seemed to be but one that could bring us thither. We trusted in Him, and He did deliver us.

Hor-Cacamoot is situated in a plain in the midst of a wood, so much only of which has been cleared away as to make room for the miserable huts of which it consists, and for the small spots of ground on which they sow mashilla, or maize, to furnish them with bread. Their other food consists entirely of the flesh of the elephant and rhinoceros, and chiefly of the former; for the trouble of hunting the elephant is not greater than chasing the rhinoceros, and the difference of gain is much superior. The elephant has a greater quantity of better flesh, while his large teeth are very valuable, and afford a ready price everywhere. The inhabitants being little acquainted with the use of fire-arms, the smaller game, of the deer kind, are not much molested, unless by the wild Shangalla, who make use of bows and arrows, so that these animals are increased beyond imagination.

Ras el Feel consisted once of thirty-nine villages. All the Arabs of Atbara resorted to them with butter, honey, horses, gold, and many other commodities; and the Shekh of Atbara, living upon the frontier of Sennaar, entertained a constant good correspondence with the Shekh of Ras el Feel, to whom he sent yearly a Dongola horse, two razors, and two dogs. The Shekh of Ras el Feel, in return, gave him a mule and a female slave; and the effect of this intercourse was to keep all the intermediate Arabs in their duty.

Since the expedition of Yasous II. against Sennaar, no peace has ever subsisted between the two states; on the contrary, all the Arabs that assisted the king, and were defeated with him, pay tribute no longer to Sennaar, but live on the frontiers of Abyssinia, and are protected there. The two chiefs of Atbara, and Ras el Feel, understand one another perfectly, and give the Arabs no trouble; and, if they pay their rent to either, it is divided between both. It was through the means of these Arabs the king of Abyssinia's army was furnished, as we have seen, with heavy horses; and it was in consequence of my depending on this friendship with the Shekh of Teawa, that I attempted going thro' that province to Sennaar.

Sometime before I left Gondar I had been threatened with an attack of the dysentery. At my arrival at Hor-Cacamoot it grew worse, and had many unpromising symptoms, when I was cured by the advice and application of a common Shangalla, by means of a shrub called Wooginoos[21], growing very common in those parts, the manner of using which he taught me.

The country, from Tcherkin to Ras el Feel, or Hor-Cacamoot, is all a black earth, called Mazaga, which some authors have taken for the name of the province. However, the word Mazaga, in the language of the country, signifies fat, loose, black earth, or mold, such as all that stripe of land from 13° to 16° of latitude is composed of, at least till you reach to the deserts of Atbara, where the rains end. Ras el Feel is, I suppose, one of the hottest countries in the known world. On the 1st day of March, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Fahrenheit's thermometer, in the shade, was 114° which was at 61° at sun-rise, and 82° at sun-set. And yet this excessive heat did not make a proportional impression upon our feelings. The evenings, on the contrary, rather seemed cold, and we could hunt at mid-day. And this I constantly observed in this sultry country, that, what was hot by the glass, never appeared to carry with it any thing proportionate in our sensations.

Ras el Feel formerly paid 400 ounces of gold, which is 4000 crowns; Sancaho paid 100. But trade having decreased, since the expedition of Yasous II. to Sennaar, without the king's demand being lessened, many people have left it, and are gone to Tcherkin.

I have several times, in the course of this work, taken notice of a black nation called Shangalla, who surround all the N. N. W. and N. E. of Abyssinia, by a belt scarcely sixty miles broad. This is called by the Abyssinians, Kolla, or the Hot Country, which is likewise one of their names for hell. Two gaps, or spaces, made for the sake of commerce, in this belt, the one at Tchelga, the other at Ras el Feel, have been settled and possessed by strangers, to keep these Shangalla in awe; and here the custom-houses were placed, for the mutual interest of both kingdoms, before all intercourse was interrupted by the impolitic expedition of Yasous against Sennaar. Ras el Feel divides this nation of woolly-headed blacks into two, the one west below Kuara, and bordering on Fazuclo (part of the kingdom of Sennaar) as also on the country of Agows. These are the Shangalla that traffic in gold, which they find in the earth, where torrents have fallen from the mountains; for there is no such thing as mines in any part of their country nor any way of collecting gold but this; nor is there any gold found in Abyssinia, however confidently this has been advanced; neither is there gold brought into that kingdom from any other quarter but this which we are now speaking of; notwithstanding all the misrepresentations of the missionaries to make the attempts to subdue this kingdom appear more lucrative and less ridiculous to European princes. The other nation, on the frontiers of Kuara, has Ras el Feel on the east, about three days journey from the Cacamoot. The natives are called Ganjar; a very numerous and formidable nation of hunters, consisting of several thousand horse. The origin of these is said to have been, that when the Funge (or black nation now occupying Sennaar) dispossessed the Arabs from that part of the country, the black-slaves that were in service among these Arabs, all fled and took possession of the districts they now hold; where they have greatly increased in numbers, and continue independent to this day. They are the natural enemies of Ras el Feel, and much blood has been shed between them, from making inroads one upon the other, murdering the men and carrying their women into slavery. Yasine, however, had become too strong for them, by the assistance of Ayto Confu, and they had offered to assist the king at the campaign of Serbraxos. But they were found not fit to be trusted, so were sent away, under pretence that they should attack Coque Abou Barea governor of Kuara for the rebels, and hinder him from coming to their assistance; and even this they did not do.

The title of their chief is Sheba, which signifies the Old Man. His residence is called Cashumo, by his own people; and Dendy Kolla, by the Abyssinians of Kuara. Yasine, however, was now at peace with them, without which our journey would scarce have been possible. Sheba sent his son to see me at Ras el Feel; we thought, at that time, he came as a spy. However, when we departed I gave him a small present; and we swore mutual friendship, that he was to be ready always to fight against my enemies, and that we were to act kindly by each other, though we were to meet, horse to horse, alone in the desert.

Yasine had done every thing, on his part, to secure me a good reception from Fidele Shekh of Atbara. Every assurance possible had been given, and I had before travelled some thousand miles upon much slighter promises, which had, however, been always faithfully kept; so that I did not at all suspect that any thing unfair could be intended me at Teawa, where Fidele resided. But as the loss of life was the consequence of being mistaken, I never did omit any means to double my security.

Mahomet Gibberti, as we have before observed, had already carried a letter of mine from Gondar to his master Metical Aga, Selictarto the Sherriffe of Mecca in Arabia, requesting that he would write to some man of consideration in Sennaar, and, taking it for granted that I was then arrived at Teawa, desire that a servant of the king might be sent to give me safe conduct from that frontier to the capital. Yasine had written to the same effect, directly to Sennaar, and sent a servant of his, who, for security sake, had nothing but the letter and an old ragged cloth about his waist; and he had long ago arrived at Sennaar, the before-named place of his destination.

Among the tribes of Arabs that were protected by Yasine, and furnished with pasture, water, and a market for their cattle, and milk and butter, at Ras el Feel, were the Daveina, by much the most powerful of all the Arabs in Atbara; but they ventured no further southward than Beyla, for fear of the troops of Sennaar.

The Shekh of Beyla was a man of very great character for courage and probity. His name was Mahomet; and I had often corresponded with him upon the subject of horses for the king while I was at Gondar. He was greatly tormented with the stone, and by means of Yasine I had several times sent him soap-pills, and lime, with directions how to make lime-water. I therefore sent a servant of mine with a letter to the Shekh of Beyla, mentioning my intention of coming to Sennaar by the way of Teawa and Beyla, and desiring him to forward my servant to Sennaar, to Hagi Belal my correspondent there, and, at the same time, write to some other friend of his own, to see that the king's servant should be dispatched to Teawa without delay. This servant, with the letters, I committed to the care of the Shekh of the Daveina, who promised that he would himself see him safe into Beyla; and, by a particular Providence, all these letters and messengers arrived safe, without miscarriage of one, at the places of their destination, though we were long kept in suspence before they took effect.

I was now about to quit Ras el Feel for ever, in a firm perswasion that I had done every thing man could do to insure a safe journey and good reception at Sennaar, till one day I received a visit from Mahomet Shekh of Nile; which does not mean Shekh of the river, but of a tribe of that name, which is but a division of the Daveina. To this Shekh I had shewn a particular attention in several trips he had made to Gondar, in consequence of which he was very grateful and anxious for my safety. He told me, that he saw I was setting out perfectly content with the measures I had taken for my safety at Sennaar, and he owned that they were the best that human prudence could suggest; "but, says he, in my opinion, you have not yet been cautious enough about Teawa. I know Fidele well, and I apprehend your danger is there, and not at Sennaar." He then drew a most unfavourable picture of that Shekh, whom he affirmed to have been a murderer and a thief all his days, and the son of a father no better than himself; that he was of no religion, neither Mahometan, Christian, nor Pagan, but absolutely without fear of God; he said, however, he believed him to be a great coward; and therefore the whole of my safety reduced itself to this. Was he really afraid of Yasine, or not? If he was, that became the best handle we could lay hold on; but if, on the contrary, he was not afraid of Yasine, or was persuaded, as he very well might be by wicked people about him, that, when once I was out of the country, Yasine took no further charge of me, he doubted very much I should never pass Teawa, or, at least, without suffering some heavy affront or ill-usage, the extent of which it was impossible to determine.

These sensible suggestions made a very strong impression on Yasine and me; Yasine's first position was, that Fidele was certainly afraid to disoblige him; but, allowing the possibility he was not, he owned he had not substituted any second measure to which I could trust. We all regretted that our friends the Daveina had been suffered to depart without taking me with them by Sim-Sim and Beyla; but it was now too late, as the Daveina had for some days arrived at the station the nearest Beyla and the farthest from us. It was then agreed, that Nile should send a relation of his, who was married to one of the tribes of Jehaina Arabs, encamped upon Jibbel Idriss near to Teawa, with whom Fidele was at that time making peace, lest they should burn the crop about the town. This man was not to enter the town of Teawa with me, but was to come there the next day, as if from his friends at Jibbel Idriss; and, if I then informed him there was danger, should return to the Jehaina, mount a hajan or dromedary, and give Yasine information with all possible speed. All this being now settled, I prepared for my journey, having first, by many observations by night and day, fixed the latitude of Hor-Cacamoot to be 13° 1´ 33´´ north.

CHAP. IV.

_From Hor-Cacamoot to Teawa, Capital of Atbara._