CHAPTER XII

The valley of the River Atbara can now scarcely be regarded as unfamiliar country. Those who wish to read a most lively, interesting account of all the opportunities that it offers to the sportsman, should turn to Sir Samuel Baker’s book, “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.” Our journey from Gallabat to Cairo by way of Kassala can be quite briefly described.

In reply to our inquiry we received a telegram from Mr. Flemming, who told us that a guide would meet our party at an appointed spot to show us the now disused and obscured road, and on the morning of February 23 we left Gallabat. About four hours’ travelling over flat, rocky country brought us, by an easy descent, to the Atbara. The banks here are low, and the bed is hard and clean, with tracts of shingle in it. The breadth of the course is about a hundred and fifty yards, and there were large pools of clear, good water. Many of them were deep. At this season of the year an insignificant stream trickles from pool to pool, and sometimes disappears altogether. There are big fish in these pools, and they need cautious handling. I took my tackle after we had pitched our camp, landed a two-pounder, and was “wool-gathering” a few moments afterwards when a powerful fish seized my bait with a dash and had me off my balance in an instant; result, a bruised knee and two hooks lost.

Next day Dupuis moved ahead of the party with his Soudanese “Shikari,” and in a couple of hours stalked and shot a gazelle and a bushbuck with a fine pair of horns; later in the day a haartebeest fell to his rifle. We saw great numbers of gazelles and ariels, and the country was full of game. The tracks left by many kinds of animals going to and from the river were visible in all directions. In addition, guinea-fowl were plentiful. The ground near the river was covered with dry grass, and there was a thin but continuous growth of mimosa scrub. The baobab tree flourishes in this region.[108] We camped on the site of a village that had been laid waste by the Dervishes. No vestige of it remained but potsherds.

When the flesh of the animals was being cut into strips for use as biltong, a host of the carrion birds of all orders gathered around us—crows, hawks, vultures, and marabous. There was something disquieting and unpleasant in the presence of these groups of eagerly expectant scavengers, which faced us wherever we turned, and eyed us from every tree. That night the mosquitoes “rushed” my curtains and made a most successful raid, retreating at sunrise from the stricken—and bitten—field.

Shortly after we had started on February 25, I saw, at a little distance from camp, a piece of neatly made basketwork, and picked it up. Further on I found another. On making inquiry I was told that these were parts of game-traps. A log is buried in the ground, and a piece of cord with a noose at the loose end is attached to it. Then a hole is dug where tracks of game are seen, the noose is “set” in the hole, the basketwork is laid down to cover the trap, and the cord is hidden by a layer of earth. When a beast steps into the hole, the movement of the basketwork pulls the noose tight around its leg. The more the beast struggles, the firmer the grip becomes; finally, as a rule, the log is pulled up by its exertions, and the hobbled creature limps away, but is easily caught, and can then be killed as the Mohammedan rite requires.

The track in this region is kept open by the cutting down of mimosa scrub. It lies upon “cotton soil” with fissures in it, large and small. The camels, which stare stupidly ahead while they walk, are constantly stumbling on account of these holes; their legs seem to have a marvellous instinct for finding them. Another difficulty was the descent and ascent in numerous little khors which run down to the river bed, and the camel is singularly clumsy when it leaves level ground. We pitched our camp at midday on the site of another deserted village, called Wad Abou Simam. Before that time each of my friends had shot a waterbuck. Very sensibly, the Anglo-Egyptian Administration imposes a fine on those who shoot the females of the larger antelopes.

I think we must have seen hundreds of thousands of guinea-fowl during the last two days’ journey. They were in the jungle of mimosa scrub and neblik and on the shingle in the river bed, where by reason of their colour they can scarcely be distinguished from the stones; in fact, they swarmed in all directions. I took my gun into the dry course of the Atbara and sat down near an islet which was covered with very dry grass. This was a favourite place of refuge for the guinea-fowl. Dupuis drove them to the bank, where they rose, and flocks of them flew towards the little island. In this way I had some fine practice, and the birds were always useful in the larder. Travellers in this region should set up their mosquito-curtains with care. I was remiss about it that night, and the determined and virulent insects bit my scalp, face, and hands through the covering. The next evening I was more attentive to the matter, and formed a frame by means of four dhurra stalks. This arrangement, with draping, had all the advantages and some of the solid dignity of a four-post bedstead.

On the following day (February 26) we encamped at Sherafa. There was no incident worthy of mention during the journey. In the afternoon Dupuis and I saw a crocodile within range in the river bed, and fired at the same moment. The only visible result was that he scuttled into a pool and disappeared.

On the 27th Crawley brought down an ariel, but we had entered a district in which game was much rarer. We reached a well at a place called Tubra Cullah. This has been dug at the edge of a rock, the water was brackish, and there was no trough for the camels. We had now left the course of the Atbara, but had, fortunately, brought with us water from the pools which was sufficient for the men. On this day the temperature rose to 107° F. in the shade. The road, which had at that time been cleared, ended at Tubra Cullah, and here we were met by the guide whom Mr. Flemming had sent to show us the unrepaired track between this place and Sofi.

On the following day we marched to Goratia. Our guide had misinformed us as to the distance, which was much greater than we had expected. The heat was scarcely endurable, and none of our marches had been more fatiguing. How we longed for the coolness and freshness of the lakeside! Close to the village was a well with good water and troughs for the camels, which had not drunk for nearly forty-eight hours. We found the inhabitants very willing to help our men. While we were passing through Goratia the women within the huts warbled their welcome in the usual manner and with unmistakable enthusiasm. We learned that when our party was first sighted, a rumour spread that we were Abyssinian raiders, and the non-combatants rushed to the shelter of their homes. The relief of the villagers was evidently very great when they found that we were English people.

The following instance may serve to show the difficulty which British administrators have in suppressing the slave traffic.

A certain man, a native of the White Nile region, appeared one morning before Colonel G. at Rosaires and said that while he was taking a convoy of slaves into Abyssinia, he had been stopped by the sheikh of a village in the Colonel’s district. This sheikh, he asserted, took possession of the slaves, and bound him and his companion, to whom they belonged. In order to keep what he had captured and destroy those who could bring him to justice, the sheikh had the two slave-dealers brought to a precipice and cast over it. Ono was killed, the other escaped with whole limbs. Then he repaired to the Governor’s quarters to report the matter.

Colonel G. ordered the sheikh to attend and bring the slaves that he had taken. The sheikh, astounded to hear that the Moudir[109] had learned what he had done, attributed his misfortune to the Will of God with the usual phrase “Inshallah,”[110] and started for the Moudirieh accompanied by the slaves. On the way he consoled himself with the words, “God will help me” (_Rabonna effrighi_).

While he was upon the journey he met two native merchants returning to their village, and immediately he concluded that Allah had heard his prayer. “Um del Allah!” said he, “God is good.” He caused the merchants to be bound, and then he had the slaves brought before him, and made them all swear upon the Koran that these two men were they who had raided the village and carried the people away captive. And the merchants were forced to follow him with the slaves.

When the sheikh arrived at the Moudirieh, the Governor ordered him to deliver up the men in whose possession he had found the slaves—and the sheikh forthwith had the two merchants led forward. Colonel G. was in a dilemma. Evidently the raider who had complained to him was telling the truth, but all the slaves swore that they knew nothing of the man. Questioning was of no avail, and did not shake their evidence. Then the Moudir, turning suddenly to a little girl, asked her, “Who told you to say that these two accused men raided your village and took you away?” The little girl instantly pointed to the sheikh and answered, “Please, sir, that man.”

This decided the matter. Some time after, the body of the slave-dealer’s companion was found. I did not hear what befell the sheikh, but the Moudir was not a man to be trifled with, and I have no doubt that justice was done.

The sheikh of Goratia came into camp to greet us, and afterwards sent us hot coffee, which was excellent. It is the most refreshing drink of all after a tiring journey in the baking sunshine.

In this village we found a man who declared that he could act as guide to the junction of the Atbara and the River Salaam, a point which is of interest in connection with the all-important problem of water-storage and distribution. It has not been sketched or mapped—indeed, I believe that no European has yet succeeded in reaching it, though the British officers in the Soudan have been eager to discover the spot. My two companions arranged to start on the following morning and endeavour to make a rough survey of the place.

At Goratia I obtained a photograph which shows clearly the amulet worn by almost all the Soudanese. The youth who wore it had been married about a week, and the scars on his back illustrate a singular custom among the people. Sir Samuel Baker has described it.

“There is but little lovemaking among the Arabs. The affair of matrimony usually commences by a present to the father of the girl, which, if accepted, is followed by a similar advance to the girl herself, and the arrangement is completed. All the friends of both parties are called together for the wedding; pistols and guns are fired off, if possessed. There is much feasting, and the unfortunate bridegroom undergoes the ordeal of whipping by the relations of his bride, in order to test his courage. Sometimes this punishment is exceedingly severe, being inflicted with the coorbash or whip of hippopotamus hide, which is cracked vigorously about his ribs and back. If the happy husband wishes to be considered a man worth having, he must receive the chastisement with an expression of enjoyment; in which case the crowds of women in admiration again raise their thrilling cry. After the rejoicings of the day are over, the bride is led in the evening to the residence of her husband, while a beating of drums and strumming of guitars (rhababas) are kept up for some hours during the night, with the usual discordant idea of singing.”[111]

It is interesting to compare Mansfield Parkyns’s description of the mode of duelling in Dongola.

“This duel is not a serious matter, but is engaged in by young men on the slightest possible pretext, often merely to display their manhood. An angareeb, under which a jar of beer is usually set (for refreshment between the rounds), is placed between the combatants, each of whom is stripped to the waist, and armed with one of the formidable whips I have described” (coorbash). “As soon as all is ready they begin, giving alternate stripes on each other’s shoulders, but neither being allowed to evade or ward off a blow; they continue this agreeable pastime for a very long time, till one falls down exhausted from loss of blood and the punishment he has received.”[112]

I spent a lazy day on March 1, watching the peaceful, patriarchal life of the village, and especially the flocks and herds when they came to the well to drink. Men, women, and boys all helped to fill the cattle-troughs, which are made of baked mud. The surroundings described in the book of Genesis seemed to have been preserved here without change of any kind.

My friends did not return on March 2, as they had expected. I took my rifle and a guide and tried to bring home an ariel, but could not approach within three hundred yards of the game. At about that distance one was hit, but got away. On the 3rd the guide and I went in another direction. Creeping carefully up against the wind, I aimed at a buck at three hundred yards’ distance. He fell forward, burying his horns in the ground, when I fired, but was up again, and ran in a circle and then fell once more. I rushed forward to give him the _coup-de-grace_, but he bolted over the brow of a hill at the top of his speed, and we lost sight of him. I wandered about seeking for his tracks, but could not find them in that tumbled country. Later I saw three more ariels, which ran into some dry grass. We made a circuit, and presently came within sight of them again. They were evidently on the alert. Under cover of a tree, I took a steady aim and hit a buck, who limped away and lay down, but presently rose at eighty yards distance as we advanced, and I then killed him by a shot through the heart. We covered the body with branches to protect it from vultures, and carried the head into camp. I kept the skin and the head, but gave the flesh to my guide, who was much delighted. He went out on a donkey and cut the beast up, and distributed presents of meat among his friends.

My companions returned half an hour after midday. They had had difficulty in finding the course of the Atbara, and their camels had been on the march eight hours when they reached it at a gorge in coarse sandstone rock, where the river forces its way through a narrow cleft about twenty metres wide, between cliffs rising vertically from a profoundly deep pool. There they determined to encamp and spend the next day in attempting to find the junction of the rivers. To the great disappointment of all, they failed to achieve their purpose. The country in which they were is extremely wild. A lion had killed one of their camels in broad daylight. The boy who was in charge of the beasts while they browsed saw the lion creep from the thick undergrowth, spring upon the camel and crush its skull with one blow of the paw. He screamed, and the lion walked off into the scrub in which it had been concealed. The other camels were terrified, and would certainly have bolted in a panic if they had not been hobbled. At night my friends heard hyenas running within a dozen yards of their beds.

They had been much interested in watching the huge flocks of small birds of the linnet kind which assembled half an hour before sunset and went to drink together in the pools of the Atbara. They come with an undulating flight, and, small as they are, the rushing of the wind as they beat the air makes a noise like thunder, and their numbers darken the sky. The weight of the throngs of them which alight at a time bends down the ends of the overhanging branches and twigs to the level of the water. I had seen these flocks many times, and the cunning trick which the crocodile uses in preying upon them. This was a point of Soudanese natural history which did not escape the observation of Sir Samuel Baker.

“Few creatures are so sly and wary as the crocodile. I watch them continually as they attack the dense flocks of small birds that throng the bushes at the water’s edge. These birds are perfectly aware of the danger, and they fly from the attack if possible. The crocodile then quietly and innocently lies upon the surface, as though it had appeared quite by an accident; it thus attracts the attention of the birds, and it slowly sails away to a considerable distance, exposed to their view. The birds, thus beguiled by the deceiver, believe that the danger is removed, and they again flock to the bush, and once more dip their thirsty beaks into the stream. Thus absorbed in slaking their thirst, they do not observe that their enemy is no longer on the surface. A sudden splash, followed by a huge pair of jaws beneath the bush that engulfs some dozens of victims, is the signal unexpectedly given of the crocodile’s return, who has thus slily dived, and hastened under cover of water to his victims. I have seen the crocodiles repeat this manœuvre constantly, they deceive by a feigned retreat, and then attack from below.”[113]

These birds fall a prey not only to crocodiles but to large fish—of what species I am not sure—which rise at them as other kinds rise at flies and snap them off the twigs. Besides, kites scout about the outskirts of the flocks as they fly and pick up the stragglers.

In this part of the country we saw baobab trees only on the banks of the river. Elsewhere, the trees are all mimosas and the undergrowth of the same order.

On the 4th we marched over a dead level of cotton soil to an abandoned village. We had to carry drinking-water, for the well at this place had been filled up by the Dervishes. I have very little doubt that this region is full of malaria in the wet season. Our camp was at the foot of a rocky hill, on which we found abundance of guinea-fowl when we took out our guns late in the afternoon. On the following day we saw herd after herd of ariel as we marched. They were extremely tame, and we passed within ten yards of some of them. The track which we followed brought us to the Atbara again, at the hamlet of Aradeeb. This village was poverty-stricken and almost in a state of famine. The aphis[114] had blighted the entire dhurra crop of the inhabitants. I could not discover how the people lived, but they seemed to bear their trouble uncomplainingly, and here as elsewhere appeared to be sincerely thankful for the peace and safety which the Anglo-Egyptian rule secures to them. In every village to which we came we heard the same remark—“Miri quies,” “the Government is good.” I believe that this expression of opinion is perfectly sincere. If so, it is one of the greatest of the many great triumphs of British administration.

The course of the Atbara is much narrower here than at the point where we had left it, and the pools are deeper. They are not connected by a current in the dry season. I judged that the stream would be from twenty-five to thirty feet deep when the floods are at their height. The river runs, with a shingly bed, through a curious formation of coarse, gritty sandstone, which forms fine cliffs and numerous rocky bars and barriers. The sandstone stratum extends to about two-thirds of the height of the ravines, and the upper third consists of the usual black-cotton soil.

When the heat of the day was over I caught a couple of fish of about three pounds and four pounds weight. They showed some sport and made very good eating. In the evening we should have rested in perfect contentment, after enjoying the luxury of a bath, if insects of various sorts had not swarmed upon us incessantly, crawling and biting. Dupuis gave the sheikh of the village two sheep which we had brought from Zegi. They suffered severely from the heat, and it seemed cruel to drive them further. Besides, we were glad to add something to the store of the villagers in their time of scarcity.

On March 6 we quitted Aradeeb. The old sheikh came to our camp to see us start, and brought us hot coffee in which we ceremonially drank “peace to the village.” Throughout our journey on this day we followed the course of the river, constantly crossing gorges and khors. We reached Sofi at midday. This is the large village near which Sir Samuel Baker dwelt for five months in 1861. He has given a very full and most interesting account of the surrounding district in “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia.” There are rest-huts built of straw at Sofi, and we were glad to take refuge in them, though the temperature within when we arrived was 107° F. However, we were able to remove our helmets, and this we could not do in our tents in the daytime as the sun penetrated the canvas. At night the temperature was 98° F., and a hot wind was blowing strongly. Towards evening I had taken my rod to a pool in the river, but this unpleasant breeze had by that time ruffled the surface smartly, and I got no sport. I think the fish lie quietly in shelter during these storms and do not feed.

Next morning we left Sofi, passed through the village of Tomat, and about midday pitched our camp five miles beyond this place opposite to the “mugra,” that is the junction of the Settite and Atbara rivers. The two streams at the point of meeting have a course about a quarter of a mile broad. The bed of the Atbara is flat and there is much shingle in it. The sandstone formation has come to an end, and the rocks which crop up here and there are of a granitic character. Very little water was flowing in either river, but a larger stream trickled in the Settite than in the other. We did not stir far from camp in the afternoon, but shot sand-grouse as they came to drink in the pools.

During the day we saw tracks of lions, hyenas, and monkeys—grivets and baboons. The soil and the vegetation by the river were such as we had seen on the previous marches. A lion came into the camp during the night. We were sleeping in the open and heard him sniffing round our beds. I sang out to Dupuis, and asked him what was making the noise. He struck a light, and the beast skulked off into the bush. My two friends snatched up their rifles and hurried off to see if he meant to attack the camels. That, no doubt, had been his errand, for he left us alone, though I saw his tracks within a yard of my bed next morning. The camels, as usual, were gathered in circles near the men’s fires. They were hobbled, and I heard them stamping quickly on the ground in their fright, making a strange pattering noise. I believe they only show fear in this way when they smell a lion.

The next day we marched to Khor Katout, a big ravine in the plain of the Atbara, which extends to the river. A hot wind had again arisen, and was carrying quantities of dust with it. The journey was exceedingly unpleasant, and coolness was nowhere to be found. Khor Katout is a well-known haunt of lions, and we heard them roaring in the night. On March 10 we arrived at the point where the road from Gedaref to Kassala joins that on which we were travelling. Here there is a “nocter”—a military post, where five soldiers are stationed. At this place we found a rest-hut, in which we took shelter till three in the afternoon, and then marched on till six, covering about nine miles in the three hours. Since we had left the course of the Atbara we had been obliged to send to the river for water. It was brought in the “fantassis.”[115] This necessity delayed us, and added to the petty troubles of the journey, but we expected to reach the river bed again on the next day. That night my sleeping-place in the open was within three or four yards of the track, and the moon was very bright. It was a most characteristic Eastern sight, when, about nine o’clock, some thirty camels passed along the route at the foot of my bed, slowly and silently. They carried no loads, and were probably returning from Kassala to Gedaref.

On the following day, as we marched, we saw spoor of lions and leopards among the mingled traces of hyenas, jackals, and many antelopes. We camped for the night at a very lonely spot on the Atbara which is called Khashim el Girba.[116] Here the river emerges from a narrow, deep, rocky gorge where the width of its course in places does not exceed one hundred and twenty feet. The steep sides have been smoothed by the terrific rush of water in the rainy season. One of the pools in the bed of this cataract is very large, and uniformly deep. I noticed that earth had lodged behind rocks which jutted from the sides of the gorge, and a growth of mimosa scrub had established itself even in the shallow soil on these ledges. There is no village at Khashim el Girba, but it is a recognized camping-ground. Beyond the narrows the Atbara broadens to a width of half a mile, and its course is divided by an island. Here, at the time of our visit, one could wade across the river bed through a stream which reached the ankles. The scene must be one of singular beauty and grandeur when the floods are coming down from Abyssinia. We heard a lion roaring at night, and there are numbers around this place, but they had plenty of game to prey upon and did not approach the camp.

On the morning of March 12 the Berthon boat was put together, and my companions took her, with some surveying gear, to the great pool in the gorge. I followed and carried my angling-tackle. We rowed about half a mile up the course of the river upon this stretch of water, and then came to the narrowest part of the bed of the rapids. Here a very large rock that has an accessible side juts out into the pool, in a most convenient position for survey work, and my companions began to take measurements, walking up a gravelly incline which seemed to have been placed there for the purpose. Their object was to mark out a gauge which would show the rise and fall of the river during the flood season in this gorge, where, of course, the movement is very clearly seen. My friends made the necessary marks in chalk at the time, and these were afterwards chiselled in the rock by a mason, who was sent down for the purpose. The gauge has since been connected by electric wire with Cairo, and since then in flood time the variations in the depth of the Atbara have been telegraphed every other day to the Irrigation Department in the capital. This has proved to be a very satisfactory arrangement. If an exceptionally heavy flood occurs, the news is sent to Cairo immediately; warnings are then dispatched up and down the Nile so that all concerned may be prepared for the consequent rise of the river, which will take place, say, in six weeks’ time. The Irrigation Department and the landowners look to their culverts and strengthen weak parts of the banks, and all is in readiness when the flood comes. Formerly it was the custom to patrol the riverside night and day when an unusual rush of water was expected, but the risk of disaster in Lower Egypt from this cause has been almost ended by the operation of the dam at Assuan and the precautions now taken.

I tried my luck in the pool, where I saw many huge fish, but they did not bite, though a number smelled at the spoon bait and some struck at it with their tails. I made attempts with other attractions, but the copper spoon appeared to allure them most. Then I cast the line into several pools in vain, but presently, in the shallower part of the big one, hooked a fish of about four pounds’ weight, which fought hard, lashing the water, and plunging and keeping the reel busy. It took me half an hour to play him into a shallow, and in the meanwhile many big fish came up to see what was making the disturbance.

I went back to the deeper part of the pool, and as soon as I had made a cast, hooked one, whose first tug showed that he was a prize worth landing. I feared that I should lose him, as my tackle was hardly strong enough for a heavy catch, so I made up my mind to play him very gently and tire him out, if possible. Away he went and round spun the wheel. He hid under a ledge of rock, and I wound it gently. This started him again, and now he showed sport without a break for twenty minutes. After that, to my surprise, I brought him up quite close to a shallow, and then I saw that I had hooked a real monster and had a good chance of landing him. But it would be useless to try to get him ashore without help, and I shouted and shouted again; for all the time he was making dashes and stopping in exhaustion, and I was playing him in nearer to the shallow. At last one of our boys came to aid me, and I saw that he was eager to help—but the first thing that he did was to rush into the water and grab my line! I yelled to him to leave it alone and strove to explain what he was to do. The next time my prize came into the shallow his strength had nearly failed him, for he rolled over and showed his white belly. It was a moment of excitement when the black fellow slipped into the water and tried to catch hold of _the fish’s tail_. I did nearly lose him then, but he was almost spent; and after a great deal of shouting I made the boy understand at last that he was to put his thumbs into the fish’s gills on each side. At first he thought I wanted him to put his fingers into its mouth, and was afraid. It took two men to lift my fish on to dry ground, and I could hardly believe that the tackle had held him; I was using a small trout-rod. From snout to tail he measured forty-five inches, and he had a girth of thirty inches. We judged his weight to be between fifty and sixty pounds. This species (_lates niloticus_) is called by the natives “el baggar” (the cow). It has been described by Sir S. Baker, who also published in “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia” a drawing of a fine specimen which he caught in the Atbara. My photograph shows that the fish which I landed does not altogether correspond to his description. It may be that the Soudanese name covers more than one species, or there may be considerable variation among members of the same species, but I am inclined to think that the illustration in Sir S. Baker’s book was prepared from an imperfect sketch.

During the morning we saw a troop of baboons. For a time they watched us. It was interesting to note their method of scouting. Here and there one would climb a tree, scan the surroundings sharply, and then descend quietly and join the main body. A few minutes later another would renew the observation from another tree. In this manner they keep a constant look-out. Mansfield Parkyns studied the habits of these creatures in Abyssinia and has given a most interesting account of them.

“The monkeys, especially the Cynocephali, who are astonishingly clever fellows, have their chiefs, whom they obey implicitly, and a regular system of tactics in war, pillaging expeditions, robbing cornfields, etc. These monkey forays are managed with the utmost regularity and precaution. A tribe, coming down to feed from their village on the mountain (usually a cleft in the face of some cliff), brings with it all its members, male and female, old and young. Some, the elders of the tribe, distinguishable by the quantity of mane which covers their shoulders, like a lion’s, take the lead, peering cautiously over each precipice before they descend, and climbing to the top of every rock or stone which may afford them a better view of the road before them. Others have their posts as scouts on the flanks or rear; and all fulfil their duties with the utmost vigilance, calling out at times, apparently to keep order among the motley pack which forms the main body, or to give notice of the approach of any real or imagined danger. Their tones of voice on these occasions are so distinctly varied that a person much accustomed to watch their movements will at length fancy—and perhaps with some truth—that he can understand their signals.

“The main body is composed of females, inexperienced males, and the young people of the tribe. Those of the females who have small children carry them on their back. Unlike the dignified march of the leaders, the rabble go along in a most disorderly manner, trotting on and chattering, without taking the least heed of anything, apparently confiding in the vigilance of their scouts. Here a few of the youth linger behind to pick the berries off some tree, but not long, for the rearguard coming up forces them to regain their places. There a matron pauses for a moment to suckle her offspring, and, not to lose time, dresses its hair while it is taking its meal. Another young lady, probably excited by jealousy or by some sneering look or word, pulls an ugly mouth at her neighbour, and then, uttering a shrill squeal highly expressive of rage, vindictively snatches at her rival’s leg with her hand, and gives her perhaps a bite in the hind-quarters. This provokes a retort, and a most unladylike quarrel ensues, till a loud bark of command from one of the chiefs calls them to order. A single cry of alarm makes them all halt and remain on the _qui vive_, till another bark in a different tone reassures them, and they then proceed on their march.

“Arrived at the cornfields, the scouts take their position on the eminences all round, while the remainder of the tribe collect provision with the utmost expedition, filling their cheek-pouches as full as they can hold, and then tucking the heads of corn under their armpits. Now, unless there be a partition of the collected spoil, how do the scouts feed? for I have watched them several times, and never observed them to quit for a moment their post of duty till it was time for the tribe to return, or till some indication of danger induced them to take flight. They show also the same sagacity in searching for water, discovering at once the places where it is most readily found in the sand, and then digging for it with their hands, just as men would, relieving one another in the work if the quantity of sand to be removed be considerable.”[117]

In the afternoon Crawley shot a wild pig. I walked to the river again, being charmed by the lovely scenery, and as I approached saw numbers of crocodiles scuttle into the water. None was of great size. I doubt if any region in the world affords more varied sport than the valley of the Atbara. The climate is perfectly healthy in the dry season.

On March 13 we struck our camp in the afternoon and soon met the first European whom we had encountered since we left Gallabat. He was a British officer on the way from Kassala to Gedaref, and he made mention of the slave-raids which had taken place since we left the latter place. It seemed likely that the Arab Battalion would be kept busy in holding the marauders in check. In the course of our march we crossed the Atbara, at a point where it is about four hundred yards in breadth. Water that reached our ankles was trickling among the shingle in places. At sundown we arrived at a camping-ground called Fashur, and halted for the night. Our dinner was “bully beef” and pickles—neither a luxurious nor a prudent meal. We were now suffering from heat eczema, which is most irritating in the cool of the night. The baying of a hyena kept me awake for hours, and a bed in the Soudan is not a pleasant place for one who lies on it with an itching skin and listens to that dismal noise.

Our camp at Fashur was very hot and dusty. In the afternoon of the next day we started for a march of twenty-two miles, which would take us half the way from the Atbara to Kassala. We turned our backs to the river and crossed a plain covered by dried grass and mimosa scrub, which is probably a swamp during the rainy season. Our tents were pitched on the open, level ground after an exhausting journey, at the halting-place ordinarily used by those who follow this track. There were no habitations, and we saw none on the road. During the night a detachment of the Arab Battalion passed our encampment, on its way to protect villages against slave-raiders.

On March 15 we arrived at the River Gash just outside Kassala. Its course here lies in a flat, sandy bed, which was quite dry. During the journey—eighteen and a half miles—we saw eight ostriches. The Gash, beyond Kassala, splits into numerous small streams which, even in the rainy season, sink into the ground and disappear completely. Sir Samuel Baker has given an account of the river at that time of the year, which shows its importance in relation to produce and water-supply in the district.

“As we approached within about twenty-five miles of Kassala, I remarked that the country on our left was in many places flooded; the Arabs, who had hitherto been encamped in this neighbourhood during the dry season were migrating to other localities in the neighbourhood of Soojalup and Gozerajup with their vast herds of camels and goats. As rain had not fallen in sufficient quantity to account for the flood, I was informed that it was due to the river Gash, or Mareb, which, flowing from Abyssinia, passed beneath the walls of Kassala, and then divided into innumerable ramifications; it was eventually lost, and disappeared in the porous soil, after having flooded a large extent of country. This cause accounted for the never-failing wells at Soojalup—doubtless a substratum of clay prevented the total escape of the water, which remained at a depth of forty feet from the surface. The large tract of country thus annually flooded by the river Gash is rendered extremely fruitful, and is the resort of both the Hadendowa and the Hallonga Arabs during the dry season, who cultivate large quantities of dhurra and other grain. Unfortunately, in these climates, fertility of soil is generally combined with unhealthiness, and the commencement of the rainy season is the signal for fevers and other maladies.”[118]

We were now close to the curious and isolated eminence called Kassala Hill, which stands within the border-line of the colony of Eritrea. We had seen this towering landmark when we were more than forty miles distant from it, and a whole day’s travelling had seemed to bring us no nearer to it. It offers a splendid sight in the desert, when the setting sun shines on the bare pile of red granite. I was told that in the days when the Italians occupied Kassala, Alpine climbers, with elaborate paraphernalia, had attempted the ascent, but failed in all cases to reach the summit. There is a superstition among the natives that any one who tries to scale the heights will die shortly afterwards, and this belief has been confirmed among them by the death of Colonel Collinson, a former Moudir of the town, who made the last endeavour of which I heard, and succumbed to fever six months afterwards.

We rose early next morning (March 16) and visited the British officers at the Moudirieh. Needless to say we were in touch with a civilized _cuisine_ again, and nothing teaches a man to appreciate a good lunch in a cool room like a journey in the desert. In the afternoon I visited the hospital, which was in charge of Dr. Ensor. It is a most instructive place to a medical man; for here patients are gathered together from all parts of the Eastern Soudan. And it affords a proof of the benefits of Anglo-Egyptian administration that is beyond cavil. I saw cases of many interesting tropical diseases, about which the doctor and I had a long talk in the evening. We dined at the mess of the 11th Battalion of the Egyptian army—once more among our fellow-countrymen.

On the next day we visited Cristo’s, the Whiteley’s of Kassala, and made purchases for the remainder of the journey. At sundown I watched the 11th at tattoo. This regiment had a good band, composed of Soudanese blacks, and it gave one a lively pleasure to hear European music again, though I must admit that they played the Old Hundredth arranged as a march! In the evening the Governor had a dinner-party in honour of St. Patrick’s-day, and a number of officers were present. The place might have been an Indian station instead of Kassala.

On March 18 my companions left the camp very early, accompanied by another English soldier who was visiting the town, to make an inspection of the bed of the Gash above Kassala. In the evening they rode out in the opposite direction to see the end of its course in the tract in which it is absorbed. Possibly the subterranean waters, free from evaporation, will afford an invaluable reservoir for irrigation and the maintenance of stock in the future.

The Governor of Kassala had a small black servant, about thirteen years of age, called Fadl Mullah (Courtesy of the Prophet). The lad had been picked up in a deserted Dervish trench during the battle of the Atbara, where he was found tied to a dead camel and covered with blood. The Governor told us that he was “as sharp as a needle” and most zealous in service, never sleeping in the afternoon, and always running when he was sent upon an errand. He only gave trouble in one way, and this was that once in every two months or so he would come to the Moudir and declare that he had found his father. When the putative parent had disclaimed the bond, and the Governor had said that he would hear no more about it, the boy would acquiesce. But he was sure to discover another “father” a few weeks later.

While we were at Kassala an Italian officer arrived in the town from Eritrea. No one had received notice of his coming, and no one seemed to know what his business was. I sat next to him one night at dinner, and he told me that he was a lieutenant in the Mountain Artillery, and was using his leave to make a journey to the junction of the Atbara and Settite Rivers. He would return thence direct to his battery.

On the 20th we struck our camp and left Kassala in the afternoon, turning our faces towards the Atbara again. We had the pleasure of the company of the Governor and another English officer during the next two days’ journeys, which were hot, tiring, and uneventful. We bade farewell to our friends on the afternoon of the 22nd. On the following day we marched in the direction of the Goz Regeb hill. This singular rise of ground in the desert appeared and disappeared as we moved down imperceptible slopes and then ascended again. We saw the mirage all around us. The soil in this region was shingly. At Goz Regeb there was a two-roomed rest-house. It was of baked mud, and was the most solid building that we had seen since we left Khartoum. We had been told at Kassala that it belonged to the Slavery Department, and that we might make use of it as it was then unoccupied. That night there was a high wind, and among its _ludibria_, was Crawley’s sponge, which, oddly enough, was found next day in the Atbara about half a mile from our halting-place.

On March 24 Dupuis climbed Goz Regeb Hill and took photographs of the curious balanced granite blocks which stand upon it. At a distance many of them look like figures of men, and at a nearer range like worn statues. But it is certain that they have not been placed in their position by human agency. I am unable to offer any conjecture as to their origin or geological relation to their surroundings.

An incursion of great numbers of Arabs from the south, with their flocks and herds, into the region around Goz Regeb takes place regularly at the commencement of the rainy season. They are then compelled to come to this district to avoid the seroot fly[119]—the tsetse of the Soudan—which is fatal to all live stock except goats. Obviously, this necessary migration is an important fact both in relation to politics and campaigning in the Soudan. Sir S. Baker came in contact with the movement northward.

“The commencement of the rainy season was a warning to all the Arabs of this country, who were preparing for their annual migration to the sandy and firm desert on the west bank of the river, at Gozerajup; that region, so barren and desolate during the hot season, would shortly be covered with a delicate grass about eighteen inches high. At that favoured spot the rains fell with less violence, and it formed a nucleus for the general gathering of the people with their flocks.

“The burning sun, that for nine months had scorched the earth, was veiled by passing clouds; the cattle that had panted for water, and whose food was withered straw, were filled with juicy fodder; the camels that had subsisted upon the dried and leafless twigs and branches, now feasted upon the succulent tops of the mimosas. Throngs of women and children mounted upon camels, protected by the peculiar gaudy saddle hood, ornamented with cowrie shells, accompanied the march: thousands of sheep and goats, driven by Arab boys, were straggling in all directions; baggage-camels, heavily laden with the quaint household gods, blocked up the way; and fine bronzed figures of Arabs, with sword and shield, and white topes or plaids, guided their milk-white dromedaries through the confused throng with the usual placid dignity of their race, simply passing by with the usual greeting, ‘_Salaam Aleikum_’ (Peace be with you).

“It was the Exodus; all were hurrying towards the promised land—the ‘land flowing with milk and honey,’ where men and beasts would be secure not only from the fevers of the south, but from that deadly enemy to camels and cattle, _the fly_; this terrible insect drove all before it.”[120]

During the wet season the Mouderir (Government) of Kassala is transferred to new buildings which have recently been erected for its reception at the village of Goz Regeb, and there is a general movement of the Europeans and the wealthier native inhabitants of the town to the same place. The exercise of jurisdiction and the collection of revenue in this region are made difficult by the annual migration of which Sir Samuel Baker wrote. Great numbers of people from different parts of the country collect now, as in former days, within one district in a very short space of time, the comminglement of flocks and herds adds to the confusion, and it is no simple administrative task to deal with a shifting population of this magnitude. If the seroot fly were exterminated, as certain species of noxious African mosquitoes have been, this yearly exodus would no longer take place.

On March 25, we camped beside the river at a pleasant place well shaded by trees. I took my rod to a pool and landed a couple of fish, one about six pounds and the other twelve pounds in weight. They were of the same species as my fifty-pound prize, and both showed fight. They came into shallow water after plenty of coaxing, and I got them ashore without aid. My experience that evening shows that a diary is kept with difficulty in the Soudan. I sat on my bed to write the notes of the day, and held a candle aloft in my left hand to keep it out of reach of the draughts which blew the flame in all directions if I lowered it. With the right hand I used my pencil, and kept clearing away the insects that flew upon my face and swarmed about the light. They seemed to exercise no choice, but flew indifferently into one’s mouth or eyes or into the flame, and they were nastiest when moribund, but still active, after resolutely passing through the fire.

On the 26th we halted, after marching from five in the morning till eleven, at a spot a few miles distant from the river, where there are three rest-houses—one for the chiefs of the party which is travelling, one for the servants, and one to serve as kitchen. Gazelles were plentiful in this district, but we were unable to use our rifles on account of the throng of Arabs, cattle, and sheep in the neighbourhood. It was interesting to watch the manner in which the goats feed at this season. They are tended by half-naked Soudanese boys who carry long crooked staves. With these they pull down the branches of the mimosas, and the goats browse the leaves and twigs. They also stand upon their hind legs, resting their forelegs upon boughs, and so reach the foliage, keeping the branches down with their hoofs, while they eat the succulent new shoots. When they are seen from a distance in this attitude they exactly resemble people. In this region the villages are very small—mere hamlets consisting of a few huts, and very little ground is under cultivation. The land is used for pasture throughout the district, and is apparently common to all comers.

On March 27, we travelled about thirteen miles and halted at a rest-house. We had reached a zone of lower temperature—the maximum at midday was 89°—and the journeys were no longer unpleasant. The riverside scenery is interesting and beautiful in the lower as well as in the higher reaches, and the dome-palms become more numerous as one advances northward and add to the charm of the banks. There was no other vegetation when we saw the country except low-grown mimosas and mimosa-scrub. Sand stretches away on either side from the course of the river, and we crossed few khors after leaving Goz Regeb, for the rainfall in this region is absorbed in the soil and is insufficient to produce torrents which would scour a course towards the stream.

In the afternoon I took my fishing-tackle and tried my fortune in a pool from which I landed two fish, one of about fifteen pounds and one of about five pounds, and a crocodile tried his luck upon the bank and nearly caught a man. Before I set out with my rod I had been warned by the sheikh of the village near which we had encamped that the beasts were very dangerous in this part of the Atbara, and I kept a good look-out for signs of them. It happened, however, that just as I had made a cast, Dupuis, who had been out with his rifle, passed behind me and sang out, “Have you caught anything?” I stepped back briskly, as good luck would have it, and answered, “Have _you_ shot anything?” and at the instant the crocodile lashed at my legs with its tail to strike me into the water. It had been awaiting its chance to take me off my guard, and I had had no inkling of danger. I judged the length of the reptile to be about twelve feet. It certainly had a sound sporting plan and made a smart dash; for it only missed me by a few inches. The tails of these creatures are very powerful, and if the one that had been stalking me had judged distance a little better, I should certainly have been knocked into the pool.

A little later I heard in Cairo that a week after my adventure, a woman, who was filling a water-sack close to the place where I had stood, turned round to answer some men who were exchanging chaff with her; as she did so, a crocodile struck her on the hip with its tail, lashed her some distance into the water, and immediately dragged her under. I was told that they use the tail-trick only with human beings and always seize beasts by the snout. But this account does not quite agree with the observations of Sir S. Baker, who made a very careful study of the habits of the crocodiles in the rivers of the Soudan.

“The crocodile perceives, while it is floating on the surface in mid stream, or from the opposite side of the river, a woman filling her girba,[121] or an animal drinking, etc. Sinking immediately, it swims perhaps a hundred yards nearer, and again appearing for an instant upon the surface, it assures itself of the position of its prey by a stealthy look; once more it sinks, and reaches the exact spot above which the person or animal may be. Seeing distinctly through the water, it generally makes its fatal rush from beneath—sometimes seizing with its jaws, and at other times striking the object into the water with its tail, after which it is seized and carried off.

“The crocodile does not attempt to swallow a large prey at once, but generally carries it away, and keeps it for a considerable time in its jaws in some deep hole beneath a rock, or the root of a tree, where it eats it at leisure.”[122]

The fish which I had caught were of the same species as those which I had previously landed, and proved very good at table in the evening. It was our custom to dress for dinner—in pyjamas.

On March 28 our journey lay through the desert, and reminded us of our first marches towards Gedaref. The river banks with their dome palms were the only landmark. Elsewhere nothing was to be seen but sand, with patches of thinly-growing, very coarse grass or low mimosa scrub here and there, and mirage all around us.

Next day we travelled twenty-one miles to Adarama. On the way we passed at a distance a great zareba prepared by Osman Digna. This was protected by double walls, each about twelve feet high. There is an interval of some three feet between the two. They enclose a square space of sandy ground, and the sides have a length of about three hundred yards. The Dervish leader intended to occupy it after the battle of the Atbara. The defences are now slowly falling to pieces; for the walls are made of sun-dried mud, and as this becomes weatherworn and crumbles the wind carries it away, leaving gaps in the ramparts. The sight symbolizes much. Adarama was formerly one of the large towns of the Soudan, but now consists of a few mud huts. There is also a small garrison of about twenty soldiers. The place lies halfway between Gozerajup and Berber, and has a pleasant rest-house among the palm-trees close to the river. The bed of the Atbara is sandy here, and the average breadth is about four hundred yards.

On March 30 we reached Gumaza. I had the luck to bring down a fine buck gazelle while we were on the road. In the evening Dupuis and I made practice at the crocodiles in the river, and their numbers were shown by the commotion that they made in the pools. The next day we pushed on across the desert towards Berber and slept in the open. On April 1 our road lay through similar country. Sometimes a gazelle would scamper away in the distance, but often nothing was to be seen but sand and mirage. And then suddenly we were confronted by vestiges of civilization. When we were not far from the Atbara battle-field we saw the unmistakable traces of a traction engine. About eleven o’clock dome palms were in sight, and we reached a rest-house beside the river half an hour later. After lunch we heard the jerky puffing of a petrol motor, and rushed out to see what was approaching. It was a heavy engine dragging a car, and the tracks which we had discerned were accounted for. The Englishman in charge told us that he had carried a tombstone to the battlefield; it had been erected on an officer’s grave. He added that he could travel six miles an hour in the desert, but that petrol was very expensive in Berber, where it cost ten shillings a gallon; so he had come to the rest-house to await a troop of forty mules, which were to drag the engine and car back to the town.

On April 2 we reached the bridge over the Atbara—_monumentum ære perennius_, if Lord Kitchener’s energy and perseverance receive their deserts from posterity. It was strange to us to see a railway train, and hear the whistle of a locomotive once more. On the next day we arrived at Berber. Here we were in full contact with civilization, and here, practically, the duties of the expedition ended, for we followed the ordinary train and steamer route to our journey’s end. Here, too, I will take leave of my reader, hoping that the long excursion from Khartoum has not wearied him, and will only add my conviction that a splendid future lies before the Eastern Soudan, and before Abyssinia, _after_ the clouds have gathered over that country and burst.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: A khor is a gully or gorge formed by the rush of rain in the wet season. It is a watercourse at that time, but a dry ravine during the rest of the year.]

[Footnote 2: Kneel.]

[Footnote 3: These bottles were of aluminium covered with felt. Before we started on the day’s march, the felt was soaked in water, and the evaporation from it tended to keep the drinking supply cool.]

[Footnote 4: Lieutenant-Colonel.]

[Footnote 5: Governor.]

[Footnote 6: Chief baggage-man.]

[Footnote 7: This trill is maintained on the same note—the upper B flat of the feminine vocal compass—and is produced by a vibration of the tip of the tongue on the hard palate. Many European ladies have tried to give a rendering of it, but without success. In Lower Egypt the “joy-trilling” is called _zungareet_.]

[Footnote 8: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” 1867, p. 525.]

[Footnote 9: Ib. p. 523.]

[Footnote 10: “Life in Abyssinia,” 1868, p. 101]

[Footnote 11: “The great plain comes to an end within a few miles of Gedaref, the ground becomes uneven and rocky, and Gedaref itself is situated in an open valley surrounded by bare hills of basaltic rock.”—Sir W. Garstin, “Report upon the Basin of the Upper Nile,” 1904.]

[Footnote 12: “The shotel (sword) is an awkward-looking weapon. Some, if straight, would be nearly four feet long; they are two-edged, and curved to a semicircle, like a reaper’s sickle. It is a very clumsy weapon to manage. Many of the swords are made of the soft iron of the country and bend on the least stress. The handles are made of the horn of the rhinoceros, sawn into three longitudinal pieces, and incised so as to end in sharp points parallel to the blades. The shank is usually clinched over a half-dollar beaten convex. I should scarcely mind a blow from a sword thus mounted, as, were the striker to give his wrist any play, in order to make his cut at all effective, he could not fail sending one of the highly ornamental but very useless points of his hilt into his own wrist. . . . In the use of the gun the natives are in general exceedingly clumsy. They prefer large, heavy matchlocks, to load which is a labour of some minutes. They carry their powder in hollow canes fitted into a leathern belt worn round the waist; and, having no fixed charge, pour out at hazard a small quantity into the hand. This they measure with the eye, occasionally putting back a little if it appear too much, or adding a little if it seem not enough. After this operation has been performed two or three times, till they are pretty well satisfied as to the quantity, it is poured into the gun-barrel. The proper charge is now tested by the insertion of the ramrod. Lastly, when all is settled, some rag and a small bar or ball of roughly wrought iron are rammed down. This last operation (with the exception that the ramrod often sticks in the rag for half an hour) is not difficult, as the ball is made of about a quarter of an inch less diameter than the bore of the piece for which it is intended. It is great fun to see these gunners, when taken unawares by a sudden alarm; one can’t find his flint, another has lost his steel; then there is the striking of a light, blowing the match, priming the gun, fixing the match to a proper length and direction; and, lastly, sticking into the ground the rest, which nearly all of them use, especially if their piece be of the heavy description. There is one thing in their favour—that the mere sound of driving in the rest is generally sufficient to turn away the bravest Abyssinian cavalry that ever charged.”—Mansfield Parkyns, pp. 236, 241.]

[Footnote 13: “Wanderings among the Falashas in Abyssinia,” by Rev. H. Stern, 1862.]

[Footnote 14: “Narrative of a Journey through Abyssinia,” by Henry Dufton, 1867.]

[Footnote 15: Dufton, pp. 16, 17.]

[Footnote 16: Ib. pp. 35, 36.]

[Footnote 17: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” 1867, pp. 356-357.]

[Footnote 18: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” p. 182.]

[Footnote 19: For a variety of reasons—some of them creditable—a number of Abyssinians abandon their allegiance to Menelek and the Rases (chiefs) and become subject to Anglo-Egyptian jurisdiction.]

[Footnote 20: “King of Kings,” title of the Abyssinian monarch.]

[Footnote 21: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” p. 502.]

[Footnote 22: Mansfield Parkyns has given a full and careful description of the national costume. I extract the following details from it:—“The ‘quarry’ is the principal article of Abyssinian dress: it is of cotton, and very fine and soft; those of the richer being finer but probably not so serviceable as those of the poorer class. It is made in three pieces; each piece is about three feet broad by fifteen feet long. Near both ends of each piece is a red stripe, five or six inches broad.” The pieces are sewn together so as to form “a white double cloth, with a red border near the bottom only; the breadth of the ‘quarry’ is nine feet by seven and a half long. . . . The methods of putting on the cloth are as various as the modes of wearing a Highland plaid. One of the most ordinary ways is first to place it like a cloak over the shoulders: the right end, which is purposely left the longer, is then thrown over the left shoulder, and the bottom border, which would otherwise (from its length) trail on the ground, is gathered over the right shoulder” (“Life in Abyssinia,” pp. 228, 229). “The trousers are of a soft textured but rather coarse cotton stuff, made in the country, and are of two sorts: one called ‘cállis,’ the other ‘coumta.’ The former reaches half-way down the calf of the leg, the latter to about three or four inches above the knee” (ib. pp. 225, 226). The other garment worn by the men is a belt. These cinctures “vary in length from fifteen to sixty yards, and are about one yard in width. In quantity of cotton they are nearly all of the same weight, as the very long ones are in proportion finer than the shorter” (ib. p. 227). With regard to feminine dress, “there is a distinguishing costume for young girls, and for those who, from being married or otherwise, are no longer considered as such. The dress of the former is indeed rather slight, though far more picturesque than that of the latter. . . . The girls merely wear a piece of cotton stuff wrapped round the waist and hanging down almost to the knee, and another (or the end of the former, if it be long enough) thrown over the left shoulder, so as to leave the right arm and breast exposed. In other parts of Tigre a black goat-skin, ornamented with cowries, is often substituted for this latter. An ordinary woman wears a large loose shirt down to the feet, with sleeves made tight towards the wrist. This, with a ‘quarry’ similar to those of the men, but worn rather differently, and a parasol when out of doors, is a complete suit” (ib. pp. 241-243). Parkyns thus describes the system of hairdressing: “In general, neither sex wears any covering on the head, preferring to tress and butter that with which nature has provided them. The hair of the Abyssinians is admirably adapted for this purpose, being neither short and crisp like a negro’s, nor yet of the soft elasticity of a European’s, but between the two. . . . The operation of tressing is a very tedious one, usually occupying an hour or two per head: therefore, of course, it is repeated as seldom as possible: by some great dandies once a fortnight: by others once a month, or even less frequently. In the interim large supplies of fresh butter are employed, when obtainable, in order to prevent the chance of a settlement of vermin; and a piece of stick, like a skewer, is used for scratching. The hair is gathered in plaits close over the whole surface of the head, the lines running fore and aft, and the ends hanging down in ringlets over the neck. . . . Some ladies have their butter daubed on nicely, and then some scent: but the great ‘go’ among the dandies is to appear in the morning with a huge pat of butter (about two ounces) placed on the top of the head, which, as it gradually melts in the sun, runs over the hair and down the neck, over the forehead, and often into the eyes, thereby causing much smarting. This last ingression, however, the gentleman usually prevents by wiping his forehead frequently with his hand or the corner of his ‘quarry.’ As may be imagined, the dresses neither of the women nor men are long free from grease; but this, especially among the latter sex, is of no importance; indeed, many young men among the soldiery consider a clean cloth as ‘slow,’ and appropriate only for a townsman or a woman. These never have their quarries washed from one St. John’s Day to another” (ib. pp. 243-245).]

[Footnote 23: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 248.]

[Footnote 24: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 282.]

[Footnote 25: “Abyssinia,” by Herbert Vivian, 1901, pp. 314-327.]

[Footnote 26: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 418.]

[Footnote 27: Guard-house.]

[Footnote 28: “On one occasion we had a small adventure. We were resting one night near the summit of a mountain, when about two hours before daybreak we were awaked by a loud hubbub and the discharge of a gun. Starting to our feet, we inquired what was up, and our anxiety was increased by M. Lejean’s Arab seizing the second gun and discharging it. All I saw, for it was pitch dark, was one of the mules kicking about amongst the ashes of a half-extinguished fire, and endeavouring to extricate himself from the leather thong which bound his head to a tree. This he soon succeeded in doing, and went off at a furious rate towards the woods which clothe the sides of the mountain. I thought he had burnt himself at the fire, and that this was the cause of his breaking loose, but the rest maintained that he had been bitten by the hyenas: and they were right, for at daybreak we saw and gave chase to one of these brutes, who was still prowling about. These creatures were much bolder here than near the villages. As we were sleeping in the open air, with our faces exposed, it was fortunate for us that the hyenas preferred trying mule’s flesh to man’s. We heard afterwards that the mule had returned to Gallabat, a distance of forty miles, but was so severely bitten in the flank that he was perfectly useless.” (Dufton, “A Journey through Abyssinia,” pp. 48, 49.)]

[Footnote 29: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” pp. 515, 516.]

[Footnote 30: “The word ‘Habash’ (the native name for Abyssinian) means, I believe, a ‘mixture’ in the Giz language—a mixture of various qualities of corn goes by that name in some of the provinces of Tigre. It is supposed by some that a great number of Jews followed the Queen of Sheba, on her return from her visit to Solomon, and that a large colony of fugitives also took refuge in Abyssinia about the time of the destruction of the temple and the captivity. Subsequently the Greeks sent missionaries, and they were doubtless accompanied by adventurers; and the Portuguese sent a number of troops, some of whom remained in the country for many years. The variety of complexion, observable in both sexes, is, I should think, attributable to the mixture of races of which the nation is composed.” (Mansfield Parkyns, “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 224.)]

[Footnote 31: That most resourceful of travellers, Sir Samuel Baker, once put an ant-hill of this kind to a singular use. The incident may be new to some of my readers. The explorer wished to make soap in the Soudan. “I had neither lime nor potash, but I shortly procured both. The hegleek-tree (_Balanites Egyptiaca_) was extremely rich in potash; therefore I burned a large quantity, and made a strong ley with the ashes; this I concentrated by boiling. There was no lime-stone; but the river produced a plentiful supply of large oyster-shells, that, if burned, would yield excellent lime. Accordingly I constructed a kiln, with the assistance of the white ants. The country was infested with these creatures, which had erected their dwellings in all directions; these were formed of clay so thoroughly cemented by a glutinous preparation of the insects, that it was harder than sun-baked brick. I selected an egg-shaped hill, and cut off the top, exactly as we take off the slice from an egg. My Tokrooris then worked hard, and with a hoe and their lances, they hollowed it out to the base, in spite of the attacks of the ants, which punished the legs of the intruders considerably. I now made a draught-hole from the outside base, at right-angles with the bottom of the hollow cone. My kiln was perfect.” (“The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” pp. 424, 425.)]

[Footnote 32: I have seen living trees of the height of ninety feet, the bark of which had been entirely converted into a layer of “white ant earth.”]

[Footnote 33: “My sight was now delighted by frequent views of the summits of the Simyen mountains, thickly covered with snow. As this was the month of April, one of the hottest, I can easily believe that some of these mountains are never free, but are within the region of perpetual winter. They are the highest in Abyssinia, attaining an elevation of fifteen thousand feet in Aboo Yared, the loftiest peak.” (Dufton, “A Journey through Abyssinia,” p. 196.) The heights of Simyen lie north-east of Lake Tsana, between the lake and Adowa.]

[Footnote 34: “The Geerar is a typical mountain river in a country consisting almost wholly of impervious basaltic and granite rocks; it is evidently a furious torrent after rain, but dry except for the merest trickle at other times; it runs in a deep narrow valley, shut in, hot, and airless, and probably very unhealthy.” (Sir W. Garstin, “Report upon the Basin of the Upper Nile,” 1904.)]

[Footnote 35: “Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” vol. iii., 1881.]

[Footnote 36: These are the “Maria Theresa” dollars. “The Maria Theresa dollar is a facsimile of the coin of 1780. It is still issued by the Austrian Government, and circulates as a trade coin nearly all over Africa. Though roughly about the size of a five-shilling piece, it only exchanges for a little more than its intrinsic value, which was about 1_s._ 11_d._ when I left Africa.” (“Abyssinia,” by Herbert Vivian, 1901, p. 239.) Dufton wrote, with regard to Abyssinian marketing: “The Maria Theresa dollar is the only coin used in these transactions under the name of _bir_ (silver). This piece must be of a certain kind, however, containing the spots which form the queen’s tiara, and other marks clearly defined; for which reason it is called by the Arabs of the Soudan Abou Nukter, or father of spots.” (“A Journey through Abyssinia,” p. 61.) Mr. Vivian gives the following table of Abyssinian currency:—

4 cartridges = 1 salt

4 salts = 1 Maria Theresa dollar

The “salt” is a bar of that mineral, which is ordinarily carried and used in lieu of coin. I found that its value was, roughly, sixpence, as Mr. Vivian says. At an earlier date its purchasing power seems to have been less. “Pieces of salt, called _tsho_, are the monetary medium throughout the greater part of Abyssinia. This salt is obtained from extensive mines in the country of the Danakil, where it is cut into small blocks, eight inches long by one inch and a half in breadth, each of which is of a variable market value of between twopence and threepence.” (“A Journey through Abyssinia,” pp. 61, 62.) Evidently there has been “appreciation of salt” in the land of the Negus since 1862, when Mr. Dufton visited it.]

[Footnote 37: “A Journey through Abyssinia,” pp. 47, 48.]

[Footnote 38: See p. 179.]

[Footnote 39: Psalm lxxiii. 18.]

[Footnote 40: Chieftain. As in the feudal times in Europe there is a chain of allegiance—often enough broken—between the king and the mass of his subjects. This Ras was the “Deputy’s” feudal chief.]

[Footnote 41: Consul Plowden (1848-60), quoted in “Abyssinia and its people,” by J. C. Hotten, 1868, pp. 130, 135.]

[Footnote 42: See map.]

[Footnote 43: “Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” vol. iii. p. 32.]

[Footnote 44: “Abyssinia and its People,” by J. C. Hotten, 1868, p. 128.]

[Footnote 45: Mr. MacMillan, describing some of the incidents of his recent expedition to the upper reaches of the Blue Nile, told an interviewer: “We were roused at four in the morning by the wild screams of one of our people (a Somali), who had been seized by a big crocodile, which had crawled up the rocks. The brute had seized his victim by the head and dragged him to the water’s edge. By throwing stones at the crocodile we succeeded in making him leave the Somali, who, though terribly mauled, eventually recovered.”—_Egyptian Gazette_, October 21, 1903. Mr. MacMillan told me subsequently in conversation that the Somali, when he was attacked, was sleeping with his head on his arm, and that the crocodile seized both head and arm, with the result that the Somali put his finger in the crocodile’s eye. Mr. MacMillan was inclined to believe that this action made the reptile release the man. The guns and ammunition of the expedition had all been lost, and were at the bottom of the river, and the night was pitch dark.]

[Footnote 46: “Life in Abyssinia,” pp. 383 _seq._]

[Footnote 47: Native bread. “The chief corn of the country is ‘teff’ and ‘dágousha,’ if, indeed, we may venture to include these under the head of corn; for they both resemble different sorts of grass, and the seed is not larger than rape or canary seed. Of each of these there are various qualities, esteemed according to their colour, white, red, or black. White ‘teff’ bread is preferred by all natives even to wheat bread. . . . The ‘teff’ is considered by the Abyssinians wholesome and digestible; but so far from being satisfied of this, I am doubtful of its containing much nutritious property; and as for its taste, only fancy yourself chewing a piece of sour sponge, and you will have a good idea of what is considered the best bread in Abyssinia.” (Parkyns, “Life in Abyssinia,” pp. 198-200.)]

[Footnote 48: In other parts of Abyssinia “there are also two kinds, one a very large one and another of Jersey size, that show absolutely no trace of an Eastern origin, and are as straight-backed as any English short-horn.” (“Modern Abyssinia,” by Augustus Wylde. Methuen, 1901.)]

[Footnote 49: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 259.]

[Footnote 50: I do not know whether the women drink much _tedj_, but even the ladies of the land did so in Bruce’s time. He was in Gondar when “Ozoro Esther’s sister, the Iteghe’s” (queen-mother’s) “youngest daughter was married to Powussen, the governor of Begemder. The king gave her large districts of land in that province, and Ras Michael a large portion of gold, muskets, cattle, and horses.” On this occasion “the Ras, Ozoro Esther, and Ozoro Altash entertained all Gondar. A vast number of cattle were slaughtered every day, and the whole town was one great market: the common people, in every street, appeared laden with pieces of raw beef, while drink circulated in like profusion. The Ras insisted upon Bruce’s dining with him every day. After dinner they slipped away to parties of ladies, where anarchy prevailed as completely as at the house of the Ras. All the married women ate, drank and smoked like the men; in fact it is impossible to convey to the English reader, in terms of proper decency, any idea of this bacchanalian scene” (Head’s “Life of Bruce,” pp. 297, 298). In Parkyns’s time a wedding-feast was an orgy of the same kind for all classes and both sexes. And as there is a complete absence of _gêne_ in the conduct of modern Abyssinian women in other respects, I have little doubt that they still favour the _tedj_ when the mood prompts them.]

[Footnote 51: “Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” vol. iii. p. 27.]

[Footnote 52: “Asked about the trade prospects in Abyssinia and the projected American commercial mission, Mr. MacMillan said, ‘The greater part of the trade of Abyssinia is already in American hands. The principal import is white cotton sheeting, which every Abyssinian wears, all of which comes from the United States. I do not see that there is much possibility of further development in the trade as far as this sheeting—which is everywhere known as Amerikani—is concerned; the supply has already reached its maximum. There may be some possibilities in the case of oil, which at present comes from Russia. As a matter of fact there is no money in the country.” (_Egyptian Gazette_, October 21, 1903.)]

[Footnote 53: Quoted in “Abyssinia Described,” by J. C. Hotten, p. 129.]

[Footnote 54: Dufton, “A Journey through Abyssinia,” p. 63.]

[Footnote 55: “Abyssinia,” p. 124.]

[Footnote 56: “Modern Abyssinia,” by Augustus Wylde, p. 345.]

[Footnote 57: “Life in Abyssinia,” by Mansfield Parkyns, p. 278.]

[Footnote 58: Ib. p. 254.]

[Footnote 59: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 369.]

[Footnote 60: See p. 120.]

[Footnote 61: “The Gumara here flows between high rocks, which consist of porphyry and trachyte, in which calcareous tufa is found embedded. Its banks are adorned with tropical vegetation, and the place derives its characteristic features especially from the wild _Phœnix_ with its delicate foliage and the colossal _Musa Ensete ornamentalis_ with carmine leaf-panicles, which is called _guma-guma_ by the natives to distinguish it from the edible _Musa Ensete_. In many places the Gumara is deep and full of fish; innumerable wild ducks and geese, _scopus umbretta_, etc., enliven the surface of the water, while bright-hued butterflies, the charming _Danais_ and equitidæ with their brilliant play of colour, mingled with tiny metallic-tinted nectariniæ (_affinis metallica_), flit around the fragrant _Dodonæa viscosa_ and the brilliant blossoms of the Tsana-tree” (“Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” vol. iii. 1881, pp. 23, 24). _Phœnix_ is the name given to a family of pinnate palms, of which the Egyptian _Phœnix dactylifera_, the finger-date, is an example. _Ensete_ is the Abyssinian name of a thick-stemmed, large-leafed banana, which is grown in gardens as an ornamental plant. The thick flower-stalk is used as an article of food by the natives, but the fruit, being small and dry, is useless. In spite of these attractions, Wansage, (see p. 63) according to Stecker, would hardly be a suitable health-resort for European invalids. He wrote, “By night an infernal din prevails, which, mingled with the singing of women and clapping of hands, forms the characteristic music of the Baths. The bull-frogs that live in the Gumara supply a harmonious accompaniment, which, with the noise kept up by the donkeys and beasts of burden, does not cease till long after midnight” (Ib.).]

[Footnote 62: This is the district called Lamge. Stecker said of it: “I consider Lamge the prettiest place on Lake Tsana; the ancient, massive _Dokma_ trees are all covered by parasitical _Loranthidæ_ with rose-red and purple blossoms, and by whole nests of olive-green _Viscum_, and another parasitical plant which is peculiar to this one tree; and they are surrounded by an impenetrable growth of _Cucurbitaceæ_ and _Convolvulaceæ_, which in some places form the most romantic piazzas, and in others arbours and formal galleries, and afford the coolest shade. This Lamge is a place for which one may prophesy a brilliant future. Everywhere hereabouts on ancient acacias hang the nests of weaver-birds (_textor alecto_), and, out of curiosity, I counted upon one of them 872 basket-shaped, suspended nests” (“Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” vol. iii. 1881, p. 26).]

[Footnote 63: Europeans are not allowed to visit the Island of Dega, “because it is not permitted to any one to set foot on this holy ground, which is only inhabited by anchorite monks and is sacred to St. Stephen” (Stecker, “Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” p. 31).]

[Footnote 64: At the battle of Gallabat in 1889.]

[Footnote 65: I saw no rods or hooks used by natives in Abyssinia. They have nets weighted with pieces of lead. These are simply thrown out to sweep the water at their full spread and slowly pulled in. Then the net is gathered up, hung over the fisher’s left arm and cast again.]

[Footnote 66: Stecker did not visit the Island of Mitraha. He wrote: “On account of a quarrel that arose between my servants and the tatterdemalion clergy of Mitraha I did not land on this parsons’ island. The priests wanted to extort money from me by this method: that they would sell me no provisions before I had visited their church, which meant, before I had given them baksheesh in profusion” (“Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” p. 26).]

[Footnote 67: Wylde, “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 417.]

[Footnote 68: Vivian, “Abyssinia,” p. 186.]

[Footnote 69: Stern gave the following interesting account of the monarch _de jure_:—“Whilst at Gondar we visited various personages of rank and dignity; amongst others _Atzee Johannes_, the Shadow King, and according to Abyssinian annals, the legitimate successor to the throne and lineal descendant of Solomon by the Queen of Sheba’s son. He was seated on an _alga_ in a dirty little room, with a monk’s skull-cap on his head, reading the Psalms. He asked me many questions on geography, and unlike the majority of Abyssinian savants did not believe that beyond Jerusalem the sun never shone, and that only serpents and other venomous reptiles occupied the untenanted land. I was told that whenever _Atzee Johannes_ visits King Theodore, the latter stands before him, as an acknowledgment of his title to a crown which he could not defend. He receives an annual pension from the Royal Treasury” (“Wanderings among the Falashes in Abyssinia,” pp. 212, 213).]

[Footnote 70: Quoted in “Abyssinia Described,” J. C. Hotten, pp. 122, 123.]

[Footnote 71: “Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” 1881, vol. iii. pp. 26-31.]

[Footnote 72: Stecker wrote: “Es gehen nach Wansage Kranke aller Art, und da es wenige Abyssinier giebt, die nicht syphilitisch wären, so sieht man meistens nur Patienten, die gegen Lustseuch und ihre Folgen hier Heilung zu finden glauben” (“Mittheilungen,” p. 23). As far as my experience goes, this overstates the case a little, but the complete disregard of morality by both sexes—a matter about which the clergy do not trouble themselves—has rendered disease of this kind extremely common. The pest of internal parasites, which is the bane of all classes of Abyssinians, and is almost universal among them, is undoubtedly due to their disgusting habit of eating raw meat. They devour flesh warm and quivering from the newly slaughtered carcase, and Bruce asserted that in his time they habitually cut the meat from the living animal, and continued to do so until it bled to death. This would be an unusual barbarity, and Parkyns saw no instance of it, though he believed Bruce’s statement to have been true when he made it (“Life in Abyssinia,” p. 204). Mr. Wylde has given another explanation of what Bruce observed (“Modern Abyssinia,” p. 153). But, whatever may be the fact as to this particular, the habit of eating uncooked flesh prevails everywhere in the country. I noticed that the ceremonial practices of the Mussulmans appeared to save them both from tænia and scabies. But, in spite of their ablutions, they are infested, like the rest of the inhabitants, with body lice. Mohammedans are regarded with disdain by the Christian Abyssinians, and the prejudice against them, as I have said, accounts for some of the uncleanliness of the Christians. To wash much or regularly is to behave like a Mussulman.]

[Footnote 73: “Life in Abyssinia,” pp. 282, 283.]

[Footnote 74: “Pastillos Rufillus olet, Gargonius hircum.” Horace, _Sat._ I. 2.]

[Footnote 75: _Cf._ p. 42.]

[Footnote 76: “This official is called a ‘_balderabba_,’ and is intrusted with a traveller’s safety” (Stern, “Wanderings among the Falashes,” p. 96), and “becomes a sort of agent, and expects you to acknowledge by presents, any service he may render you, such as assisting you out of difficulties in which you may be involved” (Parkyns, “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 72)]

[Footnote 77: Quoted in “Abyssinia Described,” p. 129.]

[Footnote 78: “Narrative of the British Mission to Theodore, King of Abyssinia,” by Hormuzd Rassam, F.R.G.S. Murray, 1896. Vol. i. pp. 317, 318.]

[Footnote 79: See p. 223.]

[Footnote 80: “Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” 1881, vol. iii. pp. 24, 25.]

[Footnote 81: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” pp. 492-496.]

[Footnote 82: Cf. such a Spanish name for a man as José _Maria_.]

[Footnote 83: “Narrative of the British Mission to King Theodore,” vol. i. p. 229.]

[Footnote 84: “Narrative of the British Mission to King Theodore,” vol. i. p. 314.]

[Footnote 85: “Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” 1881, vol. iii. p. 27.]

[Footnote 86: See p. 151.]

[Footnote 87: Hormuzd Rassam, “British Mission to King Theodore,” vol. i. p. 315.]

[Footnote 88: Father Lobo reached Abyssinia in 1624.]

[Footnote 89: Father Lobo, who landed on the east coast of Africa, had never heard of the White Nile—this is made evident by his discourse upon the Abai—and believed the head-waters of the Blue Nile to be the origin of the whole river.]

[Footnote 90: In the map reproduced in this volume, the course of the Abai through Lake Tsana is marked by arrows. Its current can be quite plainly distinguished, as Father Lobo says, from the surrounding water. The circumstance was remarked by Dr. Stecker.]

[Footnote 91: See p. 256.]

[Footnote 92: Stern mentions “a solid stone bridge of seven arches—one of the few monuments left by the Portuguese,” which in his time spanned the Reb. He called the stream Erib (“Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 169). Both he and Dufton crossed that river by this bridge. In all probability it was constructed by the artificers who built the arch over the Abai. I do not know whether the Reb bridge is still standing. We forded the stream, as has been said, and were not aware at the time that it had ever been bridged.]

[Footnote 93: The bulbous roots here mentioned are probably those of the “red-hot poker” plant, which grows abundantly in damp places in the higher regions of Abyssinia.]

[Footnote 94: “Travels to discover the Sources of the Nile in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773,” by James Bruce of Kinnaird, Esq., F.R.S.]

[Footnote 95: “Life of Bruce,” by Major F. P. Head, pp. 276-278.]

[Footnote 96: Whips made of thongs of hippopotamus hide, which serves both for lash and handle.]

[Footnote 97: This is a military title, and means “Commander of Advance Guard.” (A. Wylde, “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 495).]

[Footnote 98: We saw few bananas and none of these pigs in 1903.]

[Footnote 99: “Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” 1881, vol. iii. pp. 30, 31.]

[Footnote 100: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 13.]

[Footnote 101: “The Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals,” p. 367. This little animal is the coney of the Scriptures.]

[Footnote 102: Since we were by the lakeside a decree has been issued that the hippos, for their misdeeds in destroying crops and overturning _tankoas_, are to be treated as _vermin_, and shot whenever opportunity arises; so I fear that these ancient “riparian owners” will soon disappear from their pleasant and immemorial haunts.]

[Footnote 103: We found these shells and oysters in all the rivers to which our journey brought us. They are especially abundant in the shallow pools of the Atbara.]

[Footnote 104: I have already said that the island of Dek seems to me to have been chiefly formed by siltage.]

[Footnote 105: “Mittheilungen der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” 1881, vol. iii. p. 28. The following general description of the lake district embodied by Mr. Dupuis in his Report on the Expedition, and published in Sir W. Garstin’s Despatch already cited (Ed. 2165, 1904, p. 215), is terse and interesting:

“The depression occupied by the lake is, generally speaking, saucer-shaped, the land rising from the edge of the water in gentle undulating plains, getting steeper and steeper and terminating in considerable hills or mountains of some importance. In several places, as at Gorgora on the north, Mitraha and Koratsa on the east, Zegi on the south, and Dengelber on the west, the hills come right down to the lake and descend more or less abruptly into the water, but more often they stand back at some distance from it. The geological formation is almost everywhere of the same primitive character that seems to be universal in the Eastern Soudan, granite, gneiss, and quartz, varied only by tracts of lava, basalt, and eruptive rocks. Sandstone is reported by some travellers, and lime-stone is said to be found near Gondar, but I saw neither myself. The large tracts of comparatively level land consist almost entirely of the cracked black cotton soil usually found associated with igneous rocks. At the mouths of all the larger rivers flowing into the lake are extensive alluvial plains generally composed wholly of this same cotton soil, and of the greatest fertility, though nine-tenths of their area now grows nothing more valuable than coarse grass.”]

[Footnote 106: “Modern Abyssinia,” pp. 40-43.]

[Footnote 107: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 42.]

[Footnote 108: _Adansonia digitata_. These are tall trees, whose timber is of a spongy consistency. Sir S. Baker mentions one which was about forty feet in circumference. He wrote: “The _Adansonia digitata_, although a tree, always reminds me of a gigantic fungus; the stem is disproportioned in its immense thickness to its height, and its branches are few in number, and as massive in character as the stem. The wood is not much firmer in substance than cork, and is as succulent as a carrot.” (“The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” p. 356.)]

[Footnote 109: Governor.]

[Footnote 110: “If God is willing.”]

[Footnote 111: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” pp. 124, 125.]

[Footnote 112: “Life in Abyssinia,” pp. 385, 386.]

[Footnote 113: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” p. 240.]

[Footnote 114: This blight is known as “asal,” or “honey,” from the sticky deposit formed all over the plant and leaves. At the time of the expedition it prevailed more or less severely throughout the greater part of the Kassala Moudirieh. The stalks of the plants attacked become black.]

[Footnote 115: These are watertanks of galvanized iron. Two of them form a camel’s load.]

[Footnote 116: Mr. Dupuis’s account of this place has been published in Sir W. Garstin’s Report (p. 219), and is in the following terms: “This is a very remarkable spot, and the probable site of large canal works in the future, if such are ever undertaken on the Atbara. Just above the “meshra,” or watering-place, the Atbara flows in a narrow deep trench, perfectly straight for a couple of miles or so, with a width of little over one hundred metres, and a depth of about ten metres all across the pool when at summer level. The sides of this trench are nearly vertical cliffs of extremely hard granitic rock rising twenty metres or more from the water. At the meshra this trench suddenly fans out into a wide shallow channel, the pool ceases, and the river breaks up into three or four separate branches, amidst a confusion of rocky islands, and is not fully re-united into a single stream for several miles. The rocky substratum through which the river has cut its way here gives little or no indication of its presence in the level uplands, which continue as before to form an unbroken bush-covered plain of black soil up to within a couple of miles or so of the river, where it suddenly breaks into ravines.”]

[Footnote 117: “Life in Abyssinia,” pp. 102, 103.]

[Footnote 118: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” p. 66.]

[Footnote 119: “This peculiar fly is about the size of a wasp, with an orange-coloured body, with black and white rings; the proboscis is terrific, it is double, and appears to be disproportioned, being two-thirds the length of the entire insect. When this fly attacks an animal, or man, it pierces the skin instantaneously, like the prick of a red-hot needle driven deep into the flesh. At the same time the insect exerts every muscle of its body by buzzing with its wings as it buries the instrument to its greatest depth. The blood starts from the wound immediately, and continues to flow for a considerable time; this is an attraction to other flies in great numbers, many of which would lay their eggs upon the wound.” (“The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” pp. 184, 185.)]

[Footnote 120: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” pp. 107, 109, 110.]

[Footnote 121: Water-sack. These are made from skins.]

[Footnote 122: “The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,” pp. 240, 241.]

A NOTE ON THE RELIGION, CUSTOMS, ETC., OF ABYSSINIA

In _The Pall Mall Gazette_ of August 19, 1904, an interesting account of an interview with M. Hugues Leroux was published. M. Leroux had just returned from a “diplomatic and scientific mission” to Abyssinia. He had been the bearer of an autograph letter from M. Loubet to the Emperor Menelek. M. Leroux brought back much interesting information which concerns only the present circumstances of the country—_e.g._ that the Emperor “is striving to follow out what he himself calls a policy of good-humour. He wants to be on good terms with all the world, but he does not want to be devoured. He is anxious to open up Abyssinia, but to commerce, not to conquest.” And again, “he has at last granted permission for the railway from Djibouti, which hitherto went only as far as Harrar, to be carried up to Addis Abiba. He will probably refuse the British and Italian requests to build branch lines connecting this railway with Zeila and Massouah, the towns on the coast to the north and the south of Djibouti which belong respectively to Great Britain and Italy, his comment upon this scheme being, ‘I would like one ladder up to my front door, but not three.’”

M. Leroux had been entrusted with an autograph reply from the Emperor Menelek to the President of the French Republic. But he bore away from Ethiopia a much more interesting document, which—if it is genuine and is rightly described by the traveller and the interviewer—is invaluable for the clue that it gives to the origin of the Abyssinian nation. It is said to be “a most extraordinary Abyssinian manuscript, which is certain to make a great sensation when the translation of it is published, for it throws a flood of light upon the early history of the Jews. The Abyssinian monarchs have always considered this manuscript to be among their most sacred possessions. It was appropriated by the English at the capture of Magdala, but on Emperor John succeeding to the throne, he opened diplomatic negotiations and recovered it from the British Museum, where it had been deposited. It is written in the Geez language, which is of Hebraic origin, of great antiquity, and known only to the priests. It relates that after the plagues of Egypt some hundreds of thousands of Jews did not follow Moses across the Red Sea, but went west, down the Blue Nile, to found a kingdom of their own, which they called Saba—‘Saba’ merely meaning west. These were the original Abyssinians.”

We are told that “the original of this manuscript had remained seventeen hundred years in an island of Lake Zouai, whose inhabitants are still of the purest Jewish type, but they were Christianized at a very early date, and their religion has now degenerated into fetishism. They knew nothing as to the contents of the manuscript, which they nevertheless regarded as a very precious object.” Whatever may be the real antiquity of this document its existence and the importance attributed to it seem to give evidence of a tradition of great age, and this tradition offers a credible explanation of the fact that such a people as the Abyssinian is found in the mountains of East Africa. No doubt the Habashes are now, almost universally, a race of mixed blood, but they possess a national character which is quite distant from that of the neighbouring tribes. The Semitic invasion may have taken place immediately after the captivity of the Jews in Egypt or at an earlier or later date, but it was powerful enough to affect the whole polity and population of Ethiopia.

Generally, writers upon Abyssinia ascribe the incursion to the reign of King Solomon, and this is in accordance with a legend that is believed throughout the country. The Queen of Sheba was, of course, the Queen of Ethiopia; her visit to the wise and much-married king provided her with an heir; “her son Menelek was in due time transmitted to his august sire. The young prince was duly instructed in all the mysteries of Jewish law and science, and being anointed king under the name of David, he was returned to his native land, escorted by a large suite of the nobles of Israel, and a band of her most learned elders under the direction of Ascarias, the son of Zadok, the High Priest.

“The gates of the temple of Jerusalem were left unguarded, and the doors miraculously opened in order that the holy ark of Zion and the tables of the law might, without difficulty, be stolen and carried away. The journey was prosperously performed, and the Queen-Mother, on resigning the reins of authority to her son at her death, about nine hundred and seventy years before the birth of Christ, caused a solemn obligation to be sworn by all that henceforth no female should hold sway in the land; and that those princes of the blood royal upon whom the crown did not devolve should, until the succession opened to them or during the natural term of existence, be kept close prisoners on a lofty mountain; a cruel and despotic enactment which, through a long succession of ages, was jealously observed.”[123]

“The impetuous zeal of the emigrants,” wrote Mr. Stern, “found ample scope for its loftiest inspiration in the new world to which they were transplanted, and in the course of a few years the worship of the God of Israel extensively supplanted the idolatries of Ethiopia.

“From these vague traditions,” the same writer prudently added, “in which truth and fiction are inextricably jumbled together, the inquirer does not gain much trustworthy information on the history of Ethiopia and the settlement of the Jews in that country.”[124]

Mr. Augustus Wylde visited a charming and sequestered spot where, according to one legend, the stolen ark was deposited. “We halted for lunch just _vis-à-vis_ to the first sources of the Taccazze. . . . Just before reaching the sources, on a hill on the north side of the valley, is the church of Chevenan Gorgis, in a splendid grove of juniper trees; immediately above the sources on the hill is another church, also surrounded by juniper trees, dedicated to Debbessa Jesu; tradition has it that when Menelek, the son of the Queen of Sheba by King Solomon, came from Jerusalem with the ark, it was placed on the ground at this spot, where he camped, and these springs gushed forth, and he immediately ordered a temple to be built on the spot.

“On leaving this camp Menelek commenced his march towards the east, and on the bearers of the ark putting it down, after about an hour’s march, they found that they could not move it, as it firmly adhered to the ground. This spot is supposed by some of the Abyssinians to be the true resting-place of the ark that was brought from Jerusalem; there is a church built over the spot called Eyela Kudus Michael. . . . It is nearly impossible for a stranger to obtain admittance to this church, and the place in the Holy of Holies where the ark is supposed to rest is shown to no one. This ark cannot be in two places; the people of the north declare it is in the sacred grove of Axum in the church of Selata Musser (place of Moses), and the priests of the Eyela district declare it is in their church, so they always quarrel and wrangle over this vexed question, the same as European priests do over their sacred relics.”[125]

Perhaps the soundest opinion which can be formed under present conditions as to the origin of the Abyssinian people has been expressed by Mr. Wylde:—“The race, as the name Habash or Abyssinian denotes, is a mixture, undoubtedly of very long standing, but most likely of Jew with the inhabitants of Southern Arabia and the non-negro races of Eastern Africa.”[126]

According to tradition, Christianity was introduced into the country in the fourth century.

“In the year 330 after the birth of our Saviour, Meropius, a merchant of Tyre, having undertaken a commercial voyage to India, landed on the coast of Ethiopia, where he was murdered by the barbarians, and his two sons, Frumentius and Edesius, both devout men, being made prisoners, were carried as slaves before the Emperor. The abilities, the information, and the peaceable demeanour of the brothers soon gained not only their release but high office in the court; and living in the full confidence of the monarch until his decease, and subsequently under the protection of the Queen-mother, the good-will of the entire nation quickly succeeded. The work of conversion was commenced, and proceeding with wonderful rapidity and success, a thriving branch was shortly added to the great Eastern Church.

“Bearing the happy tidings, Frumentius appeared in Alexandria, and was received with open arms by the Patriarch Athanasius. Loaded with honours, and consecrated the first bishop of Ethiopia, a relation was thus happily commenced with Egypt, which has remained firm and friendly to the present day, and throughout fifteen centuries has bestowed upon a Coptish priest the high office of Patriarch Abouna (_i.e._ our Father) of the Ethiopic Church.

“On his return to the country of his hopes, Frumentius found that the spark of life had spread rapidly throughout the gloomy darkness of the land. Baptism was instituted, deacons and presbyters appointed, churches erected, and a firm foundation laid whereon to establish the Christian religion in Abyssinia.

“During the succeeding century, priests and apostles, men of wonderful sanctity, flocked into the Empire from all parts of the East, and miracles the most stupendous are related in the legends of those days. Mountains were removed, and the storms of the angry ocean stilled by the mere application of the staff. The adder and the basilisk glided harmless under foot, and rivers stayed their roaring torrent, that the sandal of the holy man should remain unstained by the flood. Aragáwi raised the dead—the fingers of Likános flamed like tapers of fire—Samuel rode upon his lion; and thus the kingdom of Arwé, the old serpent of Ethiop, was utterly overthrown.”[127]

The conservatism of the Abyssinian people in matters of religion is well illustrated by the fact that throughout the many and violent vicissitudes of their history since the introduction of Christianity they have always received their Patriarch from the mother-church. His position is one of great authority. “The chief man in the country after the king of kings is the Abouna, or archbishop, the head of the Church; without the Abouna no king can be crowned, and it is he that, at his own or the king’s wish, can excommunicate any of his subjects, or the king himself, if necessary, and then the king can only rule by the strength of his followers who adhere to him. These archbishops come from the Coptic Monastery at Alexandria or Cairo, and when they reach Abyssinia, they never leave it on any consideration.”[128] Moreover, “the Abyssinian Church, in common with all other Christian communities in Asia and Africa, is strictly episcopal. The Abouna, or primate, who is consecrated to his office by the Patriarch of Alexandria, the revered successor of St. Mark, can alone confer the priestly title. Every candidate, before presenting himself for ordination, must have acquired some knowledge in the reading of the sacred language of Ethiopia, and in the complicated ceremonies of the liturgical service. On the day appointed for ordination the primate, in full canonicals and seated on the episcopal throne, receives the applicants for the sacred office. All being properly ranged before the chair of St. Mark, each candidate, instead of the imposition of hands, receives the Abouna’s consecrating breath. Former archbishops, less scrupulous than the present successor of Frumentius, indiscriminately breathed on all, whether qualified or not, who could pay the requisite fee of two salts—fourpence.[129]

“Deacons are selected from among boys, who are only allowed to serve in the Church till they attain the age of twelve or thirteen; after that period their purity of life is suspected, and they are no longer considered fit to approach the sacred shrine of the _tabot_.[130] The bishop and monks may not marry, while the priests may; and as, on the death of their wives, they cannot contract a second alliance, the reverend wooers invariably choose for their partners the most robust and sprightly lasses in the land.

“The _debterahs_, or scribes, constitute the lowest but the most influential body in the Church. These worthies enjoy no ecclesiastical rank and are under no ecclesiastical discipline, and yet no service can be properly performed unless they take part in it. Their chief duty consists in chanting the Psalms and Liturgy, but their uncouth gesticulation and discordant shouting, instead of elevating devotion, tend rather, at least in European estimation, to convert the service of God into a sinful burlesque and the sanctuary into a bedlam. The scanty learning of the country is exclusively monopolized by this order; and they are so proud of their erudition that they deem it a disgrace to exchange, by the breathing of the Abouna, the proud title of _debterah_ for the less learned appellation of _kas_, or priest.

“These literati, notwithstanding their better acquaintance with the sacred volume and the lives of the saints, are considered the most arrant scoundrels in the land. Gondar, which contains a considerable number of the fraternity, is notorious for the dissolute profligacy of its inhabitants; and it is proverbial throughout the country that wherever _debterahs_ abound there vice and immorality thrive.”[131]

Mansfield Parkyns found that many of the _debterahs_, or _defterers_, professed to practise witchcraft. He wrote: “There are persons in the country who are supposed to be able to call up spirits and obtain from them any information they may require. These men are mostly _defterers_ (or Scribes), and are regarded with a certain amount of rather dubious respect. The scene of their incantation is generally some ravine, with a stream running through it. As I have only heard the reports of the common people on the subject, I cannot describe accurately what ceremonies are observed, or what form the devil assumes on quitting the water at their summons. My informants, however, assured me that he came as a great chief, with the usual train of shield-bearers behind him and gunners before him.”[132]

The Abyssinian liturgy is not impressive, according to European ideas. Stern was present at one of the services, and gave a lively description of it. “The deafening tom-tom of the _negareet_, intermingled with the nasal chorus of a host of _debterahs_ in varying cadences, reverberated on my ear. This indication that the service had already begun put a stop to our contemplation of the grand mountain scene, and in a most reverent mood we hastened to the uproarious sanctuary. A wooden gate in a circular wall brought us within an open grassy space that formed the cemetery, and the spot where, adjoining to the church, rises the Bethlehem in which the priests prepare the eucharistic bread. A crowd of men and women, as if in some place of amusement and dissipation, were spread in picturesque knots over the soft turf. The majority were busily plying their tongues, but I fear from the burst of merriment which now and then broke from one or the other of those animated groups that their conversations had very little to do either with religion or the service in honour of the saint. Not belonging to this impure class, who are justly excluded from the interior of the sacred edifice (_i.e._ those whose marriage is secular and dissoluble), we mounted a few steps, and then, through a partition occupied by the laity, stepped into a second compartment concentric with the outer one, and there found ourselves at the porch of the enclosure which constitutes the _sanctum sanctorum_.

“Crowds of priests and _debterahs_ thronged the whole of that corridor. The _debterahs_ constitute the choir in all their churches; and their devotionless mien, as they chanted to the monotonous sound of the _negareet_, quite excited my indignation. During the maddening noise created by the _debterahs_, the priests, robed in gaudy canonicals, were exerting to the utmost their cracked voices in intoning the liturgy and psalms. At certain intervals an ecclesiastic, clad in his garish finery, and attended by an incense-waving boy-deacon and a bearer of the Ethiopic Gospel, marched out of his sanctum into the cemetery to edify the godless and profane multitude by reading to them a portion of Scripture in an unknown tongue. A reverend gentleman near me, who was evidently a great Church dignitary, as he wore a huge turban, and had a very stupid unmeaning face, pointed his gaunt fingers towards the daubed walls, and condescendingly inquired whether I knew St. George and Miriam, the mother of God? . . .

“Unable to perform any religious rite without the savage accompaniment of tinkling keys and other discordant sounds, the sacrament of the mass (_Corban_), the most solemn service of the Church, is also performed amidst the most confused and distracting clangour. The liturgy and consecration service over, all, except the communicants, leave the place of worship. These now approach the vestibule of the holy of holies, where the officiating priests, enveloped in clouds of incense, are busily occupied in washing their hands—this ceremony is copied from Pilate’s example. The water, which this act sanctifies, must not be spilled on the ground, but, as a regeneration emblem, it is sprinkled on the bended heads and the garments of the faithful, whilst the priest says, ‘If you think that I have now cleansed your garments and purified your bodies, and yet continue to cherish hatred and malice in your hearts, I tell you that the body of Christ will prove to be a burning fire to consume you, and His blood a bottomless sea to drown you!’ After this exhortation the _tabot_, the substitute for the altar, is taken out of the holy of holies, and each communicant receives a small piece of wheaten bread and a spoonful of raisin wine. To prevent the desecration of the sacred elements every one, before he quits the church, drinks a cup of water, and also refrains from expectorating that day.”[133]

The ecclesiastical art of Abyssinia has already been mentioned. Stern has given an account of a singular instance of its development and of an equally strange result of the devotional use of pictures. He visited “Kudus Yohannes, which next to that at Quosquam, is the handsomest and most gorgeously bedaubed of the forty-four churches in and around Gondar.” Here “one aspiring artist, weary perhaps of the antiquated cherubims and saints, the blazing flames and leafy bowers, which are the ordinary ornaments of the churches, had sought immortal fame by painting quite a new subject—the Migration of the Israelites. In his picture he represented them marching in soldier-like attitude over the heaving and surging waves of the Red Sea, clad in British uniform, with muskets and bayonets on their shoulders.” Again, Major Harris, at the time of his mission to Sahela Selassie, who was then Negus, had presented His Majesty with a portrait of Queen Victoria. This “lay securely guarded amidst the regalia of the Ethiopian Empire till the death of the despot. His heir and successor, Hailu Malakot, to atone for some indiscretion, presented it in pious contrition to the Cathedral Church, and there the people flock on all grand festivities to worship it as the representation of the Virgin Mary.”[134]

Reference has been made to certain Abyssinian saints, to whose exploits Major Harris alluded. But these are neither the most notable nor the most venerated in the ecclesiastical chronicles. Tekla Haimanot—_facile princeps_—“is said to have converted the devil, and induced him to become a monk for forty days, though what became of him afterwards we are at a loss to know. The same holy man, wishing to ascend a steep mountain with perpendicular sides was accommodated in answer to prayer with a boa-constrictor, which took him up on its back.”[135] Before the birth of this saint, “a glorious light rested for several days over the parental house. At the baptism of the child the priest was so dazzled by its supernatural beauty that, lost in admiration, he dropped the babe, and might have killed it, had not an invisible hand kept it suspended above the hard floor.” In due course Tekla Haimanot became a monk, and “the mortifications, self-imposed penances and incredibly long fasts which followed his initiation into the monastic brotherhood are faithfully recorded in the annals of the Church for the edification of the faithful.” Later, he visited the Holy Sepulchre, after marvellous adventures among the Moslems, and was subsequently ordained priest by the Copt Patriarch in Egypt. He then proceeded to the Galla country, where his mother had been kept prisoner, and converted the heathen by hundreds of thousands. On one occasion he repaired to the monastery of Debra Damo, but here “the brotherhood did not much sympathize in the general jubilee that greeted the austere monk. The monastery stands on the summit of a perpendicular rock, and, being quite inaccessible, no visitor can reach it unless drawn up by a rope. The Evil One did not like the ascetic to tamper with the merry fellows on the rock, and, to effect his wicked purpose, he maliciously cut the frail support when Tekla Haimanot was in mid-air, and probably he would have been dashed to pieces in a ravine below, had not immediately six wings unfurled themselves under his garb and borne him aloft. In commemoration of this miraculous volant power, the saint is represented, in most of the churches dedicated to him, as nearly smothered in a profusion of gorgeous plumage.”

Tekla Haimanot’s ascetic practices in “tenantless wastes and malarious jungles” did not suffice him as the years advanced. “He hit upon an original idea of mortifying the flesh. There is in Shoa a small lake, which the saint in his peregrinations had often passed. To these waters he now repaired. The good people who followed him from all parts to hear his discourses and to obtain his blessing entreated him not to expose his precious person to the alligators and other aquatic monsters; but the holy man, who knew that all his exploits for the glory of the Church had not yet been accomplished, fearlessly stepped into the deep. Seven successive years he continued in the water, and probably he would have expired on his liquid couch, had not one of his legs dropped off. The clamour for this valuable relic created quite a dissension in the Church, but the monarch judiciously put a stop to the fierce war between the rival claimants by ordering it to be kept as a Palladium in the royal metropolis. This sacred talisman possesses more wonderful sanitary virtues than all the drugs in the universe. Patients from every province of the country visit the shrine to make votive offerings and to quaff the healing water in which the saint’s leg is weekly washed.”[136]

That the miracles above related are stock miracles—if one may use such a phrase—and that the same legends are connected with more than one saint is evident from the following _gesta sanctorum_ cited by Mansfield Parkyns:—

“Gabro Menfus Kouddos (Slave of the Holy Ghost) was a great saint from his birth; nay, more—he was born a saint. No sooner did he enter the world than he stood up, and three days after his birth he bowed his head thrice, saying in a distinct voice, ‘Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.’ He never tasted of his mother’s milk, nor during the whole period of his life partook of food or drink of any sort. Once, when praying on a mountain, he fell over a precipice two hundred cubits deep. Two angels immediately joined their spread wings under him to support him; but he refused their assistance, saying that he trusted to God alone for help. Another time he was ascending a very high mountain, and, being fatigued, the Holy Trinity came and assisted him. Many other equally absurd and almost blasphemous stories are related of him; at last, after a very long life, I forget of how many years, the Almighty sent Azrael, the angel of death, to take him. But the saint refused to die, saying, that as he had neither eaten nor drunk, he could not die. So all the saints came to him in turn for the purpose of persuading him to leave earth for Paradise. St. John the Baptist first addressed him, saying that he had gone the way of all flesh, notwithstanding his many privations and sufferings. Gabro Menfus Kouddos, however, at once met him with the answer, ‘Yes; but _you_ could not fast even for forty days, but fed on locusts and wild honey.’ Thus he replied to all the saints, and at last even to the Virgin and our Saviour. Still, however, the decrees of the Omnipotent must be obeyed, and his life was taken from him; but then there was a dispute among the elements as to what was to become of his body. The earth refused to receive it, as he had never partaken of her produce. A similar refusal was made by the water, for he had never taken a drop within his lips. The fire had also equally strong objections. So the saint was restored to life, and taken up alive into heaven. His tomb is, however, shown at Zoukwahla in Shoa; but it is said to contain only one of his ribs, which, at the time of his ascent to heaven, he took out and left on earth as a memento for his followers.

“Abouna Aragawy was one of the nine missionaries sent to Abyssinia by St. Athanasius. His doctrine and the miracles which he wrought gained for him many followers; but from some of the unbelieving he suffered persecution. This is the account given by some historians; while others assert that, overcome by his popularity, he sought retirement from this world, in order to devote the remainder of his days to religious duty. Be it as it may, he came to the rock on which is now the celebrated monastery of Debra Damo. After walking several times round it, without finding any means of access to its summit, he prayed to the Almighty, who sent him an enormous boa-constrictor, which offered to carry him up in its mouth; but he said, ‘I fear your mouth; turn round and let me take your tail.’ So the snake did as he was desired; and the saint, holding fast by its tail, was drawn up to the summit of the rock in perfect safety. The snake having performed its duty offered to leave the saint if he wished it; but Aragawy begged that it would remain, making, however, the condition of its not alarming or destroying any of his disciples who might come to visit him. They then took possession of the caves and holes which are in the mountain, where they are by many supposed to be still living. Some, however, pretend that the snake is dead; but no one is so wanting in faith as for a moment to deny that the saint yet lives there, and will continue to live till the day of judgment. No curious person, however, dares to venture into the cave. The monks will not allow lights to be taken in; and the people assert that a spirit which protects the place will not permit any one who enters to come out alive.

“When I first went to Rohabaita it was reported that an immense snake had some years before been killed there by a hunter. The man was severely reproached by the priests, who said that the snake was the guardian angel of the place. It was reported to have been twenty-seven cubits, or forty feet in length, and was probably of the boa tribe.”[137]

Another saint of remarkable powers was Tederos (St. Theodore). He resided at the hamlet near Rohabaita which now bears his name. Here, “on the face of the rock is the little hole wherein he lived; it is barely high enough for a person to squat in; and the marks worn in the stone by the crown of his head, the soles of his feet, and his elbows are still shown. His miracles were many. Among others, a leopard ate up his son, the saint, returning home, missed him, and set out in search of him. When in the forest he called aloud to him three times, and at the third time the leopard appeared: on seeing him, the saint guessed how the matter stood with the unfortunate youth; but, nothing discouraged, he coolly ordered the beast to return him safe and sound. Now this was rather difficult, as the leopard had, no doubt, half digested him; nevertheless, so great was the saint’s power that the boy left the leopard’s maw none the worse, perhaps rather the better, for having been dismembered and reconstructed. Being asked where a church should be built, the saint threw his staff, desiring the inquirers to build where they found the staff had fallen. After many days it was found several miles off in Serawi, on the other side of the valley, exactly on the spot where now stands the church of Debra Mariam.

“Many other wonderful stories were told me of his feats, but I have forgotten them. The most useful act attributed to him was that he caused the rock below him to become hollow, in order to receive the rain-water. The hollow still exists, though I should strongly suspect it to be of Nature’s construction; or, if the saint had a hand in its design, he must have been a clumsy fellow, for with half the labour he might have made a place capable of containing twice the quantity of water.”[138]

Parkyns was not sure of the parentage of the youth who was disgorged by the leopard. “I hope I am right in giving St. Theodore a son,” he wrote. “I don’t know whether his being a father would preclude his being a saint: however, it was a youth nearly related to him, if I remember the story right.”

Some chroniclers “pretend that St. Matthew and St. Bartholomew actually visited the country. Some even go so far as to assert that the Virgin Mary herself, with the child Jesus, came into Abyssinia when she fled to Egypt, and show a place in a high mountain which is called her throne or seat.”[139] Bruce wrote that “in the Synaxar, or history of their saints, one is said to have thrown the devil over a high mountain; another persuaded him to live as a monk for forty years; another had a holy longing for partridges, upon which a brace perched on his plate—martyrs ready roasted.”[140]

“In many cases,” Parkyns wrote, “the patron saint is preferred to the Almighty; and a man who would not hesitate to invoke the name of his Maker in witness to a falsehood would have difficulty in disguising his perjury if he were appealed to in the name of St. Michael or St. George. It is also a well-known fact, and most common of occurrence, that a favour besought in the name of God would often be refused, while, if the request were immediately after repeated in the name of the Virgin or of some favourite saint, it would probably be granted. This may be observed in the appeal of the common street beggar in Tigre, whose ordinary cry is, ‘Silla Izgyheyr! Silla Medhainy Allam!’ (For the sake of God! For the sake of the Saviour!)—while, if he be very importunate, he will change his usual whining tone, and add with persuasive emphasis, ‘Silla Mariam! Silla Abouna Tekla Haimanout!’” (For the sake of Mary! For the sake of Tekla Haimanout!)

It has already been said that Tekla Haimanot and other early celebrities of the Church were monks. Monasteries are plentiful in the land, and there are also hermits who practise asceticism in desolate and lonely places. Mr. Herbert Vivian gained admission to a conventual house, and has given a lively description of it.[141] The sanctity of the Abyssinian monk or anchorite is in proportion to his prowess in mortifying the flesh, and this class of men still retains much religious _prestige_ and influence in the land. But probably the pristine rigour of their life has been much relaxed, and the remarks of Major Cornwallis Harris are applicable at the present time.

“Education was in former days to be obtained alone from the inmate of the monastic abode, and a life of scanty food, austerity, and severe fasting was embraced only by the more enthusiastic. But the skin-cloak and the dirty headdress now envelope the listless monk, who, satisfied with a dreamy and indolent existence, basks during the day on the grassy banks of the sparkling rivulet, and prefers a bare sufficiency of coarse fare to the sweeter morsel earned by the sweat of the brow.”[142]

The same writer’s account of the consecration of a friar is interesting. “The monk is admitted to the order of his choice by any officiating priest. A prayer is repeated, the skull-cap blessed with the sign of the cross, and the ceremony is complete. But a more imposing rite attends the oath of celibacy before the Abouna. The clergy assemble in numbers, and fires are lighted around the person of the candidate. His loins are bound about with the leathern girdle of Saint John, and the prayer and the requiem for the dead rise pealing from the circle. The _glaswa_—a narrow strip of black cloth adorned with coloured crosses—is then placed on the shaven crown, and shrouded from view by the enveloping shawl; and the archbishop, clad in his robes of state, having repeated the concluding prayer and blessing, signs with his own hand the emblem of faith over the various parts of the body.”[143]

Consul Plowden wrote in a somewhat censorious mood of the Abyssinian regulars. “Monasteries are not wanting to complete the resemblance to the Roman Catholic Church and to the Middle Ages, where every immorality is practised; nor solitary hermits, who dwell in gloomy forests, feeding on roots, and exposed to ferocious animals, and who are sometimes as sincere as they are useless.” He added, “nunneries alone are absent from the picture; though vows of celibacy are sometimes taken, if rarely kept save at an advanced age.”

With regard to religious sisterhoods he was in error. Bruce wrote that, “all women who choose to renounce acquaintance with men are allowed to turn priests, they then wear a skull-cap, like the men; and these priests, male and female, all pretend to possess charms of a nature both offensive and defensive, which are most generally believed in.”[144] The same writer asserted that he and his party on one occasion, after passing the River Taccazze, “at last reached a plain filled with flowering shrubs, roses, jessamines, etc., and animated by a number of people passing to and fro. Several of these were monks and nuns from Waldubba, in pairs, two and two together. The women, who are both young and stout, were carrying large burdens of provisions on their shoulders, which showed that they did not entirely subsist upon the herbs of Waldubba. The monks, their _compagnons de voyage_, had sallow faces, yellow cowls, and yellow gowns.”[145]

Bruce may have been mistaken as to the character of these young women; but not all who take the vows are strict in the observance of them. Mr. Augustus Wylde met a nun in the flesh, a lady of high rank in the country, whose charms were neither “offensive nor defensive.” He wrote, “before getting to Mokareet we were joined by Ras Mangesha’s young sister. She is supposed to be a nun and devote her time to charity and good actions, and she has asked permission of Hailou to join us and camp with us for the next three or four days. I now quote from my diary—

“I believe this is a got-up job, as Hailou had his hair replaited this morning and put on clean cloths, and the pair are evidently very old friends. She is dressed in the most spotless white garments of the very best quality, and is most clean and neat in her appearance. From under her clean white hood a pretty face appears with a pair of roguish merry eyes. . . . She sent over her pretty waiting-maid as soon as camp was pitched, asking me to come and pay her a visit, but I was too seedy with fever, so sent Schimper to make my excuses; when he came back his first remark in his precise manner of talking was: ‘Oh, Mr. Wylde, I do not think she is a very good lady, she has asked me for many things, and she wants your umbrella.’ Of course I had to send it, and next morning on the way to Merta I had some of the sweetest of smiles, and we kept up a long conversation; she had never seen an Englishman before, and she wanted to know if they all had red heads and moustaches and were big men . . .

“I found out that she was considered very ‘rapid’ even for Abyssinia, where the young ladies are fast, and that her brother had sent her to a nunnery as he could not keep her in order, and she absolutely refused to marry the men of his choice; she was changing her quarters from one nunnery to another, and was evidently sweet on Hailou.”

But Mr. Wylde had met other nuns, “good pious old ladies at Abbi-Addi and Macalle, who fasted for over half the number of days in the year, and were perpetually praying and singing from the early grey dawn till late at night, and they seemed to live a calm and peaceful life in their beautiful natural surroundings, and bothered themselves very little with the troubles of this life, and passed their days in eating, sleeping, and praying, and doing what little acts of charity they could in the way of tending the sick and feeding any poor beggars that came to their houses.”[146]

Many rites and ceremonies of Hebrew origin have been incorporated in Abyssinian Christianity, _e.g._ circumcision is practised. Considering the history and traditions of the people, this respect for Judaic ordinances is not surprising. Major Harris devoted a chapter of his book to “Abyssinian Rites and Practices which would appear to have been borrowed from the Hebrews,” and most of the authors who have written about the country have alluded to the same subject. Perhaps the most remarkable example of the influence of Jewish doctrines is the veneration in which the _tabot_ is held.

“The Jewish temple consisted of three distinct divisions—the forecourt, the holy, and the holy of holies. To the first laymen were admitted, to the second only the priest, and to the third the high priest alone. All entrance was denied to the Pagan, a custom which is rigorously enforced in Abyssinia; and her churches are in like manner divided into three parts.

“Eight feet in breadth, the first compartment stretches, after the fashion of a corridor, entirely around the building. It is styled _Kene Máhelet_, and, strewed throughout with green rushes, forms the scene of morning worship. To the right of the entrance is the seat of honour for priests and erudite scribes; and beyond this court, save on certain occasions, the bare foot of the unlearned layman cannot pass.

“_Makdas_ is the second compartment. This is the sanctuary in which the priests officiate, and a corner is set apart for laymen during the administration of the holy supper, whilst a cloth screens the mysteries of the interior. Here also hang, arranged around the walls, the bones of many deceased worthies, which have been carefully gathered from the newly opened sepulchre, and are deposited by the hand of the priest in cotton bags. By the nearest relative the first opportunity is embraced of transporting these mouldering emblems of mortality to the sacred resting-place of Debra Libanos, where the living and the dead are alike blessed with a rich treasure of righteousness, since the remains of Tekla Haimanot, the patron saint of Abyssinia, still shed a bright halo over the scene of his miracles upon earth.

“To _Kedis Kedisen_, the holy of holies, none but the Alaka[147] is admitted. Behind its veil the sacrament is consecrated, the communion vessels are deposited, and the tremendous mysteries of the _tabot_, or ark of the covenant, are shrouded from the eyes of the uninitiated. The gold of the foreigner has penetrated the secret of the contents of this box, which are nothing more than a scroll of parchment, on which is inscribed the name of the patron saint of the church; but the priest who dared to open his lips on the subject to one of his own countrymen would incur the heavy penalties due to the sacrilege.”[148]

Another foreigner whose gold “penetrated the secret” of the _Kedis Kedisen_ was Mr. Herbert Vivian. In company with a friend he was, for a consideration of two dollars, admitted to the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the Church of St. Raguel at Entotto. “The custodians seemed to know very well that they were doing wrong, and displayed huge anxiety to get the thing over as quickly as possible. They hurried us up the rickety steps, opened the door of the sanctuary, took great care to keep us as far off as possible, and kept exclaiming, ‘Now that is all. I hope you are satisfied. Let us go away again. You ought really to give us some more dollars for what we have done.’ There was, however, really next to nothing to see. In the darkness I could just make out the tabernacle inside the holy of holies. It was a kind of ark, covered with cheap draperies and surmounted by a crucifix. A few lanterns lay about. That was all. At any rate, that was all that we could induce the priest to show us.”[149]

Mr. Hormuzd Rassam has given a sketch of a _tabot_ in his book, with the following description: “The _tabot_ is a square block of wood on which the emblem of the cross, with some appropriate passage of Scripture, is sometimes represented. No church can be consecrated without it, and in the church from which it has been removed the Lord’s Supper cannot be celebrated. It is placed upon the altar in the centre of the holy of holies, and by the ignorant clergy is regarded with as much veneration as the consecrated elements.”[150] Annually, on the eve of the festival which commemorates Christ’s baptism, the _tabot_ is carried out of the church by the chief officiating priest, “and left all night covered in a tent or hut erected for the purpose near a stream or pool. At daybreak the following morning it is taken to the water, and after being sprinkled with a few drops is again enveloped in the church-cloth, and replaced under the tent until the time arrives for its formal restoration to the church—a grand religious ceremony, accompanied with singing of psalms and dancing.” In this recessional solemnity, which Mr. Rassam saw, “the priests led the way, bearing various sacred symbols, and chanting psalms all the while, followed by a train of about three hundred men and a score of damsels, all dancing, singing, and screeching as they went.”[151]

The appearance of Abyssinian churches has already been alluded to, but the following general description, given by Major Harris, may serve to bring the principles of their construction clearly before the reader. “There are, perhaps, more churches in Abyssinia than in any other part of the Christian world; and he who has erected one believes that he has atoned for every sin. But even the best are very miserable edifices of wattle plastered with mud, only to be distinguished from the surrounding hovels by a thin coating of whitewash, which is dashed over the outside to point with the finger of pride to the peculiar privilege of the two great powers in the land. Circular in form, with a door to each quarter of the compass, and a conical thatch, they have an apex surmounted by a brazen cross, which is usually adorned with ostrich eggs; and the same depraved and heathenish taste pervades the decorations of the interior. Sculpture is strictly forbidden; but the walls are bedaubed with paintings of the patron saint of the church, the Blessed Virgin, and a truly incongruous assemblage of cherubim and fallen angels, with the evil one himself enveloped in hell flames. Timbrels and crutches depend in picturesque confusion from the bare rafters of the roof, and no ceiling protects the head from the descent of the lizard and the spider.”[152] Mr. Hormuzd Rassam has given a sketch of the ground plan of an Abyssinian church, showing the entrances and “courts.”[153] According to him “the outer enclosure is for the congregation generally, male and female, the former occupying the western portion, and praying with their faces towards the east; the latter standing opposite to them and facing the west.”[154]

The “crutches” mentioned by Major Harris astonished Mr. Vivian at a later date. He saw them in a monastery, and “imagined they had been contributed by lame people, to whom the saint of the place had restored the use of their legs. As a matter of fact, however, they were merely the crutches which every priest uses in the ritual of the dance.”[155] The manner in which these singular adjuncts of the priestly office are employed has been described by Mr. Vivian. He attended a service at Trinity Church in Addis Abiba, and has given a very interesting account of the ceremonies. At a certain stage “all the priests grasp their long crutches and go through a kind of gymnastic exercise, which reminds me of the use of spears at a Somali dance. The crutches are five feet long, and must, I imagine, have originally taken their origin from spears, adapted for civilian use. The tops are either of ivory or brass, some of them elaborately carved. . . . One priest acts as conductor, and the others imitate his movements, all singing loudly through their noses. . . . The crutches are held in the middle and darted at the ground, now near, now far, with a forward movement made by slightly bending the right knee. It is as though spears were being poised and aimed playfully at objects on the floor. The crutches are then lifted, crook end up, a foot into the air, they are poised, they are swung, with ever-increasing vigour. All of a sudden the whole exercise ceases without any warning whatever.”[156]

Major Harris wrote, with regard to certain other clerical functions—“The Father Confessor is bound to the strictest secrecy; and it is believed that on this point a dread oath is taken before ordination, when all the mysteries are expounded by the Abouna, and especially those which have reference to the preparation of bread for the holy supper. In a small house styled Bethlehem,[157] which rises immediately behind every church, the mysterious ceremony is performed. The deacon can alone bake the cake; and the most vigilant guard is invariably preserved against the approach or intrusion of females or other improper visitors during the hour of solemn preparation.”[158]

The first appendix to Vol. III. of Major Harris’s book contains a list of the sacred writings used by the Abyssinian Church. These include, _inter alia_—

The Old Testament.

The four gospels with readings, and all the other books of the New Testament.

_Genset._ A book used in funeral solemnities, ascribed to Athanasius, and stated to have been discovered by Helena at the digging out of the Holy Cross.

_Retna Haimanot._ The orthodox faith.

_Henoch._ The prophecies of Enoch.

_Gadela Tekla Haimanot._ Life of Tekla Haimanot. (And the lives of many other saints.)

_Synodos._ Canons of the Church, attributed to the Apostles.

_Sena Febrak._ History of the Creation; containing certain fabulous traditions concerning the Creation and the Antediluvian world, said to have been communicated to Moses on Mount Sinai, but not recorded in the Book of Genesis.

_Tamera Mariam._ Miracles of the Holy Virgin, wrought during her sojourn in Abyssinia, where she is said to have tarried three years and six months with the infant Jesus, before her return to Palestine.

_Nagara Mariam._ Words of the Holy Virgin.

_Ardeet._ Words said to have been spoken by Christ before his ascension.

_Kedasie._ Liturgy of the Abyssinian Church.

_Gadela Adam._ History of Adam.

_Auda Negest._ Book for prognostication.

_Kufalik._ Mysteries revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, not written in the Pentateuch.

_Serata beita Chrestian._ Institutions of the Christian Church.

_Degwa._ Book of anthems, in which all the pieces of the liturgy that are chanted are set to music by St. Yareed, a native of Simien, who lived thirteen centuries ago and is believed to live still.

_Lefafa Zedik._ Prayers and spells against evil spirits and diseases, a book much esteemed, and buried along with the corpse.

_Zalota Musa._ Prayers of Moses against the influence of evil spirits.

_Melka Michael._ Prayers to St. Michael.

_Mazafa Tomar._ A letter which Christ is said to have written.

_Germama._ Prayers to frighten evil spirits.

_Fekaric Yasoos._ Christ’s prophecy of the consummation of the world.

_Haimanot Abao._ Doctrines of the Abyssinian Church, comprising extracts from the Holy Scriptures, from synods, councils, and writings of the Fathers.

_Gelota Monakosat._ Prayers of the monks.

_Felekisus._ Book on monastic subjects.

_Gadela Yob._ Life of Job.

_Raia Miriam._ Dream of the Holy Virgin.

_Gadela Samoetal._ Lives of the martyrs.

The second appendix of the same volume contains a summary of the “Senkesar, or Synaxaria, being a _Collectio Vitarum Sanctarum_ together with the Calendar of the Ethiopic Christian Church.” The compiler of the summary wrote, “The following calendar, translated from the Latin of Ludolf, has been considerably enlarged by a comparison at Ankóber with a complete copy of the ‘Senkesar.’ The lives of the Saints, or the detail of miracles written against each day, are publicly read in the churches at the services beginning at the cock’s first crowing.”

The first month of the Abyssinian year is September. It is not surprising that in the long list of saints, patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, virgins, hermits, kings, “Fathers,” presbyters, emperors, and male and female ascetics whose deeds are commemorated between New Year’s Day (September 1, by Ethiopian reckoning) and the festival of St. Andrew and Moses, Bishop of Ferme, (being the thirtieth and last day of August according to the same computation), there should occur many names of worthies who are unknown to most European readers. For instance—

Abba Anbasa, who rode upon a lion.

Eustathius, who brought a dead child back to life. (This miracle is attributed to many of the saints.)

Ananias, who baptized St. Paul.

Pantaleon.

Jemrah, a martyr. On the spot where his blood was spilt there grew up a fine vine.

Naakweto-Laab, the last Emperor of Ethiopia, of the family of Zague. He did not die.

Cosmus, Metropolite. It is said that the image of Mary shed tears when it beheld his excruciating tortures.

The two hundred and ninety-two brothers and forty-nine sisters of Cosmus.

Abba Marina, who was discovered after death to have been a woman.

Barsufius.

Johannes Cama, whose fingers and nails seemed burning like candles during prayer.

Abba Libanus, who brought water out of a rock.

Daniel, the woman-hater, who vowed never to look at a woman.

The forty-nine old hermits.

Joseph, who was saved out of a fiery oven.

The 80,107 martyrs with Isidorus.

Atom and Arianus.

Eusebius, who, “being threatened to be burnt, was taken to heaven by Uriel the archangel, and remained there fourteen years.”[159]

And many others whose sanctity is as little known in the Western Churches.

If there is anywhere a leisured and adventurous student of comparative hagiology, he would obtain some interesting results by tracing the origin and growth of the legends which glorify these worthies.

A survey of what has been said shows that Consul Plowden was fully justified when he wrote, “the Christianity professed and taught in Abyssinia is much materialized.” Nevertheless, the credulity and superstition which prevail in the country are not in essence grosser than the unwarranted beliefs which were accepted in Europe when the _Aurea Legenda_ passed as sound devotional reading, and it would be as unjustifiable to judge the intellectual capability of the Habashes by their faith in myths as it would have been to estimate the ability of our forefathers by a similar standard. Nor is it certain that any sudden reformation would improve the religious state of the people. An intemperate zeal for enlightening them might, by introducing an ideal far above their real sympathies and comprehension, discredit the old conceptions without effectually substituting the new. Moreover, the fabulous feats of the saints may require a cautious and sparing criticism; for to differentiate the degrees of probability in miracles, among an unscientific but argumentative race, would, perhaps, be more likely to promote scepticism as to all thaumaturgy than to lead to the repudiation of certain miracles and the continued acceptance of others.

It is, of course, the fact that at present “religion” consists of little more than a mere series of outward observances. Veneration of the fabric of the church takes the place of devotion within its precincts. Dufton wrote:—“The prayers are read in Ethiopic” (Geez), “a language which the people know nothing about, so that little profit can be derived from the service. Indeed, most persons content themselves with kissing the floor or the walls of the edifice, and such is a criterion of a man’s piety; he kisses the church, they say, and so esteem him a good Christian. Some will utter a prayer. The petition takes a form similar to the following, which an old woman was heard to offer up during my visit, though the last clause is probably in most cases omitted—

“‘O Lord, give me plenty to eat and drink, good raiment, and a comfortable home, or else kill me outright!’”

Mr. Vivian visited the Church of the Blessed Virgin at Entotto, and noticed that all the Abyssinians who were with him “hastened to kiss the floor-beam and side-posts or lintels of the door in the outer wall.” And at Trinity Church in Addis Abiba “whenever a peasant approached the church on a mule, he dismounted and kissed a large black stone which stood some twenty yards away. Other persons of a more pious turn of mind went right up to the entrance and kissed not only the lintels, but even the floor-beam of the doorway. This was also done by everybody who was coming to church, and my servant, in whom I had never detected any semblance of piety on the road, was particularly punctilious in this respect.”[160]

But it is not the case that the Habashes avoid all religious duties that are irksome. Parkyns wrote: “Their fasts are more numerous perhaps than those of any other Christian people, more than two-thirds of the year being assigned to abstinence. Nor in their fasting do they get off as easily as Roman Catholics; for it is not sufficient that they should abstain from animal food only; an Abyssinian, during fast-time, neither eats nor drinks anything till late in the afternoon. . . . It is true the Mohammedans do nearly the same during their month of Ramadan; but they only change the day into night, feasting during the night-time on more luxurious food than many of them could allow themselves during the remainder of the year; while the Abyssinian, when he does eat, confines himself to dried peas, dressed in a sort of bad oil, or to an equally unpalatable dish made of a kind of spinach, called ‘hamly’ or ‘goummen.’ . . . Many of the Abyssinian fasts are of long duration. The time of day when the people may eat is determined by the length of a man’s shadow, measured by his own feet, and varies in different fasts. Thus the fast of Advent is during the last ten days of the month Hedar (October) and the whole of Tahsas (November), and during each day till a man’s shadow measures nine and a half feet. The fast of Lent lasts till sunset during fifty-five days. . . . Besides these are the Wednesdays and Fridays, making nearly 260 days of fasting. . . . Some of the priests are very rigorous in keeping all these fasts, and many even voluntarily add a number for their own observance. The people, too, in general are tolerably attentive to this duty; and I have frequently met with men undergoing extreme labour, yet persevering in what they have been brought up to consider as one of the most essential parts of their religion; for, strictly speaking, a man who has been known to neglect the rules of the Church is looked upon almost as an infidel, and should he die in such a state of disobedience, his body would be refused sepulture in the churches. Good Friday and the following day are passed by the priests and the rigidly devout in an absolute fast of forty-eight hours.”[161]

Plowden remarked: “So much do they attach importance to this (fasting) and other outward forms that a man of Hamazayn[162] will slay his near relative, and returning home calmly, will be horror-stricken should his wife have ground flour on a saint’s day, or prepared his meal before the hours of fasting have expired.”[163]

It must be owned that the Habashes recompense themselves as far as possible for the severity of their abstinence by gluttony at the numerous feasts which the Church also ordains.

Major Cornwallis Harris drew attention to a singular custom in the following words—“Fasts, penances, and excommunication form the chief props of the clerical power; but the repentant sinner can always purchase a substitute to undergo the two former, and the ban of the Church is readily averted by a timely offering.”[164] This seems to indicate an opinion among the Abyssinians that a sin is expiated not by the contrition of the evil-doer, but by a formal amount of punishment undergone somewhere by some one—no matter by whom.

The Abyssinian Church teaches, and the great majority of the people accept, the doctrine of transubstantiation. Those who hold this belief “assert that the actual body and blood of our Saviour are partaken of by the faithful, but that an angel takes them away from an unbeliever, and restores the bread and wine, in his hands, in their natural state, such as they were previous to the benediction. The wine is merely an infusion of dried raisins.”[165] Stern tells the story of a miracle which is supposed to have established the fact of transubstantiation, and adds, “The erudite reject the legend, and, in their sentiments, approximate to the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation.”[166] The Church also teaches the doctrine of purgatory and that “prayers for the dead are necessary, and absolution indispensable. The souls of the departed do not immediately enter upon a state of happiness, the period being in exact accordance with the alms and prayers that are expended upon earth.”[167] Stern declared that “the number of masses requisite for the repose of the soul has not been defined by the Church, and thus the misery or bliss of the defunct is at the mercy of niggardly relatives and exacting priests.”[168] Both writers attribute the introduction of this opinion to the Jews.

The badge of Ethiopian Christianity, worn by all classes, is the _mateb_, a blue neck-thread of silk or wool. This is the distinctive mark of the Abyssinians’ creed; they hardly believe that one who does not wear it is in reality a Christian, and, said Dufton, besides disdaining their Mohammedan and Jewish neighbours, “they often include in their contempt every form of Christianity even which does not conform to their own”[169]—in which prejudice they are not so singular as at a first glance they may appear to be. Commonly a silver ring or cross is attached to the cord.

The general character of the clergy appears from what has already been related. Parkyns saw them in remote places and in their least spiritual aspect. For instance, in describing the feast on St. Michael’s day at Addy Harisho, he wrote: “An old priest came up to me and offered, on the part of himself and his brethren, to perform, if I pleased, the religious dance and song used by them on such occasions. I never shall forget their ludicrous efforts to appear graceful, at the same time staggering every step; while the expression of devotion they affected to assume was reduced to a languid smile and thickening eyelids, expressive of nothing but liquor. A hiccup or two occasionally interfered with the solemn words they were chanting; and the stately movements they had begun with changed gradually, and by degrees the dance became a reel, or rather reeling movement, the words only which accompanied it remaining solemn. At last an old priest, suddenly forgetting the original chant, changed its words to those of a jovial drinking ditty: ‘Don’t you stop the liquor, and I will dance for ever!’ Instead of the marks of disapprobation from his fellow-priests, they only burst into a loud laugh, and, declaring the entertainment to be changed for the better, all with one consent followed his example and his tune.”[170]

Nevertheless, Parkyns wrote of the priests with tolerance and good humour. And it is worthy of note that two other British writers who knew the country well have had a good word to say for the clergy. Plowden, after mentioning some of their faults, observed: “It is just to say that they have preserved the Christian faith, impure indeed, but still alive, in the midst of foreign invasion, domestic degradation, and the extinction of Government, and that it is under their protection that agriculture flourishes, and villages are built where deserts would else be seen.”[171] Mr. Augustus Wylde, among several remarks in a similar sense, said: “I have found the clergy, if left alone, peaceable, simple-minded men, very hospitable and always willing to do me a good turn, and ready to help me and pass me on to their neighbouring friends, and I expect other travellers would find them the same as long as they treated them properly.”[172]

An interesting instance of the survival of a Jewish institution among the Christians of Abyssinia is that of Cities of Refuge. Plowden wrote, “All the larger towns are entirely under their (the priests’) control, and being cities of refuge, sacred even from the Ras, are filled with dissolute and dangerous characters.”[173] Parkyns mentioned Axum as a place of this kind, and added, “at Adoua the whole of that part called after the church, in fact the parish, is sanctuary (‘guddam’), and no person having taken refuge there can be arrested, although he walk about the public streets in broad daylight, so long as he does not pass the parish boundaries.”[174] Stern alluded to the subject, and had formed the impression that churches in general were sanctuaries. “In most cases the murderer may elude the violent rage of his pursuers by taking refuge in a church, where the priests will negotiate the price of his release.”[175] He mentioned also certain rivers—the Taccazze and the Abai—forming the limits of provinces, which the “avenger of blood” may not pass.[176]

The Jewish Sabbath is still held in veneration by the Abyssinian Christians. Parkyns observed that a feast called “adam Souaur,” or “left Saturday,” was observed, “as that day was formerly the Jewish Sabbath, but given up by the Christians for the Sunday at the time of the resurrection of our Saviour. The priests collect a quantity of rushes, and bless them in the church; and then a priest and a deacon take them out into the parish, the deacon carrying the bundle, and the priest distributing the rushes to all passers-by, binding them on the head of the receiver. They also visit the houses with them, and generally receive a handsome present.”[177] It would be interesting to discover the origin of this custom. Major Harris, writing in 1843, said, “The Jewish Sabbath is strictly observed throughout the kingdom. The ox and ass are at rest. Agricultural pursuits are suspended. Household avocations must be laid aside, and the spirit of idleness reigns throughout the day.”[178] The same writer has given a brief history of the observance.[179]

It is well known that at one time Abyssinia was, so far as the Emperor’s power extended at that period, converted to Roman Catholicism by the instrumentality of Portuguese missionaries. The connection with Portugal commenced in 1499, when Pedro Covilham penetrated by way of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, to Shoa, where the Emperor then held his court. He was well received. An ancient Ethiopian law decreed that no foreigner who reached Abyssinia should be allowed to leave the country, but Covilham was permitted to send home an account of his experiences. At a later date a further communication from the traveller induced the Portuguese Government to despatch an embassy, which, after many privations and adventures, arrived in Shoa in October, 1520. It brought no presents, and was not cordially welcomed. However, the Emperor desired to send an answer to the King of Portugal, and therefore—in defiance of the ancient usage—allowed the ambassador to return to Lisbon, taking with him an Ethiopian envoy. But certain of the Portuguese were detained in Abyssinia, among whom was a priest named John Bermudez.

Some years later this man was appointed Abouna, or Patriarch, on the death of the incumbent of that office. He made his way to Rome, where Pope Paul III. confirmed his title, and he thence proceeded, in accordance with the Emperor’s desire, to Portugal, and solicited the aid of European troops to assist the Abyssinians in repelling the Mohammedan invasion which then threatened the country.

The Portuguese Government despatched an expedition of some four hundred men under Don Christopher de Gama. These troops disembarked at Massowah in 1542. In an engagement with the Mohammedan forces on August 30 of that year the Abyssinian allies took to flight, and the Portuguese were surrounded. They cut their way through the enemy and effected their retreat, but Don Christopher, who had been wounded, was captured by the enemy and murdered by the Mohammedan commander. His skull was sent to Constantinople as a trophy. The surviving Portuguese besought of the Emperor an opportunity to avenge their leader, and they shortly afterwards took part in an action in which the Mohammedan forces were routed with great slaughter.

These circumstances added to the influence of Bermudez, but he insisted rigorously on the complete acceptance of Roman doctrine and ritual by the Abyssinians, and thus incurred the resentment of the Emperor. As a consequence he lost the advantages which he and his compatriots had gained, and finally abandoned his task and quitted the country, embarking at Massowah, where he had landed.

A subsequent mission under the leadership of Oviedo, Bishop of Hieropolis, which reached Massowah in 1558, failed equally, after many adventures—including an Abyssinian Council at which the Emperor and the bishop publicly and heatedly disputed about points of doctrine—and in 1560 Oviedo received orders from Rome to withdraw from Ethiopia and proceed to Japan.

Peter Paez was the next missionary who attempted to bring Abyssinia into communion with the Catholic Church. After suffering shipwreck in the Red Sea and enduring a seven years’ captivity in the hands of the Turks he landed at Massowah in 1600. Paez was a man of prudence and ability. He prepared himself for his task by learning the Geez language and opening a school at Maiguagua, in which he was able to study the character of the Abyssinian people. He acquired a reputation as a teacher and disputant, and in 1604 was summoned to the court, where the reigning Emperor, Za Dengel, received him as a person of distinction. He soon acquired influence over this monarch, who sanctioned the use of the Roman ritual and shortly became a convert to Catholicism. A rebellion—one of the ordinary incidents of Abyssinian politics—was organized against him, and he was slain. A period of civil war ensued, during which his successor shared the same fate.

The crown then passed to the Emperor Segued (called also Socinios and Susneus).[180] Paez aroused his interest by his skill in architecture and his other talents, was received into favour, and for the second time induced the ruler of the country to recognize the authority of the Catholic Church. Letters announcing the event, signed by the Emperor himself, were sent to the Pope and the King of Portugal. Paez died in 1623, shortly after receiving Segued’s formal abjuration of heresy and administering to him the sacrament of penance.

Upon receipt of the Emperor’s letter, the Pope, in 1624, despatched to Ethiopia a mission headed by Alphonso Mendez, a Jesuit and doctor of divinity. This envoy and his followers reached Abyssinia in 1625. On February 11, 1626, before the court and the magnates of the country, the Emperor avowed his submission to the head of the Catholic Church, and took the oath of obedience to the Holy See. A proclamation was then made that “all persons intended for priests should embrace the Catholic religion under pain of death, and that all should follow the forms of the Church of Rome in the celebration of Easter and Lent under the same penalty.”

The change of creed was not popular in the country. It was opposed by force, and became the occasion of a renewal of civil war. The Emperor found that he had alienated his subjects, and, in spite of the protests and resistance of Mendez, he issued, in 1632, an edict by which he restored the ancient religion to its former authority, and abdicated in favour of his son. Segued died a few months afterwards, still professing the Catholic faith. His successor banished Mendez and his retinue, whereupon they sought protection with the Prince of Bar, who had been at enmity with the Abyssinian king; but this chieftain delivered them to the Turks. Father Jerome Lobo, who wrote a history of the mission, and some of his companions, reached Europe after many adventures; others were ransomed from the Pasha of Souakim and proceeded to India, and the few Jesuits who had remained in Abyssinia were put to death.

Of nine Capuchins who endeavoured to enter the country soon after these events, seven were killed, the three who arrived last being murdered by the Pasha of Souakim, at the Emperor of Abyssinia’s request, as soon as they reached the coast.

No subsequent attempt of similar importance was made to convert the Abyssinian nation to Catholicism, and the story of the struggle between the Roman and the Alexandrian forms of belief may be said to have ended with the banishment of Mendez.

There have been theological contentions in the Abyssinian Church as in others, and it has not escaped schism. The fiercest dispute arose about the number of the births of Christ, and the sword has been used—as elsewhere—to lend force to arguments. Major Harris wrote: “At the expense of a bloody civil war, Gondar, with Godjam, Damot, and all the south-western provinces of Amhára, has long maintained the three births of Christ—Christ proceeding from the Father from all eternity, styled ‘the eternal birth;’ His incarnation, as being born of the holy Virgin, termed His ‘second or temporal birth;’ and His reception of the Holy Ghost, denominated His ‘third birth.’ The Tigre ecclesiastics, on the other hand, whose side is invariably espoused by the Primate of Ethiopia, deny the third birth, upon the ground that the reception of the Holy Ghost cannot be so styled.”[181] Bishop Samuel Gobat, whose book was published in 1834, gave a fuller account of the controversy, which Parkyns quoted.[182] In Stern’s time the Abouna (primate) was supported by King Theodore in his opposition to the doctrine of the three births, and “the royal herald made proclamation that in future all who adhered to the obnoxious dogma of the threefold birth would be taught obedience by the _giraffe_ (scourging). The Shoa clergy denounced this decision as arbitrary and tyrannical, as indeed it was; but an application of the promised whip wrought a wonderful change among that insubordinate body.”[183] The same author on one occasion saw about a dozen priests in chains, who were brought before the Abouna to be admonished because “they had pertinaciously clung to the abolished dogma of the three births of Christ.”[184] The penalty which they incurred “consisted of several months’ successive fasts, divers fines, and the promise of the _giraffe_.”

For a detailed account of Abyssinian Christianity and ecclesiastical history, reference should be made to the books already mentioned in this volume—Bruce, Gobat, Harris, Lobo, Legrand, Stern, Dufton, Plowden, and Parkyns especially—and to the works of F. Alvarez[185] and Job Ludolphus.[186] A digest of the writings of the early travellers and missionaries in Abyssinia was published by F. Balthazar Tellez, and translated into English by John Stevens (1710).

Mention has already been made of the Falashas (Jews) of Abyssinia. These people, said Stern, “claiming a lineal descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, pride themselves on the fame of their progenitors and the purity of the blood that circulates in their own veins. Intermarriages with those of another tribe or creed are strictly interdicted,[187] nay, even the visit to an unbeliever’s house is a sin, and subjects the transgressor to the penance of a thorough lustration and a complete change of dress before he can return to his own home. Their stern uncompromising sectarian spirit has been highly beneficial in excluding from their community that licentious profligacy in which all the other inhabitants of Ethiopia riot; and it is generally admitted that Falasha men and women seldom, if ever, stray from the path of virtue, or transgress the solemn law of the decalogue.”[188]

Various accounts, of which two have already been mentioned, are given of the origin of the Jewish colony in Abyssinia. It is commonly believed among the people that a large retinue returned with Maqueda, Queen of Sheba, from her visit to King Solomon. Harris remarked, “The tradition of Queen Maqueda has been ascribed to the invention of those fugitive Jews, who, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus, emigrated into the northern States by way of the Red Sea, who disseminated it with the design of obtaining the desired permission to settle in the country, and whose descendants are the Falashas still extant among the mountains of Simien and Lasta.”[189] According to Stern, “the most probable conjecture is that at a very early period—perhaps when Solomon’s fleet navigated the Red Sea—some adventurous Jews, impelled by love of gain, settled among the pleasant hills of Arabia Felix; whilst others of a more daring and enterprising spirit were induced to try their fortune in the more remote mountain scenes of Ethiopia. . . . Subsequent troubles in Palestine and the final overthrow of the Jewish monarchy by Nebuchadnezzar increased the number of the emigrants, and in the lapse of a few centuries the Jews formed a powerful state in Arabia, and a formidable and turbulent people in the Alpine regions between Tigre and Amhara in Ethiopia.”[190] Mr. Vivian alluded to “a colony of aboriginal Jews up in the mountains of Tigre. They live in pastoral fashion, like the old Hebrew patriarchs, upon the produce of the flocks and herds. They have been there for centuries, perhaps even for thousands of years, and the Abyssinians confess that they have always failed to dislodge them from their inaccessible fastnesses.”[191] Falashas are also found in the provinces bordering on Lake Tsana, including Godjam, and it was in this district that Stern visited them. It seems probable that the Jews who have retained their religion are the descendants of those who refused to conform to the doctrines of the Coptic Church when they were generally adopted in the country. Bruce mentions that “about one hundred and eighty years after the establishment of Christianity, a religious war is said to have taken place between the converted and unconverted Abyssinians (the Christians and the Jews),”[192] and if one may judge by the steady and successful opposition which Hebrews in other countries have offered to the most strenuous methods of conversion, it appears likely that a portion of those in Abyssinia adhered to their ancient creed.

There is a tradition that in the tenth century the Jews obtained ascendency in Ethiopia, and preserved their supremacy for about three centuries. “In the year 960 the Jews, supported by their king and by his daughter Judith, a woman of great beauty, resolved to attempt the subversion of the Christian religion and the destruction of the race of Solomon (Queen Maqueda’s descendants having been converted to the Alexandrian doctrines). They surprised the mountain of Damo, the residence of the Christian princes, the whole of whom, about four hundred, were massacred, excepting one infant, who escaped into the powerful and loyal province of Shoa. A solitary representative of the blood of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba was thus preserved. Judith took possession of the throne, and not only enjoyed it herself for forty years, but transmitted it to five of her posterity. On the death of the last of these the crown descended to one of his relations, a Christian, and is said to have remained in his family (who, though Christians, were not of the line of Solomon) for five generations. Finally, Tekla Haimanot, the famous saint, persuaded the reigning king to restore the crown to the house of Solomon, whose descendants had survived in Shoa.”[193]

Differing accounts of the former political status of the Hebrews in the land have been given by various writers; Stern said that in their “mountain fastnesses of Simien and Bellesa they maintained, under their own kings and queens, called Gideon and Judith, a chequered and independent existence till the beginning of the seventeenth century.”[194] Harris, following Bruce more closely, wrote, “Christianity became the national religion of Abyssinia in the beginning of the fourth century. The Falashas, descendants of the Jews who were believed to have accompanied Menelek from Jerusalem, had meanwhile waxed extremely powerful, and refusing to abandon the faith of their forefathers, they now declared independence. Electing a sovereign of their own creed, they took possession of the almost impregnable mountain fastnesses of Simien, where their numbers were augmented by continual accessions from the Jews who were expelled from Palestine and from Arabia. Under the constant titles of Gideon and Judith, a succession of kings and queens held a limited sway until, in the middle of the _tenth_ century,” the Princess Esther brought about the revolution which Bruce ascribed to Judith—one writer probably using the name and the other the title of the usurper in question. Whatever the circumstances may really have been, there seems reason to believe that the Jews were at one time sufficiently influential to impose a dynasty of their choice upon the nation.

Stern has given a full and very interesting account of the Falashas whom he saw. According to this they dwell as a rule, though not invariably, apart from the remainder of the population, and “their settlements are strikingly distinguished from the Christian villages by the red earthen pot on the apex of their _mesquid_, or place of worship, which towers from the centre of the thatched huts by which it is environed. . . . Husbandry and a few simple trades—such as smiths, potters, and weavers—constitute the sole occupations in which they engage; commerce they unanimously repudiate as incompatible with their Mosaic Creed, and it is quite a disappointment not to find a single merchant among a quarter of a million of people, the lineal descendants of those who are supposed to have acquired a taste for traffic and riches on the very eve of their emancipation from Egyptian servitude.”

Though they had very few copies of the Scriptures in Stern’s time they were well acquainted with the Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch and the Psalms. “Their sacrifices,” he wrote, “are most capriciously offered, and with the exception of the Paschal Lamb, neither the offering on the Sabbath nor on the day of atonement is in accordance with the original command. . . . Every Falasha settlement has a hut at its outskirts, and there the unclean and impure must take refuge during the prescribed number of days. This ritual scrupulosity involves many social hardships and inflicts on numbers many a keen pang. Particularly in the hour of dissolution, when the sweet expressions of friendship and love are so soothing to the agonized soul and anguished frame, the dying Falasha has no affectionate hand clasped in his, and no words of comfort from beloved objects whispered in his ears. The inflexible law forbids the last offices to the weeping relative, and the helpless sufferer is in death’s agonizing convulsions dragged from the weary couch into the open air, where the polluted and unclean remove him from the bare ground to the tainted and lonely hut.”

On the Sabbath “the service, which consists in chanting psalms and hymns relieved by allegorical stories and a few verses or a chapter of the book of Leviticus, lasts a considerable time, and in some places the plaintive notes of the worshippers may even be heard across the quiet valley and around the lonely hill throughout the night. . . . Broad phylacteries and the garments of fringes are utterly unknown among them, nor do they wash the cup or practise any of the decrees of the rabbins. . . . About the advent of the Messiah they have no intelligent or definite idea. ‘We believe that Jerusalem will again be rebuilt,’ is the answer on the lip of every Falasha, when questioned as to the future destiny of his nation. This event they regard as the consummation of their brightest hopes—the realization of their fondest mundane visions. . . .”

Asceticism, borrowed from the Christian hermits, has become a practice among the Falasha priests, who “after their initiation frequently pass months and years in swampy marshes, stern wilds and poisonous jungles, where roots or dried peas, which latter they carry with them, are their only means of subsistence. Numbers succumb to the noxious influence of the atmosphere, others perish of famine, whilst not a few become the prey of the lion, hyena, and other voracious beasts which inhabit those unsightly tracts.” There are also Falasha monks, and “the dwellings and convents of these ascetics are carefully isolated from the abodes of the impure and unholy people.”

There were, in Stern’s day, three Falasha high-priests in Abyssinia, one in the province of Quara, the other in Armatgioho, and the third, Aboo Maharee, in Dembea. The missionary had some indecisive discussion with the last-named, a man about sixty years of age, “of a noble and commanding figure, swathed in a white _shama_, and holding a long bamboo staff, which in the distance looked like the crosier of a bishop.” He had a “high and expressive forehead, melancholy restless eyes, and a countenance once no doubt mild and pleasing, but to which self-imposed penances and a repulsive practice had imparted an expression most strange and unearthly.”

“The common people have all an erect, upright carriage;” the women are intelligent and _sympathiques_, and the younger of them attractive. To judge by Stern’s description,[195] the Falashas are generally a worthy, simple and devout race, bigoted but “exemplary in their morals, and cleanly in their habits”—in which latter respect they form a striking contrast to their co-religionists in the slums of London. Plowden said of the Abyssinian Jews, “They are still found in some numbers, and, though despised, are not persecuted; this may be owing to their poverty. They know nothing of the Hebrew tongue, but some read the Mosaic books in Geez, and are as scrupulous in their ceremonials as their brethren elsewhere. They are the best masons in the country.”[196]

“The _mesquids_, like the Christian churches, consist of three divisions, with an entrance towards the east. The admission into these different courts is rigorously regulated by Levitical law, and the severest penalty would be inflicted on any one who should incautiously pollute the sacred edifice. In the rear of every place of worship is a small enclosure with a huge stone in the centre; and on this crude altar the victim is slaughtered, and all other sacrificial rites performed.”[197]

For a notice of a curious superstition of which a class of Jewish people are often the object among Christian Abyssinians, see p. 288.

In the “Jewish Year-Book”[198] for 1904 the number of Jews in Abyssinia is computed at 50,000; the “American Jewish Year Book” estimates it to be 120,000. Both these figures must be conjectural, and the former differs very widely from that given by Stern, who had had opportunities of obtaining information in the country. Considering the fecundity of the Jews in most parts of the world it is unlikely that their numbers have diminished in Ethiopia during the last forty years.

In Plowden’s time there was a large and prosperous Mohammedan population in Abyssinia. He wrote: “In all large towns they have a separate quarter, with mosques and public prayers. From the advantage that their commerce in slaves gives them over their Christian competitors, the Mussulman traders are the most wealthy, and are, therefore, generally appointed to the high post of Negadeh Ras, or collector of all customs, literally ‘head of merchants.’ To enforce their authority these keep large bodies of armed men, and confidently predict the final triumph of the faith of the Prophet in Abyssinia. The Abyssinian Mussulmans, as distinguished from the Galla, are all traders; they will not eat meat killed by Christians, and are frequently their superiors in morality and intelligence. They live on terms of equality, good humour and friendship with the Christians, openly defend their creed, and receive any proselyte that offers, and do not appear to think that the restrictions in the Koran respecting strong drinks apply to them at all.” Plowden added that they, like the Christians, did not generally seclude their women.

King Theodore, early in his reign, issued an edict which “required peremptorily the expulsion from the country, or the instant return to the bosom of the Church of his apostate countrymen,” _i.e._ Mohammedans.[199] Circumstances prevented him from enforcing this decree. It was revived by King Johannes, and no doubt, had in other parts of Abyssinia the effect which Stecker observed in Korata.[200] But Mohammedans are still to be found—_e.g._ in the district of Axum[201] and in Shoa.[202]

Allusion has already been made to the Waitos.[203] Plowden wrote of them: “They call themselves Mohammedans, but are not recognized by the other followers of that creed. They principally reside near the Lake Tsana, and are a very handsome race. They are regarded with as much aversion as the Jews.”[204] It must be owned that the appreciation of their personal appearance is a matter of taste.

Another singular sect is that known as Koomants, or Kamants. These people, “found only in the neighbourhood of Gondar, are acknowledged by neither Christian, Mussulman, or Jew, and have a bastard creed, a compound of all three. They are skilful carpenters, and supply all Gondar with wood. They are despised, but being very courageous, and having lately shown an inclining towards Christianity, it is not improbable that their distinctions will soon disappear; many even now have ceased a practice which was the chief separating cause. They hung heavy weights in the lobe of the ear of the girls, who are thereby excluded from any chance of marriage with Christians.”[205] Hormuzd Rassam on one occasion halted at a village of Kamants called Saraba, north of Lake Tsana, in the direction of Gondar. He saw there “a place of worship, which they hold in great veneration. The entire space between the spring and this temple, or, more strictly, grove—they have no building for their religious services—is regarded as sacred, and no Christian or Mohammedan is allowed to enter within the hallowed precincts. When engaged in prayer, they take up a position under a tree, on the banks of the stream, or in the wood about half a mile from the spring. It is owing to this practice that the Christian Abyssinians style them ‘Worshippers of wood,’ or simply ‘Wood.’ Their religion is as great a mystery in Abyssinia as that of the Ansairies is in Syria, and although the late king (Theodore) obliged them to wear the ‘mateb’ cord, yet they still continue to practise certain rites and ceremonies unknown either to Christians or Mussulmans. They only eat meat which has been slaughtered by themselves, and eschew fish and coffee; yet they adopt Christian names, and have a kind of baptism, which their Christian countrymen designate a ‘mockery.’”[206]

Stern’s first experience of these people was agreeable. In a deep valley called Walee Dubba, on the way to Tschelga, he met some young women who had jars of _dallah_, a beer made from sprouting barley, to sell. “It was quite an unexpected surprise,” he wrote, “to see the solitude of an African wilderness enlivened with the gay song and sprightly converse of a number of young lasses, who, clad in rustling leather petticoats, moved about amongst the various groups resting under the leafy foliage, with a grace and innate modesty which elicited admiration, whilst at the same time it forbad all unbecoming liberty.” At Tschelga he questioned some of the Kamants “about their knowledge of God and their hopes of eternity; but they had so little to communicate, beyond a belief in a Supreme Being and the existence of a future state, that the most simple query caused them the utmost wonder and surprise. . . . Their language is Amharic, but amongst themselves they speak in the Falasha tongue; and the striking Jewish features of many a man and woman amongst them inclined us to credit the report which assigns to them a Jewish origin.” The same writer has mentioned the legendary derivation of their name,[207] and he described them as industrious, energetic, and active. He saw many of their women in Gondar, and remarked that “it was a strange sight to see these young females—clad in simple leather petticoats and equally simple earrings of wood, which, according to the orthodox fashion, must be weighty enough to distend in a few years the flap of the ear down to the shoulders—walking about in the market, or groaning under a heavy burden of wood, utterly unconcerned about everything except the graceful ornament that dangled round their necks.”[208]

At the present time European creeds are represented in Abyssinia by converts, whose change of faith is due to the activity of missionaries. Mr. Wylde wrote upon this subject—“I believe the majority of the Abyssinians care a great deal for their religion, and it is only the more worthless ones that are found round the different mission stations; people who are willing to change their faith the same as they would their clothes, and when they have worn out all that are to be got, revert to their original one again, without perhaps being any the better or any the worse for the experience, but only to be marked by others as being utterly worthless and unreliable characters. I will never have a male servant in my employ that has been near a mission, if I can help it. Female servants are different; they usually are taught to sew, wash, and cook, and are generally cleanly in their habits, but when they get to a certain age the majority of them run away from these establishments, as they cannot stand the discipline and restraint; and I don’t blame them, as a more unlovely and monotonous life does not exist.”[209]

There is a code of law in Abyssinia, which is called _Fatha Negest_, or _Feth Negust_. According to Major Harris this volume of “The Judgments of the Kings” is said to have fallen from heaven in the time of Constantine the Great, and he includes it among the books of which MSS. are still extant in the country.[210] Plowden stated that it was supposed “to have been compiled by the Council of Three Hundred, in the earlier ages of the Church, and regarded originally as of almost equal authority with the sacred writings.”[211] He further remarked that this code “is a bad translation from that of Justinian; three parts of it being occupied with Church affairs and regulations, and a small portion only with the civil and criminal law, this latter being also much mixed up with the institutions of the Pentateuch. Bad as it is, there are probably not twenty persons in the country that are conversant with it; and some singular judgments are given on its authority, much after the fashion of the _sortes Virgilianæ_. Though it is consulted with much ceremony, and considered a sacred volume, law is, in fact, simplified to the will of the chief. Still, the fact of there being a written law has assisted in retarding the degradation of the people.”[212]

The following extract from Parkyns’s work shows the spirit of Ethiopian jurisprudence in dealing with serious crime: “As for the laws of the country, they are for the most part formed on the basis of the old Mosaic dispensation. ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’ is followed nearly to the letter—so much so that, if a man kill another, the murderer must be put to death by the nearest relatives of the deceased with precisely the same kind of weapon as that with which he killed his victim.”[213] The murderer may redeem his life by paying a ransom, which, in Stern’s time, varied from fifty to two hundred and fifty Maria Theresa dollars. If he did not possess the requisite amount he was chained to a relative of the deceased and obliged to beg till he had collected the stipulated sum. The severity of the punishments in vogue varies with the temperament of different rulers, the Emperor being the final authority in such matters, and a right of appeal to him is admitted in favour of all accused persons.[214] Mutilation is a common penalty.[215] “This,” said Mr. Wylde, “has not the terrors that it would have in England, as some of the thieves in Abyssinia have been operated on a second and a third time, and I saw one man with his left foot being the only extremity left, and he was being fed by the priests at the church at Adowa.”[216]

All Abyssinian litigants are required to find security. “These securities must be persons whom the judge is certain of being able to seize if necessary. If the charge be serious they must be persons of property, and are liable both for the appearance of their principals, and for the sentence whatever that may be. This custom obtains both in civil and criminal law. In default of such security, each party is chained by the wrist; an additional expense, as the chains must be hired, and the jailor—that is, the person to whom he is chained, paid a sum fixed by law. This bail is the prop of Abyssinian society; no commercial or market transfer takes place without it. The Abyssinian judge or creditor cares nothing for the principal in a cause; the bail is seized, and in self-defence produces his man; and it is an honourable trait that the principal rarely absconds. A friend will thus become security in a case of murder, though rendering himself thereby liable to suffer death, or to pay the price of blood, to them a fortune.

“After both parties have given security the plaintiff only is allowed to produce his witnesses; the defendant can, when they are called by name, admit or reject their evidence, in almost every case great indulgence being shown in this respect. . . . In small affairs, such as a sudden dispute on the high road, the meeting of an absconded debtor, or any civil matter, the first decent person to be found is obliged to act as a temporary judge, if adjured by the ‘death of the chief’ paramount. He must then place the accused in bonds, which is done by tying his cloth (_shama_) to that of his accuser, and escort or send them to the nearest magistrate, who, should the accused demand it, must in like manner forward him to his immediate master or chief, where the case is first heard, the plaintiff having right of appeal; the law in this being, however, highly favourable to the defendant, the plaintiff not being always disposed for a long journey.”[217]

Every man is his own advocate. Those who wish to read an account of the proceedings “in court” should refer to “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 308, or “Wanderings among the Falashas,” pp. 48, 170. The hearing usually gives occasion for a good deal of eloquence and a great deal of lying.

There is no sort of general education in Abyssinia. Men of attainments are found in the upper classes, and some of the higher officials are capable linguists. But as regards the bulk of the nation learning has advanced little since the days of Harris. “The stores of literature being bound up in a dead letter (the Geez language), few excepting the priests and _defterers_ can decipher them, and many of these learned men are often more indebted to the memory of their early youth than to the well-thumbed page in their hand. The ignorance of the nation is, indeed, truly deplorable; for those children only receive the rudiments of an education who are designed for the service of the Church; and, the course of study adopted being little calculated to expand the mind of the neophyte, a peculiar deficiency is presented in intellectual features.”[218] Plowden remarked of the priests that they “teach but one book to the children of the laity, ‘The Psalms of David;’ and without forbidding other learning, discourage it, confining it as much as possible to the clergy and the scribes.”[219] Allusion has already been made to the classes held by the priests in the precincts of the churches.[220] Such instruction as is obtainable is given, of course, to all pupils under clerical supervision. There are no secular schools, and at the present time, as Mr. Vivian remarked, “no one in Abyssinia ever does get any education beyond learning to read and write, and quote passages from the Gospels.”[221] Those whose acquirements exceed this standard are not indebted for them to native teachers.

The habits of the young girls, among the generality of the people, do not foster any strict notions of morality. Parkyns wrote: “The boys are turned out wild to look after the sheep and cattle, and the girls, from early childhood, are sent to fetch water from the well or brook, first in a gourd, and afterwards in a jar proportioned to their strength. If the well be far from the village, the girls usually form parties to go thither and amuse themselves on the road by singing sentimental or love songs; while, during their halt at the well for an hour or so, they engage in romps of all kinds, in which parties of the other sex frequently join. This early licence lays the foundation for worse, when at a later period they are sent to the woods to collect fuel.”[222]

Courtship can hardly be said to exist. “In Abyssinia young people begin to think of marriage at a very early age. I have seen brides of eight or nine years old; and boys at a proportionally youthful age are considered marriageable. When a lad wishes to marry he only inquires for a girl who may possess twice the number of oxen that he can muster, or their value. His proposals are made to the girl’s father, and, unless there is some strong motive for rejecting him, he is accepted, and everything is arranged without consulting the lady’s taste or asking her consent. They are usually betrothed three or four months before marriage, during which time the bridegroom frequently visits his father-in-law elect, and occasionally propitiates him with presents of honey, butter, a sheep, or a goat; but he is never allowed to see his intended wife even for a moment, unless, by urgent entreaty or a handsome bribe, he induces some female friend of hers to arrange the matter, by procuring him a glance at his cruel fair one. For this purpose he conceals himself behind a door or other convenient hiding-place, while the lady, on some pretext or other, is led past it. Should she, however, suspect a trick, and discover him, she would make a great uproar, cover her face, and, screaming, run away and hide herself, as though her sense of propriety were greatly offended by the intrusion; although previous to his making the offer she would have thought it no harm to romp with him, or any other male acquaintance, in the most free and easy manner. Even after she has been betrothed, she is at home to every one, except to him who most sighs for the light of her countenance.

“In Tigre, and especially in Shire, there is a superstition that if a girl leave her father’s house during the interval between her betrothal and marriage she will be bitten by a snake.

“When the wedding day approaches the girl is well washed, her hair combed and tressed, and she is rendered in every way as agreeable as possible. She has then to undergo a course of diet and medicine.”[223]

Of marriages there are three kinds. The foregoing extract refers to the usual merely civil contract; for such unions there are “bridesmen” (_arkees_), who have peculiar privileges in the community, including that of theft, remain “on duty” after the nuptials, and occupy the most singular relation to the newly wedded damsel.[224] There are also bridesmaids, who keep their faces covered during the wedding, which is a very simple ceremony. Mr. Wylde and an Italian friend obtained an illicit view of an Abyssinian bride and bridesmaids, and were rewarded by the sight of some very charming girls. Both he and Parkyns have written entertaining descriptions of an Abyssinian marriage of this kind.[225]

Rassam has given the following particulars with regard to such contracts. “The parties simply swear, in the presence of two witnesses, that they will live together as husband and wife. This bond may be dissolved at any time by mutual consent; in that case, the wife is entitled to retain whatever property she possessed before wedlock, as also any presents which she may have received from her husband during coverture, unless a stipulation to the contrary was agreed to by both sides, on their union. Most Abyssinian marriages are of this sort, and the generality of the respectable classes so wedded live together as husband and wife until separated by death.”[226]

Harris wrote: “In Shoa a girl is reckoned according to the value of her property; and the heiress to a house, a field, and a bedstead is certain to add a husband to her list before many summers have shone over her head. Marriage is generally concluded by the parties declaring, before witnesses, ‘upon the life of the King,’ that they intend to live happily together, and the property of each being produced is carefully appraised. A mule or an ass, a dollar, a shield and a sheaf of spears on the one side,[227] are noted against the lady’s stock of wheat, cotton, and household gear; and the bargain being struck, the effects become joint for the time, until some domestic difference results in either taking up their own, and departing to seek a new mate.

“Favourite slaves and concubines are respected as much as wedded wives. No distinction is made betwixt legitimate and illegitimate children; and, to the extent of his means, every subject follows the example set by the monarch (Sahela Selassie), who, it has been seen, entertains upon his establishment, in addition to his lawful spouse, no fewer than five hundred concubines.

“Few married couples even live long together without violating their vow; and the dereliction being held of small account, a beating is the only punishment inflicted upon the weaker party. The jewel chastity is here in no repute; and the utmost extent of reparation to be recovered in a court of justice for the most aggravated case of seduction is but fivepence sterling.

“Morality is thus at the very lowest ebb; for there is neither custom nor inducement to be chaste, and beads, more precious than fine gold, bear down every barrier of restraint. Honesty and modesty both yield to the force of temptation, and pride is seldom offended at living in a state of indolent dependence upon others. The soft savage requires but little inducement to follow the bent of her passions according to the dictates of unenlightened nature; and neither scruples of conscience nor the rules of the loose society form any obstacle whatever to their entire gratification.”[228]

Plowden confirms the observation that “no distinction is made between legitimate and illegitimate children,” and adds, “all share alike on the decease of their father.”[229]

The reader will have noticed that Rassam’s account of the duration and even tenour of these alliances does not agree with the comments made by Harris. Stern observed that the wedded pair “may, perhaps, become attached to each other and live in peace and conjugal bliss; or, as it frequently happens, they may become disgusted with each other after the lapse of a brief period and separate.”[230]

Parkyns wrote:—“The civil marriage may be dissolved on the shortest notice and for the most trifling reasons. Parties have only to express their wish to separate, and a division of property and children takes place. The boys, if there be any, usually go to the father, and the girls to the mother. This having been done, the parties are at liberty to contract a second marriage as soon as they please. It is not an uncommon thing for a man thus separated from his wife to maintain her in a house near his own, furnish her with the necessary means of subsistence for herself and family, and continue apparently in perfect friendship with her, while at the same time he takes another bride in her place.”[231]

The custom of entering into civil contracts of this kind is of old standing; for Lobo remarked, “A husband that doth not like his wife may easily find means to make the marriage void; and, what is worse, may dismiss the second wife with less difficulty than he took her, and return to the first; so that marriages in this country are only for a term of years, and last no longer than both parties are pleased with each other; which is one instance how far distant these people are from the purity of the primitive believers, which they pretend to have preserved with so great strictness. The marriages are, in short, no more than bargains, made with this proviso that when any discontent shall arise on either side, they may separate, and marry whom they please, each taking back what they brought with them.”[232]

According to Mr. Vivian, provision is sometimes made at the time of the secular marriage for the event of divorce—“a certain sum is agreed upon for payment by the husband. My friend, the coffee-planter at Harrar, had to promise to pay £10 to his little Galla wife if ever he sent her away, but that was considered an exceptionally heavy fee.”[233]

There are, however, nuptials of greater sanctity. Rassam thus described them: “The most binding marriage with the Abyssinians consists of an interchange of vows between the bridegroom and bride, confirmed by their jointly partaking of the holy Eucharist; in fact, the union in this case is solemnized much in the same way as in other Christian Churches. Here, however, as elsewhere, certain breaches of their mutual vows by either party dissolves the tie and renders the transgressor legally obnoxious to punishment; but as Abyssinian law in such matters has been disregarded for centuries, and Might has taken the place of Right, it follows that an offending husband generally escapes with impunity; so also does the guilty wife, if she happens to belong to the family of a powerful chief. Hence, an unprincipled husband, when tired of his wife, finds no difficulty whatever in getting rid of her; and such repudiation is undoubtedly very common. Many cases of the kind fell under my own cognizance, and, in nearly all, the husbands were leading incontinent lives; on the other hand, I never heard of a single instance of a wife who had been sacramentally married proving unfaithful to her husband, even after his repudiation of her. Most women so situated remain single, and many become nuns. In consequence of this deplorable state of things, Abyssinian females generally entertain a great distrust of the opposite sex, and not one in twenty would willingly contract the more binding marriage.”[234]

Mr. Vivian confirmed this observation. “Marriage is not popular with the women,” he wrote, “in either of these countries” (Abyssinia and Somaliland), “and they will only consent to it when physical force is actually used.” He added, with regard to Abyssinia, “The permanent marriage seems to be very rare, only priests and persons of extraordinary piety indulging in it.”[235] It is to be hoped that these worthies do not resort to violence in order to gratify their wish. Plowden said of this form of wedlock, that “it is usual in old age only to take the sacrament together in the church, thereby pledging themselves to fidelity.”[236]

Doubtless this account of the Abyssinian usage is correct, for it agrees with the observations made by Parkyns. “Church marriages,” he wrote, “are rarely solemnized except between persons, who, having first been civilly married, and having afterwards lived happily together till the decline of life, begin to feel that they could not hope to suit themselves better, and so determine to sanctify the marriage by going to church and partaking of the Sacrament. The bond is then considered indissoluble.”[237] Stern stated that the Negus is in the same position as the clergy with regard to monogamy.[238]

“According to the canons of the Abyssinian Church, the King is bound by the same marital laws as a priest; and, consequently, if his wife dies, he dare not marry another. The bereaved predecessors of Theodoros scrupulously evaded such a contingency by substituting the regularly stored harem in the place of the one lawful wife.”[239]

Rassam made the following observations on the third form of wedlock: “This last is little better than concubinage. The contracting parties merely engage to cohabit during pleasure, and while so living are regarded as husband and wife. The national Church recognizes only the sacramental marriage as valid; but the laity, as a rule, set all ecclesiastical law in such matters at defiance. Hence, a wealthy Abyssinian Christian, who is debarred by the two higher degrees of wedlock from having more than one wife, may nevertheless have as many third-rate wives as he pleases, and cohabit with them simultaneously. In the course of my inquiries into these matrimonial customs, and the laws affecting inheritances among this peculiar people, I applied to the Abouna to aid me in the research. His reply was, ‘My son, you have asked me questions which I am unable to answer. This only I can tell you; Abyssinian marriages, with few exceptions, are so abominably revolting that the issue are all bastards.’”[240]

From the opinions quoted it may be judged that the inclination towards conjugal constancy is usually greater in the wife than in the husband, but this is not invariably the case. Rassam tells the following story of a couple at Magdala. “The husband was in such dread of losing his partner, knowing that, as he had been united to her by the secondary (civil) marriage only, she might leave him any day, that her refusal to accompany him to the altar, there to partake of the Lord’s Supper with him, in token of their more indissoluble union, nearly drove him mad. The matter was eventually referred to the Abouna, my intervention being also sought, and after considerable trouble we overcame the obstinacy of the lady, and induced her to be sacramentally joined to her lovesick lord.”[241] Of course this may have been only an instance of an Ethiopian woman’s mistrust of the male sex.

Lobo gave some curious details of the penalties that followed upon infidelity when he was in the country. “They have here a particular way of punishing adultery: A woman convicted of that crime is condemned to forfeit all her fortune, is turned out of her husband’s house in a mean dress, and is forbid ever to enter it again. She has only a needle given her to get her living with. Sometimes her head is shaved, except one lock of hair which is left her, and even that depends on the will of her husband, who has it likewise in his choice whether he will receive her again or not. If he resolves never to admit her, they are both at liberty to marry whom they will. There is another custom amongst them yet more extraordinary, which is, that the wife is punished whenever the husband proves false to the marriage-contract; this punishment indeed extends no farther than a pecuniary mulct; and what seems more equitable, the husband is obliged to pay a sum to his wife. When the husband prosecutes his wife’s gallant, if he can produce any proofs of a criminal conversation, he recovers, for damages, forty cows, forty horses, and forty suits of clothes, and the same number of other things. If the gallant be unable to pay him, he is committed to prison, and continues there during the husband’s pleasure; who, if he sets him at liberty before the whole fine is paid, obliges him to take an oath that he is going to procure the rest, that he may be able to make full satisfaction. Then the criminal orders meat and drink to be brought out, they eat and drink together; he asks a formal pardon, which is not granted at first; however, the husband forgives first one part of the debt, and then another, till at length the whole is remitted.”[242]

According to Mr. Wylde, Abyssinian girls have many attractions for men. “They perfectly understand the utility of ‘feeding the beast’ with a nice dinner to keep him good-tempered, and from what I have seen of these young ladies, they do everything they possibly can to make a man happy, and being good-tempered, jolly girls, they seldom ‘nag,’ and no wonder the southern Italians have taken a liking for them, and find themselves perfectly happy in their society.” He admits that “their great drawback is their dirtiness;” but adds, “all those that get the chance of being clean keep themselves very neat and tidy.” However, “nearly all the lower-class Abyssinian women use oil or fat for their heads; this they do to keep the small parasites quiet, as they cannot get about when the head and hair are thickly besmeared and saturated, and the oil or fat also serves for softening the skin of the face and preventing it from chapping in the cold weather, or blistering during the hot season of the year.”[243] Mr. Vivian remarked of the Ethiopian woman, “though her features are comely, she is not the sort of person one would care to choose as a companion. For one thing, I do not suppose that she ever washes herself in her life, the butter on her hair grows rancid and emits a peculiarly pungent odour, which affronts the nostrils when you pass her in the desert, and wherever she goes she carries with her a large black cluster of flies congregated on her back.”[244] Probably she would “find herself” under the influence of a cleaner civilization.

Conceptions of medicine among the Abyssinians have changed for the better during recent years. Harris has given an account of some of the singular notions and practices which prevailed in his day. He took a supply of medical stores into the country, and he and the doctor with the expedition (Assistant-Surgeon Kirk) acted as physicians extraordinary to the King, with the following results:—

“The most particular inquiries were instituted relative to the mode of counteracting the influence of the evil eye, and much disappointment expressed at the unavoidable intimation that the dispensary of the foreigners contained neither ‘the horn of a serpent,’ which is believed to afford an invaluable antidote against witchcraft; no preservative against wounds in the battlefield, nor any nostrum for ‘those who go mad from looking at a mad dog.’ ‘We princes also fear the small-pox,’ said his Majesty, ‘and therefore never tarry long in the same place. Nagási, my illustrious ancestor, suffered martyrdom from this scourge. Have you no medicine to drive it from myself?’

“Vaccine lymph there was in abundance, but neither Christian, Moslem, nor Pagan had yet consented to make trial of its virtues. Glasses hermetically sealed, betwixt which the perishable fluid had been deposited, were exhibited, and its use expounded. ‘No, no!’ quoth the King, as he delivered the acquisition to his master of the horse, with a strict injunction to have it carefully stitched in leather, ‘this is _talakh medanit_, very potent medicine indeed; and henceforth I must wear it as a talisman against the evil that beset my forefathers.’

“‘You must now give me the medicine which draws the vicious waters from the leg,’ resumed his Majesty, ‘and which is better than earth from Mount Lebanon; the medicine which disarms venomous snakes, and that which turns the grey hairs black; the medicine to destroy the worm in the ear of the Queen which is ever burrowing deeper; and, above all, the medicine of the seven colours, which so sharpens the intellect as to enable him who swallows enough of it to acquire every sort of knowledge without the slightest trouble. Furthermore, you will be careful to give my people _none of this_.’”[245]

Plowden, writing of the _defterers_, said: “They are often more learned than the priests, and equally take advantage of the general ignorance. Their principal gain is by writing amulets and charms against every disease, almost against death. . . . They also profess medicine, and as they do not much analyze the effects of their drugs, many an unfortunate falls a victim to some poisonous plant administered as a love philtre. Most of them are hangers-on of the different churches; they are generally cunning, debauched, and mischief-makers.”[246]

Mr. Wylde, speaking of the Abyssinian clergy of the present time, says, “They know that the days are gone by when every one came to them for some charm or a little holy water to cure a complaint; the very practical nineteenth-century doctor is to be found, and not only the congregation has deserted to the modern school of medicine, but the priest himself will trust in the new treatment in preference to running the risk in getting cured by faith or unfiltered holy water.”[247]

A peculiar disease is found in Abyssinia, chiefly but not exclusively among the women. Dufton describes a typical case: “I had the satisfaction of seeing in Gaffat a case of _bouda_. This term is given to a phenomenon of mental abstraction, which the natives explain as ‘being possessed by the devil.’ The case I am about to mention happened to a female in the service of one of the Europeans. Her symptoms began in a kind of fainting fit, in which the fingers were clenched in the palms of the hands, the eyes glazed, the nostrils distended, and the whole body stiff and inflexible. Afterwards she commenced a hideous laugh in imitation of the hyena, and began running about on all fours; she was then seized by the bystanders, and a _bouda_ doctor having been called in, this individual began questioning her as to the person who had possessed her with this hyena devil. She said he was a man living in Gooderoo, south of Abyssinia, and also told how long the spirit would be in possession, and what was required to expel him. Great care must be taken of persons thus afflicted, as cases of this kind sometimes end in death. All their demands for dress, food, trifles of any sort, must be strictly attended to. In the height of the frenzy they will sometimes carry out the idea of their hyena identity to such an extent as to attack any animal that may happen to be in the way. One woman fancied she would like a little donkey-flesh; so to gratify her strange taste she seized hold by her teeth to the hinder part of one which happened to be near. Off went the astonished beast at a pace that nothing in the form of persuasion will lead him to adopt for the gratification of man. Off, too, clinging tight with her teeth to his haunches, went the frenzied girl. Only force would induce her to forego the tender morsel.

“They have several cures for this strange attack; but the never-failing one is a mixture of some obscene filth, which is concealed in some part of the house, whereupon the woman is said to go directly, on all fours, to where it is and swallow it. This would seem incredible, but thousands of corroborative facts, known to Abyssinian residents, put it beyond a doubt.

“The power of possessing persons with the devil is attributed mostly to Jewish blacksmiths; and women and children are terrified when they meet, in a solitary place, a blacksmith who is a Jew. These sorcerers are also said to be endued with the power of changing the shape of the object of their incantations.”[248]

Stern has given some interesting particulars with regard to these seizures. “During the rainy season, when the weather, like the mind, is cheerless and dull, the _boudas_, as if in mockery of the universal gloom, celebrate their saturnalia. In our small settlement, the monotony of our existence was constantly diversified by a _bouda_ scene. Towards the close of August, when every shrub and tree began to sprout and blossom, the disease degenerated into a regular epidemic; and in the course of an evening two, three, and not unfrequently every hut occupied by natives would ring with that familiar household cry. A heavy thunderstorm, by some mysterious process, seemed invariably to predispose the people to the _bouda’s_ torturing influence.

“I remember one day, about the end of August, we had a most terrific tempest. . . . The noise and tumult of the striving elements had scarcely subsided, when a servant of Mr. Mayer, a stout, robust, and masculine woman, began to exhibit the _bouda_ symptoms. She had been complaining the whole noon of languor, faintness, and utter incapacity for all physical exertion. About sunset her lethargy increased, and she gradually sank into a state of apparent unconsciousness. Her fellow-servants, who were familiar with the cause of the complaint, at once pronounced her to be possessed. To outwit the conjuror, I thought it advisable to try the effect of strong liquid ammonia on the nerves of the Evil One. The place being dark, faggots were ignited; and in their bright flickering light we beheld a mass of dark figures squatted on the wet floor around a rigid, motionless, and apparently dead woman. I instantly applied my bottle to her nose; but although the potent smell made all near raise a cry of terror, it produced no more effect on the passive and insensible patient than if it had been water from the newly formed rivulets.”

The landlord of the settlement, “an amateur exorcist, almost by instinct, as if anticipating something wrong in that part of his domains occupied by the Franks, made his appearance in the very nick of time. This bloated and limping dotard, who had wasted his youth and manhood in folly and vice, for which, in his old age, he sought to atone by discarding one after the other of his former wives, and by poring over the legends of saints and martyrs, no sooner hobbled into the hut than the possessed woman, as if struck by a magnetic wire, burst into loud fits of laughter and the paroxysms of a raving maniac. Half a dozen stalwart fellows caught hold of her, but frenzy imparted a vigour to her frame which even the united strength of these athletes was barely sufficient to keep under control. She tried to bite, kick, and tear every one within reach; and when she found herself foiled in all those mischievous attempts, she convulsively grasped the unpaved wet floor, and, in imitation of the hyena, gave utterance to the most discordant sounds. Manacled and shackled with leather thongs, she was now partly dragged and partly carried to an open grassy spot; and there under the starry vault of heaven, and in the presence of a considerable number of people, the conjurer, in a businesslike manner, began his exorcising art. The poor sufferer, as if conscious of the dreaded old man’s presence, struggled frantically to escape his skill; but the latter, disregarding her entreaties and lamentations, her fits of unnatural gaiety and bursts of thrilling anguish, with one hand laid an amulet on her heaving bosom, whilst, with the other, he made her smell a rag, in which the root of a strong scented plant, a bone of a hyena, and some other abominable unguents were bound up. The mad rage of the possessed woman being instantaneously hushed by this operation, the conjurer addressed himself to the _bouda_ (evil spirit), and, in language not fit for ears polite, requested him to give his name.” The demon is always masculine, whatever may be the sex of the person possessed. Question and answer followed, and finally the “conjurer” formally exorcised the demon. “‘I command thee in the name of the Blessed Trinity, the twelve apostles, and the three hundred and eighteen bishops at the council of Nicaea, to leave this woman, and never more to molest her.’

“The _bouda_ did not feel disposed to obey the conjurer; but on being threatened with a repast of glowing coals, which the majority do not relish, he became docile, and in a sulky and ventriloquizing tone of voice, promised to obey the request.

“Still anxious to delay his exit, he demanded something to eat; and to my utter disgust, his taste was as coarse as the torments inflicted on the young woman were ungallant. Filth and dirt of the most revolting description, together with an admixture of water, were the choice delicacies he selected for his supper. This strange fare, which the most niggardly hospitality could not refuse, several persons hastened to prepare, and when all was ready, and the earthen dish had been hidden in the centre of a leafy shrub, the conjurer said to the _bouda_, ‘As thy father did, so do thou.’ These words had scarcely escaped the lips of the exorcist, when the possessed person leaped up, and, crawling on all fours, sought the dainty repast which she lapped with a sickening avidity and greediness. She now laid hold of a stone, which three strong men could scarcely lift, and raising it aloft in the air, whirled it madly round her head for two seconds, and then fell senseless on the ground. In half an hour she recovered, but was quite unconscious of what had transpired.

“Three other women had similar attacks that same evening, and that, too, without any premonitory symptoms. I tried to deceive one, and instead of the disgusting concoction, put a wooden dish with bread and water in her way; but on smelling it she shrank from its contents, and rapidly crept on till the strong effluvia brought her to the spot where the loathsome viands were concealed. . . .

“Next in importance to the _bouda_ is the _zar_. This malady is exclusively confined to unmarried women, and has this peculiar feature, that during the violence of the paroxysm it prompts the patient to imitate the sharp discordant growl of the leopard. I recollect that the first time I saw a case of this description, it gave me a shock which made my blood run cold. The sufferer was a handsome, gay, and lively girl, a little above fifteen. In the morning she was engaged as usual in her work, when a quarrel ensued between her and other domestics. The fierce dispute, though of a trifling character, roused the passions of the fiery Ethiopian to such a pitch that it brought on an hysterical affection. The natives all cried, ‘She is possessed,’ and certainly her ghastly smile, nervous tremor, wild stare, and unnatural howl, justified the notion. To expel the _zar_, a conjurer, as in the _bouda_ complaint, was formerly considered indispensable; but by dint of perseverance the medical faculty of the country, to their infinite satisfaction, have at length made the happy discovery that a sound application of the whip is quite as potent an antidote against this evil as the necromancer’s spell.”[249]

Parkyns said that he had seen “above a hundred” cases of _bouda_. He alluded to the superstition with regard to blacksmiths. “In Abyssinia their trade is hereditary, and considered as more or less disgraceful, from the fact that blacksmiths are, with very rare exceptions, believed to be all sorcerers, and are opprobriously called _bouda_. . . .

“Few people will venture to molest or offend a blacksmith, fearing the effects of his resentment. The greater part of the ‘possessed’ are women; and the reason of their being attacked is often that they have despised the proffered love of some _bouda_, or for other similar cause.

“It is a custom in Abyssinia to conceal the real name by which a person is baptized, and to call him only by a sort of nickname, which his mother gives him on leaving the church. . . . The reason for the concealment of the Christian name is that the _bouda_ cannot act upon a person whose real name he does not know. Should he, however, have obtained the true name of his victim, he takes a particular kind of straw, and muttering something over it, bends it into a circle, and places it under a stone. The person thus doomed is taken ill at the very moment of the bending of the straw; and should it by accident snap under the operation, the result of the attack will be that the patient dies.

“This malady and the Tigritiya are no doubt often purposely counterfeited by servant-maids to evade their work, and by others to excite pity, attract attention, and get themselves pulled about by the men. . . .

“The first case which I ever saw, and which I consequently watched very attentively and noted down, was that of a servant-woman at Rohabaita. The first day she complained of general languor, and of a stupid heavy feeling about the head. Towards evening this seemed to increase, when she cried a little, but was perfectly reasonable, and excused herself by saying that it was only because she felt low and melancholy. An hour after this, however, she burst out into hysterical laughter, and complained of violent pain in the stomach and bowels. It was at this stage that the other servants began to suspect that she was under the influence of the _bouda_. In a short time she became quiet, and by degrees sank into a state of lethargy, approaching to insensibility. Either from excellent acting and great fortitude, or from real want of feeling, the various experiments which we made on her seemed to have no more effect than they would have had on a mesmeric somnambulist. We pinched her repeatedly; but pinch as hard as we could, she never moved a muscle of her face, nor did she otherwise express the least sensation. I held a bottle of strong sal-volatile under her nose, and stopped her mouth, and this having no effect, I steeped some rag in it and placed it in her nostrils; but although I am sure that she had never either seen, smelt, or heard of such a preparation as liquid ammonia, it had no more effect on her than rosewater. She held her thumbs tightly bent inside her hands, as if to prevent their being seen. On my observing this to a bystander, he told me that the thumbs were the _bouda’s_ particular perquisite, and that he would allow no person to take them. Consequently, several persons tried to open her hand and get at them; but she resisted with what appeared to me wonderful strength for a girl, and bit their fingers till in more than one instance she drew blood. I, among others, made the attempt, and though I got a bite or two for my pains, yet either the devil had great respect for me as an Englishman and a good Christian, or she had for me as her master, for the biting was all a sham, and struck me as more like kissing than anything else, compared with the fearful wounds she had inflicted on the rest of the party.

“I had a string of amulets which I usually wore, having on it many charms for various maladies; but I was perfectly aware that none for the _bouda_ was among them. Still, hoping thereby to expose the cheat, I asserted that there was a very celebrated one, and laid the whole string on her face, expecting that she would pretend to feel the effects, and act accordingly; but to my surprise and disappointment, she remained quite motionless. Several persons had been round the village to look for some talisman, but only one was found. On its being applied to her mouth, she for an instant sprang up, bit at it, and tore it, but then laughed, and said it was weak, and would not vex _him_. . . . I deluged her with bucketfuls of water, but could not even elicit from her a start or a pant, an effect usually produced by water suddenly dashed over a person. At night she could not sleep, but became more restless, and spoke several times. She once remarked, in her natural tone of voice, that she was not ill, nor attacked by the _bouda_, but merely wished to return to Adoua. She said this so naturally that I was completely taken off my guard, and told her that of course she might go, but that she must wait till the morrow. The other people smiled, and whispered me that it was only a device of the _bouda’s_ to get her into the forest, and there devour her.

“Singular coincidences not unfrequently occur in such a way as to encourage superstitious persons in their credulity; and, strange to say, that very night, for the first and last time that I ever heard him during my stay at Rohabaita, the hyena kept howling and laughing close to the village. . . .

“At night I ordered the people to close the door of the hut, and lie across it, some inside and some out. These precautions, however, did not satisfy them; and they insisted on having the young woman bound hand and foot, as the only means of preventing her escape. She lay pretty still, merely moaning, and occasionally starting up when the hyena called. I was lying on a couch, she and the other people on the floor. Determined to see the issue of the affair, I watched her narrowly, and when the guard dropped off to sleep, one by one, I pretended to do so likewise. She also was perfectly still for near an hour, and I fancied that she too had fallen asleep, when suddenly, the hyena calling close by, she, to my astonishment, rose without her bonds, which I had seen, as I imagined, securely fastened. She then crept on all-fours towards the door, which she succeeded in partly opening. I was just going to spring on her when one of the heavily sleeping guards made a noise, which sounded something like a grunt or a snore, and it appeared to me that she stifled a laugh. This led me to believe more and more that she was shamming; but I said nothing, and she returned of her own accord to her place. Although she did not sleep during the whole night, yet she remained still as long as the people were quiet, only moaning a little whenever any one, by yawning or otherwise, showed signs of waking. Next day she appeared a little better, and talked more rationally, but still very wildly, and would neither eat nor drink. Once we allowed her to leave the hut for a moment, on pretence of necessity, and she went quietly enough; but on her return being delayed longer than we considered right, parties were sent out in quest of her, and after a long search she was discovered more than a mile from the hut, and making for the thickest of the jungle.

“The second night was passed much as the former one; but the following day we prevailed on her to take a little bread. On swallowing a piece about the size of a nut she became very sick; and a draught of water produced a similar result. A better night seemed to do her good, for on the following day she managed to eat a little, and by slow degrees recovered her health.

“Since this occurrence I have witnessed many hoaxes easy to discover, but also many which I could never see through, although I tried every method that my small stock of ingenuity could invent.

“I remember once a poor weakly girl on whom I had tried several false charms, but without her moving. She was lying, apparently senseless, in the inner court of a house at Adoua, and numbers of persons were passing to and fro to see her, when, suddenly starting up, she screamed and struggled with so much strength, that, on seizing her by the legs and shoulders, I and three other powerful men could scarcely keep her down. A man near me said, ‘I am sure some one has with him a strong charm; if so, let him produce it.’ All denied the fact; but just then a stranger entered from the outer court, when she cried out, ‘Let me alone, and I will speak.’ This man was an Amhara soldier, perfectly unknown to all of us, but who, hearing one of our people inquire for charms in a house where he was drinking, had volunteered to try one which he wore, and which he declared to be very potent. On placing the amulet near her, she yelled and screamed horribly. The owner (addressing her as a woman) said, ‘Will you declare yourself if I take it away?’ She howled still more at this insult, as she called it, and said, ‘I am no woman.’ The question was then repeated several times in the masculine, but she invariably attempted to evade a direct answer, till, as if worn out, she exclaimed, ‘I will tell all; only take it far from me!’ It was accordingly removed to some distance from her, and she immediately sank down as if exhausted.”

When the cure had made some progress, “the _bouda_, anxious to delay his exit as long as possible, demanded food (as he always does) before leaving her. A basin was fetched, in which was put a quantity of any filth that could be found (of fowls, dogs, etc.), and mixed up with a little water and some ashes. I took the basin myself, and hid it where I was positive she could not see me place it, and covered it up with some loose stones which were heaped in the corner. The _bouda_ was then told that his supper was prepared, and the woman rose and crawled down the court on all fours, smelling like a dog on either side, till, passing into the yard where the basin was, she went straight up to it, and, grubbing it out from the place where it was hidden, devoured its abominable contents with the utmost greediness. The _bouda_ was then supposed to leave her, and she fell to the ground, as if fainting. From this state she recovered her health in a few days.

“I had forgotten to mention that one of the principal symptoms is a great longing for charcoal, of which the patient will eat any quantity she can obtain. The first proof of the devil’s leaving her is her allowing her thumbs to be taken hold of.”

On another occasion Parkyns, suspecting a hoax, concocted a charm which was composed of two or three bits of dry bamboo roots wrapped in a piece of paper, an old leaf or two, some pipe-ashes, and a tuft of hair cut from the tail of his dog. Then “proceeding to the place where the sufferer lay, I ordered a large-mouthed jar to be filled with dry mules’ dung and lighted. When this had been done, and the smoke began to rise in clouds, I put into it a small quantity of my charm, with every appearance of caution and care, which done, we seized the unfortunate victim, and with some difficulty forced her head close to the jar’s mouth, and then rolled a _quarry_ (_shama_) round it and the jar, so as at once to keep her fast, and prevent the escape of the smallest quantity of smoke. As may be imagined, in a moment she began to cough violently, and at last, being almost suffocated, cried out, ‘Let me off, for pity’s sake; I am not ill, but only shamming.’ I solemnly asserted this to be only a device of the Evil One to get away from the charm, and held on, till her cries for pity, for the sake of the Virgin, of Oubi, etc., becoming more confused, and her cough more violent, I feared lest she might suffer too much if kept longer.

“That magic vessel was preserved in a conspicuous situation in the hut where the women worked till I left the place; and I must say that the attacks of _bouda_ were less frequent after this occurrence than before; though I still had occasional cases where the sunken eye and vacant stare cheated me into tenderness of heart, and I refrained from the use of my singular but most efficacious remedy.”

Parkyns has also given an account of a similar disorder called _tigritiya_, which may be the same as the _zar_ mentioned by Stern, though from the description, it appears to be more serious. The _tigritiya_, says Parkyns, is the near relation of the _bouda_, “but generally a far more disagreeable and dangerous devil than he. His dependents are supposed to be found in great numbers in Godjam, which province, indeed, is celebrated for sorcerers of all kinds. The first symptoms usually are the gradual wasting away of the attacked person, without any cause being apparent either to herself or her relatives. At last, however, after dieting, and the ordinary medicines have been unsuccessfully tried, it becomes a matter of suspicion to her friends, who determine, on ascertaining, whether or no she be afflicted with this devil. The first thing to be observed is to feed her daintily and dress her neatly. As her complaint and this treatment advance, she becomes peevish and fretful, and is always longing for something or other. Whatever she demands must be procured, else she will become sulky, and, covering up her head, remain sometimes for days without eating or speaking. Ornaments of all kinds require to be borrowed for her, often at much trouble to her unfortunate relations; for she is rarely satisfied unless she gets an assortment of those worn by both sexes, even to the lion’s skin of a warrior; and these are frequently almost impossible to procure. With some persons it is necessary to have recourse to music before the real cause of their complaint can be discovered. Drums and other musical instruments are collected outside the chamber door, and the musicians suddenly strike up all together, when the patient is not expecting it. If her illness be of an ordinary kind, she will, of course, beg of them to desist, but, if possessed, she will leap or fall from her couch to the ground, and commence shrugging her shoulders and swinging her head to and fro in time with the music; beginning with a slight movement, but gradually increasing in pace as she appears to become excited, till at last her motions are so violent that a spectator is led to fear for the safety of her neck. It is truly wonderful to see a sick person whom you have just beheld stretched on a bed, a weak, emaciated bag of bones, apparently without strength to rise, keeping up this very fatiguing motion with a velocity and power of endurance that would be astonishing even in an ordinarily strong person. On the music’s ceasing she rests, and then begins to speak, telling _his_ name (that is, the devil’s) and his family; and it is usually after this that she demands the trinkets, specifying each article that she requires, and making their production the condition of her dancing again. She, as I before said, generally contrives to name objects that are most difficult to obtain, such as the silver-ornamented velvet worn only by great war-chiefs; and much sorrow and trouble does this cause to her relations, for she will not be persuaded to show any sign of animation if a single article she has named be not forthcoming; and on her dancing and singing is supposed chiefly to depend her chance of recovery.

“The mode of ejecting the Old Gentleman from his temporary possession is something similar to what we have already described. After the patient has been induced to dance pretty frequently, it is to be hoped that the devil is put into a tolerably good humour, which desideratum can only be obtained by making frequent and polite inquiries when he will be pleased to have music, and by promptly procuring everything he may demand, by the mouth of the possessed, whether it be food or wearing apparel. The auspicious moment arriving, the friends of the sufferer inquire of her when he will be disposed to quit his present residence and go to his own place. The first time this question is ventured upon, the spirit generally replies that he is not yet satisfied with the entertainment he has received at their hands, and seizes the opportunity of demanding something more. After a time, however, if things go on well, he fixes a day for taking his leave, usually the seventh after the day on which he makes his announcement. The happy time having arrived, a large party is assembled in some wild spot in the country, and there must be feasting, dancing, and music, as before, but, if possible, carried on with more than usual spirit. The patient joins in with the rest; and the devil, when satisfied, announces his intention to depart. This he signifies through the medium of his victim, who takes off her finery; then, bowing her head, she kisses her hands in token of farewell, and starts off, running at a pace which few men could equal. She cannot, however, keep it up for more than from fifty to a hundred yards, when she falls to the ground senseless. At this moment the spirit is supposed to have left her; and lest he should find himself worse off outside than in, and, changing his mind, return to her, five or six active young men are prepared beforehand, and as soon as she starts they follow her, and, coming up with her just as she is falling, place themselves in threatening attitudes round her body, one holding a drawn sword, another firing a charge of powder out of a matchlock, and a third brandishing a lance. This is supposed to intimidate the fiend, and prevent his return, should he be so disposed.

“The woman, who but a moment before was outdoing all the party, both in the dance and in running, now lies stretched on the ground helpless and emaciated, as if after a long illness. She faintly calls for water, which is given her; and when a little restored, she is asked her name, which she answers correctly; and as a conclusive proof of her freedom from the power of the Evil One, she is requested to repeat the formerly so much dreaded words—‘_B’ism Ab, ou Weld, ou Menfus Kouddos_’ (in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost). A sheep or a fowl is killed, broiled on the embers, and eaten with bread. The patient’s friends partake of this food when the devil goes out of her. The bones and remains of the meat are burned with fire, and the fragments of the bread buried in the ground. These are so left for the devil, that if he should come back to the place he may remain and feed, and not go on and bother the woman. Thus is the cure complete, though it often takes a considerable time to effect it.”

The characteristics of the disease have been mentioned fully because they seem to have some bearing on certain Biblical episodes.

Sometimes, in the case of _bouda_, recourse is had to a very simple and direct method of cure. Parkyns wrote:—“Many instances have been related to me, wherein the friends of the possessed, having procured charms of sufficient power to force the spirit to declare his name and residence, but not equal to turning him out, went at once to the place indicated, and, seizing on the blacksmith, brought him forcibly to their home, where, having fed him well, he was commanded to quit his victim, and at the same time his life was threatened, lances being pointed at his breast.”[250] It is not stated whether this procedure is effective.

Mr. Wylde dismissed the demon lightly:—“The _bouda_, or evil spirit, that attacks some of the young women, nearly always ugly virgins or hysterical and plain-looking girls that men will never notice, is to my mind the greatest fraud of all their superstitions. Every one has written about it, and I am afraid that they have drawn a good deal on their imagination, and the missionaries who have visited the country have, perhaps, been quite as bigoted as the people they have tried to describe. I believe that these peculiar fits which the women have, when they do all sorts of filthy things, are nothing more than hysteria; many women even in civilized countries are not responsible for their actions when suffering from these complaints, and people who are inclined to believe in the miraculous take for granted what the ignorant peasantry say. I have seen several young women suffering from the ‘_bouda_’ and a bucket of cold water that I have thrown over them, and a good smacking from my servant, has soon sent the devil away, and the only after effect has been that they have been sulky, because they were not made much of.”[251]

Parkyns was not a missionary, and he was a shrewd and levelheaded observer. His comments are to the point:—“To many of my readers it will doubtless appear, and very naturally, that all these symptoms are impostures resorted to by the pretended sufferers as a means of procuring the borrowed finery, and enjoying the gaieties and festivities which are considered as the means of curing the disorder. This sounds very probable; and I cannot deny that such is my own opinion, though there are still some points which have rather puzzled me. First, as in the _bouda_, the extraordinary talent for acting which they display, and then the fact that the imposture has not been discovered and published centuries ago, but that it is still believed by the very people among whom it has so long been and still daily continues to be practised. How is it possible that a woman, who in her youthful days may have been guilty of such a hoax, should suffer herself to be imposed upon and led into so much trouble and expense by her children afterwards? And yet this is of common occurrence. From this last remark let it not be supposed that young women are the only sufferers; men and women of all ages are liable, though the young of the fair sex are perhaps the most frequently possessed.

“One of my servants, who, by the great anxiety he showed in watching and tending the patients, was evidently convinced of the truth of their sufferings, had himself been attacked many years before, and assured me that after his recovery he had not the slightest recollection of anything that had taken place while the fit was on him, but that his friends had told him all about it. How was it possible that this man, supposing his own illness to have been feigned, could be cheated by the same means?

“Lastly, the most puzzling thing of all is when a person acts sickness to such perfection that Azrael himself is deceived, and, mistaking the feigned malady for a real one, finishes it by seriously taking away the life of the shammer.

“The following case will illustrate what I mean. I had a servant named Bairou, a youth of about nineteen, who, from having been several years in the service of Europeans, had acquired a few of their notions; and, among others, had learnt to ridicule the superstitions of his countrymen. He had a sister who had been ill for several months, and no one knew what her complaint was. At his request I went to visit her more than once, but was unable to do anything for her. The fact is, my doctoring is on a very limited scale; and, as even the most eminent physicians agree that the greatest difficulty is to ascertain what is really the matter with the patient, I stood very little chance with Bairou’s sister, who complained of nothing, and showed no marked signs of ailing except in entire prostration of strength, and a rapid falling off of flesh. She gradually got worse, till one day her brother came to me and requested me to lend him my ornaments, and also to beg some more from my friends at the camp. I asked whether he was going to be ‘arkee’ to some friend about to marry; but he answered with a melancholy smile that he wanted them for his sister; as, having tried everything else, their friends had proposed to see if she were possessed, and he, though not believing in such nonsense, was willing to allow them to try the experiment, lest, if anything happened to her, they should upbraid him afterwards for having caused her death by his obstinacy and incredulity.

“I, of course, quite approved of his determination, and easily succeeded in obtaining the articles required of me. She was dressed up in the borrowed finery as she lay on the couch; and at a signal the musicians outside commenced playing. At the first notes her eyes began to brighten, and, raising herself up for the first time during many days, she swayed her body to and fro for a few moments, after the manner of one possessed; but, becoming quickly exhausted, she sank back, saying, with a faint smile, ‘It is too late now!’ She repeated these words twice; they were the last I ever heard her utter. Three hours after she was a corpse. Was this, too, a sham? Or what may it be called? Possibly some freak of her disordered imagination.”[252]

Stern had the tendency to moralize which prevailed at the time when he wrote, but there can be little doubt that he offered a sound opinion in the following passage:—“In bringing this demoniacal subject to a close, I am forcibly reminded of the words, ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ That there is something in these diseases and in their mode of cure which transcends ordinary disorders no one who has stood beside a frantic and agonized patient and wondered at the sudden and more than dramatic transition from raving frenzy to childlike docility can well deny; but without deciding whether it is epilepsy, catalepsy, or hysteria, I am quite sure that fiends and spirits have less to do with the matter than the irregular life and dissolute course which so many pursue.”[253]

It would, indeed, be a matter for astonishment if marked nervous affections did not occur in a country where, among the people of both sexes, unwholesome diet and parasitical irritation so often combine their results with those of sensual habits of body and mind acquired early in life.

It has already been said that the Abyssinian soldier wears no uniform, and is not easily distinguished by his appearance from the civilian. But there is a distinct military class, with characteristics of its own. “There is no harder worker,” said Mr. Wylde, “than the Abyssinian peasant, and no more harmless and hospitable person when left alone and properly treated[254]; and no more truculent, worthless, conceited, lazy, and useless individual than the Abyssinian soldier, who formerly did nothing but prey upon the defenceless cultivator. Circumstances are now altering this, but before the country settles down to modern civilization and makes any great strides forward, a civil revolution must take place, which may not be far distant.”[255] The same writer has pointed out that the soldiery “were called into existence by Abyssinia being surrounded by Mohammedan enemies, and little by little they increased and multiplied till they got out of all proportion to the wants of a peaceful country.” The king’s exchequer cannot provide pay for these men, so, to keep them quiet, they are allowed to live by exaction. Mr. Wylde’s strictures apply to the “lazy, loafing lot of mercenaries who have never done anything in their lives except fighting and looting, men without homes and without territory, ready to fight for those who give the highest pay, and who do not value the lives of their fellow-Christians at the price of a sheep or a jar of hydromel;” and he adds, “I am writing only of the mercenary soldier whose father and grandfather, perhaps, were the same, and not of the bulk of the fighting force of the country, who are yeomen farmers and their servants, or the peasants and their families.”[256]

The state of feeling between the peasantry and the soldiery might have serious consequences if the Abyssinian monarch undertook an important campaign outside his territory. “The great danger to an unpopular king attempting such an expedition would be, in the absence of the army, a rising of an oppressed peasantry, backed up by some European Power, to put down the military party. The arming of the peasantry and farmer class with modern weapons has not altogether been a blessing to the present ruler, and may end not only in his downfall, but in that of the barons as well.”[257]

The fighting value of the Abyssinian army is by no means a _quantité négligeable_ in the politics of Eastern Africa, and it would be very easy to underrate it. Mr. Wylde, in his narrative of the battle of Adoua, has given a very complete account of the numbers, armament and temper of the Negus’s forces, and he does not agree with the estimate formed by Mansfield Parkyns of their personal valour.[258] He has also described the tactics which they customarily adopt in attacking, and has made some interesting observations on the employment of artillery, mounted infantry, and cavalry in the country.”[259]

The limitations to the activity of the forces are chiefly determined by commissariat difficulties. “The Abyssinian hordes are the same as the locust, they live on what they can get from the surrounding country; and when they have devoured everything, they have to move on to another place where supplies are procurable. At the outside an Abyssinian who is not one of the regular soldiers can keep the field for a couple of months, and then he has to take one transport animal with him, with a boy or girl, generally the latter, to look after his riding animal and to cook his food. The regular troops are the same; they have to bring supplies with them, which they get from their leaders before they set out on the campaign; after these are finished, unless fresh supplies come forward, they have to live on the country.”[260]

Probably the most recently published paper dealing with the Abyssinian army is the despatch, dated June 2, 1904, of Colonel Rochfort, C.B., R.A., included in the official account of the operations in Somaliland.[261] Colonel Rochfort accompanied the forces which his Majesty Menelek II., on the invitation of the British Government, sent in 1903, “to intercept the Mullah’s retreat, should he attempt to escape to the south or west.” As might be imagined from the nature of the document, it contains no descriptive account of the Abyssinian Expedition, and very little critical comment upon it. But the following particulars may serve to convey some idea of Abyssinian operations in the field at the present time. The strength of the force first employed was about five thousand men, nearly all of whom were mounted on mules. It left Harrar for its destination (the Webi Shebeli, near Hilowen) on February 18, 1903, under the command of Fituari Gabri.

Surprise parties were sent out to visit all wells within reach to the north, and “the Abyssinians carried out these raids with considerable dash and some success, showing their mobility by the ease with which they covered long distances, sometimes a hundred miles in forty-eight hours; but as at this time they had no special arrangements for carrying water, their scope was necessarily restricted.

“During these operations the main body was attacked by a considerable number of Dervishes. The attack was delivered in thick bush on the arrival of the force in bivouac, and before the zareba was formed; it was pushed home with resolution, but repulsed with loss. The pursuit was carried out with vigour, and the Dervish casualties were estimated at three hundred. The Abyssinians returned their loss at thirty-one killed and wounded. The Abyssinians were now living on the country, and exigencies of supply rendered it necessary to move down stream to Mekunna. . . .

“On the morning of May 28 the Abyssinians left Hahi, and after a series of forced marches surprised the Habr Suliman section of the Bagheri tribe on the morning of May 31 at Jeyd, which is thirty miles south of Bur. The Dervishes suffered heavy losses, and all their camels and stock were captured. . . . This terminated the first phase of the operations, and the force returned to Harrar.”

Later, the Negus consented to send another expedition, and “expressed the wish for an increase in the number of medical officers to accompany his force, and also suggested the issue of water-bottles to his men. At the conclusion of the first phase of the operations I had represented to the War Office that the absence of any special arrangements for carrying water had seriously affected the mobility of the Abyssinians; this want was now remedied by the issue of one thousand twelve-gallon tanks; pumps and waterproof sheets for improvising drinking-troughs were also supplied by his Majesty’s Government.

“There is no organized system of supply in the Abyssinian army, and hitherto arrangements made individually to carry one month’s supply on a mule or donkey had been found sufficient to enable expeditions to reach a district from which supplies could be drawn; such a course did not meet the conditions under which the present force was about to act, owing to the distance to be covered, the necessity for carrying water, and the total absence of any grain, either on the road or in the probable zone of operations. After some unavoidable delay, arrangements were improvised for carrying two months’ supply,[262] and his Highness Ras Makunnan,[263] who personally interested himself in the despatch of the force, subsequently supplemented this supply by sending three small convoys as transport became available. The force commenced concentration in the neighbourhood of Harrar on November 27, 1903. . . . The advanced party reached Wardair on January 12, 1904. . . . The resources of the country in the neighbourhood of the River Fafan and the arrival of two more small convoys enabled the force to keep the field until March 28, 1904, when the Abyssinian commander (Fituari Gabri) was advised that the retreat of the Mullah through the Sorl, pursued by the British columns, rendered the presence of the Abyssinian expedition no longer necessary, and the force marched for Harrar.”[264]

Those who wish to acquaint themselves with the home life of the Abyssinian people should read the works of Mansfield Parkyns and Mr. Augustus Wylde. The latter has given especially full details of the surroundings and habits of the middle and lower classes of the nation.

Mr. Wylde has chapters on “Shooting in Abyssinia” and “Outfit and Rifles.” His book also contains an appendix on “Animals met with in Abyssinia and on the Borders,” ranging in its scope from lions to sand-martins. There are several passages dealing with sport and natural history in Parkyns’s volume, and Mr. Vivian’s work contains observations on the same subjects.

Stecker’s scientific notes have been frequently mentioned. His brief but pithy treatise amply repays study. Harris’s “Highlands of Ethiopia” has valuable appendices on the climate, geology, botany, and zoology of the southern provinces (Vol. II).

Probably no country at the present time offers a better field for research, sport, and exploration than Abyssinia.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 123: “The Highlands of Æthiopia,” by Major W. Cornwallis Harris, of the H.E.I.C.’s Engineers, 1844, vol. iii. pp. 3, 4.]

[Footnote 124: “Wanderings among the Falashes,” p. 185.]

[Footnote 125: “Modern Abyssinia,” pp. 352, 353.]

[Footnote 126: Ib. p. 16.]

[Footnote 127: “The Highlands of Æthiopia,” vol. iii. pp. 84-86.]

[Footnote 128: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 157.]

[Footnote 129: Mansfield Parkyns wrote: “The ordination of priests and deacons is, I believe, tolerably simple; for instance, I have been told that, on the arrival of the present Abouna from Egypt, the candidates, who are only required to be able to read a little, were collected in a mass near the place where he was. The bishop then went through some ceremony, and ended by pronouncing a blessing, and blowing in the direction of the assembled crowd, who were thus all ordained. Among these was a woman with her child in her arms, who had come thither from motives of curiosity. She, too, was of course ordained; but I don’t remember hearing that she ever officiated. If a priest be married previous to his ordination, he is allowed to remain so; but no one can marry after having entered the priesthood.” (“Life in Abyssinia,” p. 294.)]

[Footnote 130: See p. 240.]

[Footnote 131: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” pp. 307, 308.]

[Footnote 132: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 321.]

[Footnote 133: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 214 _seq._]

[Footnote 134: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” pp. 201, 202. Major Harris inspected the Cathedral of St. Michael at Ankóber, and in his description of it wrote, “In the holy of holies is deposited the sacred _tabot_, consecrated at Gondar by the delegate of the Coptic patriarch; and around the veil that fell before this mysterious emblem there hung in triumph four sporting pictures from the pencil of Alken, which had been presented to the king. They represented the great Leicestershire steeple-chase, and Dick Christian, with his head in a ditch, occupied by far the most prominent niche in the Cathedral of St. Michael!”]

[Footnote 135: Dufton, “A Journey through Abyssinia,” p. 90.]

[Footnote 136: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 233 _seq._]

[Footnote 137: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 297 _seq._]

[Footnote 138: “Life in Abyssinia,” pp. 160, 161.]

[Footnote 139: Ib. p. 277.]

[Footnote 140: “Life of Bruce,” by Major Head, p. 266.]

[Footnote 141: “Abyssinia,” p. 276 _seq._]

[Footnote 142: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. p. 139.]

[Footnote 143: Ib. p. 138.]

[Footnote 144: Major Head, “Life of Bruce,” p. 265.]

[Footnote 145: Ib. p. 268.]

[Footnote 146: “Modern Abyssinia,” pp. 361, 362.]

[Footnote 147: The Alaka is the superior of a monastery or other head of an ecclesiastical establishment.]

[Footnote 148: Major Harris, “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. pp. 134, 135.]

[Footnote 149: “Abyssinia,” p. 283.]

[Footnote 150: “British Mission to Abyssinia,” pp. 225, 226.]

[Footnote 151: “The British Mission to Abyssinia,” vol. i. p. 227. Cf. p. 107 of this book.]

[Footnote 152: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. pp. 133, 134.]

[Footnote 153: “The British Mission to Abyssinia,” vol. i. p. 217.]

[Footnote 154: “The British Mission to Abyssinia,” vol. i. p. 217. Stern did not observe this separation of the sexes.]

[Footnote 155: “Abyssinia,” p. 277.]

[Footnote 156: “Abyssinia,” p. 288.]

[Footnote 157: Cf. p. 224.]

[Footnote 158: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. p. 132.]

[Footnote 159: This appendix of Major Harris’s book was evidently prepared with care, and it is therefore surprising to find the saints, whose deeds are commemorated on October 4, described as “Papa and Mamma”! Presumably the explanation is that there was humour among the compositors of the year 1844, and that the compiler neglected his proof-reading.]

[Footnote 160: “Abyssinia,” pp. 280, 285.]

[Footnote 161: “Life in Abyssinia,” pp. 277, 278.]

[Footnote 162: A province of Abyssinia.]

[Footnote 163: “Abyssinia Described,” by J. C. Hotten, p. 160.]

[Footnote 164: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. p. 139.]

[Footnote 165: Parkyns, “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 294.]

[Footnote 166: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 218.]

[Footnote 167: Harris, “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. p. 141.]

[Footnote 168: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 181.]

[Footnote 169: “A Journey through Abyssinia,” p. 91.]

[Footnote 170: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 163.]

[Footnote 171: “Abyssinia Described,” p. 164.]

[Footnote 172: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 164.]

[Footnote 173: “Abyssinia Described,” p. 159.]

[Footnote 174: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 91.]

[Footnote 175: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 131.]

[Footnote 176: Ib.]

[Footnote 177: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 289.]

[Footnote 178: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. p. 148.]

[Footnote 179: Ib.]

[Footnote 180: This was the “Sultan Segued” who caused the still existing bridge over the Blue Nile to be built. See p. 147.]

[Footnote 181: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. p. 186.]

[Footnote 182: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 295.]

[Footnote 183: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 306.]

[Footnote 184: P. 136.]

[Footnote 185: “Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia,” 1520-27, translated and edited by Lord Stanley of Alderley, Hakluyt Society, 1881.]

[Footnote 186: “History of Ethiopia,” made English by J. P. Gent, 1684.]

[Footnote 187: The reader need hardly be reminded that the same interdiction is in force elsewhere. It is the refusal of the _connubium_ that renders the British population in the East of London and elsewhere unable to assimilate the large colonies of Jews who have lately immigrated into this country, and in great part causes the difficulties of the “Alien Question.” The subject has been treated in Major Evans Gordon’s very interesting book, “The Alien Immigrant” (1903).]

[Footnote 188: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 187.]

[Footnote 189: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. p. 145.]

[Footnote 190: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” pp. 185, 186.]

[Footnote 191: “Abyssinia,” p. 329.]

[Footnote 192: Major Head’s “Biography,” p. 162.]

[Footnote 193: Major Head’s “Biography of Bruce,” pp. 162, 163.]

[Footnote 194: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 186.]

[Footnote 195: See “Wanderings among the Falashas,” chap. xiv. _et seq._]

[Footnote 196: Hotten, p. 166.]

[Footnote 197: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 188.]

[Footnote 198: Greenberg and Co., 80, Chancery Lane, London.]

[Footnote 199: Hotten, pp. 167, 168.]

[Footnote 200: Dufton, “A Journey through Abyssinia,” p. 143.]

[Footnote 201: The ancient city of Axum is remarkable for the ruins and other traces of an early and extinct civilization which it contains. These have been the occasion of much speculation among archæologists. An account of the obelisks and other remains was given by Bruce; Mr. Wylde has made some interesting comments on the subject in his chapter on Axum; many writers on Abyssinia have referred to it at some length; and the late Mr. Theodore Bent dealt with the antiquities of the place in “The Sacred City of the Ethiopians” (Longmans, Green and Co., 1893).]

[Footnote 202: Augustus Wylde, “Modern Abyssinia,” pp. 18, 407.]

[Footnote 203: See p. 143.]

[Footnote 204: Hotten, p. 167.]

[Footnote 205: Plowden, quoted by Hotten, p. 166. Plowden’s description applies to the fifties of the nineteenth century.]

[Footnote 206: “The British Mission to Abyssinia,” vol. i. p. 209.]

[Footnote 207: “According to Abyssinian tradition, the King of Tigre, soon after his conversion to Christianity, crossed the Taccazze, and invaded Simien and Amhara. Here he met a people who were neither Pagans nor Christians, a marvel which aroused the monarch’s curiosity, and he inquired what they believed; to which, in a laconic style, they replied in their own dialect, _Kam Ant_, _i.e._ ‘as thou,’ from whence they obtained their present appellation.”]

[Footnote 208: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 42 _seq._]

[Footnote 209: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 144.]

[Footnote 210: “Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. p. 393.]

[Footnote 211: Hotten, p. 120.]

[Footnote 212: Ib. p. 186.]

[Footnote 213: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 366.]

[Footnote 214: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” chap. ix; Hotten, p. 121.]

[Footnote 215: See, _e.g._ “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 368.]

[Footnote 216: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 310.]

[Footnote 217: Hotten, p. 183 _seq._]

[Footnote 218: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. p. 184.]

[Footnote 219: Hotten, p. 158.]

[Footnote 220: See, _e.g._ p. 121.]

[Footnote 221: “Abyssinia,” p. 204.]

[Footnote 222: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 254.]

[Footnote 223: “Life in Abyssinia,” pp. 255, 256.]

[Footnote 224: Parkyns, pp. 266, 267.]

[Footnote 225: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 181 _seq._ “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 256 _seq._]

[Footnote 226: “The British Mission to Abyssinia,” vol. ii. p. 219.]

[Footnote 227: In matters of detail this account applies, of course, to Abyssinia in the first half of the nineteenth century.]

[Footnote 228: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. iii. pp. 166-168.]

[Footnote 229: Hotten, p. 137.]

[Footnote 230: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 119.]

[Footnote 231: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 268.]

[Footnote 232: Johnson’s translation.]

[Footnote 233: “Abyssinia,” p. 232.]

[Footnote 234: “The British Mission to Abyssinia,” vol. ii. pp. 215, 216.]

[Footnote 235: “Abyssinia,” p. 231.]

[Footnote 236: Hotten, p. 137.]

[Footnote 237: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 268.]

[Footnote 238: See p. 223.]

[Footnote 239: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 118.]

[Footnote 240: “The British Mission to Abyssinia,” vol. ii. pp. 219, 220.]

[Footnote 241: Ib. vol. ii. p. 216.]

[Footnote 242: Johnson’s translation.]

[Footnote 243: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 245 _seq._]

[Footnote 244: “Abyssinia,” p. 231.]

[Footnote 245: “The Highlands of Ethiopia,” vol. ii. p. 156 _seq._]

[Footnote 246: Hotten, p. 166.]

[Footnote 247: “Modern Abyssinia,” 1901, p. 143.]

[Footnote 248: “A Journey through Abyssinia,” p. 167 _seq._]

[Footnote 249: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 154 _seq._]

[Footnote 250: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 300 _seq._]

[Footnote 251: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 385.]

[Footnote 252: “Life in Abyssinia,” p. 318 _seq._]

[Footnote 253: “Wanderings among the Falashas,” p. 161.]

[Footnote 254: Compare Consul Plowden’s remarks quoted on p. 70 of this book.]

[Footnote 255: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 3.]

[Footnote 256: Ib., p. 165.]

[Footnote 257: “Modern Abyssinia,” p. 224.]

[Footnote 258: Compare, _e.g._, his remark on p. 223, “They have any amount of pluck,” with Parkyns’s comments quoted on p. 24 of this book.]

[Footnote 259: _E.g._ p. 222.]

[Footnote 260: Ib., p. 216.]

[Footnote 261: Eyre and Spottiswoode.]

[Footnote 262: Cf. p. 308.]

[Footnote 263: Mr. Wylde describes the Ras as “by far the cleverest and most enlightened man that the country possesses.” He is a possible successor to the Abyssinian throne.]

[Footnote 264: Colonel Rochfort’s Report.]

APPENDIX

Abyssinia is a deeply interesting country from the point of view of geographical distribution, and it is much to be regretted that Dr. A. J. Hayes did not have the opportunity of collecting insects on a large scale. The animals of the southern half of Arabia are Ethiopian in character; but in the Abyssinian mountains we may expect to find, and we do find, a certain amount of Oriental affinity.

The valuable little collection of insects made by Dr. Hayes has been presented by him to the Hope Department of the Oxford University Museum, where the specimens can be seen and studied by every naturalist interested in the great problems of distribution. The attention of the donor was directed to the Oxford Museum by Mr. W. L. S. Loat, who has himself contributed a large amount of valuable material. Dr. Hayes’ collection was made, in February 1903, in the vicinity of Lake Tsana, at a height of about 6500 feet. A complete list is furnished below. Dr. Dixey has kindly determined and made remarks upon the _Pierinae_.

=LEPIDOPTERA.=

NYMPHALIDAE.

DANAINAE: 1 _Limnas chrysippus_ (Linn.) ♀. The ground colour of the pale tint characteristic of Oriental specimens and usually replaced by a much darker shade in African.

DANAINAE: 2 _L. chrysippus_ (Linn.) var. _alcippus_ (Cram.) ♂♂. Typical.

NYMPHALINAE: 1 _Neptis agatha_ (Cram.).

1 _Precis cebrene_ (Trim.).

PAPILIONIDAE.

PIERINAE: 1 _Catopsilia florella_ (Fabr.) ♂.

2 _Colias electra_ (Linn.) ♂ ♀.

3 _Terias brigitta_ (Cram.) ♂ ♂ ♀. Dry season forms; not extreme.

3 _Eronia leda_ (Boisd.) ♂ ♀ ♀.

One of these females has an orange apical patch on the forewing, almost as distinct as that of the male.

1 _Pinacopteryx_ sp. ?

A female, rather worn; simulating _Mylothris agathina_ ♀.

Probably a new species, but being in poor condition and a single specimen it would not be advisable to describe it.

1 _Belenois severina_ (Cram.) ♀. Dry season form.

1 _Phrissura_ sp. ♂.

A male, of the _P. sylvia_ group. This form of _Phrissura_ has not previously been recorded from any part of East Africa.

PAPILIONINAE: 8 _Papilio demodocus_ (Esp.).

=HYMENOPTERA.=

1 _Dorylus fimbriatus_ (Shuck.) ♂.

=COLEOPTERA.=

LAMELLICORNIA.

SCARABAEIDAE: 1 _Oniticellus inaequalis_ (Reiche). Only known from Abyssinia.

CETONIIDAE: 1 _Pachnoda abyssinica_ (Blanch.).

1 _Pachnoda stehelini_ (Schaum). Both Abyssinian species.

PHYTOPHAGA.

CASSIDIDAE: 1 _Aspidomorpha punctata_ (Fab.).

HETEROMERA.

CANTHARIDAE: 2 _Mylabris_, probably a new species.

=NEUROPTERA.=

1 _Nemoptera_, probably a new species.

=ORTHOPTERA.=

ACRIDIIDAE: 1 _Cyrtacanthacris_ sp.

1 _Phymateus brunneri?_ (Bolivar).

1 _Phymateus leprosus_ (Fab.).

1 _Petasia anchoreta_ (Bolivar).

MANTIDAE: 1 _Sphodromantis bioculata_ (Burm.).

1 _Chiropus aestuans?_ (Sauss.).

In addition to the above, Dr. Hayes presented three insects captured by him at Gedaref in the Soudan, including a pair of a magnificent new species of Buprestid beetle of the genus _Sternocera_, taken _in coitu_. This species has recently been described, from Dr. Hayes’ specimen and two others in the British Museum, by Mr. C. O. Waterhouse, who has given it the name _Sternocera druryi_ (“Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist.” Oct., 1904, p. 247). The third insect is an example of a Cantharid beetle, which does great damage to the crops at Gadarif. Its determination as _Mylabris hybrida_ (Bohem.) is therefore a matter of some importance.

THE END

* * * * * PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

Transcriber's Note:

pg 70 (footnote 41) Changed: Abyssinnia and its people to: Abyssinia

pg 91-92 (footnote 61) Changed: equitidœ to: equitidæ

pg 91-92 (footnote 61) Changed: nectariniœ to: nectariniæ

pg 96 Changed: plently of fish to: plenty

pg 271 Changed: been complied by to: compiled

pg 293 Changed: general langour to: languor

pg 311 (footnote 262) Changed: Cp. to: Cf.

Minor punctuation changes have been done silently.

Spelling inconsistencies have been left unchanged.