Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 3/Book 5/Chapter 3
CHAP. III.
Journey from Arkeeko, over the mountain Taranta, to Dixan.
According to Achmet's desire, we left Arkeeko the 15th, taking our road southward, along the plain, which is not here above a mile broad, and covered with short grass nothing different from ours, only that the blade is broader. After an hour's journey I pitched my tent at Laberhey, near a pit of rain-water. The mountains of Abyssinia have a singular aspect from this, as they appear in three ridges. The first is of no considerable height, but full of gullies and broken ground, thinly covered with shrubs; the second, higher and steeper, still more rugged and bare; the third is a row of sharp, uneven-edged mountains, which would be counted high in any country in Europe. Far above the top of all, towers that stupendous mass, the mountain of Taranta, I suppose one of the highest in the world, the point of which is buried in the clouds, and very rarely seen but in the clearest weather; at other times abandoned to perpetual mist and darkness, the seat of lightning, thunder, and of storm.
Taranta is the highest of a long, steep ridge of mountains, the boundary between the opposite seasons. On its east side, or towards the Red Sea, the rainy season is from October to April; and, on the western, or Abyssinian side, cloudy, rainy, and cold weather prevails from May to October.In the evening, a messenger from the Naybe found us at our tent at Laberhey, and carried away our guide Saloomé. It was not till the next day that he appeared again, and with him Achmet, the Naybe's nephew. Achmet made us deliver to him the thirteen pieces of Surat cloth, which was promised Saloomé for his hire, and this, apparently, with that person's good-will. He then changed four of the men whom the Naybe had furnished us for hire to carry our baggage, and put four others in their place; this, not without some murmuring on their part; but he peremptorily, and in seeming anger, dispatched them back to Arkeeko.
Achmet now came into the tent, called for coffee, and, while drinking it, said, "You are sufficiently persuaded that I am your friend; if you are not, it is too late now to convince you. It is necessary, however, to explain the reasons of what you see. You are not to go to Dobarwa, though it is the best road, the safest being preferable to the easiest. Saloomé knows the road by Dixan as well as the other. You will be apt to curse me when you are toiling and sweating ascending Taranta, the highest mountain in Abyssinia, and on this account worthy your notice. You are then to consider if the fatigue of body you then suffer in that passage is not overpaid by the absolute safety you will find yourselves in. Dobarwa belongs to the Naybe, and I cannot answer for the orders he may have given to his own servants; but Dixan is mine, although the people are much worse than those of Dobarwa. I have written to my officers there; they will behave the better to you for this; and, as you are strong and robust, the best I can do for you is to send you by a rugged road, and a safe one.
Achmet again gave his orders to Saloomé, and we, all rising, said the fedtah, or prayer of peace; which being over, his servant gave him a narrow web of muslin, which, with his own hands, he wrapped round my head in the manner the better sort of Mahometans wear it at Dixan. He then parted, saying, "He that is your enemy is mine also; you shall hear of me by Mahomet Gibberti."
This finished a series of trouble and vexation, not to say danger, superior to any thing I ever before had experienced, and of which the bare recital (though perhaps too minute a one) will give but an imperfect idea. These wretches possess talents for tormenting and alarming, far beyond the power of belief; and, by laying a true sketch of them before a traveller, an author does him the most real service. In this country the more truely we draw the portrait of man, the more we seem to fall into caricatura.
On the 16th, in the evening, we left Laberhey; and, after continuing about an hour along the plain, our grass ended, the ground becoming dry, firm, and gravelly, and we then entered into a wood of acacia-trees of considerable size. We now began to ascend gradually, having Gedem, the high mountain which forms the bay of Arkeeko, on our left, and these same mountains, which bound the plain of Arkeeko to the west, on our right. We encamped this night on a rising-ground called Shillokeeb, where there is no water, though the mountains were everywhere cut through with gullies and water courses, made by the violent rains that fall here in winter.
The 17th, we continued along the same plain, still covered thick with acacia-trees. They were then in blossom, had a round yellow flower, but we saw no gum upon the trees. Our direction had hitherto been south. We turned westerly through an opening in the mountains, which here stand so close together as to leave no valley or plain space between them but what is made by the torrents, in the rainy season, forcing their way with great violence to the sea.
The bed of the torrent was our only road; and, as it was all sand, we could not wish for a better. The moisture it had strongly imbibed protected it from the sudden effects of the sun, and produced, all alongst its course, a great degree of vegetation and verdure. Its banks were full of rack-trees, capers, and tamarinds; the two last bearing larger fruit than I had ever before seen, though not arrived to their greatest size or maturity.
We continued this winding, according to the course of the river, among mountains of no great height, but bare, stony, and full of terrible precipices. At half past eight o'clock we halted, to avoid the heat of the sun, under shade of the trees before mentioned, for it was then excessively hot, though in the month of November, from ten in the morning till two in the afternoon. We met this day with large numbers of Shiho, having their wives and families along with them, descending from the tops of the high mountains of Habesh, with their flocks to pasture, on the plains below near the sea, upon grass that grows up in the months of October and November, when they have already consumed what grew in the opposite season on the other side of the mountains.
This change of domicil gives them a propensity to thieving and violence, though otherwise a cowardly tribe. It is a proverb in Abyssinia, "Beware of men that drink two "waters," meaning these, and all the tribes of Shepherds, who were in search of pasture, and who have lain under the same imputation from the remotest antiquity.
The Shiho were once very numerous; but, like all these nations having communication with Masuah, have suffered much by the ravages of the small-pox. The Shiho are the blackest of the tribes bordering upon the Red Sea. They were all clothed; their women in coarse cotton shifts reaching down to their ancles, girt about the middle with a leather belt, and having very large sleeves; the men in short cotton breeches reaching to the middle of their thighs, and a goat's skin cross their shoulders. They have neither tents nor cottages, but either live in caves in the mountains under trees, or in small conical huts built with a thick grass like reeds.
This party consisted of about fifty men, and, I suppose, not more than thirty women; from which it seemed probable the Shiho are Monogam, as afterwards, indeed, I knew them to be. Each of them had a lance in his hand, and a knife at the girdle which kept up the breeches. They had the superiority of the ground, as coming down the mountain which we were ascending; yet I observed them to seem rather uneasy at meeting us; and so far from any appearance of hostility, that, I believe, had we attacked briskly, they would have fled without much resistance. They were, indeed, incumbered with a prodigious quantity of goats and other cattle, so were not in a fighting trim. I saluted the man that seemed to be their chief, and asked him if he would sell us a goat. He returned my salute; but either could not speak Arabic, or declined further conversation. However, those of our people behind, that were of a colour nearer to themselves, bought us a goat that was lame, (dearly they said) for some antimony, four large needles, and some beads. Many of them asked us for kissirah, or bread. This being an Arabic word, and their having no other word in their language signifying bread, convinces me they were Icthyophagi; as, indeed, history says all those Troglydite nations were who lived upon the Red Sea. It could not indeed be otherwise: the rich, when trade flourished in these parts, would probably get corn from Arabia or Abyssinia; but, in their own country, no corn would grow.
At 2 o'clock in the afternoon we resumed our journey through a very stony, uneven road, till 5 o'clock, when we pitched our tent at a place called Hamhammou, on the side of a small green hill some hundred yards from the bed of the torrent. The weather had been perfectly good since we left Masuah: this afternoon, however, it seemed to threaten rain; the high mountains were quite hid, and great part of the lower ones covered with thick clouds; the lightning was very frequent, broad, and deep tinged with blue; and long peals of thunder were heard, but at a distance. This was the first sample we had of Abyssinian bad weather.
The river scarcely ran at our passing it; when, all on a sudden, we heard a noise on the mountains above, louder than the loudest thunder. Our guides, upon this, flew to the baggage, and removed it to the top of the green hill; which was no sooner done, than we saw the river coming down in a stream about the height of a man, and breadth of the whole bed it used to occupy. The water was thick tinged with red earth, and ran in the form of a deep river, and swelled a little above its banks, but did not reach our station on the hill.
An antelope, surprised by the torrent, and I believe hurt by it, was forced over into the peninsula where we were, seemingly in great distress. As soon as my companions saw there was no further danger from the river, they surrounded this innocent comrade in misfortune, and put him to death with very little trouble to themselves. The acquisition was not great; it was lean, had a musky taste, and was worse meat than the goat we had bought from the Shiho. The torrent, though now very sensibly diminished, still preserved a current till next morning.
Between Hamhammou and Shillokeeb we first saw the dung of elephants, full of pretty thick pieces of indigested branches. We likewise, in many places, saw the tracks thro' which they had passed; some trees were thrown down from the roots, some broken in the middle, and branches half-eaten strewed on the ground.
Hamhammou is a mountain of black stones, almost calcined by the violent heat of the sun. This is the boundary of the district; Samhar, inhabited by the Shiho from Hamhammou to Taranta, is called Hadassa; it belongs to the Hazorta.This nation, though not so numerous as the Shiho, are yet their neighbours, live in constant defiance of the Naybe, and are of a colour much resembling new copper; but are inferior to the Shiho in size, though very agile. All their substance is in cattle; yet they kill none of them, but live entirely upon milk. They, too, want also an original word for bread in their language, for the same reason, I suppose, as the Shiho. They have been generally successful against the Naybe, and live either in caves, or in cabannes, like cages, just large enough to hold two persons, and covered with an ox's hide. Some of the better sort of women have copper bracelets upon their arms, beads in their hair, and a tanned hide wrapt about their shoulders.
The nights are cold here—even in summer, and do not allow the inhabitants to go naked as upon the rest of the coast; however, the children of the Shiho, whom we met first, were all naked.
The 18th, at half past five in the morning, we left our station on the side of the green hill at Hamhammou: for some time our road lay through a plain so thick set with acacia-trees that our hands and faces were all torn and bloody with the strokes of their thorny branches. We then resumed our ancient road in the bed of the torrent, now nearly dry, over stones which the rain of the preceding night had made very slippery.
At half past seven we came to the mouth of a narrow valley, through which a stream of water ran very swiftly over a bed of pebbles. It was the first clear water we had seen since we left Syria, and gave us then unspeakable pleasure. It was in taste excellent. The shade of the tamarind-tree, and the coolness of the air, invited us to rest on this delightful spot, though otherwise, perhaps, it was not exactly conformable to the rules of prudence, as we saw several huts and families of the Hazorta along the side of the stream, with their flocks feeding on the branches of trees and bushes, entirely neglectful of the grass they were treading under foot.
The caper-tree here grows as high as the tallest English elm; its flower is white, and its fruit, though not ripe, was fully as large as an apricot.
I went some distance to a small pool of water in order to bathe, and took my firelock with me; but none of the savages stirred from their huts, nor seemed to regard me more than if I had lived among them all their lives, though surely I was the most extraordinary sight they had ever seen; whence I concluded that they are a people of small talents or genius, having no curiosity.
At two o'clock we continued our journey, among large timber trees, till half past three, along the side of the rivulet, when we lost it. At half past four we pitched our ten at Sadoon, by the side of another stream, as clear, as shallow, and as beautiful as the first; but the night here was exceedingly cold, though the sun had been hot in the day-time. Our desire for water was, by this time, considerably abated. We were everywhere surrounded by mountains, bleak, bare, black, and covered with loose stones, entirely destitute of soil; and, besides this gloomy prospect, we saw nothing but the heavens.
On the 19th, at half past six in the morning, we left Sadoon, our road still winding between mountains in the bed, or torrent of a river, bordered on each side with rack and sycamore trees of a good size. I thought them equal to the largest trees I had ever seen; but upon considering, and roughly measuring some of them, I did not find one 7½ feet diameter; a small tree in comparison of those that some travellers have observed, and much smaller than I expected; for here every cause concurred that should make the growth of these large bodies excessive.
At half past eight o'clock, we encamped at a place called Tubbo, where the mountains are very steep, and broken, very abruptly, into cliffs and precipices. Tubbo was by much the most agreeable station we had seen; the trees were thick, full of leaves, and gave us abundance of very dark shade. There was a number of many different kinds so closely planted that they seemed to be intended for natural arbours. Every tree was full of birds, variegated with an infinity of colours, but destitute of song; others, of a more homely and more European appearance, diverted us with a variety of wild notes, in a stile of music still distinct and peculiar to Africa; as different in the composition from our linnet and goldfinch, as our English language is to that of Abyssinia: Yet, from very attentive and frequent observation, I found that the sky-lark at Masuah sang the same notes as in England. It was observable, that the greatest part of the beautiful painted birds were of the jay, or magpie kind: nature seemed, by the fineness of their dress, to have marked them for children of noise and impertinence, but never to have intended them for pleasure or meditation.
The reason of the Hazorta making, as it were, a fixed station here at Tubbo, seems to be the great exuberancy of the foliage of these large trees. Their principal occupation seemed to be to cut down the branches most within their reach; and this, in a dry season, nearly stripped every tree; and, upon failure of these, they remove their flocks, whatever quantity of grass remained.
The sycamores constitute a large proportion of these trees, and they are everywhere loaded with figs; but the process of caprification being unknown to these savages, these figs come to nothing, which else might be a great resource for food at times, in a country which seems almost destitute of the necessaries of life.
We left Tubbo at three o'clock in the afternoon, and we wished to leave the neighbourhood of the Hazorta. At four, we encamped at Lila, where we passed the night in a narrow valley, full of trees and brushwood, by the side of a rivulet. These small, but delightful streams, which appear on the plain between Taranta and the sea, run only after October. When the summer rains in Abyssinia are ceasing, they begin again on the east side of the mountains; at other times, no running water is to be found here, but it remains stagnant in large pools, whilst its own depth, or the shade of the mountains and trees, prevent it from being exhaled by the heat of the sun till they are again replenished with fresh supplies, which are poured into them upon return of the rainy season. Hitherto we had constantly ascended from our leaving Arkeeko, but it was very gradually, indeed almost imperceptibly.
On the 20th, at six o'clock in the morning, we left our station at Lila, and about seven we began to ascend the hills, or eminences, which serve as the roots or skirts of the great mountain Taranta. The road was on each side bordered with nabca, or jujeb trees of great beauty, and sycamores perfectly deprived of their verdure and branches.
We saw to-day plenty of game. The country here is everywhere deprived of the shade it would enjoy from these fine trees, by the barbarous axes of the Hazorta. We found everywhere immense flocks of antelopes; as also partridges of a small kind that willingly took refuge upon trees; neither of these seemed to consider us as enemies. The antelopes let us pass through their flocks, only removing to the right or to the left, or standing still and gazing upon us till we passed. But, as we were then on the confines of Tigrè, or rather on the territory of the Baharnagash, and as the Hazorta were in motion everywhere removing towards the coast, far from the dominions of the Abyssinians to which we were going, a friend of their own tribe, who had joined us for safety, knowing how little trust was to be put in his countrymen when moving in this contrary direction, advised us by no means to fire, or give any unnecessary indication of the spot where we were, till we gained the mountain of Taranta, at the foot of which we halted at nine in the morning.
At half past two o'clock in the afternoon we began to ascend the mountain, through a most rocky, uneven road, if it can deserve the name, not only from its incredible steepness, but from the large holes and gullies made by the torrents, and the huge monstrous fragments of rocks which, loosened by the water, had been tumbled down into our way. It was with great difficulty we could creep up, each man carrying his knapsack and arms; but it seemed beyond the possibility of human strength to carry our baggage and instruments. Our tent, indeed, suffered nothing by its falls; but our telescopes, time-keeper, and quadrant, were to be treated in a more deliberate and tender manner.
Our quadrant had hitherto been carried by eight men, four to relieve each other; but these were ready to give up the undertaking upon trial of the first few hundred yards. A number of expedients, such as trailing it on the ground, (all equally fatal to the instrument) were proposed. At last, as I was incomparably the strongest of the company, as well as the most interested, I, and a stranger Moor who had followed us, carried the head of it for about 400 yards over the most difficult and steepest part of the mountain, which before had been considered as impracticable by all.
Yasine was the name of that Moor, recommended to me by Metical Aga, of whom I have already spoken a little, and shall be obliged to say much more; a person whom I had discovered to be a man of a most sagacious turn of mind, firm heart, and strenuous nerves; never more distinguished for all these qualities than in the hour of imminent danger; at other times remarkable for quietness and silence, and a constant study of his Koran.
We carried it steadily up the steep, eased the case gently over the big stones on which, from time to time, we rested it; and, to the wonder of them all, placed the head of the three-foot quadrant, with its double case, in safety far above the stony parts of the mountain. At Yasine's request we again undertook the next most difficult task, which was to carry the iron foot of the quadrant in a single deal-case, not so heavy, indeed, nor so liable to injury, but still what had been pronounced impossible to carry up so steep and rugged a mountain; and refusing then the faint offers of those that stood gazing below, excusing themselves by foretelling an immediate and certain miscarriage, we placed the second case about ten yards above the first in perfect good condition.
Declaring ourselves now without fear of contradiction, and, by the acknowledgment of all, upon fair proof, the two best men in the company, we returned, bearing very visibly the characters of such an exertion; our hands and knees were all cut, mangled, and bleeding, with sliding down and clambering over the sharp points of the rocks; our clothes torn to pieces; yet we professed our ability, without any reproaches on our comrades, to carry the two telescopes and time-keeper also. Shame, and the proof of superior constancy, so much humbled the rest of our companions, that one and all put their hands so briskly to work, that, with infinite toil, and as much pleasure, we advanced so far as to place all our instruments and baggage, about two o'clock in the afternoon, near half way up this terrible mountain of Taranta.
There were five asses, two of which belonged to Yasine, and these were fully as difficult to bring up the mountain as any of our burdens. Most of their loading, the property of Yasine, we carried up the length of my instruments; and it was proposed, as a thing that one man could do, to make the unladen light asses follow, as they had been well taken care of, were vigorous and young, and had not suffered by the short journies we had made on plain ground. They no sooner, however, found themselves at liberty, and that a man was compelling them with a stick to ascend the mountain, than they began to bray, to kick, and to bite each other; and, as it were with one consent, not only ran down the part of the hill we had ascended, but, with the same jovial cries as before, (smelling, I suppose, some of their companions) they continued on at a brisk trot; and, as we supposed, would never stop till they came to Tubbo, and the huts of the Hazorta.
All our little caravan, and especially the masters of these animals, saw from above, in despair, all our eagerness to pass Taranta defeated by the secession of the most obstinate of the brute creation. But there was no mending this by reflection; at the same time, we were so tired as to make it impossible for the principals to give any assistance. Bread was to be baked, and supper to be made ready, after this fatiguing journey.
At length four Moors, one of them a servant of Yasine, with one firelock, were sent down after the asses; and the men were ordered to fire at a distance, so as to be heard in case any thing dishonest was offered on the part of the Hazorta. But luckily the appetite of the asses returning, they had fallen to eat the bushes, about half way to Lila, where they were found a little before sun-set.The number of hyænas that are everywhere among the bushes, had, as we supposed, been seen by these animals, and had driven them all into a body. It was probable that this, too, made them more docile, so that they suffered themselves to be driven on before their masters. The hyænas, however, followed them step by step, always increasing in number; and, the men, armed only with lances, began to be fully as much afraid for themselves as for the asses. At last the hyænas became so bold, that one of them seized the ass belonging to the poor Moor, whose cargo was yet lying at the foot of Taranta, and pulled him down, though the man ran to him and relieved him with lances. This would have begun a general engagement with the hyænas, had not Yasine's man that carried the firelock discharged it amongst them, but missed them all. However, it answered the purpose; they disappeared, and left the asses and ass-drivers to pursue their way.
The shot, for a moment, alarmed us all upon the mountain. Every man ran to his arms to prepare for the coming of the Hazorta; but a moment's reflection upon the short time the men had been away, the distance between us and Tubbo, and the small space that it seemed to be from where the gun was fired, made us all conclude the man had only intended by the shot to let us know they were at hand, tho' it was not till near midnight before our long-eared companions joined their masters.
We found it impossible to pitch our tents, from the extreme weariness in which our last night's exertion had left us: But there was another reason also; for there was not earth enough covering the bare sides of Taranta to hold fast a tent-pin; but there were variety of caves near us, and throughout the mountain, which had served for houses to the old inhabitants; and in these found a quiet and not inconvenient place of repose, the night of the 20th of November.
All this side of the mountain of Taranta, which we had passed, was thick-set with a species of tree which we had never before seen, but which was of uncommon beauty and curious composition of parts; its name is kol-quall[1]. Though we afterwards met it in several places of Abyssinia, it never was in the perfection we now saw it in Taranta.
On the 21st, at half past six in the morning, having encouraged my company with good words, increase of wages, and hopes of reward, we began to encounter the other half of the mountain, but, before we set out, seeing that the ass of the stranger Moor, which was bit by the hyæna, was incapable of carrying his loading further, I desired the rest every one to bear a proportion of the loading till we should arrive at Dixan, where I promised to procure him another which might enable him to continue his journey.
This proposal gave universal satisfaction to our Mahometan attendants. Yasine swore that my conduct was a reproach to them all, for that, though a Christian, I had set them an example of charity to their poor brother, highly necessary to procure God's blessing upon their journey, but which should properly have come first from themselves. After a great deal of strife of kindness, it was agreed that I should pay one-third, that the lame ass should go for what it was worth, and the Moors of the caravan make up the difference.
This being ended, I soon perceived the good effect. My baggage moved much more briskly than the preceding day. The upper part of the mountain was, indeed, steeper, more craggy, rugged, and slippery than the lower, and impeded more with trees, but not embarrassed so much with large stones and holes. Our knees and hands, however, were cut to pieces by frequent falls, and our faces torn by the multitude of thorny bushes. I twenty times now thought of what Achmet had told me at parting, that I should curse him for the bad road shewn to me over Taranta; but bless him for the quiet and safety attending me in that passage.
The middle of the mountain was thinner of trees than the two extremes; they were chiefly wild olives which bear no fruit. The upper part was close covered with groves of the oxy cedrus, the Virginia, or berry-bearing cedar, in the language of the country called Arze. At last we gained the top of the mountain, upon which is situated a small village called Halai, the first we had seen since our leaving Masuah. It is chiefly inhabited by poor servants and shepherds keeping the flocks of men of substance living in the town of Dixan.
The people here are not black, but of a dark complexion bordering very much upon yellow. They have their head bare; their feet covered with sandals; a goat's skin upon their shoulders; a cotton cloth about their middle; their hair short and curled like that of a negroe's in the west part of Africa; but this is done by art, not by nature, each man having a wooden stick with which he lays hold of the lock and twists it round a screw, till it curls in the form he desires[2]. The men carry in their hands two lances and a large shield of bull's hide. A crooked knife, the blade in the lower part about three inches broad, but diminishing to a point about sixteen inches long, is stuck at their right side, in a girdle of coarse cotton cloth, with which their middle is swathed, going round them six times.
All sorts of cattle are here in great plenty; cows and bulls of exquisite beauty, especially the former; they are, for the most part, completely white, with large dewlaps hanging down to their knees; their heads, horns, and hoofs perfectly well-turned; the horns wide like our Lincolnshire kine; and their hair like silk. Their sheep are large, and all black. I never saw one of any other colour in the province of Tigré. Their heads are large; their ears remarkably short and small; instead of the wool they have hair, as all the sheep within the tropics have, but this is remarkable for its lustre and softness, without any bristly quality, such as those in Beja, or the country of Sennaar; but they are neither so fat, nor is their flesh so good, as that of the sheep in the warmer country. The goats here, too, are of the largest size; but they are not very rough, nor is their hair long.
The plain on the top of the mountain Taranta was, in many places, sown with wheat, which was then ready to be cut down, though the harvest was not yet begun. The grain was clean, and of a good colour, but inferior in size to that of Egypt. It did not, however, grow thick, nor was the stalk above fourteen inches high. The water is very bad on the top of Taranta, being only what remains of the rain in the hollows of the rocks, and in pits prepared for it.
Being very tired, we pitched our tent on the top of the mountain. The night was remarkably cold, at least appeared so to us, whose pores were opened by the excessive heat of Masuah; for at mid-day the thermometer stood 61°, and at six in the evening 59°; the barometer, at the same time, 18½ inches French. The dew began to fall strongly, and so continued till an hour after sun-set, though the sky was perfectly clear, and the smallest stars discernible.
I killed a large eagle here this evening, about six feet ten inches from wing to wing. It seemed very tame till shot. The ball having wounded it but slighty, when on the ground it could not be prevented from attacking the men or beasts near it with great force and fierceness, so that I was obliged to stab it with a bayonet. It was of a dirty white; only the head and upper part of its wings were of a light brown.
On the 22d, at eight in the morning, we left our station on the top of Taranta, and soon after began to descend on the side of Tigré through a road the most broken and uneven that ever I had seen, always excepting the ascent of Taranta. After this we began to mount a small hill, from which we had a distinct view of Dixan.
The cedar-trees, so tall and beautiful on the top of Taranta, and also on the east side, were greatly degenerated when, we came to the west, and mostly turned into small shrubs and scraggy bushes. We pitched our tent near some marshy ground for the sake of water, at three quarters past ten, but it was very bad, having been, for several weeks, stagnant. We saw here the people busy at their wheat harvest; others, who had finished theirs, were treading it out with cows or bullocks. They make no use of their straw; sometimes they burn it, and sometimes leave it on the spot to rot.
We set out from this about ten minutes after three, descending gently through a better road than we had hitherto seen. At half past four in the evening, on the 22d of November, we came to Dixan. Halai was the first village, so is this the first town in Abyssinia, on the side of Taranta. Dixan is built on the top of a hill, perfectly in form of a sugar loaf; a deep valley surrounds it everywhere like a trench, and the road winds spirally up the hill till it ends among the houses.
This town, with a large district, and a considerable number of villages, belonged formerly to the Baharnagash, and was one of the strong places under his command. Afterwards, when his power came to be weakened, and his office in disrepute by his treasonable behaviour in the war of the Turks, and civil war that followed it, during the Portuguese settlement in the reign of Socinios, the Turks possessing the sea ports, and being often in intelligence with him, it was thought proper to wink at the usurpations of the governors of Tigrè, who, little by little, reduced this office to be dependent on their power.
Dixan, presuming upon its strength, declared for independence in the time the two parties were contending; and, as it was inhabited mostly by Mahometans, it was secretly supported by the Naybe. Michael Suhul, however, governor of Tigré, in the reign of king Yasous II. invested it with a large army of horse and foot; and, as it had no water but what was in the valley below, the general defect of these lofty situations, he surrounded the town, encamping upon the edge of the valley, and inclosed all the water within his line of circumvallation, making strong posts at every watering-place, defended by fire-arms.
He then sent to them a buffoon, or dwarf, desiring them to surrender within two hours. The passions of the inhabitants were, however, raised by expectations of succour from the Naybe; and they detested Michael above every thing that could be imagined. They, therefore, whipt the dwarf, and inflicted other marks of contumely upon him. Michael bore this with seeming indifference. He sent no more summonses, but strengthened his posts, and ordered them to be continually visited. Several attacks of no consequence were made by the besieged following large stones, which were rolled down into the trench, but all to no purpose. A general attack, however, from the town, was tried the third day, by which one well was carried, and many relieved their thirst; many died there, and the rest were forced back into the town. A capitulation was now offered; but Michael answered, he waited for the coming of the Naybe. About 700 people are said to have died, during the siege, with thirst; and at last, there being no prospect of relief, twelve of the leaders were delivered and hanged up at the wells. The town surrendered at discretion, and the soldiers finished those whom thirst had spared.
Michael then farmed Dixan to the Naybe, who repeopled it. There was a high and low town, divided from each other by a considerable space. In the lower abode Christians, at least so calling themselves; on the top of the hill were the Naybe's party, who had dug for themselves a scanty well. Saloomé, our guide, was son of the governor for the Naybe. Achmet was the person the Moors in the low town had confided in; and the Christian chief was a dependent upon Janni, our Greek friend at Adowa, who had direction of all the custom-houses in Tigrè, and of that at Dixan among the rest.
Our baggage had passed the trench, and had reached the low town, through which Saloomé had conducted me, under pretence of getting a speedy shelter from the heat; but he overacted his part; and Janni, his servant, who spoke Greek, giving me a hint to go no farther, I turned short towards the house, and sat down with my firelock upon a stone at the door. Our baggage quickly followed, and all was put safe in a kind of a court inclosed with a sufficient stone-wall.
It was not long till Hagi Abdelcader, Achmet's friend, came to us, inviting me civilly to his house, and declaring to me the friendly orders he had received from Achmet concerning me; bringing along with him also a goat, some butter and honey. I excused myself from leaving Janni's friend, the Christian, where I had first alighted; but I recommended Yasine to him, for he had begun to shew great attachment to me. In about a quarter of an hour came Saloomé, with about twenty men, and demanded us, in the name of the Naybe, as his strangers: he said we owed him money for conducting us, and likewise for the customhouse dues. In a moment near a hundred men were assembled round Hagi Abdelcader, all with shields and lances, and we expected to see a fray of the most serious kind. But Abdelcader, with a switch in his hand, went gravely up to Saloomè, and, after chiding his party with great authority, he held up his stick twice over Saloomé's head, as if to strike him; then ordered him, if he had any demands, to come to him in the evening; upon which both parties dispersed, and left us in peace.
The matter was settled in the evening with Saloomé in an amicable manner. It was proved that thirteen pieces of blue cloth were the hire agreed on, and that it had been paid by his order to Achmet; and, though he deserved nothing for his treacherous inclinations towards us, yet, for Achmet's sake, and our friend Hagi Abdelcader's, we made him a present of three pieces more.
It is true of Dixan as, I believe, of most frontier towns, that the bad people of both contiguous countries resort thither. The town, as I before have said, consists of Moors and Christians, and is very well peopled; yet the only trade of either of these sects is a very extraordinary one, that of selling of children. The Christians bring such as they have stolen in Abyssinia to Dixan as to a sure deposit; and the Moors receive them there, and carry them to a certain market at Masuah, whence they are sent over to Arabia or India. The priests of the province of Tigré, especially those near the rock Damo, are openly concerned in this infamous practice; and some of these have been licensed by Michael to carry it on as a fair trade, upon paying so many firelocks for each dozen or score of slaves.
Nothing can elucidate the footing upon which this trade stands better than a transaction which happened while I was in Ethiopia, and which reached Gondar by way of complaint from Masuah, and was told me by Michael himself.
Two priests of Tigrè, whore names I have forgot, had been long intimate friends. They dwelt near the rock Damo. The youngest was married, and had two children, both sons; the other was old, and had none. The old one reproved his friend one day for keeping his children at home idle, and not putting them to some profession by which they might gain their bread. The married priest pleaded his poverty and his want of relations that could assist him; on which, the old priest offered to place his eldest son with a rich friend of his own, who had no children, and where he should want for nothing. The proposal was accepted, and the young lad, about ten years of age, was delivered by his father to the old priest, to carry him to this friend, who sent the boy to Dixan and sold him there. Upon the old priest's return, after giving the father a splendid account of his son's reception, treatment, and prospects, he gave him a piece of cotton cloth, as a present from his son's patron.
The younger child, about eight years old, hearing the good fortune of his elder brother, became so importunate to be allowed to go and visit him, that the parents were obliged to humour him, and consent. But the old priest had a scruple, saying he would not take the charge of so young a boy, unless his mother went with him. This being settled, the old priest conveyed them to the market at Dixan, where he sold both the mother and the remaining child.
Returning to the father, the old priest told him, that his wife would stay only so long, and expected he would then fetch her upon a certain day, which was named. The day being come, the two priests went together to see this happy family; and, upon their entering Dixan, it was found that the old priest had sold the young one, but not to the same Moor to whom he had sold his family. Soon after, these two Moors, who had bought the Christians, becoming partners in the venture, the old priest was to receive forty cotton-cloths, that is, L.10 Sterling, for the husband, wife, and children.
The payment of the money, perhaps the resentment of the family trepanned, and the appearance of equity which the thing itself bore, suggested to the Moorish merchants that there was some more profit, and not more risk, if they carried off the old priest likewise. But as he had come to Dixan, as it were under public faith, in a trade that greatly interested the town, they were afraid to attempt any thing against him whilst there. They began then as it were to repent of their bargain, from a pretended apprehension that they might be stopped and questioned at going out of town, unless he would accompany them to some small distance; in consideration of which, they would give him, at parting, two pieces of cloth to be added to the other forty, which he was to take back to Tigré with him upon his return.The beginning of such expeditions is in the night. When all were asleep, they set out from Dixan; the buyers, the seller, and the family sold; and, being arrived near the mountain where the way turns off to the desert, the whole party fell upon the old priest, threw him down, and bound him. The woman insisted that she might be allowed to cut, or tear off the little beard he had, in order, as she said, to make him look younger; and this demand was reckoned too just to be denied her. The whole five were then carried to Masuah; the woman and her two children were sold to Arabia; the two priests had not so ready a market, and they were both in the Naybe's house when I was at Masuah, though I did not then know it.
The Naybe, willing to ingratiate himself with Ras Michael at a small expence, wrote to him an account of the transaction, and offered as they were priests, to restore them to him. But the Ras returned for answer, that the Nabye should keep them to be his chaplains; as he hoped, some day, he would be converted to the Christian faith himself; if not, he might send them to Arabia with the rest; they would serve to be carriers of wood and drawers of water; and that there still remained at Damo enough of their kind to carry on the trade with Dixan and Masuah.
This story I heard from Ras Michael himself, at his granddaughter's marriage, when he was feasting, and in great spirits. He, and all the company, laughed heartily; and although there were in the room at least two dozen of priests, none of them seemed to take this incident more seriously than the rest of the company. From this we may guess at the truth of what the Catholic writers advance, with regard to the respect and reverence shown to the priesthood by the government and great men in Abyssinia.
The priest of Axum, and those of the monastery of Abba Garima, are equally infamous with those of Damo for this practice, which is winked at by Ras Michael, as contributing to his greatness, by furnishing fire-arms to his province of Tigré, which gives him a superiority over all Abyssinia. As a return for this article, about five hundred of these unfortunate people are exported annually from Masuah to Arabia; of which three hundred are Pagans, and come from the market at Gondar; the other two hundred are Christian children, kidnapped by some such manner as this we have spoken of, and in times of scarcity four times that number. The Naybe receives six patakas of duty for each one exported. Dixan is in lat. 14° 57′ 55″ North, and long. 40° 7′ 30″ east of the meridian of Greenwich.
From Dixan we discovered great part of the province of Tigrè full of high dreadful mountains. We, as yet, had seen very little grain, unless by the way-side from Taranta, and a small flat called Zarai, about four miles S.S.W. of the town.