Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 3/Book 5/Chapter 9
CHAP. IX.
Transactions at Gondar.
We went all to Authulé's house to supper in violent rage, such anger as is usual with hungry men. We brought with us from the palace three of my brother Baalomaals, and one who had stood to make up the number, though he was not in office; his name was Guebra Mascal, he was a sister's son of the Ras, and commanded one third of the troops of Tigré, which carried fire-arms, that is about 2000 men. He was reputed the best officer of that kind that the Ras had, and was a man about 30 years of age, short, square, and well made, with a very unpromising countenance; flat nose, wide mouth, of a very yellow complexion, and much pitted with the small-pox; he had a most uncommon presumption upon the merit of past services, and had the greatest opinion of his own knowledge in the use of fire-arms, to which he did not scruple to say Ras Michael owed all his victories. Indeed it was to the good opinion that the Ras had of him as a soldier that he owed his being suffered to continue at Gondar; for he was suspected to have been familiar with one of his uncle's wives in Tigré, by whom it was thought he had a child, at least the Ras put away his wife, and never owned the child to be his.
This man supped with us that night, and thence began one of the most serious affairs I ever had in Abyssinia. Guebra Mascal, as usual, vaunted incessantly his skill in fire-arms, the wonderful gun that he had, and feats he had done with it. Petros said, laughing, to him, "You have a genius for shooting, but you have had no opportunity to learn. Now, Yagoube is come, he will teach you something worth talking off." They had all drank abundantly, and Guebra Mascal had uttered words that I thought were in contempt of me. I believe, replied I peevishly enough, Guebra Mascal, I should suspect, from your discourse, you neither knew men nor guns; every gun of mine in the hands of my servants shall kill twice as far as yours, for my own, it is not worth my while to put a ball in it: When I compare with you, the end of a tallow-candle in my gun shall do more execution than an iron ball in the best of yours, with all the skill and experience you pretend to.
He said I was a Frank, and a liar, and, upon my immediately rising up, he gave me a kick with his foot. I was quite blind with passion, seized him by the throat, and threw him on the ground stout as he was. The Abyssinians know nothing of either wrestling or boxing. He drew his knife as he was falling, attempted to cut me in the face, but his arm not being at freedom, all he could do was to give me a very trifling stab, or wound, near the crown of the head, so that the blood trickled down over my face. I had tript him up, but till then had never struck him. I now wrested the knife from him with a full intention to kill him; but Providence directed better. Instead of the point, I struck so violently with the handle upon his face as to leave scars, which would be distinguished even among the deep marks of the small-pox. An adventure so new, and so unexpected, presently overcame the effects of wine. It was too late to disturb anybody either in the palace or at the house of the Ras. A hundred opinions were immediately started; some were for sending us up to the king, as we were actually in the precincts of the palace, where lifting a hand is death. Ayto Heikel advised that I should go, late as it was, to Koscam; and Petros, that I should repair immediately to the house of Ayto Aylo, while the two Baalomaals were for taking me to sleep in the palace. Anthulè, in whose house I was, and who was therefore most shocked at the outrage, wished me to stay in his house, where I was, from a supposition that I was seriously wounded, which all of them, seeing the blood fall over my eyes, seemed to think was the case, and he, in the morning, at the king's rising, was to state the matter as it happened. All these advices appeared good when they were proposed; for my part, I thought they only tended to make bad worse, and bore the appearance of guilt, of which I was not conscious.
I now determined to go home, and to bed in my own house. With that intention, I washed my face and wound with vinegar, and found the blood to be already staunched. I then wrapt myself up in my cloak, and returned home without accident, and went to bed. But this would neither satisfy Ayto Heikel nor Petros, who went to the house of Ayto Aylo, then past midnight, so that early in the morning, when scarce light, I saw him come into my chamber. Guebra Mascal had fled to the house of Kefla Yasous his relation; and the first news we heard in the morning, after Ayto Aylo arrived, were, that Guebra Mascal was in irons at the Ras's house.
Every person that came afterwards brought up some new account; the whole people present had been examined, and had given, without variation, the true particulars of my forbearance, and his insolent behaviour. Every body trembled for some violent resolution the Ras was to take on my first complaint. The town was full of Tigrè soldiers, and nobody saw clearer than I did, however favourable a turn this had taken for me in the beginning, it might be my destruction in the end.
I asked Ayto Aylo his opinion. He seemed at a loss to give it me; but said, in an uncertain tone of voice, he could wish that I would not complain of Guebra Mascal while I was angry, or while the Ras was so inveterate against him, till some of his friends had spoken, and appeased, at least, his first resentment. I answered, "That I was of a contrary opinion, and that no time was to be lost: remember the letter of Mahomet Gibberti; remember his confidence yesterday of my being safe where he was; remember the influence of Ozoro Esther, and do not let us lose a moment." "What, says Aylo to me in great surprise, are you mad? Would you have him cut to pieces in the midst of 20,000 of his countrymen? Would you be dimmenia, that is, guilty of the blood of all the province of Tigrè, through which you must go in your way home?" "Just the contrary, said I, nobody has so great a right over the Ras's anger as I have, being the person injured; and, as you and I can get access to Ozoro Esther when we please, let us go immediately thither, and stop the progress of this affair while it is not yet generally known. People that talk of my being wounded expect to see me, I suppose, without a leg or an arm. When they see me so early riding in the street, all will pass for a story as it should do. Would you wish to pardon him entirely?"—"That goes against my heart, too, says Aylo, he is a bad man."—"My good friend, said I, be in this guided by me, I know we both think the same thing. If he is a bad man, he was a bad man before I knew him. You know what you told me yourself of the Ras's jealousy of him. What if he was to revenge his own wrongs, under pretence of giving me satisfaction for mine? Come, lose no time, get upon your mule, go with me to Ozoro Esther, I will answer for the consequences."
We arrived there; the Ras was not sitting in judgment, he had drank hard the night before, on occasion of Powussen's marriage, and was not in bed when the story of the fray reached him. We found Ozoro Esther in a violent anger and agitation, which was much alleviated by my laughing. On her asking me about my wound, which had been represented to her as dangerous, "I am afraid, said I, poor Guebra Mascal is worse wounded than I." "Is he wounded too? says she; I hope it is in his heart." "Indeed, replied I, Madam, there are no wounds on either side. He was very drunk, and I gave him several blows upon the face as he deserved, and he has already got all the chastisement he ought to have; it was all a piece of folly." "Prodigious! says she; is this so?" "It is so, says Aylo, and you shall hear it all by-and-by, only let us stop the propagation of this foolish story."
The Ras in the instant sent for us. He was naked, sitting on a stool, and a slave swathing up his lame leg with a broad belt or bandage. I asked him calmly and pleasantly if I could be of any service to him? He looked at me with a grin, the most ghastly I ever saw, as half displeased. "What! says he, are you all mad? Aylo, what is the matter between him and that miscreant Guebra Mascal?"—"Why, said I, I am come to tell you that myself; why do you ask Ayto Aylo? Guebra Mascal got drunk, was insolent, and struck me. I was sober, and beat him, as you will see by his face; and I have now come to you to say I am sorry that I lifted my hand against your nephew; but he was in the wrong, and drunk; and I thought it was better to chastise him on the spot, than trust him to you, who perhaps might take the affair to heart, for we all know your justice, and that being your relation is no excuse when you judge between man and man. "I order you, Aylo, says Michael, as you esteem my friendship, to tell me the truth, really as it was, and without disguise or concealment."
Aylo began accordingly to relate the whole history, when a servant called me out to Ozoro Esther. I found with her another nephew of the Ras, a much better man, called Welleta Selaffé, who came from Kefla Yasous, and Guebra Mascal himself, desiring I would forgive and intercede for him, for it was a drunken quarrel without malice. Ozoro Esther had told him part. "Come in with me, said I, and you shall see I never will leave the Ras till he forgive him." "Let him punish him, says Welleta Selaffé, he is a bad man, but don't let the Ras either kill or maim him." "Come, said I, let us go to the Ras, and he shall neither kill, maim, nor punish him, if I can help it. It is my first request; if he refuses me I will return to Jidda; come and hear."
Aylo had urged the thing home to the Ras in the proper light—that of my safety. "You are a wise man, says Michael, now perfectly cool, as soon as he saw me and Welleta Selassé. It is a man like you that goes far in safety, which is the end we all aim at. I feel the affront offered you more than you do, but will not have the punishment attributed to you; this affair shall turn to your honour and security, and in that light only I can pass over his insolence." "Welleta Selassé, says he, falling into a violent passion in an instant, What sort of behaviour is this my men have adopted with strangers? and my stranger, too, and in the king's palace, and the king's servant? What! am I dead? or become incapable of governing longer?" Welleta Selassé bowed, but was afraid to speak, and indeed the Ras looked like a fiend.
"Come, says the Ras, let me see your head." I shewed him where the blood was already hardened, and said it was a very slight cut. "A cut, continued Michael, over that part, with one of our knives, is mortal." "You see, Sir, said I, I have not even clipt the hair about the wound; it is nothing. Now give me your promise you will set Guebra Mascal at liberty; and not only that, but you are not to reproach him with the affair further than that he was drunk, not a crime in this country." "No, truly, says he, it is not; but that is, because it is very rare that people fight with knives when they are drunk. I scarce ever heard of it, even in the camp." "I fancy, said I, endeavouring to give a light turn to the conversation, they have not often wherewithal to get drunk in your camp." "Not this last year, says he, laughing, there were no houses in the country." "But let me only merit, said I, Welleta Selassé's friendship, by making him the messenger of good news to Guebra Mascal, that he is at liberty, and you have forgiven him." "At liberty! says he, Where is he?" "In your house, said I, somewhere, in irons." "That is Esther's intelligence, continued the Ras; these women tell you all their secrets, but when I remember your behaviour to them I do not wonder at it, and that consideration likewise obliges me to grant what you ask. Go, Welleta Selassé, and free that dog from his collar, and direct him to go to Welleta Michael, who will give him his orders to levy the meery in Woggora; let him not see my face till he returns.
Ozoro Esther gave us breakfast, to which several of the Greeks came. After which I went to Koscam, where I heard a thousand curses upon Guebra Mascal. The whole affair was now made up, and the king was acquainted with the issue of it. I stood in my place, where he shewed me very great marks of favour; he was grave, however, and sorrowful, as if mortified with what had happened. The king ordered me to stay and dine at the palace, and he would send me my dinner. I there saw the sons of Kasmati Eshté, Aylo, and Engedan, and two Welleta Selassés; one the son of Tecla Mariam, the other the son of a great nobleman in Gojam, all young men, with whom I lived ever after in perfect familiarity and friendship. The two last were my brethren Baalomaal, or gentlemen of the king's bed-chamber.
They all seemed to have taken my cause to heart more than I wished them to do, for fear it should be productive of some new quarrel. For my own part, I never was so dejected in my life. The troublesome prospect before me presented itself day and night. I more than twenty times resolved to return by Tigrè, to which I was more inclined by the loss of a young man who accompanied me through Barbary, and assisted me in the drawings of architecture which I made for the king there, part of which he was still advancing here, when a dysentery, which had attacked him in Arabia Felix, put an end to his life[1] at Gondar. A considerable disturbance was apprehended upon burying him in a church-yard. Abba Salama used his utmost endeavours to raise the populace and take him out of his grave; but some exertions of the Ras quieted both Abba Salama and the tumults.I began, however, to look upon every thing now as full of difficulty and danger; and, from this constant fretting and despondency, I found my health much impaired, and that I was upon the point of becoming seriously ill. There was one thing that contributed in some measure to dissipate these melancholy thoughts, which was, that all Gondar was in one scene of festivity. Ozoro Ayabdar, daughter of the late Welled Hawaryat, by Ozoro Altash, Ozoro Esther's sister, and the Iteghè's youngest daughter, consequently grand-daughter to Michael, was married to Powussen, now 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. All the town, that wished to be well-looked upon by either party, brought something considerable as a present. The Ras, Ozoro Esther, and Ozoro Altash, entertained all Gondar. A vast number of cattle was slaughtered every day, and the whole town looked like one great market; the common people, in every street, appearing loaded with pieces of raw beef, while drink circulated in the same proportion. The Ras insisted upon my dining with him every day, when he was sure to give me a head-ach with the quantity of mead, or hydromel, he forced me to swallow, a liquor that never agreed with me from the first day to the last.
After dinner we slipt away to parties of ladies, where anarchy prevailed as complete as at the house of the Ras. All the married women ate, drank, and smoaked like the men; and it is impossible to convey to the reader any idea of this bacchanalian scene in terms of common decency. I found it necessary to quit this riot for a short time, and get leave to breathe the fresh air of the country, at such a distance as that, once a day, or once in two days, I might be at the palace, and avoid the constant succession of those violent scenes of debauchery of which no European can form any idea, and which it was impossible to escape, even at Koscam.
Although the king's favour, the protection of the Ras, and my obliging, attentive, and lowly behaviour to every body, had made me as popular as I could wish at Gondar, and among the Tigrans fully as much as those of Amhara, yet it was easy to perceive, that the cause of my quarrel with Guebra Mascal was not yet forgot.
One day, when I was standing by the king in the palace, he asked, in discourse, "Whether I, too, was not drunk in the quarrel with Guebra Mascal, before we came to blows?" and, upon my saying that I was perfectly sober, both before and after, because Anthulè's red wine was finished, and I never willingly drank hydromel, or mead, he asked with a degree of keenness, "Did you then soberly say to Guebra Mascal, that an end of a tallow candle, in a gun in your hand, would do more execution than an iron bullet in his?"—"Certainly, Sir, I did so."—"And why did you say this?" says the king dryly enough, and in a manner I had not before observed. "Because, replied I, it was truth, and a proper reproof to a vain man, who, whatever eminence he might have obtained in a country like this, has not knowledge enough to entitle him to the trust of cleaning a gun in mine."—"O! ho! continued the king; as for his knowledge I am not speaking of that, but about his gun. You will not persuade me that, with a tallow candle, you can kill a man or a horse."—"Pardon me, Sir, said I, bowing very respectfully, I will attempt to persuade you of nothing but what you please to be convinced of: Guebra Mascal is my equal no more, you are my master, and, while I am at your court, under your protection, you are in place of my sovereign, it would be great presumption in me to argue with you, or lead to a conversation against an opinion that you profess you are already fixed in."—"No, no, says he, with an air of great kindness, by no means, I was only afraid you would expose yourself before bad people; what you say to me is nothing."—"And what I say to you, Sir, has always been as scrupulously true as if I had been speaking to the king my native sovereign and master. Whether I can kill a man with a candle, or not, is an experiment that should not be made. Tell me, however, what I shall do before you that you may deem an equivalent? Will piercing the table, upon which your dinner is served, (it was of sycamore, about three quarters of an inch thick), at the length of this room, be deemed a sufficient proof of what I advanced?""Ah, Yagoube, Yagoube, says the king, take care what you say. That is indeed more than Guebra Mascal will do at that distance; but take great care; you don't know these people; they will lie themselves all day; nay, their whole life is one lie; but of you they expect better, or would be glad to find worse; take care." Ayto Engedan, who was then present, said, "I am sure if Yagoube says he can do it, he will do it; but how, I don't know. Can you shoot through my shield with a tallow candle?"—"To you, Ayto Engedan, said I, I can speak freely; I could shoot thro' your shield if it was the strongest in the army, and kill the strongest man in the army that held it before him. When will you see this tried?"—"Why now, says the king; there is nobody here."—"The sooner the better, said I; I would not wish to remain for a moment longer under so disagreeable an imputation as that of lying, an infamous one in my country, whatever it may be in this. Let me send for my gun; the king will look out at the window."—"Nobody, says he, knows any thing of it; nobody will come."
The king appeared to be very anxious, and, I saw plainly, incredulous. The gun was brought; Engedan's shield was produced, which was of a strong buffalo's hide. I said to him, "This is a weak one, give me one stronger." He shook his head, and said, "Ah, Yagoube, you'll find it strong enough; Engedan's shield is known to be no toy." Tecla Mariam brought such a shield, and the Billetana Gueta Tecla another, both of which were most excellent in their kind. I loaded the gun before them, first with powder, then upon it slid down one half of what we call a farthing candle; and, having beat off the handles of three shields, I put them close in contact with each other, and set them all three against a post.
Now, Engedan, said I, when you please say—Fire! but mind you have taken leave of your good shield for ever." The word was given, and the gun fired. It struck the three shields, neither in the most difficult nor the easiest place for perforation, something less than half way between the rim and the boss. The candle went through the three shields with such violence that it dashed itself to a thousand pieces against a stone-wall behind it. I turned to Engedan, saying very lowly, gravely, and without exultation or triumph, on the contrary with absolute indifference, "Did not I tell you your shield was naught?" A great shout of applause followed from about a thousand people that were gathered together. The three shields were carried to the king, who exclaimed in great transport, I did not believe it before I saw it, and I can scarce believe it now I have seen it. Where is Guebra Mascal's confidence now? But what do either he or we know? We know nothing." I thought he looked abashed.
"Ayto Engedan, said I, we must have a touch at that table. It was said, the piercing that was more than Guebra Mascal could do. We have one half of the candle left still; it is the thinnest, weakest half, and I shall put the wick foremost, because the cotton is softest." The table being now properly placed, to Engedan's utmost astonishment the candle, with the wick foremost, went through the table, as the other had gone through the three shields. "By St Michael! says Engedan, Yagoube, hereafter say to me you can raise my father Eshté from the grave, and I will believe you." Some priests who were there, though surprised at first, seemed afterward to treat it rather lightly, because they thought it below their dignity to be surprised at any thing. They laid it was done (mucktoub) by writing, by which they meant magic. Every body embraced that opinion as an evident and rational one, and so the wonder with them ceased. But it was not so with the king: It made the most favourable and lasting impression upon his mind; nor did I ever after see, in his countenance, any marks either of doubt or diffidence, but always, on the contrary, the most decisive proofs of friendship, confidence, and attention, and the most implicit belief of every thing I advanced upon any subject from my own knowledge.
The experiment was twice tried afterwards in presence of Ras Michael. But he would not risk his good shields, and always produced the table, saying, "Engedan and those foolish boys were rightly served; they thought Yagoube was a liar like themselves, and they lost their shields; but I believed him, and gave him my table for curiosity only, and so I saved mine."
As I may now say I was settled in this country, and had an opportunity of being informed of the manners, government, and present state of it, I shall here inform the reader of what I think most worthy his attention, whether ancient or modern, while we are yet in peace, before we are called out to a campaign or war, attended with every disadvantage, danger, and source of confusion.
- ↑ See Introduction.