CHAPTERVI.
Return to Aliu Amba.—Visited by Hy Soumaulee—Complain of being cheated by Ohmed Mahomed.—Christians of Abyssinia and of the Greek Church generally forbidden the use of tobacco.—Miriam’s house and furniture.—Islam contempt for Christianity.—Evening walk.—Begging monks.
Return to Aliu Amba.—Visited by Hy Soumaulee—Complain of being cheated by Ohmed Mahomed.—Christians of Abyssinia and of the Greek Church generally forbidden the use of tobacco.—Miriam’s house and furniture.—Islam contempt for Christianity.—Evening walk.—Begging monks.
Thismorning, Walderheros having hired a mule for two salt-pieces, we proceeded to Aliu Amba. I was not sorry, on reaching the summit of the ridge in front of Ankobar, to see again the Dinkee vale, stretching away before me, studded with eminences and little hill villages. As nearly as possible in the centre of them all, was the flat circumscribed summit of the rock of Aliu Amba, which we did not lose sight of during the whole hour occupied in descending to its foot. The ride was most tiresome, but my mule had more reason to be dissatisfied than myself, and glad she was to be at length ascending the irregular sized steps of displaced stones, which leads on to the little plain before we reach the first houses in the town. Here she broke into a gallop, and carried me unresistingly across the market-place, and along a narrow winding lane, with thatched houses, eachin its own snug enclosure, on either side. At the wicket of one of these the animal stopped, and my sudden appearance rather astonished two women who were sitting in the door porch busily spinning cotton. “Woi Gypt, Woi Gypt,” they repeatedly exclaimed, as they got up from the ground, just in time to meet Walderheros, who now came running up. He soon explained the mistake of the mule, and taking hold of the bridle, led her about one hundred yards farther along the lane, to a house the most miserable looking of any I had yet seen in the town.
Here, however, I was informed Lieut. Barker had resided for nearly four months, previously to his return to Aden, and I had been advised, in Ankobar, to live in the same house, at least until a better one could be obtained from the Governor. The landlady was a poor Mahomedan woman, named Miriam, a widow with two children, one a grown up youth of seventeen, named Ibrahim, and the other a daughter, not more than three years old.
Arrangements were immediately made for my accommodation, and the news of my arrival soon spread about the town. Numerous visitors, Christian and Islam, thronged the entrance of the house all day, the floor being occupied by the more influential ones. I lay in a little recess, just long and deep enough to receive my bedstead, a low wooden frame, with a bottom of interlaced stripsof hide, over which an ox skin was thrown for a mattress.
With such of my new friends who could speak Arabic, I managed to keep up something like a conversation, and also with some Indians and Persians, who came, among others, to pay their respects, whom I gratified with the relation of all the latest news from their respective countries.
The Governor of Aliu Amba, whose name was Tinta, had not returned from Angolahlah, but his misselannee, or deputy, dragged into my presence, by the horns, a fine goat, which he requested me to accept. Walderheros readily consented in my name, and relieved him at once of his charge, which was taken forthwith and slaughtered; the Deputy-Governor being chief butcher on the occasion, getting for his trouble the head and bowels, which, however, were first brought into me very dutifully, to obtain my permission for such a disposal.
Seeing preparations made for eating, the crowd gradually withdrew, and with considerable natural politeness left me alone to partake of my evening’s meal, without interruption. Fortunately I had brought with me, from the coast, a tea-kettle, frying-pan, and two other vessels of tinned copper. These now became very useful, and Walderheros was not long in placing before me a nicely cooked dinner of boiled meat.
A report of my arrival at Aliu Amba havingbeen carried the same evening to Channo, the next morning I was astonished at seeing the house beset by a number of my Hy Soumaulee friends, who, although they were glad to see me, appeared to be not at all satisfied with something or other.
As none of the Tajourah people had come with them, I sent for an Islam sheik, Hadjji Abdullah, who lived in the next house, to come and interpret between us. This man, by-the-by, came from Berberah, on the banks of the Nile, in Upper Egypt, yet he made himself perfectly understood in the Affah language; and I expect, therefore, that some ethnological connexion will be found to exist between the people of Dongola and the Dankalli tribes, although I understand that this has been denied by some modern travellers, on the ground, singularly enough, of the total distinctness between their two languages.
I was not much surprised to learn that the cause of complaint among the Hy Soumaulee was, that Ohmed Mahomed, who had received from the British Embassy one hundred and twenty dollars, to pay them their wages, at the rate of four dollars each man, had thought proper to give them no more than one each, and a small coarse cotton cloth not the value of half a dollar. Of course the Hy Soumaulee knew nothing of the British Embassy; it was to me they looked for the payment of their stipulated wages, and which, for the latter part of our journey, I had always stated would befive dollars to each man. I recollected perfectly that when they were first engaged I refused to sanction more than four dollars being given, on the plea that, perhaps, the expense I was incurring would be objected to as unnecessary, considering that Mr. Cruttenden had paid in Tajourah all the expenses that we were told would be necessary upon the road. Ohmed Mahomed, however, replied, that in case the extra dollar should be refused, Ebin Izaak and himself would each give half a dollar, and so make up the five dollars per man, and I had therefore always told the Hy Soumaulee they would receive five dollars each. When I discovered how they had been cheated by Ohmed Mahomed, who had actually told them that he had not received a dollar from the Embassy, but that the dollar he had given to each was that one promised by himself and Ebin Izaak, I was only surprised they did not sacrifice me at once to their resentment. I soon disabused them of the deceit that had been practised upon them, and promised that, as the British Mission would be in Ankobar in the course of two days, I would go up and see the Ambassador on purpose that the matter should be examined into.
My old escort then went away very peaceably; but so strict are the orders of the Negoos to prevent any strangers, more especially those coming from Adal, to enter the kingdom without special permission, that the arrival of the Hy Soumaulee in Aliu Amba created quite an alarm, lest, onthe one hand, they should commit violence, although they were unarmed, except with their heavy knives; or, on the other, that the displeasure of the Negoos should be excited against the townspeople for having permitted them to come into Aliu Amba at all.
It was sometime before I became accustomed to the new circumstances by which I was surrounded. My house was merely a round shed, having a diameter of about twelve feet, the wall of dry sticks, five feet high, being surmounted by the usual conical roof of thatch. Opposite to the entrance was a slight deviation from the exact periphery of a circle, occasioned by the recess before mentioned, in which was contained my wide couch. Here the wall bulged out something like a bow window in form, and was covered by a little elongation of the roof in that situation. Nearly in the centre of the apartment was a dilapidated raised ring of clay and pebbles, some five or six inches high, and about three feet in diameter. This formed the hearth, within which two large stones, and the broken-off neck of an old jar, formed a kind of tripod, that occasionally supported a smoke-blacked earthenware “macero,” or cooking pot, in which was being boiled either some sort of grain or other for the family, or else the meat for mine and Walderheros’ supper.
On one side, ranged along the wall, stood several large jars, two of which, covered by gourd shelldrinking cups, contained water, whilst others, superannuated by sundry cracks, were partly filled with teff, or wheat. The former is the minute seed of a kind of grass, of which is made the bread of the temperate countries of Abyssinia, as it flourishes best in situations between the wheat and barley fields cultivated upon the high table land of Shoa, and the jowarree plantations in the very low countries on a level with the Hawash.
The only piece of furniture, strictly speaking, in the house, except my bed, was a chair of the most primitive construction, its thong-woven bottom being scarcely six inches from the ground. It would have been altogether a good model for some rustic seat builder about to fit up the interior of a garden alcove. My two boxes assisted, however, in producing a showy effect, one of them being a Chinese trunk, covered with bright red leather, the other a shiny tin medicine chest, and to make them useful as well as ornamental, they were generally converted into seats on the occasion of any visitors of rank calling upon me.
Besides these things, old red gowns of my landlady, and some tattered grass-made baskets and sieves used in dressing and cleaning grain, were suspended from the projecting ends of the stick wall, and made the interior of the house look rather untidy.
Walderheros was one of the few Abyssinians I have met who appeared to delight in cleanliness,and a pretty dust he was continually raising, by sweeping with a large handful of well-leaved boughs the clay floor of our residence. He delighted also in the unholy pleasures of the pipe, a severe rheumatism always affecting him when he was about to indulge; and I often smile when I think of the canting tone and long visage with which he used to apostrophise the inanimate object of his affections, a gourd shell pipe, as he drew it towards him, and excused such a dereliction of duty as a Greek Christian, upon the plea that nothing but the smoke of tobacco could drive out the “saroitsh,” or demons, who, according to Abyssinian belief, affect the frame when suffering from any disease.
According to a tradition of the Greek Church, it appears that the devil paid repeated visits to Noah when he commenced building the ark, for the purpose of ascertaining by what means and of what materials he constructed it. The patriarch, however, kept his own counsel, until the devil called to his aid the herb tobacco, with which, it seems, he made poor Noah drunk, and whilst in that state the enemy of mankind wormed his secret from him. Thus assisted (for it is said Noah became an inveterate smoker), the devil availed himself of the darkness of night to undo all that Noah had put together during the day, and this was the principal cause that the building of the ark extended over so long a period. “Ever sincethat time,” saith the tradition, “God has laid a heavy curse upon tobacco.”[4]If some of the precepts of the Gospel were observed with equal veneration as is this ridiculous story by Abyssinian Christians, we should not have to regret the low ebb to which our religion has been reduced in this priest-ridden, but I must not say consequently, benighted land.
Walderheros, however, was a business man, and before he sat down to smoke, he was careful to shut out observers of the fact, by fixing in its place the old rotten door of three or four untrimmed trunks of small trees, tied into a kind of flat surface by the tough bark of a species of mimosa tree. This hung by two hinges of thongs to a crooked door-post, and shut against the wall on the opposite side, where its own weight kept the entrance securely closed. When all had been arranged satisfactorily, he would drag the clumsy chair into a position opposite to my couch, and sitting down with his back to the door, place the rude pipe between his feet. Then applying his mouth to the end of its long stem, between each puff he would look up, to tell me in Amharic the name of some object for me to write down, whilsthe in return would endeavour to learn their Arabic names, which language for some reason or other, he seemed very anxious to learn. I found afterwards that he thought it was English, and wished to learn something of it, on purpose to understand me when speaking my own language, and thus become the admiration of a circle of his acquaintance burning with curiosity to know what I might be saying. Walderheros was, in fact, the best caricature I ever met of that spirit which prompts empirics to employ unintelligible language to increase the presumption of their extensive learning. If any of his friends were present, I could never get a syllable from him but one or other of about a dozen Arabic words he had picked up. Everything was “ewah” (yes) or “la la” (no), and how happy he was when circumstances admitted of his saying “tahle” (come), or “rah” (go), and the grave satisfaction with which he turned round to interpret to his simple gaping companions the meaning of the conversation they had just been treated with, was most ridiculously absurd. When he met a real Arab it was still better; all impatience to display his vast knowledge of their language, every word he knew of it would be pressed into service, whilst the wondering auditor, who would have understood him well enough in Amharic, with a vacant look would probably turn to me, and say, “Arder rigal muginoon fee!” (That man is a fool!)
His temper, however, was provokingly good, for besides its being a great contrast to my own, I half suspected under such a bland exterior some deceit must lurk, but he was a lesson in human nature, and patient ugliness will for the future be a recommendation to me. When illness and pain had contrived to make me the most fretful and irritable of mortals, how often have I been reproved, for my unreasonable upbraidings and continually finding fault, by his constantly mild reply, “Anter gaitah,” “Anter gaitah” (“You are my master,” “You are my master”.)
I was not unfrequently visited by venerable sheiks and learned mollums, who, with the usual Mahomedan assumption of superiority, squatted down upon the boxes uninvited, and considered themselves at liberty to beg, borrow, or steal, as opportunities afforded, without any remonstrance from the Feringhee they affected to patronize.
Although at this time the town of Aliu Amba had a Christian governor, more than three-fourths of its inhabitants were Mahomedans. These were exceedingly cautious in the expression of any dislike towards the religion of their rulers, but their prejudice against the Christian faith only rankled the more in their bosoms. It showed itself chiefly in petty acts of contempt or slight that could not well be complained of without betraying some littleness of spirit. Many of my visitors, for example, when they saw the body of a slaughtered sheephanging upon the wall, would, with the coolest impudence imaginable, hold their noses when they came into the house, as if it had become tainted by being killed by Walderheros.
Again, they always expected to have the first cup of coffee handed to them, and, in fact, this was the only refreshment they ever deigned to partake with me. When my servant complained to me that my visitors represented this, which my politeness in the first place had induced me to practise, to be an acknowledgment of their superiority as Islam believers, I soon put a stop to the mistaken idea, and if they did not choose to take the only cup I had, after me, they went without. It was some time before they became reconciled to the precedence of a Christian, even in such a trivial matter as this. In doing as I did, there was, perhaps, but little credit on my side, for I opposed their prejudice from a zealous weakness that differed not the least from the principle which had actuated them; but the heart of man is everywhere the same. “Thus I trample,” said Diogenes, “upon the pride of Plato.” “With equal pride,” retorted the insulted sage.
Towards evening it was usual whilst I lived at Miriam’s, for me, attended by Walderheros, to walk to the edge of the precipitous face, looking towards the east, of the rock upon which Aliu Amba is built. Here, upon a large stone, high above the narrow winding footpath, that leads from one endof the ridge to the other, I would sit looking upon the narrow but fertile valley in front, formed by the junction of the two flanking streams that nearly encircled the hill. Numerous little tributaries on each side had formed small pyramidal knolls, carefully cultivated to the very tops. One in particular, higher than the rest, was crowned with a snug-looking village, the conical roof of the largest house in which, pointed into an exact cone the figure of the hill. The name of this village was Sar-amba; the road to Ankobar skirts along its base, leaving on the right hand the town and hill of Aliu Amba. To the left of my position, the peak of the stateprison hill of Gauncho, and the seat of the Wallasmah Mahomed, was just visible over a continuous range of hills, that diminished in elevation as they approached nearer to the town of Farree, and which marked very well the original level of the once sloping talus, or scarp, which connected the high table land of Abyssinia with the low plains around the Hawash.
Whilst sitting one evening upon my usual stone, the loud whining appeal of two turbaned dirty figures announced the presence of begging monks, an order very numerous in Shoa. Their long prayer to the Almighty was still going on, and I in utter ignorance for what purpose two robust and healthy men could be addressing me in such a monotonous duet. Walderheros pretended to know nothing about them, and had it not been for somewomen who stood by amusing themselves with the appearance of the new come Gypt, or Egyptian, the monks would have had as much chance of obtaining alms from the rocks around me, as of opening my heart or understanding to their appeal. “Ahmulah, ahmulah!” cried two or three of the women, and I then found out that I must bestow in charity a salt piece, the name of which had already become familiar to me.
Walderheros soon came back from the errand I had sent him upon, to procure the bulky coin, which was, however, refused by the surly monks, with a look and grimace that said quite enough, as they duly measured the ahmulah with a span, and found that it was too short for their taste. Again Walderheros was sent to the skin bag in which was deposited the remainder of my last change for a dollar. The cunning fellow, however, instead of procuring another, as he told me afterwards, brought back the same ahmulah again, and as the monks did not think it decent to return it a second time, they growled out the usual blessing of peace and good fortune for me, with an imprecating curse for the benefit of Walderheros, and then walked away.
FOOTNOTES:[4]This is an old tradition of the Greek Church. Where it is to be found I cannot say, although it is said to be recorded in some of the works of the early Fathers. It is, I think, a proof that tobacco was known in Africa previously to the discovery of America. It is a curious fact, also, that Ignez Pallmee, the German traveller in Kordofan, found in that country potatoes used largely as food.
[4]This is an old tradition of the Greek Church. Where it is to be found I cannot say, although it is said to be recorded in some of the works of the early Fathers. It is, I think, a proof that tobacco was known in Africa previously to the discovery of America. It is a curious fact, also, that Ignez Pallmee, the German traveller in Kordofan, found in that country potatoes used largely as food.