CHAPTERVII.
Residence in Aliu Amba.—Settlement with the Hy Soumaulee.—Proceed to Ankobar.—Obtain the requisite sum.—Relapse of intermittent fever.—Occupation.—Geographical information.—Course of the Gibbee.—Character of table land of Abyssinia.
Residence in Aliu Amba.—Settlement with the Hy Soumaulee.—Proceed to Ankobar.—Obtain the requisite sum.—Relapse of intermittent fever.—Occupation.—Geographical information.—Course of the Gibbee.—Character of table land of Abyssinia.
June 18th.—I had now been three days in Aliu Amba, and had begun to be familiar with the circumstances around me, when the presence of several of my Hy Soumaulee friends recalled the promise I had made to them, and rendered it again necessary to undertake the toilsome ascent to Ankobar. My Dongola acquaintance, Hadjji Abdullah, lent me his mule, and off I started, leaving the Hy Soumaulee, who accompanied me across the market-place, to amuse themselves how they could during my absence. Walderheros walked by my side, and by nine o’clock we arrived at the Residency where a little flag, displayed, telegraphed the presence of the Ambassador, Captain Harris, who had come into town the night before from Angolahlah. I was compelled to solicit, as a personal favour, that which was denied as an act of justice; on the strong representation that “these thirty dollars would be the price of my blood,” our singularlyconstituted Ambassador reluctantly consented to advance me that sum from the treasury. Let it be observed, that not one word of approbation was bestowed upon the endeavours I had made to obtain the restoration of the boxes, &c., left by Messrs. Bernatz and Scott at Hiero Murroo; and when I alluded to that circumstance, the reply I received was, “that any other party coming up would have brought them on.” The irritation and excitement consequent upon this interview aided the predisposition to a relapse, and to that I principally attribute the long illness which, from this date, afflicted me for many months.
My request, however, in the end being acceded to, after breakfast I prepared to return immediately to Aliu Amba. Mr. Assistant-Surgeon Kirk brought me a polite invitation from Captain Harris to remain at least for the day. Being the anniversary of Waterloo, someappropriateentertainment was proposed, but as I received the message in no very friendly spirit it was not repeated.
Of the thirty Hy Soumaulee engaged at Herhowlee, only seventeen came to receive their additional dollars, the remainder having left Channo with a Kafilah that started before my first return to Aliu Amba. The Ras had engaged them to accompany him across the disturbed country between the Hawash and Hiero Murroo, and after this party had received the dollar and tobe from Ohmed Mahomed, believing they should obtain no more, they hadtaken the opportunity of returning home. The remainder came in parties for the two or three succeeding days, and went away satisfied with me, but with some feeling of resentment against my worthy Ras ul Kafilah, Ohmed Mahomed.
The first decided recurrence of a fit of the intermittent fever, the paroxysms returning every other day, from which I had suffered so much in Bombay and Aden, came on during the afternoon of the day I returned from Ankobar. My illness, however, did not completely lay me up; for although on the day when the ague fits occurred it was with the greatest difficulty I could leave my bed, still, during the intermediate ones I could always occupy myself in obtaining information, either in the Amharic language, or respecting the interesting circumstances of novel character which surrounded me.
Many instructive conversations have I had with the numerous retired slave merchants who reside in Aliu Amba. The knowledge these men possessed of the country to the south of Shoa, the kingdoms of Gurague, of Enarea, of Zingero and of Limmoo, with others still more remote, was extensive and valuable, and was the result of actual visits to these places for the purpose of procuring slaves. Successful slave merchants have this character in common with horse dealers, that they are generally intelligent and shrewd men, and when they have no object to serve by concealing the truth, they may be relied upon to a considerable extent; fornone know better the value of a straightforward tale to secure confidence and good opinion. Profound judges of human nature from their habits and occupation, no one speaks truth like a clever cheating slave-dealer when it will suit his purpose. One of them in particular, however, I chose to be my geographical instructor,—an old man named Ibrahim, a native of the city of Hurrah, who possessed every mental requisite to have been recognised as a first rate traveller, had he only possessed opportunities to record the observations he had made upon men and countries that he had visited.[5]
Ibrahim had evidently amused himself during his journeys into slave districts by examining the characters of the very different people with whom he came in contact, and the striking contrasts he observed had led his attentive mind to the consideration of the probable causes for the anomalies he witnessed of the black Shankalli, the red Amhara, and the yellow Gonga, all inhabiting a plateau of limited extent. In the course of his longlife having traversed in different directions the whole of the table land from Enarea to Gondah, he had been enabled by comparison and re-observation to check and correct himself upon many points which would otherwise have been very obscure. It was not unusual for him to repeat to me instances of such errors that he had at first fallen into, but which he was subsequently enabled to correct by other opportunities of observation. His ideas upon ethnology were also exceedingly interesting and curious, and I am convinced myself that many conclusions he had arrived at on this subject are correct, for by comparing my book-acquired information with the remarkable knowledge he had collected from facts, I could confirm many of the singular truths that seemed to have enlightened his mind, and which contributed greatly to my own progress in that science.
My aged instructor would frequently draw upon the earth floor of my residence a rude diagram of the elevated plateau of Abyssinia, which was supposed for our purposes to extend to the parallel of Massoah in the north, and to that of Zanzibar in the south. East and west its extent was represented to be about half this distance. In a large depression in the eastern border, the sources of the river Hawash were represented to be, and opposite, upon the west, was a similar indentation, where the waters of the various rivers that drain this table land fall from above to jointhe Nile below. Abyssinia, in fact, stands prominently upon the low land around it, like an island in a dried-up sea, and it is this which has given occasion for the Abyssinians to compare their country with the orange red flower of the Soof, (Carthamus tinctorius,)[6]the compound corolla surrounded by sharp thorns, which are supposed aptly enough to represent the barbarous Galla tribes that beset Abyssinia on every side.
In this delineation of Abyssinia by Ibrahim I first observed the discrepancy between the present received opinions of our geographers, that that country is connected on the south with a supposed extensive table land in the interior of Africa, and that which is entertained by the natives themselves, of the well defined and distinctly marked isolated plateau they inhabit.
Upon the represented surface of Abyssinia two principal streams were now delineated, one called the Abiah, flowing from the east and the south; and the other from the north, the Abi, or Bruce’s Nile, which falls into the Abiah immediately after leaving the table land in the vicinity of Fazuglo. From the rivers Abi and Abiah is derived the name Abisha, the original of our word Abyssinia, signifying the country of the Abi; “cha” or “sha,” country, being a frequent compound of the names of large localities, as Dembeacha, the country ofDembea; Angotcha, the country of Angot; Damotcha, and many others.
We now came to the more interesting examination of the sources and course of the river Gibbee, the great geographical problem connected with this country as yet undecided by any competent authority. There is no doubt, however, that the Gibbee of the present day is the Zibbee of the Portuguese travellers of the seventeenth century, and the Kibbee of Bruce. Recent visitors to these countries, Krapf, Beke, and Harris, all bear testimony to the correctness of the account given by their predecessors, that this river runs to the south and empties itself into the Indian Ocean. I have ventured to differ altogether from these travellers; and, as will be perceived in my diagram map at the commencement of this volume, I direct the stream of the Zibbee or Gibbee to the north and west, contributing to form the much larger river Abiah, which is the main branch of Assa-abi, or red river, most erroneously written in all European maps Bahr ul Assareek, or the Blue Nile. It is impossible to say with whom this error originated, but probably with some speculative geographer; for by distorting the words “assa arogue” in Amharic, the old red river, a word, similar in sound to a Turkish one, signifying blue, has been manufactured; and Assareek, or Blue Nile, is now the generally received name of the time-honoured Assa-abinus, the Jupiter of theancient Ethiopians, and the original, I believe, of the Egyptian god Serapis. The true blue river is, in fact, the Nile itself, “nil” being the name of indigo at the present day all along the valley of that river; and in the same language, let it be borne in mind, as every other important designation of this interesting part of the world, the word “nil” is still the word for blue, and with such a signification we find it in many names of places both in India and Persia, of which a familiar example is the celebrated Sanatarium station, near Madras, of Neilgherry, fromNila gira, the blue hills. The sacred colour, also, that which distinguished the priests of ancient Egypt, was blue, and no doubt bore some reference to the name of the river, which was originally the object of their worship, for in the names of two of its principal branches, Apis and Serapis, we have the elements of the words Abi and Assaabi, the terminal sigma being the usual Grecian affix to foreign names.
In this manner I bring in the authority of Herodotus, and of the Egyptian priest who informed him of the origin of the Nile, in support of my views respecting the rivers of Abyssinia.[7]It isgenerally admitted that the Bahr ul Abiad was scarcely known to the ancients; at all events it held but a very inferior rank in any account of the rivers of Africa that has been transmitted to our times. I am, therefore, led to believe that the scribe of the sacred treasury of Minerva, who willingly informed Herodotus of what he knew respecting the sources of the Nile, alluded to the two streams of the table land of Abyssinia, the Abi flowing from the north, and the Abiah flowing from the south; which rivers uniting formed the Assa-abi of ancient days, the Assa-arogue of modern times, and which most certainly was the object of religious worship among the ancient Ethiopians.
I would not dare to advance an opinion so directly opposed to the apparently well-considered conclusions arrived at by previous travellers, but that I am convinced that those which they now advocate have been the result of biassed consultations in the closet, where ingenious, but not travelled, geographers have successfully combated the actual results of information derived upon the spot.Krapf, Beke, and Harris, all sent home maps and information, in which the river Gibbee is made to join the Nile, and each have successively given way to subsequent influences. The fact of the Assa-abi, or Assareek, flooding in May, according to the observation of Mr. Inglish, who accompanied the expedition of Mahomed Allee to Sennaar, could not be accounted for by Abyssinian travellers without, in fact, leading the Gibbee, or some other large river, to join the Abi, or Bruce’s Nile, for this latter does not commence to swell before the latter end of June, and could not therefore contribute to the rise of the waters of the Assa-abi in May. This was another reason that should have influenced these travellers to adhere to their Abyssinian information, for no argument that could be brought to bear against it could stand for a moment. But, it has been observed, there is the positive testimony of the Father Antonio Fernandez, who, in 1615, passed over the Kibbee twice in his journey to Enarea and Zingero. To this I answer, that the historiographer of “The Travels of Jesuits in Abyssinia,” F. Balthazer Tellez, so represents it, but not, I think, upon the authority of Fernandez, but merely as an opinion of his own; but asserted with so much positiveness, that it might readily be supposed part of the information which he derived from Fernandez. Compare what Tellez says in his summary of the rivers of Ethiopia—“There is another celebrated river called Zebee,saidto be greater than the Nile itself, rising in a territory called Bora, in the kingdom of Narea, which is the most southerly, and whereof we shall speak hereafter. It begins its course westward, a few leagues farther turns to the northward, and runs about the kingdom of Zingero, of which we shall also give an account, making it a sort of peninsula, as the Nile does the kingdom of Gojam. After leaving this kingdom, it takes its course to the southward; and some say, it is the same that falls into the sea at Mombaza.” Tellez alludes to the course of the Zebee again, when recounting the visit of Fernandez to the Court of Zingero; but merely observes, that it encompasses the kingdom of Zingero, making it a sort of peninsula, and then runs to empty itself towards the coast of Melinda; thus embodying, as it were, in an account of the southern parts of Abyssinia, professed to be given by Fernandez, that view of the course of the river he had previously advocated and represented in the small map placed at the commencement of his volume.
Tellez, whilst he is minute enough upon the manners and customs of the people of Abyssinia, and dilates upon the history of the labours of his order in that country, contrives to mystify us considerably in the geography and politics. I cannot help thinking he was directed by some Government to write as he did for a particular purpose, or was jealous of other nations reaping the benefits of the ill-judged policy of the Jesuits,which had terminated in their exclusion from the country; and, which, he was fully conscious, was a very available and a wide field for religious zeal or commercial enterprise to reap rich rewards for the trouble of exploring.
It is a matter of the greatest notoriety, that even in the present enlightened times, it does not follow, because the emissaries of any Government visit and observe unknown countries, that they give correct geographical or political information for the benefit of other nations. Least of any, can such disingenuousness be expected from the Portuguese Court of the seventeenth century; and I cannot therefore, but believe, confirmed as the opinion is by the internal evidence of the book itself, that the imperfect, incorrect, and distorted account of the travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, was written for the political purpose of misleading the enterprising spirits of other nations. Most effectually did it accomplish this object, and for two more centuries was this important country consigned to that obscurity, in which, for so many ages previous to its re-discovery by the Portuguese, its history had been involved. This, however, was not the only injury done to the progress of human civilization; for whilst the natives were thus allowed to fall still lower in barbarism, the Jesuitical statements interfered with European enlightenment; and geographers and men of letters have been misled in many particulars respecting the character of thecountry, and of the disposition of the various people who inhabit Abyssinia. I can ill afford the space, but to illustrate the manner in which Tellez endeavours to mislead, as regards geographical matters, I will here introduce a most glaring instance, which, I trust, may be received as my apology and excuse for presuming, as I have done, to question the integrity of the great authority of recent Abyssinian travellers; for, without Tellez, they have no authenticated evidence to oppose against that, which I can bring forward to prove that the Gibbee flows, not to the south, and to the Indian ocean, but to the north, and into the Nile. Even Bruce, much as I respect him, as the prince of travellers, evidently follows Tellez in his account of the Gibbee; and it is curious to remark, that not only as regards this river, but upon other subjects where he has exaggerated so much as to be supposed to be drawing upon his imagination, he is actually using almost the very words of the Jesuit historian.
Speaking of the Embassy dispatched to Portugal in the year 1613, by the Emperor Segued, which consisted of some natives of rank, accompanied by the father Antonio Fernandez, and ten other Portuguese, Tellez informs us, “These men were directed to take a route through Narea to Melinda, upon the coast, the Emperor believing (and he, it may be supposed, would be very likely to have the best information) that the road was shorter andeasier than the one to Massoah.” This opinion we find still farther confirmed when the Embassy arrived at Narea, for there the Bonero, or Governor, determined the party should not proceed “by the way they designed, which was the best, lest the Portuguese should become acquainted with it.” These native authorities, however, are deemed of no value by Tellez, who thus decides the matter at once, “Now, to deal plainly, the way the father (Fernandez) proposed through Cafah was no better than this (the road back again to the north and east); because, proceeding south from Narea, there is no coming to the sea without travelling many hundred leagues to the Cape of Good Hope, as may appear by all modern maps, so that the whole project had nothing of likelihood.”
Father Antonio Fernandez himself does not appear, in Tellez, to have kept any regular account of the journey; and yet there is internal evidence in what is given to the reader in the “Travels of the Jesuits,” that in reality the greatest attention was paid to every subject of interest; and as we must conceive that the first object of the Government, who supported and encouraged the Jesuits in Abyssinia, was to obtain correct geographical knowledge of that part of Africa, I cannot but believe that this was particularly attended to by their agents; but that when afterwards the travels were published to satisfy public curiosity, it was found convenient to suppress the most importantinformation. This reason is sufficient also to account for the mysterious disappearance of the greater part of the documents which assisted Tellez in drawing up his compilation, a suspicious circumstance of itself, that the object of this book was anything but to give a correct description of the physical character and capabilities of the country of Abyssinia.
I have dwelt too long, perhaps, upon an unimportant subject, but it is necessary, because modern geographers invariably advance Tellez as an unquestionable authority upon the subject of the water-shed of the Gibbee; and with his assistance they have already obliged more than one Abyssinian traveller to throw aside information received in the country, and instead of adhering to opinions advocated whilst there, to repudiate the whole, and follow in supporting errors they thus confessed themselves unable to refute. This is not the only evil of their inconsistency, for their present opinions are so many important authorities which have an equal claim to the attention of the scientific world as my own, and render it impossible for my testimony, even were it demonstrated to be correct, to be received against the conjoined evidence of two or three others who have visited Abyssinia as well as myself. This I admit to be fair, but not so the attempts which have been made to convince me of my geographical errors, not by argument, but by threats of all kinds of critical pains and penalties,for my presumption in advancing views so contrary to generally received accounts. Be it so, I feel quite assured there is some portion of the reviewing press, who will scorn to be made the instruments of unfair attacks upon any one, contending only for what he believes to be true, and for no other motive, but the instruction of himself and others.
Around his rude outline of Abyssinia, my native informant Ibrahim placed representatives of the Shankalli, who surrounded that country, except upon its eastern side, where another black race, the Dankalli, testify by their skins, to a similar low elevation of the country they inhabit. Ibrahim thus undesignedly proved the correctness of his information, for it struck me, that no physical feature is so conclusive as to the character of a country, whether high or low land, than the complexion of its inhabitants. An exception, however, to thus entirely surrounding the high land of Abyssinia with the two nations of blacks was made to the north and south of the country of Adal, where two oppositely situated water-sheds are drained by the two rivers, the Tacazza and the Whabbee, the former flowing into the Nile, the latter into the Indian Ocean at Jubah. The character of both the countries through which these rivers flow are, in one respect, similar; their elevation being intermediate between the low plains of Adal, and the table land of Abyssinia, or about six thousand feet high above the level of the sea. Theinhabitants of either water-shed also resemble each other in their colour, being a dark brown, modified by parentage and descent, for the complexion of the inhabitants of Tigre and Angotcha, approaches to the red colour of the real Abyssinian, whilst the skins of the Gallas around the sources of the Whabbee have a duskier inclination towards the original colour of their Dankalli and Shankalli parents.
To the north of Dembeacha, around the lower course of the Tacazza, European travellers attest the existence of Shankalli, whilst the officers attached to the exploring armies of Mahomed Allee, found them also all along the course of Bahr ul Assareek to Fazuglo, and report them as extending an indefinite distance to the south. On the other hand, I have seen and spoken with Shankalli or negroes who had been brought into Shoa from beyond Kuffah, Enarea, and Limmoo; and Ibrahim also was most particular in stating that all around those places to the south was the black country,Tokruah, the Amharic name for that colour, and which is the origin of the general native designation of interior Africa, and is synonymous withSudan, derived from the ArabicAsward, black.
The inference that is to be derived from this fact, of the Shankalli being found in the immediate neighbourhood of a very light complexioned people, is, that the high table land of Abyssinia suddenly slopes, on its south and west sides, from the elevation of ten or twelve thousand feet, to a lowcountry of less than three thousand feet high, a scarp of perhaps thirty miles only intervening between the two very differently situated countries.
I take it for granted the reader is aware that the light yellow-coloured people of Enarea and Zingero attest, by their skin, the elevation I have assumed for these southern Abyssinian kingdoms. It is, I think, undeniable that the table-land increases in elevation to the south, for all travellers agree that the complexion of the inhabitants becomes fairer as they increase in distance from Shoa in that direction; and I need not observe the contrary would naturally be expected as we approach nearer to the equator. Several people I have seen, however, who came from within five degrees of the line, and were much lighter coloured than the generality of Spaniards. This would not be the case with a people living only upon a mountain ridge, even if the delicate frames of the yellow Zingero people attested, by a different character, the hardy life of a mountaineer. There must be, therefore, I should suppose, a considerable continuity of surface to seclude a large family of man from the otherwise unavoidable intercourse with the darker skinned inhabitants of the low land, and to have enabled a very ancient people to continue unchanged their fair complexion nearly in the centre of a continent of blacks.
These are the principal reasons which have led me to contend for the tabular character of Abyssinia tothe south, instead of, as modern travellers invariably represent it, as being divided through its extent by an anticlinal axis, which divides the waters that flow to the north-west and to the Nile, from those which, on the contrary, proceed to the south-east and to the Indian Ocean. This impression, and Tellez’s apparently positive statement that the Zibbee flows to the southward, I am afraid, however will still be proof against my arguments, and until some enterprizing traveller visits the countries of Enarea and Zingero, and decides by actual observation, my readers may still amuse themselves by forming opinions upon this debatable subject. For their assistance I have, therefore, recorded the results of my observations, and the information I received in a country scarcely one hundred miles from these interesting and remote localities.
The Gibbee, or Zibbee, by Ibrahim’s account, rose in Enarea, where its sources were calledSomma, which, in the Gonga language signifies, “head.” At this place, annually, many superstitious practices are observed, the last remains, I expect, of the ancient river worship that was once general throughout the whole of Abyssinia. The Agows of Northern Abyssinia, who are of Gonga origin, still profess to worship the Abi, although no traveller has yet given us any account of their ceremonies; the more to be regretted, as it would throw considerable light upon the ancient customs of anearly state of society, when Abyssinia was the centre of all civilization in the world.
After flowing some distance to the south and east, the Gibbee was represented to me as taking a course similar to that of the Abi around Gojam, nearly encircling the kingdom of Zingero, which is separated from Gurague by this very stream, then a large river, and still flowing to the south. After passing westward between Zingero and Kuffah, the Gibbee then takes the name of Ankor from the principal province of Zingero which borders upon it, and in which the King resides; it then bends towards the north and west, passing to the south of Enarea, where it is called Durr, and receives a large river, the Omo, coming from Kuffah. From several reasons I believe the Omo to be the main branch, and the Durr merely another name for it; however, as some large stream does join the Gibbee from the south, I have so designated in my map one which I have laid down as coming from that direction. After the Gibbee has passed Enarea, it flows to the west of Limmoo, where it is best known as the Abiah, the common Galla name of the large river which, in that situation, breaks from the table-land, and then proceeds towards the north some distance through the country of the Shankalli before it receives, in the neighbourhood of Fazuglo, the waters of the Abi, which drains northern Abyssinia. After the junction of these two, the name Gibbee then re-assumes in part its most ancientname Assa-arogue, the original of Assareek, meaning in Amharic the old Assa, or red river, so called from flowing through the country of the red people, in contradistinction to that portion of the Nile supposed to flow from a country of the whites: hence, the name of Ab-Addo, the principal western branch of the Bahr ul Abiad, which, as in Arabic, signifies “the river of the whites.”
Gibbee, the modern form of Zibbee, lends its name to assist in unravelling the mystery of its course, for I derive it from the word Azzabe, or Assabi; the origin of the Assabinus, whom Latin authors represent to have been the Jupiter of the Ethiopians, by which is meant, I presume, the principal god of the people. If it be admitted that its name and that of the Zibbee are the same, there can be but little doubt of their streams being one, and that the latter is the early course of the former. Strange rumours reach the ears of travellers in Abyssinia, of human sacrifices being still practised by the Pagan inhabitants of Zingero, whilst even in the Christian kingdom of Enarea it is not unusual for slave Kafilahs, on crossing the Gibbee, to propitiate the god of that river by immolating the most beautiful of the virgin slaves in its waters. A similar custom was formerly practised in Egypt; for an Arab geographer, quoted by Mr. Cooley, either in his Notes to “Larcher’s Herodotus,” or “The Negroland of the Arabs,” records this circumstance. This coincidence of an inhuman practiceseems also to point to a connexion between the sacred character of the Gibbee and that of the Nile. Another ceremony also, in which, on the election of a king, the inhabitants of Zingero collect upon the banks of the Gibbee, until upon some one’s head a bee should rest, who is immediately proclaimed to be the sovereign, I have some idea was the reason of that little insect being made the hieroglyphical representative of king or chief among the ancient Egyptians, and perhaps at one period of their history a similar custom prevailed among them.
The Gibbee is at the present time a holy river, as was the Assabi among the Ethiopians, and which was also the original of the Egyptian god, Serapis. This latter supposition is confirmed by the fact that, in some parts of its course, the Abi of Northern Abyssinia at the present day is similarly worshipped, and that its sources, in the time of the Portuguese missionaries, were actually the scene of Pagan sacrifices. The ancient Apis I consider to have been no other; for the Grecian terminal being rejected, the identity of the two names Abi and Api is manifest, whilst that of Assabi and Serapi is equally evident.
That the river Gibbee cannot be the earlier tributary of the Gochob of Dr. Beke, is proved by what we are told by Major Harris, of a river so called, entering the sea at Jubah. If this be the case there can no longer be any doubt of the identity of the Gochob with the Whabbee, and which I feel more assured of, from the information I havereceived, compared with the accounts sent to the Geographical Society of Paris, by M. d’Abbadie, from Berberah, on the Soumaulee coast, respecting the entrance of the Whabbee into the sea at Jubah.
Nor is this idea at all affected by the discoveries of Lieut. Christopher on the coast near Brava, respecting a river said to be the Whabbee, which runs parallel to the sea-coast in that situation for more than one hundred miles, and then terminates in a fresh-water lake, some short distance inland; for this may be the northern arm of a delta-formed termination of the river, which has been prevented from reaching the sea in that situation, by the strong marine current known to exist along that coast, to the south-west. This has occasioned the silting up of this entrance of the river, so that it is only in very high seasons indeed of flood, that the fluvatile water bursts through, or overflows the barrier, and escapes to the sea. The mouths of several other African rivers present similar phenomena. The discovery of the Haines branch of the delta of the Whabbee proves, in fact, the correctness of all native accounts, who represent a large branch as leaving the main trunk of the Whabbee at Ganana, and terminating in a lake of fresh water, not far distant from Brava, and which intercepted river is supposed to resemble “a tail,” and hence the name, “Ganana.” All informants agree, however, that the principal stream, still called the Whabbee, proceeds to Jubah, so that unless theGochob is admitted to be that river, some otherembouchuremust be procured for the latter.
Denying, in this manner, the connexion of the Gibbee with the Gochob of Dr. Beke, for every Abyssinian informant states positively that the Gibbee does not go to the Whabbee, and which, as far as I can judge, appears to be the original of the Gochob, there is but one other river flowing to the south, which the Gibbee can be supposed to join. This is the Kalli, which empties itself into the Indian Ocean by many mouths, about three degrees south of the equator, the principal of which appears to be that of Lamoo. No traveller gives any account of this river, though certainly it is a most important one in connexion with our future intercourse with the high land of Abyssinia. It is, as its name, Kalli, implies, a river of the black people, as the Assabi, or Zebee, of the table land above belongs exclusively to the country of a red race. The Portuguese name, Killimancy, is merely the addition of a word, signifying river in the Shankalli language, to the original Arian term, Kalli. The sources of this river are upon the southern scarp of the Abyssinian table land, in the same manner as the tributaries of the Hawash arise upon the eastern border. The two principal branches of the Kalli, I was told, enclose or receive in the bifurcation, the termination of the table land to the south.
A considerable degree of interest attaches itselfto this river, and I could wish to see the attention of our geographers and politicians directed to its examination. All the red Abyssinian slaves, after a month’s journey through the country about the upper part of its course, are then embarked and conveyed down this river to Lamoo, to be carried away and disposed of in the Asiatic markets. It is by this channel also the Abashee colonies on the Malabar coast, of which Major Jervis has written some notices in a late volume of the “Bombay Geographical Society’s Journal,” are recruited. Those of the native Christians on the same coast I have seen myself are decidedly of Abyssinian origin, and perhaps that religion may have been introduced into India by missionaries from that country. It was singular that when an important and expensive Political Mission was about being sent into Abyssinia, some inquiries were not made respecting this southern route, along which a considerable intercourse at the present day exists between India and Abyssinia.
Independently of the table land to the south of the Gibbee increasing considerably in elevation, every other circumstance connected with its name and situation tends to show that the direction of its stream cannot be towards the south to join the Kalli. The stream of the Gibbee, in fact, is a large and navigable river, crossed immediately by slave Kafilahs from Enarea and Zingero during their journey to Lamoo, and they have then to proceedan entire month before they come to another river, the Kalli, to convey them to their destination. The Whabbee and the Kalli, therefore, can neither of them be supposed to be the lower stream of the Gibbee; but there is a large river of which every Galla speaks who comes from Limmoo, Jimma, and other districts in that neighbourhood; and which flows south, say Mr. M’Queen and Major Harris, whilst Dr. Beke denied its existence altogether, until my views were laid before the Geographical Society. He admitted certainly having heard, the small stream of the Dedassa, flowing into the Abi, in one instance called the Abiah. This gentleman appears to have confounded the names Abi and Abiah, believing that the latter was the Galla pronunciation of the former, and his Geography of Southern Abyssinia being founded upon this supposition, he fell into the opposite error to Major Harris; and crowded into a position too close upon the south of the Abi, countries which, upon the authority of the latter, have been carried to a situation not far from the equator; and the Abiah, contrary to any sound information that could possibly have been received, is taken away, to flow through unknown lands to the south and west, where it is made to join theBahr ul Abiad. Such are travellers’ reports, and I profess to give no better, only that I cannot afford to sacrifice the information I have obtained upon this subject, to the speculative ideas of geographers, however learned, and therefore obstinately persist inwhat they consider to be error, when it has more the appearance of truth, than have the theories which they can only advance in opposition.
The Abiah, which is almost denied to exist by one traveller, and taken into remote countries by another, I believe to be the main branch of the Gibbee, and have accordingly so laid it down in the sketch map of the different water-sheds of Abyssinia I have projected to assist me in explaining my ideas upon the subject.
I will not, as I am almost tempted, recapitulate the evidences that the Gibbee, the Abiah, and the ancient Assabi, are one and the same river, and the principal branch of the Abyssinian Nile; for if that which I have said is not sufficient to convince; to continue would only be to fatigue the reader with suppositions, probabilities, and beliefs, that would still, in the end, leave the subject in quite as unsatisfactory a state as it remains at present.
FOOTNOTES:[5]This individual figures in Major Harris’s “Highland of Ethiopia” as Hadjji Mahomed; and the whole occurrence there related happened during the journey to the coast in 1843. It is difficult, therefore, to understand how it could be recorded as an incident of a journey in 1841, and in an account stated to have been written in the heart of Abyssinia. Numerous other instances of this kind of interpolation of adventure could be pointed out which would be immaterial, only, as I shall probably allude to the same circumstances myself, of course I am anxious not to be supposed to borrow them from the work of a cotemporary.[6]By the old Portuguese writers denominated “the flower Denguelet.”[7]None of theEgyptians, orAfricans, orGrecians, with whom I had any discourse, would own to me their knowledge of the fountains of the Nile, except only a scribe of the sacred treasury of Minerva, in the citySaisin Egypt. He, indeed, cheerfully told me that he certainly was acquainted with them. But this was the account he gave, that there were two mountains, with peaked tops, situated between Syene, a city of Thebais, and Elephantina; the name of one of which wasKrophi, of the otherMophi; that from the midst of these two mountains arose the bottomless fountains of the Nile; one part of its stream ran towards Egypt and the north, the other part towards Ethiopia and the south. But that the fountains were bottomless, he said that Psammeticus, a King of Egypt, had made the experiment; after having tied ropes of great length and let them down into the fountains, he could not reach the bottom.—Herodotus, bookii.
[5]This individual figures in Major Harris’s “Highland of Ethiopia” as Hadjji Mahomed; and the whole occurrence there related happened during the journey to the coast in 1843. It is difficult, therefore, to understand how it could be recorded as an incident of a journey in 1841, and in an account stated to have been written in the heart of Abyssinia. Numerous other instances of this kind of interpolation of adventure could be pointed out which would be immaterial, only, as I shall probably allude to the same circumstances myself, of course I am anxious not to be supposed to borrow them from the work of a cotemporary.
[6]By the old Portuguese writers denominated “the flower Denguelet.”
[7]None of theEgyptians, orAfricans, orGrecians, with whom I had any discourse, would own to me their knowledge of the fountains of the Nile, except only a scribe of the sacred treasury of Minerva, in the citySaisin Egypt. He, indeed, cheerfully told me that he certainly was acquainted with them. But this was the account he gave, that there were two mountains, with peaked tops, situated between Syene, a city of Thebais, and Elephantina; the name of one of which wasKrophi, of the otherMophi; that from the midst of these two mountains arose the bottomless fountains of the Nile; one part of its stream ran towards Egypt and the north, the other part towards Ethiopia and the south. But that the fountains were bottomless, he said that Psammeticus, a King of Egypt, had made the experiment; after having tied ropes of great length and let them down into the fountains, he could not reach the bottom.—Herodotus, bookii.