CHAPTERXXIX.
Conversation on medical matters with the Negoos.—Of Guancho.—The State prison.—The construction of its defences.—Good medicine for captives.—Its probable effect.—Of the Gallas.—Their invasion.—Of the Gongas.—Abyssinian slaves.—Conclusion.
Conversation on medical matters with the Negoos.—Of Guancho.—The State prison.—The construction of its defences.—Good medicine for captives.—Its probable effect.—Of the Gallas.—Their invasion.—Of the Gongas.—Abyssinian slaves.—Conclusion.
A verysingular circumstance connected with our conversation respecting the health of the brother of the Negoos was, that neither Bethlehem or myself recollected at first, that all the near relations of Sahale Selassee were incarcerated in prison, according to ancient Abyssinian custom, and which, I believe, was also practised in the kingdom of Judea, to secure, by this cruel policy, the monarch from personal danger, and the country from the evils inflicted by civil war, that might otherwise arise by the ambition or simplicity of the other branches of the Royal family, either acting itself or admitting of being acted upon by the arts of others.
The Shoan prison for these unfortunates is a high conical hill, called Guancho, situated midway between Aliu Amba and Farree, and is the residence of the Wallasmah Mahomed, who fills the office of State gaoler, as well as collector ofduties upon that frontier of the kingdom. Here, at the period of this interview with the King, were confined five princes of the blood Royal, some of whom had been prisoners for as many as thirty, or thirty-four years.
From personal inspection of their apartments, an opportunity afforded to no other European besides, I can state that the close and rigorous confinement, said to have been imposed upon these captives, is much exaggerated; and, although the separate sleeping apartments at night were not more than seven feet in all their dimensions, still they were only composed of sticks, such as the common garden rods for raising peas in England, and a strong man leaning hard against them must have fallen out through the wall of his cell. Only two of the royal prisoners wore chains; these were on one hand and leg of the same side, and were long enough to admit of the freest motion. A long-thatchedwort bait, or meat-house, contained their families; for not only did the King remember his captive brethren on days of festival, by sending them oxen, and honey-wine, but they were allowed to marry, and their wives lived with them in their confinement. I took a ground plan of the whole establishment, and the Wallasmah, who was too old to accompany me on my survey, when I was in the only place that looked like a dungeon at all, a vault about twenty feet square, cut out of the summit of the hill,stamped several times upon the roof to intimate that his sitting-room was over this secure place. In this dismal dungeon, however, no person had been confined for the last six or seven years, although it was being then prepared, by a second door being put up, for the occupation of the unfortunate Samma-negoos, an ex-frontier governor, who had assisted his brother, a denounced rebel, to escape to Argobba, where he is now entertained by the Mahomedan Prince of that country, Beroo Lobo. When I visited Guancho, this prisoner occupied a small den of sticks, not four feet wide in any direction, and his hands and feet were chained close together, so that his removal to the larger subterranean cell will, at all events, afford him some opportunities of exercise, though he will then be deprived of light and fresh air.
Although, therefore, the Royal prisoners did not enjoy life in a valley of delight, they certainly did not drag out a miserable existence upon the hill of despair. This would have been adding unnecessary cruelty to an exigency of State policy; an evil that would, I am convinced, have long before corrected itself, by the frequent escapes that would have been attempted, especially in a place that afforded such opportunities for obtaining personal freedom. An Abyssinian Baron Trenck would only have to wrench open the thin bar of soft iron which constitutes fetters in that country, and by three successive jumps through, not over, as many fences of rotten sticks, he would be as free as the wildest Galla, into whosecountry a walk of a few hours would take him. I did not show any lucifer matches, for I recollected that the Portuguese traveller Bermudez, had been confined in this very prison, and I did not know whether an act of incendiarism might not at a future time be available as a means of escape; for, it must be understood, at the time of this visit I had been threatened if I attempted to leave Shoa with the Embassy on their return to Aden, to be confined in Guancho, so desirous was the Negoos of detaining me with him.
Guancho, the State prisoners, nor the anxiety of his Majesty that I should remain in his service, can be entered into now; this is anticipating the occurrence of events, the relation of which must be excused from the increasing contraction of my limits, that prevents me from holding but a little more pleasant converse with my reader, who, I hope, so far has been conducted with an amused interest through the scenes of Dankalli and Abyssinia life, in which I was a participator during my sojourn in those countries.
Recalled to a recollection of the circumstances of the condition of the Royal relations, by a remark of the Negoos, Bethlehem turned to me, and commented upon the sanitary observances I had been recommending for the benefit of my supposed patient, as he was a prisoner, and I then learnt, that the Negoos was consulting me upon the subject of a disease, to which he was himself subject. The symptoms that he had detailed plainly indicated agreat determination of blood to the head, and among other things which I had suggested as preventives of the occasional giddiness, dimness of sight, &c., which was complained of, was frequent exercise by walking, and recommended that this should be for some distance regularly every morning and evening. It was this which had led the Negoos to make some playful remark in his character, as his brother’s representative, that this indeed would be a pleasant medicine for him, and which reminded the interpreter that if I went on prescribing in that way I might say something unpleasant to the Royal ear. Perhaps the unconscious shrug, with which I acknowledged our error operated upon the mind of the monarch more than any direct appeal that I could have made in favour of his unhappy relatives, and expressed more real sorrow than the cold interpretation of Bethlehem could have conveyed.[13]
The monarch soon after changed the subject byalluding to the bad state of my own health, and of the necessity of my remaining quiet in Aliu Amba until the termination of the wet season, which was expected about the middle of the present month. He did not forget to recommend to me the study of the Amharic language during that time, so that in the next expedition against the Galla, to which he had already invited me, I might be able to converse with him. The Negoos did not detain me much longer, but after telling me not to miss seeing the Muscal (at Debra Berhan on the 24th), if it were possible for me to come, he dismissed me, glad enough to escape from the fatiguing interview.
I returned to Musculo’s house a great deal tootired to think of going on to Aliu Amba directly, but made up my mind to stay until an hour or two before sunset, to arrive in that town just in time for bed, and so escape the houseful of inquiring friends, who would have thronged around me with compliments and congratulations on my return.
To amuse me some portion of the time, Musculo introduced three of four slaves who had been brought from the more interesting countries around Shoa, and none of whom, as regards their political relations with that country, demand a more particular notice than the Gallas. These appear to surround Shoa on every side, except towards the north, where the Amhara inhabitants of the Argobba appear to have their country in that direction, continuous with the Shoan province of Efat; but even here a narrow belt of debateable land, by the mutual jealousies of the rulers of the two kingdoms, is left to the undisputed possession of some unsettled Adal Galla tribes.
I have several times, in the body of this work, represented these people as being the mixed descendants of the Dankalli and Shankalli people, and although this descent has been modified in some situations by contiguity to nations differing very considerably, both physically and morally, from each other, still all the numerous tribes that stretch on the eastern side of the table land of Abyssinia, from the neighbourhood of Massoah to an unknown distance in the south, speak one language, andpractise nearly similar customs. The first disputed question respecting the Gallas is their origin, which is generally supposed to be foreign to the continent they now occupy, and from the nameCallaresembling a Hebrew word signifying milk, it has been presumed that they were a white people of that nation, who have become changed in colour by a long residence in their present inter-tropical possessions. Modern travellers continue in supporting this supposition, but in recording my dissent I ask no one to adopt my opinion, I owe it to my readers to state my ideas upon a subject I have studied a little, and upon which I presume they require information. It is not, therefore, to attract attention by opposing received opinion, which I would much rather avoid, but for the sake of exciting discussion among abler men than myself, that I here throw out suggestions respecting the Gallas, as on other subjects I have done before.
The origin of the name Galla, from the Arian wordcalla, black, appears easy and natural, and I have therefore adopted it, but shall feel greatly indebted to any learned ethnologist who will correct me if I am in error. The country their presumed parents occupied, is that in which, from its situation, no other complexioned people could reside, whilst that law of nature continues to exist which has imposed a black skin upon men living in a very hot country.
We find, however, these so-called blacks ingeographical situations, quite at variance with that betokened by the dark colour of their skin, and more particularly upon the elevated plateau of Abyssinia, the natural country of the pale yellow Gonga, where their appearance presents an apparent anomaly, which, fortunately, history enables us to explain. The first intrusion of the Amhara I have in another place endeavoured to show was in the time of the Egyptian king, Psammeticus, and to trace their history, in connexion with the changes consequent upon their colonization of the left banks of the Abi and the Abiah, would be most easy and interesting; for the present generation possess sufficient documentary evidence, to supply the necessary materials; but until some indefatigable scholar takes upon himself this task, I have no hope of seeing that obscurity dispelled which hangs over the earlier history of mankind, and which is intimately connected with the earlier history of Abyssinia. With this part of my subject, however, at present we have nothing to do, and must call attention to the fact, that the first recorded appearance of the Galla in Abyssinia, as hostile invaders, was in 1537, during the reign of the Emperor David, otherwise called Onag Segued. By this must be understood that it was at that time they first found themselves able to assert their independence. A more favourable opportunity could not have been afforded them than that offered, when the Mahomedan King of Adal, Mahomed Grahne, conquered and overranconsiderable portions of the ancient empire. To the distractions and misfortunes that then harassed the Christian Court the Gallas contributed, led on by sheer destiny, I believe, for they quietly took possession with their herds of the countries that had been devastated during the long civil sectarian war which, at the time of Grahne, had assumed a national character from the divisions of the Christian and Mahomedan Amhara, being then under two distinct monarchial governments. These two kindred people mutually destroying each other, were unable to offer any resistance to the lawless and barbarous intruders who were alone benefited by the struggle for supremacy between the professors of these two faiths.
The Adal conquerors, however, lost a great deal more by the war than the defeated Christians of the table land; for occupying a country of much less elevation than Abyssinia, the Gallas naturally located themselves first upon the lands so much more suited to their habits and constitutions, and accordingly, the Dankalli, closing from the north, whilst the Shankalli came up from the south, their progeny soon swept from the face of the country their Amhara predecessors; and the red man of America retreats no faster before civilization, than on this coast of Africa, the latter has been extinguished by the advance of the barbarian Gallas. Only one town remains of the once mighty kingdom of Adal, the city of Hurrah, the former capital ofMahomed Grahne, before whose time Christianity was here at least tolerated and professed by numbers of its inhabitants. Within the last century another lingering remnant of this population of Adal has been entirely driven out. Owssa, now exclusively Mahomedan Dankalli, was formerly the capital of Amhara kings of Adal, and the traditions of the present occupiers record the late residence in that country of a Christian population. After the death of Mahomed Grahne and the expulsion of the Jesuits from Abyssinia, the attention of its princes was first directed to the increasing evil of Galla intrusion, and they then endeavoured unsuccessfully, to recover those portions of the table-land upon which they had established themselves.
It is admitted that the Gallas entered Abyssinia, through the natural breach in its surrounding rampart on the east, where the denuding operation of the Hawash has constructed a favourable high road for the journeyings of a nation. Had a similar facility existed to the south, such as would be afforded, for example, by the débouché, of a river from the table land in that situation, we may be assured that the national integrity of the Gonga people, who, in the north, were unable to contend against the intruding Amhara, would have found it very difficult to contend with the more warlike Galla; yet who, it will be found, have made less impression there than in any other situation upon the whole table land.
It appears that Fatagar, Efat, Shoa, then Damot, (which at that period extended to the south of the river Abi,) were successively taken possession of, a succession of conquests which prove that the course of the Hawash, was the principal natural direction this people took in their wanderings.
In Shoa and Efat they appear to have been early civilized. One of the most characteristic traits of the Galla people is, the facility with which they appear to adopt the religious creeds of their neighbours; and the adjoining kingdom of Amhara, the central stronghold of the Christian religion, afforded numerous opportunities of conversion, and perhaps other favourable circumstances then existed of which we are now ignorant; but the result has been a closer amalgamation of the Gallas with the Amhara people in Shoa than, I believe, any other country of Abyssinia presents. Whilst, therefore, an exceedingly corrupt dialect of the Amharic language is there spoken, the dark colour of their skin attests their close consanguinity with the Galla invaders, coming from the low hot country immediately at the foot of the Abyssinian scarp in this situation.
The Galla, physically speaking, are a fine race of men, tall, muscular, and well formed. In the colour of their skin they vary considerably, as may be supposed, from the differences of situation and of neighbourhood in which they have located themselves. The Edjow Gallas, to the north of Angotcha, are, I understand, of a lighter colourthan the real Amhara or red man, but it is probable that some mistake exists as regards this statement. The Gallas of Limmoo are very dark-coloured, but they live in a country considerably more elevated than that of the Edjow Gallas. The Shoans themselves, who are considerably more Galla than Amhara, are a very dark brown, although several light red individuals, not born in Shoa, but more to the north, as I was told by Sheik Tigh, are to be found among them.
In the expression of the Galla countenance there is that which reminds the observer more of their Shankalli than of their Dankalli origin. The form of their heads is long, the sides being flat, with very contracted but not receding foreheads. The lower parts of their faces have the full negro-form development of the lips and jaws, although the teeth are regular and well set, without the inclination forwards I have observed in several negro skulls. Their hair is coarse and frizzly. It is generally worn in long narrow plaits, that hang directly down upon the neck and shoulders. In Shoa it is customary to dress it with considerable care, and it is then sometimes arranged in most fantastic forms, the head being adorned all over with numerous small collected tufts, and at others, three monstrous heaps of hair on the sides and top make the head and face look like a huge ace of clubs. Their natural dispositions are very good, and their courage is undoubted.
It is very interesting to remark how readily the Galla appear to adapt their national habits to the circumstances in which they are placed. This seems to be a kind of instinct in man, or perhaps is an element of that moral development which seems to determine those occasionally mysterious inroads of a new people, who seem to have sprung up at once to exert the most extensive changes in the history of nations, and which then subsides again for another term of ages. Such was the appearance of the Mongols in Asia, and of the Goths in Europe; such was the appearance of the Arabians after Mahomed; and such are the Gallas of the present day, who are gradually appropriating to themselves the whole of the Abyssinian empire. This moral principle, however, whatever it may be, seems to promise an abundant harvest of converts to the zealous and intelligent missionary, who shall first appear as the professed apostle of Christianity among them.
Besides the Gallas whom I saw at Musculo’s, were several Zingero and Kuffah slaves, and as these are the principal representatives of the Gonga people, of whom I have frequently spoken, I shall take this opportunity of more particularly describing them. The Gongas are a mysterious people, of whom rumours alone had reached the civilized world in the remotest antiquity, and the same obscurity continues at the present time to hang over this interesting and secluded nation.With the evidence I collected during my travels in Abyssinia, it will not be presumption in me to call attention to a few facts that appear to me calculated to throw some little light upon this subject, and which may probably excite a greater desire to become better acquainted with the hidden secrets of man’s history contained in the heart of Africa.
The Gongas, in the era of the celebrated Egyptian king Psammeticus, occupied the whole table-land of Abyssinia. Neither Amhara, or Galla, had, as yet, appeared upon their naturally defended and very extensive fortress. In their social institutions the great principle of foreign policy, was the exclusion of strangers; and their isolated situation, easily enabled them to effect this. One character of civilization, the geography of the desert-surrounded table-lands of Africa, is eminently calculated to prosper and promote, that peculiar social condition, the consistency and continuance of which, requires little or no intercourse to be kept up with the rest of mankind; the isolated members of which, live contented among themselves, uninfluenced by wants which could only be gratified by the products of other lands. In such African communities, no inland seas, or navigable rivers, afford that facility of intercourse which is enjoyed (as it is presumed) by the inhabitants of more highly favoured countries. Protected also from foreign invasion by vast and almost impassable deserts, individual enterprize could scarcely be tempted to keep up a communicationwith a people so situated, provided that they adhered to the principles of contentment, and did not allow themselves to be seduced into a desire for foreign luxuries; an unwise indulgence in which, first leads to molestation from commercial intruders; who, breaking up the seclusion, open a path to military invasion, which usually ends in the loss of country and of personal freedom.
We hear of the Gongas in ancient history under various names, but they were principally characterized by the cautious manner in which they communicated with those merchants, with whom nature imperatively commanded them, at least, to have some intercourse to exchange the productions of their country, for what was an absolute necessary of life to them, and of which they had no supply but from abroad; I need scarcely mention, that this was salt. In return for this, it appears, that gold was principally given to the traders; and for ages, this commerce was carried on, with no more communication than was necessary, through the medium of the following practice. “This country of Sasu is very rich in gold mines. Every year the King of Axum sends some of his people to this place for gold. These are joined by many other merchants; so that, altogether, they form a caravan of about five hundred people. They carry with them oxen, salt, and iron. When they arrive upon the frontiers of that country they take up their quarters, and make a large barrier of thorns. In themeantime having slain and cut up their oxen, they lay the pieces of flesh, as well as the iron, and salt, upon the thorns. Then come the inhabitants, and place one or more parcels of gold upon the wares, and wait outside the enclosure. The owners of the flesh, and other goods, then examine whether this be equal to the price or not. If so, they take the gold, and the others take the wares; if not, the latter still add more gold, or take back what they had already put down. The trade is carried on in this manner, because the languages are different, and they have no interpreter; it takes about five days to dispose of the goods which they bring with them.”[14]Heeren, in his Historical Researches, connects the country where this system of barter was practised, with that of the Macrobians, or long-lived Ethiopians, mentioned by Herodotus. By an ingenious conclusion, he supposes that the altar or table of the Sun which characterized the latter people was the market-place, in which, at a later day, the trade with the strangers was transacted. My observations have also led me to the same conclusion, but I am able more distinctly to authenticate this, and to suggest additional and more direct evidence of its being the actual fact.
The worship of the Gongas, which has continued to the present time, is the adoration of the river that flows through their country, as being part of thesacred Nile. The Abi, or Nile of Bruce, is worshipped by the modern Adjows, whilst the Gibbee, or Abiah, is the object of a similar devotion among the Pagan Gongas of Zingero, and of Kuffah. We are enabled from our knowledge of the former river to presume, that its singular course determined in the first instance, a reverence, which, when the increasing encroachments of foreign foes had made this river a convenient defence to the pressed Gongas, was soon elevated to the character of a protecting deity. That its singular course should have thus attracted attention arises, I believe, from the circumstance of its encircling an extensive province, and going around it, as the sun was supposed to revolve around the earth. The zodiac, or track of the sun through the heavens, was typified by the form of a serpent, and this I have always understood to have been the source of that serpent-worship which characterized so many of the earlier and more civilized nations of the earth. In no country, was this idolatry more prevalent than upon the plateau of Abyssinia, andArwè, the great serpent, it will be recollected figures considerably in the earlier history of the Amhara, who appear to have in some measure adopted the religion of the Gongas, when they took possession of the countries upon the left hand of theirfather, theirking, theirsun, by all of which names, it is usual, even at the present day, to designate the river Abi.
The great serpents of classic mythological history,the Hydra, the Python, and others unnamed, destroyed by Apollo and Hercules, all allude evidently to the worship of the serpent in Africa being superseded by that of the sun. The relation of these gods to that luminary is generally admitted, andHiero Calla, fortunately for my derivation of the wordGalla, the sun of theblacks, is the interpretative analysis of the name of Hercules. In the modern Dankalli language no other word is used for sun butHiero, and it enters into the name of several names of places; Hyhilloo, the scene of the celebrated battle between the forces of Lohitu and the Muditu, is translated by the Dankalli to mean the hill of the sun.
The head of a sculptured Hercules is invariably portraited with the frizzly hair of the Dankalli, whilst antiquarian ethnologists will be interested to observe the persistance of national character preserved in the flowing locks and ample beard usually given to Jupiter, his European counterpart.
That which increased the celebrity of the northern portion of the table-land of Abyssinia, and established the superiority in dignity of its stream, was the circumstance of its flowing through the lake Tzana or Dembea. No little light breaks upon the subject when it is understood, that the literal interpretation of these two words in very different languages, is the same, both signifying the lake of the sun. Dembea, let me observe, is a word in use in Abyssinia that belongs to the same languageasAbi,Assa,Galla,Nil, and others, that to avoid confusion, I have calledArian. That so many proper names, should all be derived from an Asiatic language in a country where no representatives of the modern people who speak it can now be found, is only to be accounted for, by supposing that the African original of the Arian family of man yet continues in some of the secluded oases of Intra-tropical Africa, to reward by their discovery future enterprize.
Bahr Dembea, or the Lake of the Sun, would give a very appropriate designation to the plateau upon which it is found. It was that, and the course of the Abi, which occasioned the country visited by the messengers of Cambyses to be called the Table of the Sun. It was also the presence of these singularly situated geographical features, and their supposed reference to the sun’s track in the zodiac, that determined the reputed sanctity of this portion of Ethiopia in the classic ages.
The connexion of the ancient Persian empire with its Ethiopic tributary kingdoms, did not extend so far as the country of Sasu, and the fate of Cambyses, in his attempted conquest of that country, would be, I have no doubt, an instructive lesson to his successors. The claims of these monarchs to supremacy in Ethiopia appears, in fact, to have been founded upon former family connexion with some father-land in Africa, not situated upon the plateau of Abyssinia, then inhabited by the Gongas,but in another desert-surrounded country, of the same character; probably, that which surrounds the sources of the Bahr ul Abiad.
The African origin of other ancient nations can also be most easily demonstrated, and the historical accounts of their descent from gods, which have come down to us, although they consist of exaggerated and distorted relations, in consequence of having been derived from the ignorant translation of hieroglyphical records, in which it would appear that the earlier history of Africa was preserved; still we are able to gather from these mythological enigmas everything that is necessary to connect their origin with a common centre of divergence, which I believe to have been the country around the sources of the Nile.
In the same manner the worship of the rivers in India, and of the dragon monster in China, seem to have originated from Ethiopia; the emigration which carried the first colonies of serpent worshippers to these countries having probably flowed in a direction from the south, as Europe and Western Asia appear to have been civilized by colonists from the north of the same point of dispersion.
It is most interesting to trace the intimate connexion at an early period of the, at present, widely separated and even physically distinct varieties of man; and did not a cautious policy restrain me, I would attempt to demonstrate the original unity of nations now the most dissimilar upon novel evidence,which, to be satisfactory to others, must, however, receive farther corroboration than my own individual observations.
One illustration of the light African explorations promise to throw upon this subject I cannot refrain from advancing, as it is such a striking evidence of the presumed fact of even ourselves having originated from a colony of African emigrants; and that the ancient British temple ofAbury, orAbibury, near Stonehenge, derived its name from the same religious worship being there celebrated as was once general on the plateau ofAbyssinia, and which, in fact, is so called from exactly the same cause. The deductions of classical learning materially assist a traveller, whose pursuits, so different to a closet student, do not allow him to assume the character of a learned critic or commentator. Dr. Stukeley, known by his inquiries into the ancient religion of the Druids, has proved, I think incontestably, the true character of the temple atAbibury, and demonstrates it to have been constructed in the form of a serpent, bearing upon its back a circle. He referred the religion, that directed such a form to be assumed in the sacred architecture of this people, to an Egyptian origin, and freely speculates, in consequence, upon the African origin of our ancestors, which is asserted by our most ancient historians, but who have been in consequence considered to be apocryphal. In these traditions it is affirmed that Britain was firstinhabited by a celebrated descendant of Shem, singularly enough the same, who is considered by biblical ethnologists to have been the common father of no less a respectable people, than the modern Dankalli; Affer, the son of Abraham, having led a colony of Africans to our shores, where he introduced the worship of the sun, and established the religion of Druidism. I recommend to my reader the perusal of Stukley’s work upon “Abury, a Temple of the Ancient Britons,” and then to compare the parallel, but more magnificent temple of nature upon the plateau of Abyssinia, where theserpent Arwè, or in profane language the river Abi, bears upon its back the lake of thesun, most curiously identifying the peculiar worship of that luminary by the ancient Ethiopians with the same adoration which was professed by the Druids in Britain, but who, from their situation, were obliged to construct the winding avenue of stones at Abibury to represent the same mystical hieroglyphic of the serpent and the sun. The name given to this work wasAbi, thefather, orking, as it was also of the river-symbol in Abyssinia; hence the nameAbibury, the latter portion of which word is of Saxon origin; and added, subsequently to the decline of Druidism.[15]
Returning to the Gongas and their connexion with the Sasu of Cosmas, it is singular to observe in what manner the seclusive integrity of that country was first sapped, and then in a great measure overthrown. Within the last two centuries, the Adjows of Northern Abyssinia, the representatives of the Gongas in that situation, were said to continue the original practice of their fathers with respect to commercial transactions. But these must have been a tribe now extinct, as, from what I can learn, it is only in the extreme south where the custom is still persisted in, and it is among these that the most ancient authentic record (uninspired) of the antediluvian world will be found. It is here, too, that the original name of this people, Sasu, is preserved in the modern word Susa, of whom, as a nation, we scarcely possess any information more than sufficient, to warrant the mere assertion that such a people now exist highly civilized, and using a peculiar written character dissimilar to any with which the literati of Europe are acquainted.
Of the Sasu traders in the time of Cosmas, we are told they carried with them oxen which, on their arrival in the country, they killed, and hung up the raw flesh on the thorns, as a kind of merchandise. It will be remembered that I have previously stated the intoxicating effects of this kind of food upon the Amhara, and I have therefore no difficulty in supposing that the Gongas were temptedby this kind of dissipation into the intercourse with the traders, just as in modern times, “fire water” for Indians, and opium for the Chinese are employed to effect a similar object. This receives further confirmation from the fact, that the secluded Gongas of the present day live entirely upon vegetables, the ensete plant and grain forming the principal food. In Zingero and Enarea, broken in upon by the Mahomedan and Christian religions, the inhabitants have adopted the use of animal food, but even among them a party of the older faith exists who continue the original mode of living of their fathers, and who are contemptuously styled, for that reason, “grain eaters.”
The Gongas that I have seen are of short stature, not exceeding five feet four inches, are delicately made, and of a pale yellow complexion. The aperture of the eyelid in some were quite straight, but in others it was obliquely divided. Their hair was straight and strong. A triangular formed face, the forehead being low and long, and the chins very pointed. I could not convince myself, as I looked at their whole appearance, but that they were of the same race as the Hottentots of the Cape, differing only in so much as that the latter are in a very degraded state. Many remarkable customs practised by both nations could not have been merely coincidental; and one, that of voluntary semi-emasculation, is too extraordinary not to be referred to the same origin of imposition.Of the identity of the two people there can be no doubt, and there is no ethnological fact I observed during my journey of which I am so well satisfied as this.
The remains of this interesting people in Northern Abyssinia are the Adjows and the Falasha, and if future travellers will expend their resources in exploring Northern Abyssinia, in preference to the far more important examination of its southern portion, they cannot occupy themselves more advantageously to science than by examining into the customs and characters of the Adjows. I consider it would be a waste of time that could be occupied much better in another direction, or I would, for my own satisfaction, visit the country for this purpose; but as it is far from difficult and constitutes an excellent probationary journey, I recommend aspirants for fame in the field of African discovery to make this their trial excursion.
One more remark upon the Southern Gongas of Enarea, Zingero, and Kuffah, and I must close this notice of a very interesting race of man; and that is to explain the apparent anomaly of their country, situated at such an elevation above the level of the sea as I presume it to be, producing cotton and grapes in profusion.
The observations of that indefatigable and enterprising traveller, Dr. Beke, has proved that the river Abi, after flowing a distance of scarcely one hundredand thirty miles, has excavated a valley five or six thousand feet below the general level of the table land, whilst the opposite summits of the bounding sides are distant between thirty and forty miles. We may look in vain over every portion of the known world for a similar effect of denudation, and this again illustrates the wide field of novel facts which is promised to science, by an examination of the unknown interior of Africa.
On the artificial terraces and natural slopes of these extensive valleys the vegetables of all climates can be successfully cultivated, and the theoretical centre of successive elevations from whence, according to the hypothesis of Linnæus, all vegetation spread over the rest of the earth, appears to exist in the natural phenomena presented, by the surface geography of the Abyssinian table mountain. The country of the Gongas is similarly excavated by the deeply cut channel of the Gibbee, or the Red Nile, which, much larger than the Abi on the northern portion of the plateau, will have a greater extent of denuded valley for the production of those vegetables of a hot climate, the presence of which have been such an argument in favour of those, who contend that the water-shed of the Gibbee must be towards the lowlands in the South, where it is presumed these vegetables could only have been cultivated.
The other slaves I examined at Musculo’s, were a few Amhara from Gurague, but who contributedbut little to my previous information, upon the subject of their character and country. I noticed there were no Dankalli among those brought down for my inspection; and was given to understand that none of these people were ever brought into Abyssinia as slaves; and if they were, no one would purchase them, for they would neither remain with their masters, nor would they work. Even in this, their true Circassian origin is betrayed; for, although their morality does not prevent them from selling their own daughters, this caste of mankind cannot be enslaved. The superiority of this mentally endowed race is manifest, even in their most barbarous state; and I have been led, therefore, to disbelieve the general presumption, that the Negro is universally the type of man in his most degraded condition. From what I have observed myself, the Dankalli, the Shankalli, and the Bushmen, are the lowest grades of the three varieties of the human race, the Arian, or Circassian, the Amhara, or Negro, and the Gonga, or Mongolian, all of whom have a height of civilization, and a depth of barbarism distinct from each other; and that, however, the Bushman may be improved, he will only become a civilized Chinese, and that a Negro may by education be made an ancient Egyptian, but would never by that alone become the enlightened Circassian, that his neighbour, the Dankalli, could, certainly, be made.
I have now exhausted, not my subject, the numerous ideas upon which I have latterly been most inconveniently obliged to crowd together, but the very limited space that I had proposed to myself in my ignorance of book-making, as being sufficient to contain all I had to say respecting my journey, and the ideas and incidents which occurred to me during my sojourn in Abyssinia. Much to my surprise, the manuscript has grown under my hand, and the greatest difficulty that I have had, has been to arrive at the period I have done, before I laid down the pen.
From this date, however, September the 3rd, having returned to Aliu Amba, from Ankobar, I was confined some time entirely to my bed, during which period my note-book presents such a series of entries, “no better to-day,” that I have taken the opportunity thus afforded me of concluding my narrative.
FOOTNOTES:[13]About two months after this interview the captive princes of the blood Royal were liberated from Guancho, in accordance with a vow made by the Negoos whilst lying upon a bed of sickness, under the impression that death was approaching, and that such an act would propitiate heaven favourably for his recovery. It was a spontaneous act, nor can any just claim be made by any one to have instigated the Negoos to take this step. During his illness he refused the aid and medicine of the Embassy, and it was a topic of public conversation, that a monarch possessed of such abilities, and so excellent a disposition as Sahale Selassee, should be so under the influence of suspicion, as even in the extremity of his illness on this occasion, he should have refused the proffered assistance of European skill and knowledge, of which he had had such evidences of superiority.The attention of our Embassy was first called more particularly to the subject when the Ambassador and Captain Graham were desired to attend at the palace the day when the liberated captives came before their generous king. During that interview, when his heart felt naturally the pride of having acted in the manner he had done, Sahale Selassee turned to the English officers, whom he knew were compiling a book, and asked for a compliment, by saying, “Will you write this down?”I shall make but one more remark, that if indirect influence is to be exaggerated into direct instigation, then I certainly claim to be considered as the liberator of the Shoan princes; for I possess evidence of the regard entertained for me by Sahale Selassee, and I have more than once hinted to his Majesty the difference that existed between the policy of European courts, as regarded the younger branches of royalty, and that which was observed in Shoa. To his courtiers, also, who conveyed to his ears every word that was said, I always denounced the custom of imprisonment as most absurd and cruel.[14]Cosmas, pp. 138, 139. This author wrote aboutA.D.535.[15]Abi was also the title of prince among the ancient Himyaritic nation, and, slightly changed, is still given to the kings of the countries to the south of Shoa; for example, Aboo Bogaboo, king of Enarea; Abba Wabotoo, king of Kuchah.
[13]About two months after this interview the captive princes of the blood Royal were liberated from Guancho, in accordance with a vow made by the Negoos whilst lying upon a bed of sickness, under the impression that death was approaching, and that such an act would propitiate heaven favourably for his recovery. It was a spontaneous act, nor can any just claim be made by any one to have instigated the Negoos to take this step. During his illness he refused the aid and medicine of the Embassy, and it was a topic of public conversation, that a monarch possessed of such abilities, and so excellent a disposition as Sahale Selassee, should be so under the influence of suspicion, as even in the extremity of his illness on this occasion, he should have refused the proffered assistance of European skill and knowledge, of which he had had such evidences of superiority.
The attention of our Embassy was first called more particularly to the subject when the Ambassador and Captain Graham were desired to attend at the palace the day when the liberated captives came before their generous king. During that interview, when his heart felt naturally the pride of having acted in the manner he had done, Sahale Selassee turned to the English officers, whom he knew were compiling a book, and asked for a compliment, by saying, “Will you write this down?”
I shall make but one more remark, that if indirect influence is to be exaggerated into direct instigation, then I certainly claim to be considered as the liberator of the Shoan princes; for I possess evidence of the regard entertained for me by Sahale Selassee, and I have more than once hinted to his Majesty the difference that existed between the policy of European courts, as regarded the younger branches of royalty, and that which was observed in Shoa. To his courtiers, also, who conveyed to his ears every word that was said, I always denounced the custom of imprisonment as most absurd and cruel.
[14]Cosmas, pp. 138, 139. This author wrote aboutA.D.535.
[15]Abi was also the title of prince among the ancient Himyaritic nation, and, slightly changed, is still given to the kings of the countries to the south of Shoa; for example, Aboo Bogaboo, king of Enarea; Abba Wabotoo, king of Kuchah.
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