The Highlands of Ethiopia Part 4

All the tents having been erected, the steeds landed and picketed in the rear, and the heterogeneous ma.s.s of property which strewed the sea-beach reduced to a something less chaotic state, a return visit to His Highness was paid in full uniform; and the _cortege_ being swelled by the naval officers, an exceedingly gay procession of c.o.c.ked hats, plumes, and gold lace, pa.s.sed along the strand to the palace, under a befitting salute from the Brig of war. The lounging population were altogether lost in amazement at the sight of such magnificence--old and young, of both s.e.xes, thronging the wayside, with features indicative of unequivocal admiration at the brilliancy of so unwonted a display.

The thunder of artillery, to which the nervous old Sultan does not conceal his insuperable aversion, still shook the unpretending couch whereon he quailed, as the procession entered the fragile tenement of stakes and matting which const.i.tuted the Divan; and which, without possessing any pretensions to exclude either sun or rain, proved just sufficiently large to include the entire party. A renewal of hand-shaking in its coldest form, and a repet.i.tion of yesterday's compliments, and of yesterday's promises mode only to be broken, was followed by a general sipping of coffee, prepared, not in the royal kitchen, but in the _cuisine_ of the Emba.s.sy; and after being scrutinised during ten minutes of suffocating heat by numerous female eyes glistening through an infinity of c.h.i.n.ks and perforations in the envious matting, the party returned, bearing as a costly token of His Highness's regard, a cloth similar to that composing the royal mantle.

It did indeed, in this instance, form matter of heartfelt congratulation, that the regal custom was dispensed with, of investing the honoured guest with a garment from the imperial wardrobe! As the cavalcade, duly impressed with this sentiment, remounted at the gate of the thorn inclosure which fortifies the palace, the Sultana vouchsafed a glimpse of her bedizened person from the stern cabin window of the "Mary Anne"--the withered frame of the ancient beldame, embedded in spells, beads, amulets, and grease, forcibly reminding the spectator of the witch of Endor, and rendering her in very truth, a right seemly partner for her wrinkled lord.

Volume One, Chapter VIII.

TAJURA, "THE CITY OF THE SLAVE-MERCHANT."

In the heart of the peninsula of Arabia, environed on every side by rocky mountains, there stood, in the middle of the sixth century, a celebrated pagan shrine, that had been held in the most exalted veneration during fourteen hundred years. The edifice was believed to cover the hallowed remains of Ishmael, the father of the wandering Bedouin, and it contained a certain sacred black stone, whereon the Patriarch Jacob saw the vision of angels ascending into heaven. On its site, according to the Arab tradition, Adam pitched his tent when expelled from the garden of Eden, and there died Eve, the partner of his fall, whose grave of green sods is shown to the present day, upon the barren sh.o.r.es of the Red Sea.

This shrine, of course, was none other than the famous temple of the Sun at Mecca, since so consecrated by the lawgiver of the Mohammadans, as to form the focus of attraction to every true believer. The extraordinary veneration it received in those early days, concentrating the tide of commerce, rendered it the absorbing mart of Eastern trade. Abyssinia at that period held in occupation the adjacent provinces of Arabia Felix, and Abrahah, the vicegerent of Yemen, conceiving the idea of diverting the channel to his own advantage, erected in the country of the Homerites a splendid Christian church, which, under the t.i.tle of Keleisa, he endowed with the same privileges, immunities, and emoluments, that had pertained, from all antiquity, to the shrine of Sabaean idolatry.

"If," says Gibbon, "a Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mahomet must have been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a revolt which has changed the civil and religious aspect of the world." But alarmed at the prospect of the desertion of their temple both by votaries and merchants, the Beni Koreish, who held the keys of the black stone in hereditary right, polluted the rival fane at Saana, which had no equal, saving the palace of the Hamyar kings, and was calculated to ensure the veneration of every pilgrim. Out of this sacrilege and affront arose the event celebrated in the Koran as "the war of the Elephant." Mounted on a huge white elephant, Abrahah, surnamed El Ashrem, placing himself at the head of a vast army, proceeded to take revenge on the idolaters; but, misled by intelligence artfully given by Aboo Taleb, grandfather to the Apostle of G.o.d, he destroyed, instead of the Kaaba, a temple of Osiris at Taief, and the first recorded appearance of the small-pox, shortly afterwards annihilated the Christian forces.

The wars that distracted all Arabia, between the Greeks and Persians in the first instance, and subsequently between Mahomet and the population in support of his divine mission, had greatly impaired the traffic carried on by general consent at the temple of Mecca. A caravan scarcely ever ventured forth by any road, that it was not plundered by the opposing partisans, and merchants as well as trade gradually departed south of the Arabian Gulf, to sea-ports which in earlier times had been the emporia of commerce with the East. Raheita, Zeyla, Tajura, and a number of other towns in the Indian Ocean, thus recovered their importance and their lost prosperity. The conquest of the Abyssinian territories in Arabia, drove every Ethiopian to the African sh.o.r.es.

Little districts now grew into great consideration. Mara, Hadea, Aussa, and Adel, amongst other petty states, a.s.sumed unto themselves the t.i.tle of kingdoms, and shortly acquired power and wealth eclipsing many of the more ancient monarchies.

The miserable town of Tajura, "the city of the slave-merchant," as it exists at the present day, demands no further description. It was for two years in the hands of the Turks, who occupied it after the taking of Ma.s.sowah, and converted into a fort a venerable mosque, now in ruins, on the sea-beach near the palace. But no consistent chronicle, either of the capture or evacuation, is to be expected where every man is notorious equally as a boaster and a liar, and making himself the individual hero in every pa.s.sage of arms, never foils to extol his own clan as immeasurably superior in valour to every other. The melancholy aspect of the place is but too well calculated to convey to the traveller a foretaste of the sufferings inseparable from a pilgrimage through any portion of the country denominated Adel; and each barbarian of the entire population of Tajura will be found, on sad experience, a type of the Dankali nation!

Bigoted Mohammadans, punctual to the call of the Muezzin, praying three times in excess of the exactions of the Prophet, often pa.s.sing the entire night in the mosque, or sitting in council at its threshold; sedulously attentive to the outward forms of their creed, though few have sufficient energy to undertake a pilgrimage to the Kaaba, and content, like other hypocrites, with a rigid observance of externals-- the Danakil rise from their devotions well primed with Moslem intolerance, and are perfectly ready to lie and cheat as occasion may offer. Unoccupied, and at a loss for honest employment, idlers without number sauntered about the pavilion at all times and seasons, entering at pleasure, and monopolising chairs and tables with the insolent independence which forms one of their most prominent features.

Supported by a long staff, the ruffians gazed for hours together at the novel splendour of the equipage; and invariably disfigured by a large quid of tobacco adulterated with ashes, squirted the redundant saliva over the carpet, although squatted on the outside of the door, with ample s.p.a.ce at command. But although thieves by profession on a grand scale, they fortunately contrived to keep their hands from picking and stealing; and notwithstanding that the tents were thus thronged from morning till night, and the sea-beach for many weary days was strewed with boxes and bales of truly tempting exterior, nothing whatever was abstracted.

The cla.s.sic costume of the people of this sea-port consists of a white cotton robe, thrown carelessly over the shoulder, in the manner of the old Roman toga; a blue-checked kilt reaching to the knees, simply buckled about the waist by a leathern belt, which supports a most formidable creese, and a pair of rude undressed sandals to protect the feet of such as can afford the luxury. The plain round buckler and the broad-headed spear, without which few ever cross their threshold, renders the naturally graceful and manly figure of almost every individual a subject for the artist's pencil; but the population are to a man filthy in the extreme, and the acc.u.mulated dirt upon their persons and apparel leaves a taint behind, that might readily be traced without the intervention of a bloodhound. Rancid mutton fat, an inch thick, frosts a bushy wig of cauliflower growth, which harbours myriads of vermin. Under the melting rays of a tropical sun, the grease pours copiously over the skin; and the use of water, except as a beverage, being a thing absolutely unheard-of, a Dankali pollutes the atmosphere with an effluvium, such as is only to be encountered elsewhere in the purlieus of a tallow-chandler's shop.

All are vain of scars, and desirous of displaying them; but little favour is shown for other outward ornament; and the miserly disposition which pervades the breast both of young and old, inducing an effort towards the concealment of property possessed, a paltry silver ring in the ear, a band of copper wire round the junction of the spear-blade with the shaft, or pewter mountings to the creese, form the sum total of decoration on the arms and persons even of the most extravagant. Fops in numbers are to be seen at Tajura, who have called in the aid of moist quick-lime towards the conversion of the naturally jet black peruke to a most atrocious foxy red--when judicious frizzing, and the insertion of the wooden skewer, used for scratching, completes the resemblance to a carriage mop. But this novel process of dyeing, so contrary to that employed by civilised beaux, is only in fashion among the Somauli, who, in common with the Danakil dandies, employ, in lieu of a down pillow, a small wooden bolster, shaped like a crutch, which receives the neck, and during the hours of presumed uncomfortable repose, preserves the periwig from derangement.

Ma.s.sy amulets in leathern envelopes, or entire Korans in quarto or octavo, are borne on the unpurified person of almost every individual; and the ancient Arab remedy of swallowing the water in which pa.s.sages from the holy book have been washed from the board or paper whereon they were inscribed, is in universal repute, as a sovereign medicine for every ailment to which frail flesh is heir--the firm of Sultan, Wazir and Kazi, who alone possess the privilege of wearing turbans, holding the monopoly, and driving a most profitable trade by the preparation of this simple, but potent specific. Large doses of melted sheep's-tail fat are moreover swallowed on certain occasions; and a native Esculapius gave proof of the perfection to which the dentist's art has attained at Tajura, by dexterously detaching a carious tooth from the stubborn jaws of a submissive old woman, with the patent machinery of a rusty nail as a punch, struck with a heavy stone picked up on the sea-beach, where the operation was performed for the edification of the encampment.

Applications were nevertheless frequent for European aid--a venerable priest numbering threescore years and ten, peremptorily demanding, in addition to a philter, the instantaneous removal of two obstinate cataracts, which had long dimmed his sight, and upon which he had vainly expended the teeth of half the mules in Tajura, roasted, and reduced to an impalpable powder.

Education, to the extent of spelling the Koran, is general, and all speak Arabic as well as Dankali; the lore of the most learned being however restricted to a smattering of the holy book, with a very confused idea of numerals, and ability to endite a scraggy Arabic letter, which, when completed with infinite labour, the writer is often puzzled to decipher. To the immortal honour of the Sultan be it here recorded, that although the oldest male inhabitant of Tajura, he is a solitary instance of non-acquaintance with the alphabet. The swarthy cheek of every urchin who distinguishes himself by diligence or quickness, receives in token thereof, a dash of white chalk, a black streak in like manner disgracing the idle and stupid; but the pedagogue would appear to omit the residue of this oriental custom--the stuffing the mouths of the well-behaved with sugar-candy, which would doubtless prove a source of much greater enjoyment.

In the evening the ingenuous youth of the town, each armed with a creese in case of quarrel, convene in numbers on the common, to play a game which combines hockey and football; the residue of their time being spent in angling, when the juvenile Walton stands up to the chin in the salt sea, and employing his head as a subst.i.tute for the reel, spins out a dozen yards of line in a truly fisherman-like manner. Numbers spent the period of their relaxation from study in gaping with the adults at the door of the pavilion, whilst the magic effect of the magnet was exhibited, or fire produced from the human mouth by means of a promethean, here emphatically denominated "the devil."

The softer s.e.x of Tajura, whilst young, possess a tolerable share of comeliness, and a pleasing expression withal; but they are speedily past the meridian of beauty. A close blue chemise, a plain leathern petticoat, or a cloth reaching to the ankles, and a liberal coat of lard over extravagantly braided ringlets, which are knotted with white beads, form the toilet of maid, wife, and widow. An occasional necklace of coloured beads falling over the sable bosom, a pendant of bra.s.s or silver wire of no ordinary dimensions in the ear, and large ivory bracelets or anklets, proclaim the besetting foible of the s.e.x: but ornaments are by no means general. Mohammadan jealousy tends to the seclusion of the better order of females to a certain extent; but a marriage in high life, when the procession pa.s.sed close to the encampment, afforded an opportunity not always enjoyed, of beholding the beauty and fashion of the place. The matrimonial shackles are here easily loosed; and the greater portion of the population being deeply engaged in the slave trade with the interior, have their rude houses filled with temporary wives, who are from time to time unceremoniously shipped for the Arabian market, in order that the funds accruing from the sale of their persons may be invested in new purchases.

Agriculture there is none. Every man is a merchant, and waxes sufficiently rich on his extensive slave exportations, to import from other climes the produce he requires. An extensive traffic is carried on with Aussa and Abyssinia, in which nearly all are engaged at some period of the year. Indian and Arabian manufactures, pewter, zinc, copper and bra.s.s wire, beads, and salt in large quant.i.ties, are at these inland marts exchanged for slaves, grain, ivory, and other produce of the interior,--salt and human beings forming, however, the chief articles of barter. Virgin Mary German crowns of Maria Theresa, 1780, as integrals, and strips of raw hide for sandal soles, as fractionals, form the currency of the sea-port; beads, b.u.t.tons, mirrors, trinkets, empty bottles, snuff, and tobacco, for which latter there is an universal craving, being also received in exchange for the necessaries of life.

Avarice is the ruling pa.s.sion--the salient point in the character of the Dankali. His whole soul is engrossed in ama.s.sing wealth, whilst he is by nature indolent and lazy, and would fain acquire riches without treading the laborious uphill path towards their attainment. Miserly in disposition, there is not an individual of the whole community, from the Sultan downwards, who would not infinitely prefer the present receipt of two pieces of silver, to a promissory note for twenty at the expiration of a week, upon the very best security. "Trees attain not to their growth in a single day," remarked Ali Shermarki, after remonstrating with the grasping ruler on his inordinate love of lucre--"take the tree as your text, and learn that property is only to be acc.u.mulated by slow degrees."

"True," retorted the old miser--"but, Sheikh, you must have lost sight of the fact, that my leaves are already withered, and that if I would be rich I have not a moment to lose."

Volume One, Chapter IX.

FORETASTE OF DANAKIL KNAVERY.

A share of thirty thousand German crowns, the annual profits accruing from the sale of three thousand human beings kidnapped in the interior, renders every native of Tajura a man of competent independence. It is not, therefore, surprising that the usual rates of transport hire, added to a knowledge of the exigencies of the Emba.s.sy, should have produced in this avaricious, but indolence-loving race, no particular desire to bestir themselves. All are camel-owners to a greater or less extent; but the presence of so many interested parties tended not a little to increase the difficulties inseparable from dealings with so listless and dilatory a set of savages--it being of course requisite to consult the advantage of all, to which, as might be conjectured, all are most feelingly alive. The ashes of ancient feuds were still smoking on the arrival of the British; and notwithstanding that it was matter of notoriety that the amount disbursed at the time of departure for Shoa, would be diminished in the exact ratio of the delay experienced--and although, to judge from the surface, affairs looked prosperous enough towards the speedy completion of carriage, there was ever an adverse under-current setting; and the apathy of the savage feeding upon listless delays, the party were doomed for a weary fortnight to endure the merciless heat of the Tajura sun, whose tardy departure was followed by a close muggy atmosphere, only occasionally alleviated by the bursting of a thunder-storm over the peak of Jebel Goodah, and to be perpetually deceived by the falsest promises, without being able to discover where to lay the blame. Bribes were lavished, increased hire acceded to, and camels repeatedly brought into the town; but day after day found the dupes to Danakil knavery still seated like shipwrecked mariners upon the sh.o.r.e, gazing in helpless melancholy at endless bales which strewed the strand, as if washed up by the waves of the fickle ocean.

During this tedious detention, which, as the sun shone fiercer and the close nights grew hotter with the rapidly advancing season, waxed daily more irksome and insupportable, and even threatened to arrest the journey altogether, the most conflicting accounts were received from various interested parties, of the actual extent of the Sultan's jurisdiction, averred by himself to have no limits nearer than the frontier of Efat. His revenues were ascertained to be restricted to two hundred head of oxen, camels, sheep, and goats, paid annually by the adjacent Danakil tribes, and it was certain that he enjoyed circ.u.mscribed prerogatives, based upon ancient usage; but although nothing is done or undertaken, without his concurrence duly obtained, he possesses no discretion to punish disobedience of his will, and is precluded from acting in the most trivial matter without the consent in full conclave, of the majority of the chiefs. Possessing little or no power over his nominal subjects, he is merely a puppet, looked up to by the wild tribes as the head of the princ.i.p.al family--infirmity and utter imbecility of character rendering His Highness at the same time, little better than a laughing-stock.

Faithless and rapacious, his insatiable avarice induced him to take every extortionate advantage of the helpless party at his mercy, whilst his tottering sway debarred him the power of reserving to himself the exclusive right of pillage. Private as well as public _kalams_ were daily held for hours at the sacred threshold of the mosque, during which new schemes of villainy and plunder were devised; and date leaves were indolently plaited by a host of apathetic legislators, as the propriety of permitting the departure inland of the Christian Kafirs was fully discussed and deliberated over with all the vicious bigotry of the Moslem zealot.

In order to ascertain how far fraud and impertinence might be carried with impunity, a deputation of the artful elders beleaguered the pavilion during the dead of night, to complain, in no measured terms, that certain of the followers, regardless of orders, had been seen endeavouring, with beads and trinkets, to betray the virtue of females who drew water at the well--a tale which proved, on due inquiry inst.i.tuted, to be, like other Danakil a.s.severations, devoid of the slightest truth or foundation. Not even a paltry water skin was to be purchased from a schoolboy under the disburs.e.m.e.nt of a silver _fuloos_, value four sterling shillings; and a courier, who had, at three times the established charge, been furnished on the security of the high and mighty Sultan, to convey to Ankober a letter advising the King of Shoa of the advent of the Emba.s.sy, was, after being three entire days and nights in possession of his ill-gotten wealth, discovered to be still snug within his mat-house, in the bosom of his family.

The letter in question had fixed the day of departure, and had been written in the most public manner before the a.s.sembled chiefs, in order, if possible, to counteract in some measure the tissue of underplots hourly developing, and to demonstrate to the Danakil capacity, that, whether camels were forthcoming or not, the journey would positively be undertaken; and the nefarious detention of the doc.u.ment, after the receipt of such exorbitant hire, being perfectly in keeping with the outrageously unprincipled and underhand treatment experienced from the first moment of arrival, the Sultan was at last plainly informed that further shuffling and falsehood would avail him nothing; since, if carriage were not immediately furnished in accordance with the plausible agreement concluded, the heavy baggage would be reshipped for Cape Aden, and the party would advance in defiance of opposition, with ten camels that had been brought by sea from Zeyla, by the nephews of Sheikh Shermarki. Mohammad Ali, too, was now heart and hand in the cause, and his jealous rival, on receipt of this unpleasant intimation, began plainly enough to perceive that his guests were in right earnest, and that the golden opportunity of filling his coffers was pa.s.sing rapidly away.

The royal salute, fired alternately from the decks of the brig and the schooner, each tricked out in all her colours, with gay signal flags in honour of the natal day of her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, enveloped the town during forty minutes in a dense white smoke, accompanied by a most unpleasant smell of gunpowder; and during the entire day the beach in front of the British encampment wore the semblance of a disturbed ant-hill. European and native--master and servant--the latter from every nation under the sun, Arab, Persian, Nubian, Armenian, Egyptian, Syrian, Greek, and Portuguese,--all in a state of most active bustle, were selecting light baggage for the approaching departure; whilst crowds of oily savages, squatted on their hams, looked on in smiling apathy at the heaps of valuable commodities that were tossing about the sands. Twenty-one British officers subsequently sate down to dinner in the crimson pavilion, and the health of Queen Victoria having been given with nine times nine, another salute bursting from the sides of the vessels of war, shook the frail town to its foundations, and re-echoed long and loud among the mountain-glens-- flights of rockets ascending at short intervals to illumine the dark sky.

The deafening din of the 32 pound stern chaser of the "Constance," which pointed directly towards the royal abode, proved too much for the nerves of the timid Sultan; and no sooner had the lights been extinguished, than his spectral figure, which ever shunned the day, glided into the tent unannounced, and ghostlike, muttered the agreeable intelligence that His Highness, after consulting the horoscope, and ascertaining beyond all doubt that the journey would prove propitious--a fact not previously determined--had come to the resolution, wise though late, of supplying the desired carriage without further delay, and deputing his own son as a safeguard through the tribes--services for which the apparition felt confident of receiving a suitable reward. The voice of the chieftains had become unanimous. At the last of a long succession of meetings convened for the purpose of taking the affair into full consideration, Abdool Rahman, the Kazi, in his capacity of lawgiver, had risen from his seat in the a.s.sembly, and ably demonstrated to his mat-weaving audience, why all animosities and heart-burnings must be sunk in the general object of making money, and getting rid as expeditiously as possible of a party of Kafirs, whose guns, unshotted, threatened the destruction of the mosque of the true believer, and the total demolition of Tajura. The Fatheh, being the first chapter of the holy Koran, was duly read, and the Danakil conclave with one voice vociferated a loud Ameen, even so let it be!

Volume One, Chapter X.

LONG ADIEU TO THE UNPRINCIPLED SULTAN.

From this eventful epoch each sultry day did indeed bring a numerical accession to the beasts of burthen collected in the town; but they were owned of many and self-willed proprietors; were, generally speaking, of the most feeble description, melancholy contrasts to the gigantic and herculean dromedary of Egypt and Arabia; and no trifling delay was still in store through their arrival from distant pastures bare-backed, which involved the necessity of making up new furniture for the march. The Dankali saddle is fortunately a simple contrivance; a mat composed of plaited date leaves thrown over the hump, supporting four sticks lashed together in couples, and kept clear of the spinal process by means of two rollers as pads, having been proved by centuries of experience to be not more light than efficient. Accoutrements completed, and camels ready for the march, other provoking excuses for delay were not wanting, to fill, even to overflowing, the measure of annoyance. The demise of a nephew of the Sultan--the protracted funeral obsequies of the deceased-- and the almost nightly abstraction of one or more hired camels by the lurking Bedouin, all contributed their mite. At length however no further pretext could be devised, and nine loads being actually in motion towards Ambabo, the first halting ground on the road to the kingdom of Shoa, the schooner "Constance," getting under weigh, stood up the bay of Tajura, and cast anchor off the incipient camp, of which the position was denoted by a tall cl.u.s.ter of palms.

Endless objections being now provokingly raised to the shape, size, and weight of the boxes to be transported, it next became requisite to reduce the dimensions of the greater number, in the progress of which operation it was discovered that the hurry of transhipment at Aden had resulted in the subst.i.tution of several dozens of choice marasquino, for a similar number of cases, of equal size, freighted with round shot for the galloper-guns. The work in hand was one of no ordinary labour and difficulty; and, after all, its completion proved insufficient to satisfy the parties. One blockhead complained that his load was heavier than his neighbour's, who had wisely risen earlier in the morning to make his selection; another, that his case, although confessedly light, was not of convenient size; one was too long, another not long enough, a third too deep, and a fourth too loosely packed. From earliest dawn, until final close of day, on a sandy beach, under a broiling sun, was this torment continued without intermission, until the 30th of May, when, by dint of coaxing, menacing, and bribing, every article had been removed saving an unwieldy hand-organ, at which every camel-owner had shaken his wig in turn, and a few stand of arms which had been removed from wooden cases, and repacked in mats and tarpaulins. A great hulking savage finally proposed to carry these latter, upon condition of their being transversely divided with a saw to suit the backs of his wretched hip-galled camels. "You are a tall man," quoth Aboo Bekr drolly, "suppose we shorten you by the legs?"

"No, no," cried the barbarian, "I'm flesh and blood, and shall be spoiled."

"So will the contents of these cases, you offspring of an a.s.s," retorted the old pilot, "if you divide them."

The almost insurmountable difficulties thus experienced in obtaining carriage, but now happily overcome, had so far delayed the advance of the Emba.s.sy, as to oblige it to cross the Tehama during the height of the fiery and unwholesome blast which, during the months of June and July, sweeps over that waterless tract from the south-west; and had moreover rendered it impossible to reach Abyssinia before the setting-in of the annual heavy rains, when the river Hawash becomes impa.s.sable for weeks together. Independently of the natural apathy of the camel-owning population, the fact of the season of all intercourse with the interior, by Kafilah, having already pa.s.sed away, rendered every one averse, under any consideration of gain, to so hazardous a journey. Grain was to be carried for the consumption of horses and mules during the pa.s.sage of arid regions, where, during the hot season, neither vegetation nor water exists; and the wells and pools having notoriously failed in every part of the road, during three consecutive seasons of unusual drought, it was necessary to entertain a large proportion of transport for a supply of water sufficient to last both man and beast for two and three days at a time; whilst, neither gra.s.s nor green food remaining near the sea-sh.o.r.e, the hundred and seventy camels now forming the caravan, had been individually a.s.sembled from various grazing grounds, many miles distant in the interior.

A sufficient number of water-skins had fortunately been purchased at exorbitant prices to complete the equipment, together with mules for the conveyance of the European escort and artillery; and the greedy Sultan, besides receiving the lion's share of the profits on all, had sold his own riding beast for three times its worth in solid silver. But the forage brought over from Aden being long since consumed, the whole were fed upon dates, and to the latest moment the greatest difficulty continued to exist in regard to followers. The services of neither Dankali, Bedouin, nor Somauli, were obtainable at whatever wages; and the whole of the long train of live stock was consequently to be attended by a few worthless horse-keepers, enlisted at Aden, aided by a very limited number of volunteers from the shipping, whose indifferent characters gave ample promise of their subsequent misdeeds.

On the departure of the last load, a general begging commenced on a grand scale, on the part of all who flattered themselves that they had in the most remote manner been so fortunate as to render a.s.sistance during the protracted sojourn of the Kafirs. Many, whose claims were far from being apparent, after confessing themselves satisfied _in propriis personis_, modestly urged demands on behalf of their still more worthless neighbours; and in order to have any chance of pa.s.sing in safety to the mountains with so long a line of camels, it was only prudent to propitiate each and all of this predatory hosts of locusts, before entering upon their lawless country.

With a feeling of pleasure akin to that experienced by Gil Blas, when he escaped from the robbers' cave, the party at length bade adieu to Tajura. Of all the various cla.s.ses and denominations of men who inhabit the terrestrial globe, the half-civilised savages peopling this sea-port, are perhaps the most thoroughly odious and detestable. They have ingeniously contrived to lose every virtue wherewith the rude tribes to which they pertain, may once have been adorned; and having acquired nothing in exchange, save the vices of their more refined neighbours, the scale of abject degradation to which they are now reduced, can hardly descend lower. Under this sweeping and very just condemnation, the impotent Sultan, Mohammad ibn Mohammad, stands pre-eminently in relief; and the old miser's rapacity continuing unsated up to the very latest moment, he clutched his long staff betwixt his skinny fingers, and hobbled forth from his den, resolved to squeeze yet another hundred dollars as a parting memento from his British victims.

The European escort were in the act of mounting the mules already harnessed to the galloper-gun, which he had vainly persuaded himself could never be transported from the coast, since no camel-owner consented to take it, and repeated attempts that he had witnessed to yoke a pair of oxen to the limbers had proved unsuccessful, even after their stubborn noses were pierced. But mule harness had been ably manufactured to meet the exigency, and when his l.u.s.treless eyes beheld the party in horse artillery order, firmly seated in their saddles, and moving along the strand towards Ambabo--forgetting the vile errand upon which he had come, he involuntarily exclaimed, "In the name of Allah and the holy Prophet, whither are those fellows going?" "_Raheen el Habesh_," "to Abyssinia," was the laconic reply that fell upon his astounded ears as the whips cracked merrily in succession; and His Highness was long after seen, still leaning on his slender crutch, and staring in idiotic vacancy after the departing cavalcade, as it disappeared under a cloud of dust from before his leaden gaze.

Volume One, Chapter XI.

INIQUITOUS PROCEEDINGS AT AMBABO, AND UNDERSTANDING WITH THE RAS EL KAFILAH.

The tall masts of the schooner of war, raking above the belt of dwarf jungle that skirts the tortuous coast, served as a beacon to the new camp, the distance of which from the town of Tajura was less than four miles. A narrow footpath wound along the burning sands, across numerous water-courses from the impending mountain range of trachyte and porphyry, whose wooded base, thickly clothed with mimosa and _euphorbia antiquorum_, harboured swine, pigmy antelope, and guinea-fowl in abundance. Many large trees, uprooted by the wintry torrent, had been swept far out to sea, where in derision of the waves that buffet their dilapidated, stag-horn looking arms, they will long ride safely at anchor. The pelican of the wilderness soiled through the tossing surf, and files of Bedouin damsels, in greasy leathern petticoats, bending beneath a load of fuel from the adjacent hamlets, traversed the sultry strand; whilst a long train of wretched children, with streaming elf-like locks, who had been kidnapped in the unexplored interior, wended their weary way with a slave caravan, towards the sea-port, whence they were to be sold into foreign bondage.

An avenue through the trees presently revealed the white tent, occupying a sequestered nook on the course of a mountain stream near its junction with the sh.o.r.e. Here horses and mules were doing their utmost, by diligently cropping the scanty tufts of sun-burnt gra.s.s, to repair their recent long abstinence from forage, whilst the abbreviated tails of those which had been improved by mutilation, formed the jest of a group of grinning savages. Clumps of lofty fan palms, and date trees loaded with ripe orange-coloured fruit, still screened from view the village of Ambabo, the straggling Gothic roofed wigwams composing which have the same waggon-like appearance as the huts of Tajura,--a similar style of architecture extending even to the unostentatious mosque, alone distinguishable from the surrounding edifices, by uncarved minarets of wood.

Greasy ragam.u.f.fins still intruding, here continued their teasing persecutions, and Mohammad Mohammad, the son, though not the heir to the throne of the Sultan, having been specially appointed by his disreputable sire to the important post of reporter and spy, unceremoniously occupied one of the chairs, to the exclusion of the lawful proprietor during the entire day. He however proved useful in so far that he was versed in the chronicle of Ambabo. The Nakhuda of one of his uncle's buggalows having contrived a quarrel with a member of the tribe Ha.s.soba, one of the manifold subdivisions of the Danakil, the man threw the gauntlet of defiance by cutting off the prow of the boat.

Meeting shortly afterwards in deadly conflict, the insulted mariner slew his antagonist on the spot, and took refuge in the hills, until, tired of long concealment, and believing the affair to be consigned to oblivion, he ventured to settle with his family at Ambabo, and thus founded the present village; but after some years of repose, he was discovered by the relatives of the slain, and, as usual in all blood feuds, ultimately a.s.sa.s.sinated. Occupying a site proverbially unhealthy, and scourged during the rains by insupportable clouds of musquitoes, the miserable hamlet is but thinly peopled, and the Sheikh being on far from amicable terms with the authorities of Tajura, it is likely soon to be abandoned in favour of some more eligible location.

A red savage, falsely representing himself to be one of the household of his Christian Majesty of Shoa, arrived during the afternoon from Ankober, with letters for Aden, and having safely deposited his packet on board the "Constance," was readily induced to return whence he came, with the Emba.s.sy. Deeni ibn Hamed, a liar of the first magnitude, but the only Dankali who had voluntarily attached himself to the fortunes of the party, conceiving the arrival of this courier to afford an opening for the exercise of his talents which ought on no account to be neglected, immediately proceeded to tax his lively ingenuity in disclosing the contents of a doc.u.ment which he pretended had been received from Sahela Sela.s.sie by the old ruffian from whose clutches his audience had just thankfully escaped; and the ma.s.s of gratuitous falsehoods that he contrived to string together with an unblushing front, must be admitted to reflect ample credit upon his fertile invention.

Lying appeared in fact to be the chosen occupation of this youthful warrior, who, however, unlike the ma.s.s of his compatriots, did possess some redeeming qualities, though they were by no means so conspicuous as his scars. The insuperable aversion to veracity which he evinced on every occasion, renders it difficult to determine what degree of credit may be attached to the tragic tale that he was pleased to connect with a deep gash over the temple, which distorted his vision; and if not received in a less honourable _rencontre_ than he pretended, affords another to the ten thousand instances on record of the savage rancour with which blood feuds are prosecuted. "My maternal uncle, and a native of Zeyla," said Deeni, "becoming embroiled, mutually unsheathed their creeses in mortal strife, fought desperately, and died. The brother of the latter sought my life in revenge, as being the nearest of kin; but after receiving this slash upon my forehead, and another on my arm, which I shall also carry to the grave, I closed, stabbed the Somauli villain to the heart with this good creese, and, glory be to G.o.d I divided his windpipe with his own sword."

Profiting by the amiable example of the ill.u.s.trious ruler of Tajura, the Sheikh of Ambabo, a most notable extortioner, resolved to put his chum to a sum of ready money beyond a shadow of doubt, placed a strong Bedouin guard over the only well; and although he had every reason to be satisfied with the success of his nefarious schemes, he did not possess sufficient grat.i.tude to prevent the commission of a robbery during the night, which might have proved more serious than it did. Solace under all misfortunes and annoyances was, however, found in the arrival of Mohammad Ali on the 31st, with a welcome accession of camels for the carriage of water, which rendered certain the prospect of departure on the morrow, it having been distinctly promised by the Sultan, in return for a handsome pecuniary consideration, that his brother Izhak, who had been unanimously appointed Ras el Kafilah, his son, his nephew, and seven other persons of undoubted influence on the road, should be in readiness without fail, to escort the Emba.s.sy on the 1st of June, and that the reward of their services should be paid, _ad valorem_, upon safe arrival within the kingdom of Shoa.

Three hours after midnight, the galloper-gun, fired within the limits of the British camp as a summons to the drowsy camel-drivers to be up and doing, was echoed, according to previous agreement, by the long stern chaser of the "Constance,"--a signal to the "Euphrates," still anch.o.r.ed off Tajura, to thunder a farewell salute as the day dawned. The work of loading was merrily commenced--the tent went down--and camel after camel moved off towards Dullool; when, on the departure of the last string, it was observed with dismay that the ground was still strewed with baggage, for which carriage had unquestionably been paid and entertained, but for which none was forthcoming. The greasy proprietors were, after some search, discovered below the bushes, engaged in the operation of jerking mutton,--a process sufficiently nauseous in itself to repel any close advance; but persuasion and threats proved alike unavailing. Some had already sent their camels to graze at a distance; others insolently expressed their intention of doing so after the completion of their interesting work, and by far the greater number would vouchsafe no explanation whatever. At length the provoking riddle was solved by the arrival of a peremptory message from the Sultan, naming the price of the attendance of his brother with the promised escort, and modestly requesting that the amount might forthwith be disbursed, or the bargain must be considered null and void!