The Highlands of Ethiopia Part 54

It had been amusing in the interim to watch the persevering industry of an unfortunate gun-man of the body-guard, who was constructing a hut immediately below the palace. Whensoever the vigilant eye of the church permitted, he would add to the frail wall of his circular dwelling a few layers of loose stone which, with his own single labour, he had collected in the meadow; but each morning's dawn revealed to his sorrowing eyes some monstrous breach in the unstable fabric, which, like Penelope's web, was never nearer to completion, and his patience being fairly exhausted, he finally gave up the task in despair.

The novel style of architecture introduced by the Gyptzis, so immeasurably superior in elegance, stability, and comfort, to anything before witnessed in Shoa, and combining all these recommendations with so limited an expenditure of material, afforded an undeniable contrast to the adjacent tottering pile upon vaults on which Demetrius the Albanian had expended three years of labour. Beyond the rude fabrics of the neighbouring states, where the more common manufactures have attained a somewhat higher cultivation, the palace of the king can boast of no embellishment saving the tawdry trappings which decorate the throne--gaudy tapestries of crimson velvet loaded with ma.s.sive silver ornaments, but ill in keeping with the clumsy mud walls to which they are appended, and serving to render the latter still more incongruous by so striking a contrast. But the new apartments were elegantly furnished throughout, and with their couches, ottomans, carpets, chairs, tables, and curtains, had a.s.sumed an aspect heretofore unknown in Abyssinia. "I shall turn it into a chapel," quoth His Majesty, accosting Abba Raguel, and patting the little dwarf familiarly upon the back--"What say you to that plan, my father?"

As a last finishing touch, we suspended in the centre hall a series of large coloured engravings, which the cathedral of Saint Michael might well have envied, for they represented the chase of the tiger in all its varied phases. The domestication of the elephant, and its employment in war, or in the pageant, had ever proved a stumbling-block to the king, who all his life had been content to reside in a house boasting neither windows nor chimneys, and who reigned not in the days when "the Negus, arrayed in the barbaric pomp of gold chains, collars, and bracelets, and surrounded by his n.o.bles and musicians, gave audience to the amba.s.sador of Justinian, seated in the open field upon a lofty chariot drawn by four elephants superbly caparisoned." [Gibbon.] The grotesque appearance of the "hugest of beasts" in his hunting harness, struck the chord of a new idea. "I will have a number caught on the Robi," he exclaimed, "that you may tame them, and that I too may ride upon an elephant before I die." A favourite governor from a remote frontier province was standing meanwhile with his forefinger in his mouth gazing in mute amazement at the wonders before him. "This place is not suited for the occupation of man," he at length exclaimed in a reverie of surprise, as the monarch ceased:--"this is a palace designed only for the residence of the Deity, and of Sahela Sela.s.sie."

Volume 3, Chapter XLII.

THE "PRO REX OF EFAT" IN TRIBULATION.

Although we had found small reason to be flattered with our first reception in the kingdom of Shoa, at the hands of a Christian ruler who had sought alliance with Great Britain, it was nevertheless matter of notoriety that no previous visitors had, under any circ.u.mstances, been treated with one-hundredth part of the same courtesy and condescension, or had experienced such unequivocal marks of confidence and favour.

Formed on the most liberal scale, and supplied with all that was likely to add to its weight in such a country, the emba.s.sy was almost from the outset admitted to terms of perfect equality with the haughty despot, yet numberless diplomatic troubles were still interposed by the general ignorance of the many, and by the envy and jealousy of a few. No veil had been thrown over the deep-rooted enmity of the bigoted and powerful priesthood, who, to serve their own sinister purposes, cunningly contrived to construe the costly gifts of the British Government into tribute to the ill.u.s.trious descendant of the house of Solomon; but the a.s.sertion carried its own refutation. In a weak moment Comus Unquies, "the king's strong monk," so far forgot the dignity due to his station, as to barter his bishop's staff to the heretic Gyptzis for a pair of Birmingham scissors! European medicines had rescued three thousand patients from the jaws of death; and improved intercourse with the monarch finally dispelled the jealousy created in a suspicious breast by the treasonable designs imputed to the foreign visitors, who were found to have brought no king or queen in a box, and to entertain designs neither upon the sceptre nor upon the church of Ethiopia.

The opposition of inimical functionaries dressed in fleeting authority, exposed us to a train of persecutions, trifling perhaps in themselves, but amounting in the aggregate to more than martyrdom. Few of the commands issued were obeyed so much in the spirit as to the letter.

_Eshee_, or _Basanye_ [i.e. "Very well."], although doubtless signifying a.s.sent, did not always bring compliance with even the most trifling application for a.s.sistance. The king was too polished to say "No," when he had inwardly resolved to do nothing; and an uneducated despot, who has never known any law but his own absolute will, and who lives for himself alone; who considers and claims as his property every thing in the country over which he wields the arbitrary sceptre, and whose only idea of wealth, power, and happiness, is centred in individual existence, can so ill understand the wants of others, that His Majesty's offences towards his guests, founded in Oriental suspicion, might rather be termed sins of omission than of commission.

Covetous, and eager for novelties, Sahela Sela.s.sie never fails to wish for every thing that comes under his observation, but, like a child with a new toy, soon weary of looking at the bauble, though still vain of its possession, he casts it aside to be h.o.a.rded in the mouldy vaults of some distant magazine. The savage is the same under every possible form, and in every grade and position--the one stealing what he covets, whilst another, seeking plausible pretexts, obtains possession through low cunning and stratagem. Among such a nation of beggars as the people of Southern Abyssinia, it was not always easy to satisfy the rapacity of fastidious extortioners. All wanted "pleasing things"--many demanded dollars to defray the cost of slaves that they had purchased, but for whom they could not pay; and for months after my arrival, requisitions for our own private property were unceasing on the part also of the monarch.

Neither compulsory measures nor direct applications were ever employed; but the means resorted to were not the less certain of success. With that duplicity and want of candour which ever marks uncivilised man, he was wont to send underhand communications, or meanly to depute his emissaries to reveal his desires and his intentions in a manner which, in so despotic a land, could leave no doubt of authenticity; and an offer of the article coveted being forthwith made, His Majesty hesitated not, in the presence of his agents, to deny all cognisance of the transaction, or to swear by the saints that he never sought the property tendered for his acceptance. Persuasion would not induce him to receive it at once, and thus to terminate the matter; but no sooner had it been removed from his sight, than his creatures were again at work with even greater activity than before; and rude taunts of breach of promise, with not-to-be-mistaken hints, veiled under the cloak of friendship, were certain to instigate a second and a third offer, which invariably elicited an avowal of the disinclination entertained to "receive the property of his children," but uniformly ended in his accepting it "as a free gift from the heart," acknowledged in all grat.i.tude by the benediction--"G.o.d restore it to thee, my son! May the Lord glorify and reward thee!"

Chief of all the sycophants who bask in the favour of the monarch, may be ranked Wulasma Mohammad, who, in finesse, plausibility, and the manifold specious devices that are employed to cover total want of sincerity, can find no equal in the kingdom of Shoa. Lavish in professions of friendship, he never suffered to escape an opportunity of gratifying his inwardly-cherished animosity. Presents were frequently exchanged--the sugarcane and the bunch of green gram, which are the symbols of hearts knit together in the bonds of unity, arrived with the same regularity as the week, coupled, of course, with a description of some "pleasing thing" that was not to be found in Goncho. The lemon, denoting by its aromatic fragrance the beauties of permanent amity, was ever sure to follow the receipt of the desired article.

Professions daily grew more profuse, and complimentary inquiries, which const.i.tute the very essence of friendship, waxed more and more frequent; but although the regard entertained "amounted even to heaven and earth,"

and although every aid and a.s.sistance was volunteered, no packet of letters ever arrived to the address of the Gyptzis, neither did any courier ever depart for the sea-coast without being subjected to a tedious detention on the frontier at the hands of the despotic state-gaoler.

On the first of these occasions, the king, before sending the packet to the Residency, had taken the trouble of breaking the seal of every individual cover with his own royal fingers; and a protest having been entered against a procedure so utterly foreign to European ideas of propriety. His Majesty inquired, with well-feigned simplicity, "Of what use should my children's letters be to me, who understand not their language?" Remonstrances were in like manner made to the Abogaz touching his interference in such manners; but as the crafty old fox screened himself behind total ignorance of the value attached to written doc.u.ments, and volunteered better behaviour, the subject was set at rest.

But although letters were now thoroughly understood to be held in higher estimation even than fine gold from Gurague, the evil, far from being abated, became greater and greater, until at last it was no longer to be borne. Promises made, were made only to be broken; and a serious complaint was at last carried to the throne at Angollala, representing that another packet had been secreted during an entire fortnight in the fortified vaults of Goncho. After stoutly denying all knowledge of it, until convicted by incontrovertible evidence, and then declaring it to be deposited, for safety-sake, in the custody of his brother Jhalia, who was absent on the frontier, the Wulasma was commanded to set out forthwith upon the quest, and to return at his peril empty-handed. "Our friendship has ceased for ever," muttered the burly caitiff betwixt his closed teeth as he descended the ladder--"for through your means the king hath become wroth with his servant." "Let his friendship go into the sea," quoth His Majesty, who had overheard this appalling announcement--"Is not he an accursed Moslem? Look only to me. Have I not always told you that my people are bad? Ye have travelled far into a strange land, and are to Sahela Sela.s.sie even as his own children. Ye have no relative but me."

The escape of the rebel Medoko had formerly led to the suspension of the Abogaz from rank and office for a period of two years, during which he danced attendance upon the monarch with shoulders bared, as is the wont of the disgraced n.o.ble. His troubles had now returned. "My ancestors owed a debt of grat.i.tude to Mohammad's father," continued His Majesty, after a pause, "and I would fain overlook his faults; but this insolence is no longer to be borne. I have removed the drunkard from office, confiscated his goods and chattels, and by the death of Woosen Suggud, I swear, that unless you intercede, there can be no hope of his restoration to favour."

Down came the ex-Wulasma in a furious pa.s.sion, boiling with old hydromel, and flushed with his rapid ride:--"How should I know that you wanted these vile letters?" he exclaimed, throwing the packet scornfully upon the ground--"I have done nothing. What offence have I committed, that I am thus to suffer through your means?--There is a proverb, that `the dog of the house is faithful to its master, whereas he who cometh from beyond is worse than a hyena.'"

But a week had wrought a wonderful change in the sentiments of the humbled grandee, whose beeves were indeed grazing in the royal pastures, whilst his jars of old mead reposed in the royal cellars. He at whose sullen nod the subjects of Efat quailed, and whose presence was as an incubus to the state-prisoners in Goncho, had been, at the representation of a foreigner, stripped of wealth and power, and, in accordance with the usage of the country, was now fain to wait during a succession of days upon those whom he had injured. Seating himself at the door of the tent in sackcloth and ashes, he sent in two friends, who came, according to the custom of the country, to serve as mediators.

"Behold, I am reduced to the condition of a beggar," was his abject message, "and have no support but in your intercession. My children are deprived of their bread, and they starve through the faults of their father."

The Commander-in-chief of the Body-Guard was spokesman on behalf of the caitiff. He brought me, as a _mamalacha_, a huge Sanga horn, filled to the brim with the liquor that he loved, and ushered himself in with his customary string of complimentary enquiries, "_Endiet aderachoon?

Ejegoon dahenaderachoon? Dahena sanabatachoon? Dahena karamoon?

Ejegoon dahena natchoon_?" "How have you pa.s.sed the night? Have you rested very well? Have you been quite well since our last interview?

How have you spent the rainy season? Are you in perfect health?"

"Half the people of Habesh," he resumed, in his husky voice, when each of these points had been satisfactorily disposed of--"have ears like a hill, and they cannot hear--the residue are liars. Furthermore, one-half are thieves and drunkards, and the remainder are cowards."

There was no refuting the arguments adduced in support of this position, and his eloquence proved quite irresistible. A solemn oath was therefore administered upon the Koran, by which the suppliant, who united in his own person all the attributes embraced in this able cla.s.sification, became pledged never again to interfere with messengers bearing letters to or from the low country. His pardon was finally obtained; and he was once more invested with the silver sword of office: nor is it easy to determine whether the disgrace or the restoration of the fat frontier functionary created the greater sensation throughout the realm.

"What can you expect from that besotted old man?" inquired Ayto Melkoo, who had been a silent spectator of all that pa.s.sed, and who hated both the Abogaz and his mediator with equal intensity. "Did you never hear that the Negoos was once displeased with me, and that I pa.s.sed a few months beneath the grates at Goncho; and furthermore, that when the royal order came to set me at large, the State-Gaoler was drunk, and never thought again of his prisoner for a full fortnight? _Sahela Sela.s.sie ye moot_! May the king die if it be not so!--the infidel may swear as long as he pleases, ay, and take his sacred book to witness; but how can you suppose that he will ever be able to think of these letters of yours?"

Volume 3, Chapter XLIII.

THE BEREAVEMENT.

A calamity shortly afterwards overtook the Master of the Horse, whose spouse--a gift from the monarch to his faithful subject--was seized with alarming influenza, and became an object of universal attention. The first intimation of the disorder being serious was received from himself, when he came one morning to Graham's tent, in order to perform the interesting operation of shaving with a notched razor that he invariably patronised, and also to demand how it occurred that our inquiries were not more frequent. The not dispatching couriers daily to ascertain how each of your acquaintance fares and has rested, is perhaps the greatest offence that can be committed against Abyssinian etiquette.

"Send to me" is a caution invariably given; and such being an indispensable ceremony when people are believed to be well, what must not be exacted when it is supposed that they are invalids? If hourly inquiries be not made, the best friends are sure to become the worst; and in every case the amount of real solicitude felt, is estimated by the frequency of "amicable correspondence."

"The patient's uvula has been cleverly plucked out with a silken thread," observed the visitor exultingly, when his toilet was happily completed:--"the thorax has been well scarified, and furthermore, we are giving _ya medur oomboi_ [Cuc.u.mis Africa.n.u.s, Linn]. This medicine is infallible; but remember," he added, lowering his voice, and looking suspiciously round to see that no eaves-dropper profited by the wisdom he was about to impart in confidence--"remember that it must be gathered by a finger on which there is a silver ring, or, by Michael, it possesses no virtue whatever."

The good lady did not, however, long stand in need either of treatment or inquiry. She closed her bright eyes shortly after swallowing the infallible nostrum, administered by her quack husband in a jorum of oatmeal gruel, stirred with honey and rancid b.u.t.ter to such a consistency that the spoon would stand--and death left her barely time for confession and absolution.

Every priest in the neighbourhood was instantly called in to the rescue; and the _enchifchif_ [i.e. belt of charms and amulets] and _mateb_ having been immersed in water, and restored to the body, the sacrament was administered; and under the blazing light of the torch, prayers were chanted for the soul of the deceased until the morning dawned. Then commenced the frantic shrieks of the female crowd that flocked to the house of mourning. Cloths were torn in shreds from the bosom, and the skin plucked from the temples, whilst the low moaning dirge was at frequent intervals interrupted by the hysterical sob of some new arrival, who came to add her voice to the dismal coronach, and to excite renewed bursts of lamentation.

Preceded by the gay orange umbrellas of the church of the "Covenant of Mercy," the funeral procession wound up the palace hill. A pall of printed Surat chintz, supported by six bearers, was waved alternately with a fanning motion, whilst a numerous train of mourners followed, with loud wails, all having their hands clasped behind their neck in token of the triumph obtained by Death over Sin. The corpse was laid in the sacred edifice, surrounded by twelve lighted tapers betokening purity of life; and when these were nearly consumed, they were lowered with the bier into the sepulchre. The head was laid to the west, in order that on the morn of resurrection the face might be towards the rising sun. A quant.i.ty of frankincense was deposited in the grave; and a copy of the book styled _Lefafa Zadik_, "The supplication of Righteousness," having been placed on the body, the mortal clay was returned whence it came, "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust."

Ecclesiastics alone possess the privilege of a last resting-place within the walls of the church, or on the eastern side, four paces from the porch. The aristocracy occupy the north, and warriors, women, and children, the south and west. All who die without confession or absolution are either interred by the highway-side or in some unconsecrated ground. Governors, men of rank, and all wealthy commoners who have not during life worked in wood, iron, or precious metals, are covered in the sepulchre with the green branches of the juniper; but smiths and artificers being regarded as sorcerers, every care is taken to keep them under ground when once deposited, to which end great stones are heaped over the body, and the earth is well trampled and secured.

Funeral obsequies concluded, the dirge of mourning, as usual, gave place to the notes of the violin, for harpers and fiddlers usually attend to the last resting-place the mortal remains of the great, and exert their utmost endeavours to raise the spirits of the return party by the liveliest airs. At the funeral feast which followed, oxen and sheep were freely slaughtered, and charity was liberally distributed, in order that _requiems_ might be chanted during forty consecutive days for the soul of the departed.

It has been shown that the Abyssinian Christian, whilst execrating Mohammadanism, and forswearing all its abominations, can take unto his bosom four wives and more, and that the solemnisation of matrimony is almost the only occasion on which the priest is not called in. Such had ever been the case in the house of the Master of the Horse, who was nevertheless inconsolable under his present bereavement. Certain malicious whispers had flown abroad, to the effect that applications of the cudgel were sometimes resorted to by the epicure in support of his marital authority; but whether true or without foundation, these scandalous tales were known to have been circulated by d.i.n.koo, a mischief-making brat, with the falsest of tongues, and the offspring of one whose divorce, from incompatibility of temper, had left the deceased undisputed mistress of the premises, whereas of the matchless "_Etagainya_" now no more, the neighbours were ever wont to exclaim, "Where shall you find her equal?"

At the appointed season, Graham and myself went in compliance with Abyssinian custom, to pay a visit of condolence, after having with considerable difficulty succeeded in shaking off the attentions of the court buffoon, who, with his wonted politeness, exerted somewhat _mal-a-propos_ to so melancholy an occasion, insisted upon the exercise of his ingenuity in the comic drama. The widower, enveloped in a black woollen mantle, was seated in a gloomy corner, the very personification of mourning--his temples deeply scarified with his little finger nail, as were those also of the wrinkled old woman who wept beside him. In an opposite corner, equally the victim of grief, and supported by the family priest with cross, crutch, and cowl, sat Marietta, a fat daughter of the former unfortunate union, who, like her mother, had been wedded and divorced, and having taken shelter again under her father's roof, was now sobbing aloud.

"G.o.d hath taken her," said one of the guests, breaking silence after the conclusion of the customary salutations. "The life of man is in His hand."

"Alas!" sobbed the bereaved, "that it had pleased Heaven to spare her until after you had left Abyssinia, that I alone might have found cause for affliction. Who could prepare _shiro_, and _wotz_, and _dilli_, like Etagainya? When was the house ever dest.i.tute of _quanta_ or of _qualima_? [Note 1] and who ever asked for _tullah_ or for _tedj_, that she did not reply, `_Malto_,' There is abundance? `_Waiye, waiye_,' Woe is me. Where shall I find her equal? But there could have been no ring on the finger that gathered the _medanit_!"

Note 1. _Shiro_, a sauce composed of peas or lentils boiled with grease and spices. _Wotz_, another, consisting of grease and red pepper.

_Dilli_, a third abominable condiment. _Quanta_, sun-dried flesh.

_Qualima_, sausages.

Volume 3, Chapter XLIV.

THE GREAT ANNUAL FORAY.

Another Abyssinian year had floated away upon the stream of time, and again the return of spring had been celebrated by the green fillet of _enkotatach_, by the tournament in the bright meadows of Debra Berhan, and by the plaintive ditty of the king's Guragues, who, with yellow garlands of the cross-flower wreathed among their raven tresses, once more chanted away their three days of privileged inebriety. As September drew towards a close, it had been confidently predicted that the rain would terminate according to its "covenant;" but it still poured on with unabated violence, and the review of Maskal was achieved under a pitiless deluge, which exerted its best endeavours both to mar the pageant, and to extinguish the evening bonfire raised in honour of Saint Helena.

But the beat of the _nugareet_, and the voice of the herald beneath the solitary tree at Angollala, proclaimed the great annual foray as heretofore; and the plain below the palace hill was soon dotted with the black woollen tents of the leaders of cohorts. There were the governors of Bulga and of Mentshar, and of Morat and Morabeitie, and Efrata and Antzochia, and of Mahhfood and of Shoa-Meda, with all their subordinates, each surrounded by his own retainers; and the rear division of this feudal host was placed under the command of Besuenech, now governor of Giddem, the father of the king's grand-nephew, who fell the preceding year upon the fair plains of Germama.

Led on to victory by the holy ark of Saint Michael, the great crimson umbrellas streamed again through the barrier wall at the head of the Christian chivalry. Twenty thousand troopers pursued the route of the Sertie Lake to the Metta Galla, occupying the plains immediately contiguous to the valley of Finfinni, who were now the victims marked out for spoliation. The despot had so invariably pa.s.sed this tribe without offering any molestation, that the heathen were little prepared for the thunderbolt that was about to fall, and of which the first intimation was afforded in the simultaneous invasion of the entire district. Overwhelmed by the torrent of desolation which had so suddenly burst in, four thousand five hundred Gentiles of all ages were butchered by the "soldiers of Christ," and of these the greater number were shot from trees that they had ascended in the vain hope of eluding observation. Three hapless individuals were thus barbarously destroyed by the hands of Sahela Sela.s.sie, who for the first time led his troops to the summit of the mountain Entotto--the ancient capital of Ethiopia-- and, taking formal possession, appointed the arch-rebel Shambo to the government, under the t.i.tle of "_Shoom_ of all Gurague."

Forty-three thousand head of cattle were on this occasion swept away to replenish the royal pastures, and the rich prize had been obtained with the loss of only nine of the king's liege subjects. Of the heroes who fell, one was torn by a lion in the deep juniper forest, and another basely a.s.sa.s.sinated by his comrade in arms, whose disfigured corse was subsequently left in retribution to the hyenas; whilst a third, a priest of extraordinary piety, and the father of the young page Besabeh, was transfixed by the spear of a Pagan who sat concealed amid the branches of a tree, beneath which the holy man rode in a rash attempt to secure a fugitive. The king's Master of the Horse wore the vaunting green _sareti_ for having achieved the capture of a child scarce five years of age; and upwards of one thousand captives, chiefly women and young girls, swelled the barbaric pomp of triumphal entry to Angollala.

I considered that the opportunity had again arrived, when a remonstrance from the Emba.s.sy would promote the release of these unfortunate slaves; and after reminding His Majesty of his n.o.ble conduct with respect to the prisoners taken during the preceding foray, I entreated him not to tarnish, in the eyes of the civilised world, the reputation he had acquired for mercy, but to prove, by his present conduct, that he was indeed influenced by the true principles of Christianity. Under Providence, my application was again crowned with success, and with a few exceptions, all were liberated without ransom. "I listen to your words," said His Majesty, as he issued the fiat of release, "in order that the name of Sahela Sela.s.sie may not be broken."

Sad indeed are the atrocities perpetrated by the undisciplined armies of Ethiopia, when disputing the abstruse mysteries of Abyssinian divinity, or seeking, in the relentless fury of religious hate, to exterminate a heathen and stranger nation by a series of crusades, undertaken as an acceptable vindication of the sacred symbol of Christianity.

"Her badge of mercy blazons half their shields; Sword hilts are fashion'd as memorials of it: This sign of man's forgiveness leads to battle!

Whilst every tyrant hangs its ensign out, In scorn of justice, from his battlements; Mail'd prelates march before it to the field-- Priest fights with priest, and both sides under it!

This sign and pledge of mercy!"

The people of Shoa have fully adopted that spirit of merciless destruction which impelled the Israelites to destroy their enemies from the face of the earth. Considering themselves the lineal descendants of those heroes of ancient history who were arrayed against the enemies of the Lord, they are actuated by the same motives and feelings which led the bands of Judah to the ma.s.sacre. The foe is a Pagan, who does not fast, nor kiss the church, nor wear a _mateb_. All feelings of humanity are thrown to the winds; and a high reward in heaven is believed to await the king and the blood-thirsty soldier for the burning of the hamlet, the capture of the property, and the murder of the accursed Gentile. The words of absolution from the mouth of the Father Confessor usher in the ruthless slaughter; and the name of the Most High is wantonly employed to consecrate the ensuing scenes of savage atrocity.