Return to Ankóber.
An extremely steep and infamous road, intersected by numerous mountain torrents, brought us the following day to Arámba. After crossing the district of Arraba Amba, which pays tribute to the crown in agates, whereof numbers of the form adapted for gun-flints are picked up on the face of the soil, the path wound above three miles along the channel of the river Shonkorghie, or “Sugar-sides,” which takes its source in the Turmáber range, and during the rains becomes quite impassable. On its borders the blackberry and the corinda abounded, both in full fruit. The scenery was especially beautiful; and in a romantic glen, partially secluded by a grove of tall trees, among which the green and crimson “zoreet” displayed its gorgeous plumage, stood the picturesque church and monastery of “Our Lady.”
Arámba was taken from the Areeo Galla by Abiyé, third monarch of Shoa; and now containing a large portion of the treasures amassed by Sáhela Selássie and his ancestors, is garrisoned by a strong detachment of gunmen, and entrusted to the custody of a governor, and of a Shálaka, or captain of a thousand. No stranger is permitted to enter the village without first giving the personal security of one of the inhabitants; and access is not under any circumstances allowed to the stronghold, which occupies the apex of a rocky ridge, possessing great natural strength. Here, in a succession of long barn-like buildings, are consigned to mould and cobwebs, and jealously guarded, every civilised invention received by the despot, which could in any way tend to the advancement or improvement of his people.
Our camp was formed on a small level terrace, of which the precipitous brink overlooked a deep dark valley containing the sources of the Arámba water, each flowing through a narrow rocky ravine. Extensively cultivated, and echoing to the shrill voice of the partridge, it is studded with cottages, above the white roofs of which the wreaths of curling smoke rose in agreeable relief against the sombre side of the wood-clothed mountain that bounded the prospect. Wóti, towering amid dense forests of timber, and appearing to bear on its venerable summit the crumbling ruins of a giant castle, shut in the view on one side, whilst on the other, far beyond a remarkable pyramidical hill called Koka, could be traced the jungly banks of the Awádee, gradually fading into the blue perspective of the Adel desert.
We experienced every civility at the hands of the governor and Shálaka; the latter of whom insisted on mounting guard over our tents in a small temporary bower erected as a defence against the nocturnal cold. Supplies of every description were furnished in regal profusion; and the voracity of the Abyssinian followers, to whom the excursion had proved one continued feast, was most severely put to the test. The king’s orders, which, in consequence of the excessive cheapness of all the necessaries of life, entail small burden upon the host, threw open the doors at every stage, and afforded the most lavish commissariat; and although the donors in most instances refused our money, they yet accepted presents of tenfold value in their estimation, which amply remunerated them for the tax imposed by the despotic Negoos.
But different indeed would be the reception afforded to the man who should venture to wander through the country without the royal assistance. A well-stocked purse, or a well-filled portmanteau, would not invariably produce a salutary effect, since the savage has always some plan in contrivance, by which to obtain possession of any curious article exposed to his admiring gaze, without imparting aught of value in return; and in Shoa a display of force is frequently requisite to extort that for which the most liberal payment has previously been tendered. Coupled with the desire to obtain property, there ever exists an innate disinclination to part with the most trifling commodity; and even among the higher classes, a stick or a spear is sometimes peremptorily refused to parties who have previously loaded the ingrate with the richest imaginable presents.
Our last march lay over the mountain mass of which Mamrat forms the main feature. The ascent in many parts is extremely tedious; and deep dells, intersecting the road, are traversed each by a clear streamlet, leaping from rock to rock in its downward course to vales far concealed from view. A singular bird’s-eye view of Góncho, the state prison, was obtained from a natural terrace on which, environed by dark juniper trees, stands the church of Kidána Meherát, “the Covenant of Mercy.” This very common title is due to an opinion entertained by the Abyssinian fathers, that God appeared to the Virgin Mary in Paradise, and formed a covenant with her for the redemption of mankind.
The voice of the mourners was soon after heard at the house of Ayto Manór, late governor of the district, who, to the great concern of the king, had recently departed this life. In boyhood a playfellow of Sáhela Selássie, the young prince had sworn that, on his accession to the throne, he would not forget him, and throughout his long reign he had proved true to his word. Although the deceased had, by his disputes with the merchants of Hurrur, forfeited the government of Alio Amba, the most lucrative in the realm, he was immediately invested with another. Year after year, too, honours and wealth had been heaped upon him from the throne, in gratitude for which he willed to his liberal master the entire of his accumulated property, without making any provision for his own children, who, in the ordinary course of things, are permitted to reside twelve months on the father’s estate before it reverts to the crown.
A great portion of the latter part of the road lay through the mighty forests of Mamrat, of which the scenery was rendered singularly beautiful by the admixture of vernal and autumnal tints, produced at this season by the great proportion of evergreens. The shadowy and sombre juniper, fashioned like the tall cedars of Lebanon, and the fresh and lively “zigba,” “So massy, vast, yet green in her old age,” wave stage above stage from the gloomy depths of the valley, to the very pinnacle of the mountain, amid the moss-grown forms of the silver-haired “woira.” The imperial purple lory, with myriads of brilliant birds, darted through the cool recesses; the bell voice of the campanero tolled with monotonous regularity, and many a clear and sparkling rivulet bounded over its broken channel.
Deep-seated in this retirement lies the monastery of Mántek, said to have been founded a thousand years. It is inhabited solely by Tabeeban—men strongly suspected of being Jews in disguise—cunning workers in iron, wood, and clay, who are regarded as sorcerers, and -shunned accordingly by all save the king, to whom they are endeared. The austerities practised by this fraternity, “in order to obtain righteousness before God,” are perhaps as severe as any recorded in monkish annals. An oath is taken, under a curse, never to look at a female, nor to hear her voice, nor to eat a morsel of bread which has been prepared by woman’s hands, and excommunication for twenty years is the penalty attached to the infringement of the vow. No fire is kindled either on Saturday or on the Sabbath; the most meagre diet is observed throughout the residue of the week; many sit up to their necks in water for days together: at appointed periods all lash their naked bodies with rods of sharp thorns; and whilst every brother sleeps in a sitting posture upon a hard clay bench, with his loins girt about by a tough cord, the Alaka, their superior, does penance continually in a massive iron chain.
A tree, which points to the monastery of Aferbeine, was adorned by the followers as they passed with the variegated feathers of the zoreet, and with fragments detached from their soiled cotton garments. The portals of this convent are guarded by a blind dwarf, two feet four inches in stature, who never moves from his post save on men’s shoulders. Among the unwashed tenants of the cloister, there was one who did not disdain to stroll forth, that he might greet the triumphant Gyptzis. Father Stephános was perhaps the least bigoted of his profession, but he possessed his full share of ignorance and superstition. Leviathan he believed to be a monstrous serpent, carrying the world on its back. None possessed firmer faith in the winged chariot of Ethiopia, in which the celestial ark of the covenant is recorded to have been brought from the Holy Temple; and he further laboured under the happy delusion, that a fire kindled above his secluded convent, must, par excellence, be fully as conspicuous at Jerusalem, as the beacons in Palestine by which Saint Helena announced at Constantinople her discovery of the Cross!
Old Osmán, too, with the aid of his ivory-headed crutch, limped forth from his cell in the outskirts of Ankóber, to inquire how his white friends “from beyond the world of waters had entered and passed their time?”—A rover in Guráguê, he had dealt largely in human flesh, and seen much of the unexplored interior, but finally followed the example of Habakkuk, the Arabian merchant, who, in the days of Tekla Ha?manót the ecclesiastic, and during the reign of King Naod, was brought to embrace Christianity, and became Etcheguê, or Superior of all the monasteries. A proselyte to the religion of Ethiopia, Osmán had renounced the false prophet, and put away every Mohammadan abomination, coffee only excepted. Without the sober berry, he averred life to be a very burden; and the clergy were fain to close their eyes upon the malpractices of one, whose geographical information, united with great abilities as a spy, had exalted him to the highest place in the royal favour.
A frequent visitor at the residency, the garrulous monk had opposed strenuous arguments to my projected war against the elephants, herds of which he represented to be so numerous around the lake Zooai, that caravans are afraid to traverse the dense forest unless provided with a number of young goats, to whose bleat the colossus entertains an unconquerable antipathy. “Take my kid with you,” he advised: “on no account omit this, or the monsters will assuredly trample you.” He had been reminded that “the battle is not always to the strong,” but he invariably shook his head; and even now that the chorus of victory was ringing in his ears, and the tail of the fallen actually in his hand, he continued at intervals to ejaculate, with upturned eyes, “No; I like it not.”—“By Mary! it doth not please me.”
In the environs of the capital a vast concourse of people had assembled to welcome our safe return from the hunting-field; and as the ivory trophies of the chase were borne through the crowd upon the shoulders of six men, great were the demonstrations of astonishment and commendation evinced at the successful issue of an expedition so universally ridiculed at its departure. Women and girls shouted in the market-place. Visits of congratulation were forthwith paid by all our friends and well-wishers; whilst the few who had spread disparaging reports, and who still continued to dislike the presence of the British in Abyssinia, evinced by their silence the envy and jealousy to which the unprecedented exploit had given birth in their breasts. Amongst those who felt more particularly annoyed and chagrined was Sertie Wold, the Purveyor General, who had not long before hunted the wilderness of Giddem for two successive months, with a retinue of more than three thousand spearmen and many fusiliers, and who had during that period enjoyed very superior opportunities to ourselves, without however being able to achieve the object of his highest ambition—the death of an elephant.