The most frequented baths are at Wansage on the River Gumara, which flows into Lake Tsana. Dr. Stecker visited the spot in 1881, and wrote the following brief account of it,[35] which throws a light on Abyssinian social customs: “The hot spring issues from the left bank of the river and rises to a height of two or three metres from the ground. It fills a basin constructed by King Theodore with water of a temperature of 37° C. A hut has been built over the basin”—as at the spring which I saw—“and the Abyssinians who are trying the ‘cure’ here sport in the water all day long. In arrangements these baths resemble Ostend and Trouville in miniature, seeing that women and men, youths and girls, spend their time in the bath in lively promiscuity and keep up an intercourse that is not always decorous. Quarrels often arise among the ‘cure’ patients, especially when some one has used the baths longer than is permitted to him. Thus from early till late one hears the loud tones of the brawlers and the lamentations of women and children, who often come in for a beating on these occasions.”
On January 5 our road lay at first beside the River Geerar, which is the main source of the Rahad. Presently it diverged from the bank, and the track, which lay over stiff hills, became worse. At some points the donkeys could not pass, and we had to lift them bodily, loads and all, over obstructions, or push them past the rocks between which their loads were jammed. Once the animal that was carrying Dupuis’ valise and Gladstone bag, half slipped into a steep ravine with water at the bottom, forty feet below. In another place I saw an unlucky little beast turn two complete somersaults while it tried to scramble down a sloping ledge of rock. To my horror I caught sight of my medical bag on the top of its burden. I rushed up, and helped to unload the donkey, which seemed none the worse for the fall, and, to my astonishment and relief, I found all my doctor’s gear intact. Even the tabloid bottles, with a precious stock of quinine and phenacetine in them, had escaped by a miracle.
In crossing and recrossing the river-bed I was able to note the height to which the floods rise in the water-courses. I saw that flotsam, such as wisps of straw and bits of wood, had been lodged in branches and twigs at least twelve feet above the bed of the stream, and this, in the upper reaches among the hills, has a width of twenty-five to thirty feet on an average.
We camped at the foot of the mountain-side which would give us our final climb to the lake-plateau. Johannes pointed out the route to me, and I thought that one would have as much chance of shoving a donkey up the Great Pyramid as up that sheer precipice.
Some Habashes came to us at the camping-ground, bringing a cow, a chicken and ten eggs. They told us, through Johannes, that the cow was “a present,” and he said that it was worth ten dollars.[36] We decided to offer a “present” of fifteen dollars in return, and counted out the money. To our astonishment, the Habashes marched the cow off, saying that they would not accept the gift. We picked up our coins, feeling rather small. But money is “a good soldier and will on,” as Falstaff had found. In an hour the animal was brought back, and the “presents” were duly exchanged. Then there was a wrangle among our Mohammedans as to the ceremonial proper to be observed in slaying the unlucky cow; for some of the boys were of one sect, some of another. The question was settled after much haggling, and they held high festival and ate meat late into the night. A few choice cuts had been reserved for ourselves, but the bulk of the carcase was handed over to our followers, and they left only niggardly fare for the vultures next morning.
RAIN COUNTRY.
See [p. 64.]
A very good impression of the character of the country through which we had been marching is given by Mr. Dufton’s short description of it. “The road was very uneven, now ascending a steep mountain-side, now descending into a deep valley. The country was magnificent, far surpassing anything I had previously seen. The high mountains of the Scotch highlands, covered with the fertility of the Rhineland, would best represent it, but the vegetation was of a nature quite different from that of the Rhine, characterized as it was by the luxuriance of the tropics. Once the road skirted the side of a mountain the summit of which, raised one thousand feet above our heads, looked down into a deep valley another thousand feet below our feet. On the opposite side of the valley the land rose to a similarly steep eminence, which, in one part, was connected with that on which we stood by a low chain of undulating ground, so that a pretty little stream at the bottom, like a silver thread in the dark shadow of the mountains, wound about searching for its channel. Fruitful fields hung over it thick at every curve. The hills, of secondary formation, were broken here and there into rocky chasms, through which leaped innumerable falls of water in their downward course to join the stream; and here I saw for the first time the beautiful Euphorbia called the Kolquol, whose dark, candelabra-shaped branches, tipped with bright orange-red flowers, stood out in deep relief from the lighter ground. Bright flowers of every variety, most of which were unknown to me, but amongst others the familiar wild rose, the honeysuckle and the jessamine, lent their beauty and fragrance to the scene.”[37]
The knotted sapling which I photographed in the course of this day’s journey (January 5) has an historical interest which tempts me to moralize on the variability of human fortunes and the happy tranquillity of vegetable life. The tree had been growing in this distorted form since the time of the battle of Gallabat, which was fought between the Dervishes and the Abyssinians in 1889. I have alluded elsewhere to the singular vicissitudes of the fight.[38] The Dervishes, in light order, pursued their foes as far as the lake district, a circumstance which shows that raids are possible even in this difficult country. The Mahdi’s men, like our own War Office on a more recent occasion, had extremely little geographical or topographical information. So the advance party twisted the saplings to mark the route for those who came after them, and to guide the force on its return journey to the Soudan. The trees are the only remaining memorial of the Dervish raid.