“No,” they answered emphatically. “After King Johannes was killed by the Dervishes[64] all the fish disappeared.”
It is quite likely that these people are too idle even to cast a net,[65] for it is notorious that fish of many kinds and of large size abound in Lake Tsana; but, knowing how superstitious the Habashes are, I would not vouch for it that they did not sincerely believe what they said. Probably they have little intercourse with the mainland and invent their own news.
They took a keen interest in our boat, and asked many questions about it. Their own rafts, called tankoa, consist merely of a bundle of papyrus reeds strung together with strips of hippopotamus hide and stiffened by a bamboo in the centre which serves as a kind of keelson. They do not use a sail, but punt or paddle with a pole.
When we had finished the tour of the island Dupuis presented five dollars to the church and community and thereupon received the ceremonial blessing of the priest.[66]
We returned to camp. During the afternoon I tried my hand at butterfly-hunting, fly-fishing in a sluggish stream near by called the Kumon, and shooting beside the Lake. It was all pleasant enough sport, but I had poor luck. The butterflies that were worth catching were always seen when we were in “marching order,” and my net was packed up. When I cast in the Kumon my tackle mostly got foul of the reeds and the weeds, and while tramping along the shore I found nothing to shoot, unless it were a huge hippo who was basking in the sun about three hundred yards out. I should have been impar congressus Achilli if we had tried conclusions, so I did nothing to provoke enmity.
In the afternoon I was on medical duty for native patients. The first was a poor little fellow about seven years old, who was covered from head to foot with craw-craw, a kind of aggravated scabies. He was brought to me by his father, to whom I gave half a cake of soap, and bade him take the child to the water and wash him. I saw that this was properly done, and then treated the boy’s skin with a weak solution of corrosive sublimate and afterwards smeared boric ointment over him. The father was set to wash his son’s shama with the remainder of the soap—an office of cleanliness which had been neglected at home in accordance with Ethiopian usage.
My other patient was a man whose upper eyelids were inverted (entropion), as a result of ophthalmia. This malady is very common in the country. I removed the eyelashes with a forceps and applied ointment, but the extent of the injury was already so great that little good was likely to come from my intervention. The Russians maintain a Red Cross Mission at Addis Abbiba,[67] which has established a hospital on an adequate scale. Here natives receive treatment free of charge.[68] European medical aid is sorely needed in the country, and I wish that it might be found practicable to support a British medical station in Western Abyssinia. Our popularity and prestige would be increased by this step. An opportunity would be given for valuable observation and research, and the benefit to the inhabitants would be incalculable.
Gifts of bread (teff), eggs, and fowls were brought into our camp in plenty, and some liberal Habash sent us a big jar of honey, the comb and all packed in together. It was a welcome and useful present, and served as a luxury in lieu of jam, of which we had a short supply. The size of the jar—it rather suggested the lurking-places of the Forty Thieves—embarrassed us, and we did not wish to carry quantities of honey-comb through Abyssinia. So we consulted Johannes. He told us to heat the jar until the honey just boiled, skim off the wax and pour the clear liquor into bottles. Fortunately we had saved empty bottles, and we filled up all we had; but half the jar remained after that, and had to be returned to the giver. All three of us were interested and busy in melting the honey and straining it through a piece of mosquito curtain, and were splendidly sticky and messy when we left off.
While we were in the kitchen-quarters, we heard a loud grunting and snorting about twenty yards away, which made the ground tremble, and recognized at once that a hippo was in the reeds there. This badly frightened the cook, who slept in the tent nearest that spot. We had to assure him solemnly that the hippo would not carry out a night attack upon him.
We struck our camp next morning (January 15), and marched to the River Reb. The boat was brought into service in crossing it. At one part the stream was about four feet six inches deep, and though this dip in the bed was only a couple of yards wide, it prevented the baggage animals from walking through. The water was shallow over the rest of the ford, so that they could keep their feet. All the mules and donkeys were unloaded while we lunched. The boat was quickly got ready and about half-past two Crawley pulled across with his first cargo. After he had had about an hour of the work, I took my turn. Dupuis was superintending the pitching of the tents and the stowing of the loads on the further side of the river. Then the fun began with bringing the baggage animals over.