See [p. 114.]
After lunch my companions started on muleback with their guns. They were to be guided by a native boy about eighteen years old, whom our interpreter Johannes had engaged in the town, and who said that he knew where game was to be found. Crawley took the young fellow’s staff in one hand, and in the other held out a Maria-Theresa dollar, and made him understand by signs that if the sport was good he would get the money, but if no game was seen he would have a cudgelling. The humour of this tickled his fancy very much, and he was convulsed with laughter over it. It was the first time I had seen an Abyssinian enjoy a hearty laugh.
Korata stands upon a promontory. When I had held a “doctor’s parade,” I took my gun and walked round the point of this little headland. There appeared to be no birds to shoot, and I had made up my mind to turn back empty-handed, when I saw a couple of fat little ducks on a rock in the lake. I shot them when they rose, and, knowing they were dead, sat down to wait till the waves brought them within reach. The noise of the firing roused the curiosity of two Abyssinians, who came up to me and bowed. Then one very obligingly walked into the water and fetched out the birds. After this both accompanied me, the first carrying the ducks, the other bearing my gun. I understood that they meant to show me the way over the brow of the hill and through Korata to our camp.
We left the sandy beach, and walked up a rocky track full of loose stones into the town. It is merely a collection of tokhuls scattered in groups of six or seven among untended coffee plantations. These are not separated by hedges or fences, and perhaps I might best convey an idea of their appearance to an English reader by comparing them to a series of neglected orchards without traceable boundaries. Indeed, I should have supposed that the coffee bushes, which attain a most remarkable size, grew wild here, if it were not for a statement in Consul Plowden’s report. He wrote: “The more temperate provinces would probably be favourable to the growth of pepper, spices, and coffee, which last has already been planted at Korata.”[77] Evidently the soil is admirably suited for the raising of this produce to advantage; the coffee is of an excellent quality, and though the natives bestow no trouble and spend no money on the industry, there is even now a steady export trade in the berries from this district. The principal market for it is in the Soudan, where the demand is likely to be larger as the development of Upper Egypt proceeds.
We traversed the main thoroughfare on the way back to camp. It is so narrow that two persons cannot pass abreast. On either side is a bank overgrown with nettles and other weeds. I saw very few people; the life of the place seemed to be stagnant, and here, as elsewhere in Abyssinia, there was very little money in circulation. Judging roughly, I should estimate that Korata contains a population of some two thousand, and that three-quarters of these are Soudanese slaves. It is the custom among the Habashes that each man has a boy-slave, and each married woman a girl-slave. The attitude of mind of the Christian Abyssinians towards these wretched people is well shown by the following slight incident—as I was walking through Korata with the two Habashes who had volunteered to guide me, we passed a couple of slave-boys. I said, “Soudanis,” and immediately my companions spat upon the ground to signify their contempt.
When we reached camp I gave my new acquaintances a drink of chartreuse in token of my gratitude, and then they squatted in front of my tent, and seemed greatly interested in watching me while I dressed a wound on the leg of one of the donkey-boys. They were doing no harm, but “the tout” bustled up in his most consequential mood to hurry them off, and I think he hit one of them. Anyhow, there was some disturbance, and the other Habashes made common cause. The corporal came to report to me that the escort officer was drunk, and had struck a man. Thereupon I summoned “the tout” and rated him, and ordered him to go and apologize to those visitors of mine, who had done me a service. Matters straightened themselves out, for the two men came to me half an hour later to say good-bye, and they appeared to be perfectly happy and contented. They “bowed and scraped” in the usual Abyssinian manner before they took their departure. “The tout” made some representation to Dupuis when he returned to camp; so I explained that the fellow was tipsy and troublesome, and he was sent about his business. I gathered that he asked leave to go, and hoped that he meant to quit us altogether, but found afterwards that he had only sought permission to spend the night in the town—over more tedj, of course. Dupuis paid no heed to what he was saying, so off he went, but came back in an unruffled mood, and full of complacency, on the following morning. I think Johannes gave us the explanation of his conduct—that he had orders from the Ras to make sure that we three Europeans should have as little intercourse as possible with the Habashes.
That night the noise in our camp disturbed a hippo, whose resting-place in the reeds was close by. I heard him snorting loudly and angrily. He had a prescriptive right to quiet sleep in that place, and I felt that we were intruders upon the ancient order. The old-world life seemed to have a raison d’être superior to that of a modern expedition, and though the hippo kept me awake, I sympathized with his indignation.
He and his kind were prominent figures in the scene next morning (January 23). We counted five that were in sight together, and four were less than two hundred yards from the shore.
After breakfast we visited the celebrated church of Korata. I am not sure that it is the only one in the place, but its reputation makes it the church of Korata. We were told that a certain Frenchman had travelled from France expressly to see it; if he did, it will be owned that he was an exceptional Gaul, for the length and discomfort of his journey were out of all proportion to the satisfaction to be obtained at the end of it. The building—as my photograph of the exterior shows—is circular, with thatched walls, and in point of structure differs only in size from the village churches. It stands in a compound, surrounded by a rough stone wall. The entrances are two lich-gates, surmounted by thatched porticoes.
The church owes its especial sanctity to the patronage of a female saint. Her chief exploit has been described by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, and as the passage in which he recounts it is full of the “atmosphere” of the country, I quote it in full:—“In accordance with orders from the King (Theodore) the two principal merchants of the place (Korata) Aito Kasa and Aito Wandé—the latter, as mentioned above, the person on whom Theodore had bestowed Lij Tasamma’s sister, one of his favourite concubines—came out in a wherry to meet us about a mile from the shore, clad in gorgeous habiliments. After an interchange of civilities, we followed them to a small plateau which rises above the lake about two miles to the south of the town, where upwards of a hundred ecclesiastics from the neighbourhood were assembled to welcome us, his Majesty having directed the clergy to receive me with royal honours, and to take care that their persons and garments were scrupulously clean. They were in full canonicals, and greeted us with prayers and psalmody, conducting us with the same accompaniments to a tent which had been erected for the occasion, a few yards from our landing-place. The glitter of the pageant was heightened by a grand display of crosses, croziers, mitres, church umbrellas, David’s harps and censers, which were born aloft in the procession. After spending a short time witnessing their religious dances and listening to their discordant chants, the benediction was pronounced, and the Lord’s Prayer wound up the service, when we accompanied the merchants to their dwellings on mules provided for our use. Korata rejoices in a patron saint of great celebrity—a native Joan of Arc, in fact—called Waldt-Maryam. She was a resident nun when a formidable Galla Chief, who had overrun a great part of the country, appeared before Korata. She encouraged the townsmen to defend the place, and their valour combined with her powerful intercessions availed to withstand the repeated assaults of the infidel hosts, who were eventually obliged to retreat with great loss. Since that time the town has been placed under her special patronage, and to show their veneration for the locality Abyssinians generally dismount on approaching it, and walk on foot through the streets.”[78]