THE DONKEYS CROSSING THE FERRY.
See [p. 140.]
THE MULES SWIMMING THE FERRY.
See [p. 140.]
We made an early start on the morning of the 30th. I went to the ferry and had our Berthon boat put together. We found that our plan answered excellently. Our boat, loaded with baggage, was easily hauled over, and by a quarter to ten half a score of donkeys had been carried across in tow of the ferrymen’s tankoa. Some of the boys would put their arms under a donkey and lift it bodily into place by the ferryboat at the starting-point, where the water was shallow. It was a scrambling, pushing, splashing business, and they thoroughly enjoyed standing in the stream and basking in the sunshine. A number of Habashes from Woreb helped, and our crossing was a merry, pleasant scene. The mules did not go “by ferry,” but swam over with men beside them, as at other deep water passages. It was all done and we had landed in Godjam without mishap of any kind by a quarter-past one. The last load that I took over in our boat consisted of nine of our men, rather more passengers, I fancy, than I was “licensed to carry.” We scrambled up some rocks on the further side, and then found ourselves on level ground, where travelling would be easy.
Fully half of the donkeys had been reloaded by the time we finished lunch, and we moved ahead with this detachment. The country on the further side of the Nile seemed to me to be in a more prosperous state. There was more cultivation of dhurra and grain. The natives were fatter and looked, by comparison, “well-to-do.” I heard afterwards that the ruler here is not so extortionate as certain other chieftains. I believe that we were the first Europeans to traverse this part of Godjam.
After a journey of three-quarters of an hour we approached the village of Bahardar Georgis. Before entering the hamlet we had to conform to a singular usage. Two men had stationed themselves beside the track, one on each side of it, and they held a shama across it. We asked Johannes what this meant, and he told us that it was to protect the villagers from the power of the “evil eye.” This is lost if the stranger who may possess it passes under the shama. We had to move the greasy robe aside and go beneath it, hoping rather than believing that it was not verminous. The Habashes are extremely superstitious in this respect. It is customary to screen a person of rank with a shama when he drinks, to safeguard him from the same peril, and such persons are frequently kept from view likewise while they eat their meals. Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, being a high dignitary, was carefully shielded in this way to his no slight disgust. He wrote: “As the generality of the garments spread out for our seclusion had not been washed for months, and probably not since they were first worn, the reader’s imagination may be left to conceive the odour which surrounded us on these occasions. But even if they had been washed no later than the previous day, the disagreeable smell of rancid butter with which the natives besmear their heads would suffice to render any such curtain almost intolerable.”[83]
We had to use care in the selection of our camping-ground near Bahardar Georgis. Much of the ground is covered by the papyrus plant, and this shows dampness and, by consequence, risk of fever. We finally selected a spot on some high ground, where there was a dry, red soil. This happened to be close to a little settlement of the curious people called Waitos, who are only found in this district. They inhabited two or three huts near the village. Mr. Rassam has given a concise and interesting account of them: “The Waitos are Mussulmans of the Maliky sect, and although Mohammedanism recognizes no castes among its adherents, nevertheless these people, who subsist upon the flesh of the hippopotamus” (which is considered unclean by all other Abyssinians), “are looked down upon by their co-religionists, who consider it a degradation to associate with them. A few among them cultivate a little grain, but the flesh of the hippopotamus forms their staple food. . . . I was unable to obtain any satisfactory account of the origin of this peculiar people. It is just possible, however, that there may be some relationship between them and the Watos, a tribe of Gallas inhabiting the banks of the Hawash, south of Shoa, who are also said to live on the flesh of the hippopotamus.”[84] Stecker, who was scrupulously accurate in almost every particular which he mentioned, said that the Waitos were, “strictly speaking, a Pagan sect (eigentlich Heiden-secte)”[85] but in this he was mistaken. Oddly enough, these people, though they are, in a sense, outcasts, are exclusive, and proud of their isolation.
