[2]. With respect to this wooden building, a recent traveller asserts that it is made of the hull of a British ship, the Mary Ann, which was attacked and burned during the night, in the port of Berberah, more than twenty years ago. To paint the evil one blacker than he really is, is not considered fair; and I do not see why the treachery and the violence of the inhabitants of a town nearly one hundred and fifty miles distant should be thus attached to the people of Tajourah without any foundation whatever. Another error that demands a positive contradiction is the statement that the fops of Tajourah are Soumaulee, with their hair stained red. One of the principal distinguishing characteristics between the Dankalli, by whom Tajourah is exclusively inhabited, and the Soumaulee of the opposite coast of the bay, is this custom among the latter people to change the natural colour of the hair, by a solution of quick-lime applied to it. Any Dankalli doing this would be certainly assassinated by his countrymen.
Capt. Young having succeeded in his endeavour to forward the despatches, this being undertaken by the son of my friend Isaak, on payment of seventy dollars, made immediate preparations for returning to Aden, in order to report the unsafe character of the road, and the disinclination of the Tajourah people to forward the stores to Shoa. I, of course, felt much disappointed; but could not object to the reasonableness of the only course that could be taken, and made up my mind to remain in Aden until a better opportunity should be afforded me of prosecuting my determination of travelling in Africa.
Feb. 26.—After a detention of four days at Tajourah, we weighed anchor, and proceeded on our voyage back to Aden; the wind, however, being contrary and very light, we did not reach Back Bay until the 1st of March, during which time I amused myself on board comparing the present condition of the coast of that part of Africa we had just visited, with some notes I had collected respecting the ancient geography, as contained in the Periplus of Arrian, and other works of the same character I had read.
The present name among the Arabs of the opposite coast of the country in which Tajourah is situated is Burr Adgem, “the land of fire;” and it must be observed, that this is also the Arab designation of the present kingdom of Persia; a significant name, acknowledged to be, and is evidently derived from the volcanic character of both these districts. The Burr Adgem, on the south of the Red Sea, is of indefinite extent, but may be considered as applied to the country reaching from Suakin in the north, to Mogadishe in the south, and as far west as the high lands of Abyssinia.
Among the ancients, this country was known as that of the Avalites; in which word may perhaps be recognised, Affah, the present native name of the Dankalli tribes, living on the western coast of the Red Sea, but which formerly had a far more extensive application, and included the numerous Soumaulee tribes, who inhabited the country to the south of the Sea of Babel Mandeb as far as Cape Guardefoi, and from thence southward along the eastern coast of Africa as far as Malinda.
Another name for these Affah tribes is Adal; given to them by the Abyssinians inland, and which, according to some recent authorities, has arisen from the circumstance of the principal tribe with whom the Abyssinians have any intercourse being the Adu Alee, living in the immediate vicinity of Massoah, which name has gradually become to be used as the designation of the whole people. I confess that I do not see the propriety of this derivation, as it appears more natural to derive the Abyssinian name from that of the chief part of this country at an early period, when a powerful Egyptian monarch made the Affah port, Adulis, the capital of an extensive country. The terminal letter of this proper name, I have been informed, may be the usual Grecian affix to adapt it to the genius of their language; and I think the probability is, that the ς has been thus added, and that the word Aduli was the origin of the Greek Adulis, and of the modern name Adal.
Another very common name for these people is Dankalli, a word which appears to be of Persian origin; but one that is also acknowledged by the Affah themselves, as the proper name of their country, or of their people collectively. In the time of Ludolph, Dankalli was known as the name of a large kingdom or province, situated on the sea-coast, extending from the port of Adulis to the confines of the country of the Assobah Galla, who then dwelt in the country immediately to the north of Tajourah. The Assobah are now, however, considered to be a Dankalli tribe, a change which I conceive has taken place in consequence of this tribe having since become Gibbertee, or “strong in the Islam faith;” for a religious distinction, I find, has for some centuries separated the original Affah nation into Dankalli and Soumaulee. The latter, whose name is derived from the Abyssinian word soumahe, or heathens, being supposed by the strict Mahomedan Dankalli, still in a great proportion to adhere to their ancient Sabian faith, and only partially to profess the Islam belief. Soumaulee corresponds with the Arabic word, kafir, or unbeliever, the name by which alone Edresi, the Arabian geographer, knew and described the inhabitants of the Affah coast, to the east of the straits of Babel Mandeb.
It also appears to me that the word Dankalli connects the history of these people with the empire of the true Ethiopia, or Meroe, which was situated between the branches of the Tacazze and the Assareek, or the Red Nile, for it may be that in the Odyssey, where Homer conducts Neptune into Ethiopia, and places him between two nations of blacks, perfectly distinct from each other, the poet alludes to the two very different people, the Shankalli and the Dankalli, inhabiting the low countries of Africa within the tropics; the former living to the west of Abyssinia, the latter towards the east. This will be more evident when, in a future chapter, I connect the elevated table-land of Abyssinia with the scene of the annual festivities of the gods in Ethiopia.
It may be as well in this place, perhaps, to advance my own opinion as to the probable derivation of the name Galla, which has been so generally given to the numerous, divided, and barbarous tribes which I believe have arisen from the ruins of the once civilized and extensive empire of Meroe. The word Galla appears to be merely another form of “Calla,” which in the ancient Persian, Sanscrit, Celtic, and their modern derivative languages, under modified, but not radically changed terms, is expressive of blackness, and which was originally conferred upon a dark-coloured people, as descriptive of their appearance, by the affrighted nations of a lighter complexion, whom their boldness and ferocity have nearly extinguished. Thus the original inhabitants of the high table-land of Abyssinia, a much lighter-coloured race than the Greeks, called the people of the surrounding low countries Galla, for the same reason that the Greeks gave them the name of Ethiopians. In the Geez, or Ethiopic language, these people are styled Tokruree, blacks, and their country Tokruah; and we find that the Arabs and Indians, also influenced by external appearance, call them Seedee, and their country Soudan, from the word asward, which signifies black. The Romans, in like manner, gave them the name of Nigritæ; and we ourselves call them Blacks. Two nations of Calla or blacks, very different in physical character and social condition from each other, are now found in the country of ancient Ethiopia; the Shankalli, or the true negro, and the Dankalli, who belong decidedly to the Circassian variety of mankind, possessing round skulls, high full foreheads; the position of the eyes rectilinear; the nose, mouth, and form of countenance being in every respect concordant with the characters assigned to that type of the human race, excepting their colour, which was a dark brown, or sometimes quite black. Their hair, which is much frizzled and worn very full, is a savage caricature of a barrister’s wig. I could perceive no other difference in features or in the form of the head between ourselves and several individuals of this people; indeed, there was often such a striking resemblance between them and some of my European acquaintances, that it was not unusual for me to distinguish them by bestowing the names of some of my far distant friends upon their Dankalli counterparts.
Respecting the numerous savage tribes, known in Europe under the general term Galla, I will not anticipate the results of my subsequent journey, which afforded me better opportunity of forming an opinion as to the real character of these people, and of comparing them with others, who seemed to me to have one common origin, but who differ very materially in the historical circumstances which have marked the period of their long separation. I shall, therefore, return for the present to Aden, which we reached early in the morning of the first of March, three days after having left Tajourah.