This morning I rode upon my mule, as my boots were getting much the worse, for walking over the rough and stony road we had travelled along. Lohitu was very reserved, walking nearly all the way by my side without speaking a word, except in answer to me, when I sought to know the names of different places we passed. However, on the other side of me there was plenty of noise, for the Bedouins who accompanied us were walking in two lines of five or six in a row, and amusing themselves with singing alternately extempore stanzas, in which my name, “Ahkeem,” and that of Lohitu very frequently occurred. One or two of them occasionally, broke out of the line to touch my knee with the butt-end of their spears, when they wished me to listen, more particularly to something or other that related to myself, and that I might be aware that what they were saying was a compliment. Simple-minded people! to what excellence might not education raise them! Their great natural abilities, now only developed in the commission of crime, if only properly cultivated, would, I am convinced, lead to a national character as extreme for good as it now is, unfortunately, for evil.
We thus marched for about two hours, having descended, almost immediately after the start, a rough, stony, but gentle declivity from the lava-strewn plateau of Arabderah, to the wide and extensive fissure-plain of Sagagahdah. We were now suddenly halted by a gesture of Lohitu, who pointed with his spear into the mirage, that seemed to fill with water the whole upper or western end of the plain, on the edge of which, but on the distant opposite side, we could see two horsemen coming at full speed towards us. We had stood but a very few minutes, when Ebin Izaak, on his mule, came gallopping up, and calling to me, as I thought, to follow him, passed us as fast as he could go in the direction to meet the new comers. Just as I was pushing my slow mule into an attempt to gallop, Ohmed Mahomed, who came running up, called out to me to remain, and, as I did not exactly understand him, Lohitu caught hold of my bridle and made signs for me to dismount. I soon learnt that our halting-place for the day had been determined upon, immediately the approaching Kafilah had come into sight, and already, a little in the rear, our camels were being unloaded.
CHAPTER XIV.
Description of the plain of Sagagahdah.—Dowaleeka Lake.—Effects of mirage.—Slave Kafilah.—Write letters to Aden.—Retire from camp with Lohitu.—Interview with Mahomed Allee.
The plain of Sagagahdah is of considerable extent. It stretches in one straight line from the country of the Issah Soumaulee, in the south-east, to Jibel Obinoe, in the north-west, a distance of more than thirty miles, with a uniform width of between five and six miles. The sides are flat-topped parallel ridges, from four to five hundred feet high, being the abrupt termination of elevated volcanic plateaus. That to the north is called Dulhull, and separates the plain of Sagagahdah from the one of a somewhat similar character, occupied by the Lake Abhibhad. The ridge to the south is called Mahree. During the season of the greatest rains, the plain of Sagagahdah is a complete morass, or shallow lake, collecting the waters that flow over the Dulhull and Mahree ridges. These numerous little streams seem constantly to be forming new channels, for but a few yards from a deeply-cut and apparently very convenient watercourse, the traveller sometimes observes, the torrent rushing down a precipitous and evidently a very recent one. This interesting geological phenomenon is to be attributed to the occurrence of frequent earthquakes in this situation, which have the effect of altering the previous level of the country. Another striking evidence of this was pointed out to me by Ohmed Medina, whose naturally inquiring mind, led him to ask of me a solution of that which to him and to others also who mentioned it, was a very remarkable circumstance. A large lake, it appeared, had come into existence within the last six years, in an adjoining plain, called Dowaleeka, similar to the one of Sagagahdah, and a constant sheet of water which abounded in leeches now occupied its upper end, where previously a regular Kafilah route had existed to Shoa.
The sides of these fissured plains, I think, at a certain depth, must meet in a synclinal axis; but time has nearly filled the valley between, to their present level, with the detritus of the rocks around, and the marly deposition from the evaporated water, collected in them during the season of the rains. In the plain of Lukhee, a day’s journey more to the west, this operation of filling up has proceeded, even to the forming of one general level of the country, and the alluvial soil of the former valley is now continuous, with the stony summits of the bounding ridges.
Coming from the opposite side, diagonally across to our station, could be now seen the stranger Kafilah, camel after camel, emerging from the mirage in a long-extended line. The effect of this natural phenomenon, the mirage, was greater than I expected. The very perfect and natural resemblance it bears to water, the reflection even of the adjoining ridges as perfectly distinct as from the surface of a lake, contributing very much to the illusion. To ascribe to any traveller the originality of the beautiful expression, “ships of the desert,” as applied to that useful animal the camel, is an injustice to the simple elegance of natural ideas. Not one, but half a dozen of the Bedouins, came to me in succession, and directed my attention to the broad and enlarged figure of the camel with its burden, as it appeared through the medium of the mirage, and all expressed themselves exactly in the same terms, that it was the ship of their country, and any one who has seen the camel in such a situation would have immediately suggested to his mind, a distant vessel sailing end on before a breeze, with all its studding sails set, so exact a resemblance is observed between it and the distorted image of the laden camel.
The merry sound of the laughing, chatting, singing, infant children, who formed the bulk of a Kafilah of at least two hundred slaves, now gradually reached us, increasing, as they approached, into the buzzing hubbub of a crowd of people, who at length passed us, and halted for the day, at the distance of about half a mile from our camp, eastward.
The people of both Kafilahs soon mixed with each other with the best feeling imaginable, interchanging salutes and repeating to each other the most important news from their respective starting-places. The new-comers had been thirty-eight days from Shoa, and at a day’s journey on this side of the Hawash, had been attacked by the Hittoo Galla, who had killed two of the Kafilah men, and seven of the smallest children of the slaves, for these unfortunates are always murdered, if their captors in such forays find it impossible, as in this instance, to carry them away. Several of the Galla were also slain. News of the British Embassy I could not obtain, except that the last detachment of stores had got safely up, and that the Ras ul Kafilah on that occasion, Mahomed Allee, was now at the head of the present return one. I was also told that forty of the slaves belonged to him, and that they had been given to him by our Ambassador in Shoa. Such was the report, but of course I understood this properly, that the money Mahomed Allee had received for his services he had laid out in the purchase of slaves, in the like manner that Ohmed Mahomed and Ebin Izaak, were taking up with me to Shoa, the dollars paid to them in Tajourah by Mr. Cruttenden, to invest in the same revolting merchandise.