We now came to the more interesting examination of the sources and course of the river Gibbee, the great geographical problem connected with this country as yet undecided by any competent authority. There is no doubt, however, that the Gibbee of the present day is the Zibbee of the Portuguese travellers of the seventeenth century, and the Kibbee of Bruce. Recent visitors to these countries, Krapf, Beke, and Harris, all bear testimony to the correctness of the account given by their predecessors, that this river runs to the south and empties itself into the Indian Ocean. I have ventured to differ altogether from these travellers; and, as will be perceived in my diagram map at the commencement of this volume, I direct the stream of the Zibbee or Gibbee to the north and west, contributing to form the much larger river Abiah, which is the main branch of Assa-abi, or red river, most erroneously written in all European maps Bahr ul Assareek, or the Blue Nile. It is impossible to say with whom this error originated, but probably with some speculative geographer; for by distorting the words “assa arogue” in Amharic, the old red river, a word, similar in sound to a Turkish one, signifying blue, has been manufactured; and Assareek, or Blue Nile, is now the generally received name of the time-honoured Assa-abinus, the Jupiter of the ancient Ethiopians, and the original, I believe, of the Egyptian god Serapis. The true blue river is, in fact, the Nile itself, “nil” being the name of indigo at the present day all along the valley of that river; and in the same language, let it be borne in mind, as every other important designation of this interesting part of the world, the word “nil” is still the word for blue, and with such a signification we find it in many names of places both in India and Persia, of which a familiar example is the celebrated Sanatarium station, near Madras, of Neilgherry, from Nila gira, the blue hills. The sacred colour, also, that which distinguished the priests of ancient Egypt, was blue, and no doubt bore some reference to the name of the river, which was originally the object of their worship, for in the names of two of its principal branches, Apis and Serapis, we have the elements of the words Abi and Assaabi, the terminal sigma being the usual Grecian affix to foreign names.
In this manner I bring in the authority of Herodotus, and of the Egyptian priest who informed him of the origin of the Nile, in support of my views respecting the rivers of Abyssinia.[7] It is generally admitted that the Bahr ul Abiad was scarcely known to the ancients; at all events it held but a very inferior rank in any account of the rivers of Africa that has been transmitted to our times. I am, therefore, led to believe that the scribe of the sacred treasury of Minerva, who willingly informed Herodotus of what he knew respecting the sources of the Nile, alluded to the two streams of the table land of Abyssinia, the Abi flowing from the north, and the Abiah flowing from the south; which rivers uniting formed the Assa-abi of ancient days, the Assa-arogue of modern times, and which most certainly was the object of religious worship among the ancient Ethiopians.
I would not dare to advance an opinion so directly opposed to the apparently well-considered conclusions arrived at by previous travellers, but that I am convinced that those which they now advocate have been the result of biassed consultations in the closet, where ingenious, but not travelled, geographers have successfully combated the actual results of information derived upon the spot. Krapf, Beke, and Harris, all sent home maps and information, in which the river Gibbee is made to join the Nile, and each have successively given way to subsequent influences. The fact of the Assa-abi, or Assareek, flooding in May, according to the observation of Mr. Inglish, who accompanied the expedition of Mahomed Allee to Sennaar, could not be accounted for by Abyssinian travellers without, in fact, leading the Gibbee, or some other large river, to join the Abi, or Bruce’s Nile, for this latter does not commence to swell before the latter end of June, and could not therefore contribute to the rise of the waters of the Assa-abi in May. This was another reason that should have influenced these travellers to adhere to their Abyssinian information, for no argument that could be brought to bear against it could stand for a moment. But, it has been observed, there is the positive testimony of the Father Antonio Fernandez, who, in 1615, passed over the Kibbee twice in his journey to Enarea and Zingero. To this I answer, that the historiographer of “The Travels of Jesuits in Abyssinia,” F. Balthazer Tellez, so represents it, but not, I think, upon the authority of Fernandez, but merely as an opinion of his own; but asserted with so much positiveness, that it might readily be supposed part of the information which he derived from Fernandez. Compare what Tellez says in his summary of the rivers of Ethiopia—“There is another celebrated river called Zebee, said to be greater than the Nile itself, rising in a territory called Bora, in the kingdom of Narea, which is the most southerly, and whereof we shall speak hereafter. It begins its course westward, a few leagues farther turns to the northward, and runs about the kingdom of Zingero, of which we shall also give an account, making it a sort of peninsula, as the Nile does the kingdom of Gojam. After leaving this kingdom, it takes its course to the southward; and some say, it is the same that falls into the sea at Mombaza.” Tellez alludes to the course of the Zebee again, when recounting the visit of Fernandez to the Court of Zingero; but merely observes, that it encompasses the kingdom of Zingero, making it a sort of peninsula, and then runs to empty itself towards the coast of Melinda; thus embodying, as it were, in an account of the southern parts of Abyssinia, professed to be given by Fernandez, that view of the course of the river he had previously advocated and represented in the small map placed at the commencement of his volume.
Tellez, whilst he is minute enough upon the manners and customs of the people of Abyssinia, and dilates upon the history of the labours of his order in that country, contrives to mystify us considerably in the geography and politics. I cannot help thinking he was directed by some Government to write as he did for a particular purpose, or was jealous of other nations reaping the benefits of the ill-judged policy of the Jesuits, which had terminated in their exclusion from the country; and, which, he was fully conscious, was a very available and a wide field for religious zeal or commercial enterprise to reap rich rewards for the trouble of exploring.
It is a matter of the greatest notoriety, that even in the present enlightened times, it does not follow, because the emissaries of any Government visit and observe unknown countries, that they give correct geographical or political information for the benefit of other nations. Least of any, can such disingenuousness be expected from the Portuguese Court of the seventeenth century; and I cannot therefore, but believe, confirmed as the opinion is by the internal evidence of the book itself, that the imperfect, incorrect, and distorted account of the travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, was written for the political purpose of misleading the enterprising spirits of other nations. Most effectually did it accomplish this object, and for two more centuries was this important country consigned to that obscurity, in which, for so many ages previous to its re-discovery by the Portuguese, its history had been involved. This, however, was not the only injury done to the progress of human civilization; for whilst the natives were thus allowed to fall still lower in barbarism, the Jesuitical statements interfered with European enlightenment; and geographers and men of letters have been misled in many particulars respecting the character of the country, and of the disposition of the various people who inhabit Abyssinia. I can ill afford the space, but to illustrate the manner in which Tellez endeavours to mislead, as regards geographical matters, I will here introduce a most glaring instance, which, I trust, may be received as my apology and excuse for presuming, as I have done, to question the integrity of the great authority of recent Abyssinian travellers; for, without Tellez, they have no authenticated evidence to oppose against that, which I can bring forward to prove that the Gibbee flows, not to the south, and to the Indian ocean, but to the north, and into the Nile. Even Bruce, much as I respect him, as the prince of travellers, evidently follows Tellez in his account of the Gibbee; and it is curious to remark, that not only as regards this river, but upon other subjects where he has exaggerated so much as to be supposed to be drawing upon his imagination, he is actually using almost the very words of the Jesuit historian.
Speaking of the Embassy dispatched to Portugal in the year 1613, by the Emperor Segued, which consisted of some natives of rank, accompanied by the father Antonio Fernandez, and ten other Portuguese, Tellez informs us, “These men were directed to take a route through Narea to Melinda, upon the coast, the Emperor believing (and he, it may be supposed, would be very likely to have the best information) that the road was shorter and easier than the one to Massoah.” This opinion we find still farther confirmed when the Embassy arrived at Narea, for there the Bonero, or Governor, determined the party should not proceed “by the way they designed, which was the best, lest the Portuguese should become acquainted with it.” These native authorities, however, are deemed of no value by Tellez, who thus decides the matter at once, “Now, to deal plainly, the way the father (Fernandez) proposed through Cafah was no better than this (the road back again to the north and east); because, proceeding south from Narea, there is no coming to the sea without travelling many hundred leagues to the Cape of Good Hope, as may appear by all modern maps, so that the whole project had nothing of likelihood.”
Father Antonio Fernandez himself does not appear, in Tellez, to have kept any regular account of the journey; and yet there is internal evidence in what is given to the reader in the “Travels of the Jesuits,” that in reality the greatest attention was paid to every subject of interest; and as we must conceive that the first object of the Government, who supported and encouraged the Jesuits in Abyssinia, was to obtain correct geographical knowledge of that part of Africa, I cannot but believe that this was particularly attended to by their agents; but that when afterwards the travels were published to satisfy public curiosity, it was found convenient to suppress the most important information. This reason is sufficient also to account for the mysterious disappearance of the greater part of the documents which assisted Tellez in drawing up his compilation, a suspicious circumstance of itself, that the object of this book was anything but to give a correct description of the physical character and capabilities of the country of Abyssinia.
I have dwelt too long, perhaps, upon an unimportant subject, but it is necessary, because modern geographers invariably advance Tellez as an unquestionable authority upon the subject of the water-shed of the Gibbee; and with his assistance they have already obliged more than one Abyssinian traveller to throw aside information received in the country, and instead of adhering to opinions advocated whilst there, to repudiate the whole, and follow in supporting errors they thus confessed themselves unable to refute. This is not the only evil of their inconsistency, for their present opinions are so many important authorities which have an equal claim to the attention of the scientific world as my own, and render it impossible for my testimony, even were it demonstrated to be correct, to be received against the conjoined evidence of two or three others who have visited Abyssinia as well as myself. This I admit to be fair, but not so the attempts which have been made to convince me of my geographical errors, not by argument, but by threats of all kinds of critical pains and penalties, for my presumption in advancing views so contrary to generally received accounts. Be it so, I feel quite assured there is some portion of the reviewing press, who will scorn to be made the instruments of unfair attacks upon any one, contending only for what he believes to be true, and for no other motive, but the instruction of himself and others.
Around his rude outline of Abyssinia, my native informant Ibrahim placed representatives of the Shankalli, who surrounded that country, except upon its eastern side, where another black race, the Dankalli, testify by their skins, to a similar low elevation of the country they inhabit. Ibrahim thus undesignedly proved the correctness of his information, for it struck me, that no physical feature is so conclusive as to the character of a country, whether high or low land, than the complexion of its inhabitants. An exception, however, to thus entirely surrounding the high land of Abyssinia with the two nations of blacks was made to the north and south of the country of Adal, where two oppositely situated water-sheds are drained by the two rivers, the Tacazza and the Whabbee, the former flowing into the Nile, the latter into the Indian Ocean at Jubah. The character of both the countries through which these rivers flow are, in one respect, similar; their elevation being intermediate between the low plains of Adal, and the table land of Abyssinia, or about six thousand feet high above the level of the sea. The inhabitants of either water-shed also resemble each other in their colour, being a dark brown, modified by parentage and descent, for the complexion of the inhabitants of Tigre and Angotcha, approaches to the red colour of the real Abyssinian, whilst the skins of the Gallas around the sources of the Whabbee have a duskier inclination towards the original colour of their Dankalli and Shankalli parents.
To the north of Dembeacha, around the lower course of the Tacazza, European travellers attest the existence of Shankalli, whilst the officers attached to the exploring armies of Mahomed Allee, found them also all along the course of Bahr ul Assareek to Fazuglo, and report them as extending an indefinite distance to the south. On the other hand, I have seen and spoken with Shankalli or negroes who had been brought into Shoa from beyond Kuffah, Enarea, and Limmoo; and Ibrahim also was most particular in stating that all around those places to the south was the black country, Tokruah, the Amharic name for that colour, and which is the origin of the general native designation of interior Africa, and is synonymous with Sudan, derived from the Arabic Asward, black.