A considerable degree of interest attaches itself to this river, and I could wish to see the attention of our geographers and politicians directed to its examination. All the red Abyssinian slaves, after a month’s journey through the country about the upper part of its course, are then embarked and conveyed down this river to Lamoo, to be carried away and disposed of in the Asiatic markets. It is by this channel also the Abashee colonies on the Malabar coast, of which Major Jervis has written some notices in a late volume of the “Bombay Geographical Society’s Journal,” are recruited. Those of the native Christians on the same coast I have seen myself are decidedly of Abyssinian origin, and perhaps that religion may have been introduced into India by missionaries from that country. It was singular that when an important and expensive Political Mission was about being sent into Abyssinia, some inquiries were not made respecting this southern route, along which a considerable intercourse at the present day exists between India and Abyssinia.
Independently of the table land to the south of the Gibbee increasing considerably in elevation, every other circumstance connected with its name and situation tends to show that the direction of its stream cannot be towards the south to join the Kalli. The stream of the Gibbee, in fact, is a large and navigable river, crossed immediately by slave Kafilahs from Enarea and Zingero during their journey to Lamoo, and they have then to proceed an entire month before they come to another river, the Kalli, to convey them to their destination. The Whabbee and the Kalli, therefore, can neither of them be supposed to be the lower stream of the Gibbee; but there is a large river of which every Galla speaks who comes from Limmoo, Jimma, and other districts in that neighbourhood; and which flows south, say Mr. M’Queen and Major Harris, whilst Dr. Beke denied its existence altogether, until my views were laid before the Geographical Society. He admitted certainly having heard, the small stream of the Dedassa, flowing into the Abi, in one instance called the Abiah. This gentleman appears to have confounded the names Abi and Abiah, believing that the latter was the Galla pronunciation of the former, and his Geography of Southern Abyssinia being founded upon this supposition, he fell into the opposite error to Major Harris; and crowded into a position too close upon the south of the Abi, countries which, upon the authority of the latter, have been carried to a situation not far from the equator; and the Abiah, contrary to any sound information that could possibly have been received, is taken away, to flow through unknown lands to the south and west, where it is made to join the Bahr ul Abiad. Such are travellers’ reports, and I profess to give no better, only that I cannot afford to sacrifice the information I have obtained upon this subject, to the speculative ideas of geographers, however learned, and therefore obstinately persist in what they consider to be error, when it has more the appearance of truth, than have the theories which they can only advance in opposition.
The Abiah, which is almost denied to exist by one traveller, and taken into remote countries by another, I believe to be the main branch of the Gibbee, and have accordingly so laid it down in the sketch map of the different water-sheds of Abyssinia I have projected to assist me in explaining my ideas upon the subject.
I will not, as I am almost tempted, recapitulate the evidences that the Gibbee, the Abiah, and the ancient Assabi, are one and the same river, and the principal branch of the Abyssinian Nile; for if that which I have said is not sufficient to convince; to continue would only be to fatigue the reader with suppositions, probabilities, and beliefs, that would still, in the end, leave the subject in quite as unsatisfactory a state as it remains at present.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] This individual figures in Major Harris’s “Highland of Ethiopia” as Hadjji Mahomed; and the whole occurrence there related happened during the journey to the coast in 1843. It is difficult, therefore, to understand how it could be recorded as an incident of a journey in 1841, and in an account stated to have been written in the heart of Abyssinia. Numerous other instances of this kind of interpolation of adventure could be pointed out which would be immaterial, only, as I shall probably allude to the same circumstances myself, of course I am anxious not to be supposed to borrow them from the work of a cotemporary.
[6] By the old Portuguese writers denominated “the flower Denguelet.”
[7] None of the Egyptians, or Africans, or Grecians, with whom I had any discourse, would own to me their knowledge of the fountains of the Nile, except only a scribe of the sacred treasury of Minerva, in the city Sais in Egypt. He, indeed, cheerfully told me that he certainly was acquainted with them. But this was the account he gave, that there were two mountains, with peaked tops, situated between Syene, a city of Thebais, and Elephantina; the name of one of which was Krophi, of the other Mophi; that from the midst of these two mountains arose the bottomless fountains of the Nile; one part of its stream ran towards Egypt and the north, the other part towards Ethiopia and the south. But that the fountains were bottomless, he said that Psammeticus, a King of Egypt, had made the experiment; after having tied ropes of great length and let them down into the fountains, he could not reach the bottom.—Herodotus, book ii.
CHAPTER VIII.
Water cure.—Nearly killed by it.—Ordered to leave Shoa.—Proceed to Angolahlah.—Courteous treatment of the officers of the Negoos.—Entertainment.—Remarks upon the character of Sahale Selassee.—The Mahomedan religion.