Tinta came down, and after announcing to me that I had permission to remain in his town, and that he was appointed my “friend at court,” gave into my hand a little piece of parchment, about an inch and a half square upon which was written in the Geez language, “Give to this Gypt, eating and drinking,” nothing more, but which constituted me a “balla durgo,” that is, master or receiver of rations. “Gypt,” the Amharic for Egyptian, is the cognomen generally applied to all white men who visit Abyssinia, they being supposed to come from Egypt.[8]
The durgo, or rations, supplied to strangers whilst resident in their country, is a general custom among Abyssinian princes, and is of very great antiquity. It is considered that all persons visiting the kingdom come only as friends of the monarch, who, in the exercise of his hospitality, takes upon himself the whole expense of their sustenance, so that no excuse may be made for intriguing or interfering in the ordered state of things, as regards the rule or security of the kingly power. A deviation from the policy of non-interference on the part of the guest would then be justly considered an act of great ingratitude; nor when such a conservative principle is involved in the observance of hospitality towards strangers, can we be surprised at the indignation which marks several tirades in the productions of the ancient poets, when this custom was more general than in modern times, against individuals who have thus erred in their duties to the hosts who have entertained them.
Moreover, when departing from an Abyssinian country, the audience of leave-taking is supposed to terminate with a blessing bestowed upon the king by the guest, who acknowledges in this manner the kindness with which he has been received. The blessing being withheld implies the reverse, and no little uneasiness and superstitious alarm would be occasioned in the mind of a monarch, by the idea that the stranger would revenge himself by a curse, for any neglect he may suppose himself to have been treated with.
These customs being borne in mind, to apply our knowledge of them usefully, we must compare them with similar observances which did, and still do, characterize some oriental courts; and readers perhaps will recall to mind some in the histories of ancient and modern Asiatic monarchies, that may have originated from some former connexion in one extensive empire, of the now very different and widely separated countries in which such customs are still retained. I shall content myself, however, with pointing out their strict accordance with similar usages at the court of Pharaoh, as recorded in Genesis, and which is well illustrated in the reception of the patriarch Jacob, at the court of that monarch. In the forty-seventh chapter of that book, Joseph from his connexion with the monarch, introduces his five brethren, but he first reports their arrival and obtains leave; and in nearly the same manner he acts as balderabah of Jacob, and the remainder of the family whom we find on their arrival were constituted balla-durgoitsh “receivers of rations,” for we read in the same chapter that Joseph “nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father’s household with bread according to their families.” We are also told when Jacob retired from the presence of the monarch, “that Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.”
At the hazard of being considered tedious, I shall here allude to two other instances of customs existing at the present day in Abyssinia, and which are intimately connected with the subject we are upon. The only public oath used by the inhabitants of Shoa, is of a remarkable character. “Sahale Selassee e moot.” ‘May Sahale Selassee die,’ if such a thing be not true! is the constant ejaculation of a protesting witness, or a positive informant; and if upon a serious business, the immediate confiscation of property, and incarceration in prison, would be consequent upon a perjured imprecation made against the life of the Negoos. Joseph, accusing his brethren, in the fifteenth verse of the forty-second chapter of Genesis, says, “Hereby shall ye be proved: By the life of Pharaoh ye shall not go forth hence, except your youngest brother come hither;” and again, in the next verse, “or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are spies.” The very language substituting the name Sahale Selassee for that of Pharaoh, under similar circumstances, which would be used in the court of Shoa at the present day.
In the years 1830 and 1831, when cholera made its circuit of the whole earth, it visited the kingdom of Shoa. It was preceded for two successive years by a great failure of crops, both of grain and cotton, and the people in consequence, were reduced to the greatest extremity for food and clothing. Numbers fell victims from hunger alone, and to relieve their necessities, numerous acts of violence and robbery disturbed the usually peaceful state of society in Shoa. The Negoos, at this time, secured to himself the love of his subjects by the liberality of his frequent distributions of grain; but another calamity made its appearance, the cholera commenced its ravages, and he began to fear that his bounty must end by the exhaustion of his means. The famine increasing from want of the cattle which had died, to cultivate the land, the difficulty of obtaining food began also to be felt by those who had the means of purchasing it, and these intruding with their applications were supplied at a price, whilst the wretched poor were left to die. In this position, having nothing to dispose of but their labour, a starving multitude of some thousands appealed to the Negoos to grant them food, and in return to receive their freedom, or at least their services for life. This was granted, and even after the cholera had swept off nearly two-thirds of their number, above a thousand such individuals were found to be in bondage to the Negoos, and duly registered as slaves. This condition was certainly little more than nominal, for, except upon extraordinary occasions, such as constructing the bridge dams over the streams on the roads to Angolahlah, and to Debra Berhan, or when employed building stone enclosures for the Negoos, a service scarcely ever exceeding three days in three months, this class of slaves were never called upon for regular or long-continued labour.
In the course of the ten succeeding years, however, children were born to these people, and the question then arose, as to whether they shared the bondage of their parents, or were free. This was brought to issue by the Negoos bestowing certain lands, upon which were domiciled several of these bondsmen, upon a courtier, who made a demand of service from the children, which the parents refused to admit as his right, and an appeal was made to the Negoos in consequence. The court of “Wombaroitsh,” or judges of an inferior kind, who relieve the king of all first hearings of cases, except in most important ones, and who sit in judgment in one of the courts of the palace, decided in favour of the children; but this decision, on an appeal by the courtier, was negatived by the Negoos himself, without any hearing of those unfortunates who were most interested. The “Wombaroitsh” put in a plea, however, founded upon the canons of their Church, and the numerous solicitations of the free relations of the bondpeople, induced the Negoos to acknowledge himself to have been in error, and to proclaim that the people alone, whom he had fed and clothed in the time of the famine, were his slaves for life, and that their children for the future must be considered free.
These circumstances I became acquainted with in consequence of having the daughter of one of these very bondsmen in my service, and who was old enough, at the time of the famine, to recollect the sad miseries that fell upon her own family during its continuance, until her father and two brothers sold themselves for their food, in the manner I have above related, to the future service of the Negoos.
Among others who addressed the Negoos in favour of the children, whose numbers amounted to scarcely more than five hundred, were the officers of the British Mission, a fact, however, of which I never heard until my arrival in this country, nor is it, I am afraid, very generally known to have been the case by the inhabitants of Shoa, who have no other idea but that it was the effect of religious feeling, and of the great sense of justice, for which their sovereign, Sahale Selassee, is celebrated all over the eastern horn of Africa, and far into the interior towards the west.
I was never given to understand that the proclamation that announced the freedom of the children at all affected the condition of their parents, who, I believe, still are and will continue until death the bond servants of the Negoos.