Besides these articles, all of which are exposed for sale in the market-place of Aliu Amba, saddle-makers from Ankobar, spear and sword manufacturers from the Tabeeb, or artificers’ monasteries, supply it with their wares, and the industrious inhabitants of the latter also bring hoes and plough-irons, and their women and children hawk about the town, with loud cries, coarse earthenware utensils for sale.
No Hebrew pedlar is to be seen in this, or any other market-place, though a recent traveller of Shoa has asserted such to be the case, and to allow the assertion to pass without denying it at once, might lead to some ethnological error among the naturalists of the human race, who might be speculating upon the origin and descent of the true Abyssinian. Such was the ignorance of both the Amhara and the Islam of these people, that scarcely a stranger called upon me, but desired to know if I were not a “Yahude” (Jew). I questioned them in return upon the very subject, and none had even met with one, except some of the travelled slave-dealers, the two or three pilgrims Shoa could boast of who had visited Mecca, and who always advanced, as one evidence of the extensive journeys they had made, that they had seen a Jew. The Falasha of northern Abyssinia, speaking the Agow language, cannot be pretended to be of Hebrew descent, and the more we hear of this interesting people the more assured we shall be, that although practising somewhat similar customs, no connexion, more recent than prior to the era of the Exodus, can be traced between them and the Jews.
Having noticed everything that can interest the reader in an account of an Abyssinian market, I shall now return home. Walderheros slings over his shoulder a broad chain of ahmulahs, connected together by the pliant lit bark; ten of the salt-pieces reposing upon his chest, and the other half-dollar’s worth in a corresponding manner hang upon his back. Having arranged his burden, the change for one dollar, we proceed together, saluting Tinta as we pass him, sitting in judgment upon a case of dispute that has just arisen; with shoulders bare, the noisy declaimant addressing him, gesticulates with much energy; the etiquette of respectful undress, (unrobed to the waist,) admitting of the freest exercise of the upper limbs, and a corresponding display of the most approved oratorical action is the consequence.
The evening of the market-day in Aliu Amba, closes with similar scenes of jollity to those which characterize the hebdomadal meetings of farmers and their friends in our own agricultural towns; and the expression “market fresh,” best expresses the condition of the staggering Christians, and of the singing groups of male and female Abyssinians returning home, who have been closing the labours of the day with sundry deep potations of beer.
CHAPTER XVI.
Visit from Sheik Tigh.—Strange news.—Arrival of Abdoanarch.—Situation of my house.—Wallata Gabriel.—Baking bread.—Vapour bath.—Cure for hernia.
After my visit to the market, I was confined to my house for two or three days by illness, but feeling a little better this morning (August 1st), I brought out a small saw I was possessed of, and began to amuse myself, in giving the last finish to the roof, by removing the projecting ends of the cane rafters, which made the low eaves look very ragged. Whilst thus employed, Sheik Tigh, who had been absent some days at a “tescar,” or funeral feast of a frontier Islam Governor, called, and after congratulating me upon having come into some property at last, gave me the astounding information that Tinta had been removed from the government of the town, and a rich Hurrah merchant, who had come as an Ambassador to Sahale Selassee, from the Imaum of that city, was now the Governor.
The day that I left Miriam’s house, I heard that a Hurrahgee kafilah was coming into Shoa, and learnt then, that Aliu Amba was the town appointed for the people belonging to it, as Channo was for the Adal kafilahs. I sent Walderheros to Tinta’s house to get more information, but he had already left the town and gone to Angolahlah to see the Negoos; as I supposed, to remonstrate. I did not tell Sheik Tigh I was very sorry at the news he brought me, because, as he was a Mahomedan, he seemed so to enjoy the circumstance of having a governor of his own religion, and my regret, as a Christian, I was afraid, would only elate him the more. I did the good man wrong by my unworthy suspicion, for he was certainly one of the best-hearted men I ever met. On asking him who the new governor was, and what business he had come upon to Shoa, he told me that his name was Abdoanarch, and the Wizeer of Sheik Houssein, Imaum of Hurrah, and that he had come to induce the Negoos to join in a league with all the other monarchs of Southern Abyssinia to prevent the ingress of Europeans into that country. I was not well enough to ask many questions, but felt glad, that the return of the Embassy to the coast had been decided upon, previous to the arrival of Abdoanarch from Hurrah, and that consequently he could not boast of having effected such a desideratum among the Mahomedans of Shoa.
The bestowal of the government of Aliu Amba upon the Hurrah ambassador, was a proof of very high regard; and as the language of that celebrated but little known city is a dialect of the Geez, similar to the Amharic, Abdoanarch was not considered to be altogether a foreigner. Besides, he was, as I have remarked, a Mahomedan, and as three-fourths of the inhabitants of Aliu Amba professed the same belief, his appointment caused great satisfaction. With him, a large kafilah of his countrymen had arrived, at least, two hundred, so that they made a sensible addition to the population, which, at most, did not exceed three thousand people. Indeed, accommodations for them could not be found, and they were obliged to erect a number of straw huts, on the other side of the cemetery in the market-place. This new village consisted of about fifty houses, all of them, merely thatched roofs, resting upon the ground, with a low entrance, not three feet high, cut out in front.
Sheik Tigh sat with me nearly all day; the singularly situated and nearly unknown city of Hurrah affording an inexhaustible subject of conversation. As, however, he had never visited it, and I subsequently received more accurate information respecting this interesting place from a native, I shall not now attempt to describe it.