I was called in to a singular case to-day; for in Aliu Amba, I must observe, my professional services were in great request, and I had stated hours of attendance daily at my house, from sunrise to nine o’clock, during which time my door was regularly thronged. I went to see my new patient with Walderheros, and found a youth about sixteen years old, afflicted with a rupture in the groin, but the protruded intestine had been returned by the boy’s father just previously to my going into the house. The people I found there, wanted me to do something to prevent the recurrence of the complaint, but as I had no trusses with me, I only recommended rest and future care against violent exertion. Understanding that I could do nothing more, it was determined among them to proceed with an operation customary in their country, and which I was invited to witness. I accordingly sat down whilst the boy was laid upon his back on the alga. The father then took a red burning stick, Walderheros and others holding the patient down, and restraining him whilst the former placed the rude searing instrument over the diseased part, blowing it with great vigour all the time to keep it alight. In less than a minute the painful operation was over; and the boy, who had been previously reminded that he was a man, bore it with great fortitude.
The Shoans assert, that after this application of the actual cautery rupture does not again occur; and I could readily conceive it probable, considering the great contraction sometimes consequent upon burns, that this effect produced over the parts affected in hernia might, in such cases, counteract the relaxation of muscular fibre which occasions this disease. At all events, where so few practical preventives for a most serious complaint are known, I have considered this observation worth recording, and as a medical man even recommend the operation.
August 5th.—Three long bundles of splintered ted, carried upon the head of as many slaves of the Negoos, were brought to my house this morning. Cutting and carrying wood is the principal occupation in Shoa of the male slaves, as carrying water is of the females; and the prophets, when they say of the Jews carried into captivity, that “they will be cutters of wood and drawers of water,” convey the allusion that both sexes will be oppressed alike, and suffer equally the laborious hardships of a state of slavery.
It rained too much to-day to be able to make any charcoal; and as I required the pieces of wood brought me to be cut into more convenient lengths, Walderheros and Goodaloo occupied themselves doing this within doors. Sheik Tigh having gone to reside at Bulga for a month, had given up his office as my teacher in Amharic, so I determined to look out for a duptera, or Christian scribe, as I was anxious not only to speak Amharic as quickly as possible, but also to read the Geez character, and get some knowledge of that very interesting but neglected language.
To-day commences a long fast for fifteen days, called “Felsat.” No meat is allowed to be eaten, and the first food taken daily must be after three o’clock in the afternoon. Walderheros grants me an indulgence, as I am very ill and weak. It seems children and sick people are not required to fast. I never saw the members of any Church less bigoted than the Christians of Shoa, but I am given to understand that more to the north much less toleration is exhibited towards Mahomedans and individuals of other faiths. I have often thought, civilized as I considered myself to be, that had I been in the place of Sahale Selassee, I should not have acted quite so fairly to my Mahomedan subjects; and when we consider that they are far inferior in numbers to the Christians, in the proportion of about three to one, a great deal more credit is due.
August 6th.—Being a very fine morning, I had my alga brought into the garden, and superintended Walderheros and Goodaloo making the pile of wood for burning it into charcoal; covering it with the stalks of the thorn apple-plant, which alone seemed to flourish around my house to the exclusion of every other kind of herb. Upon this green kind of thatch a layer of earth was placed, and all being completed, fire was applied below, and the aperture through which it was introduced immediately closed up; a vent, or chimney, through the centre alone being left open.
Instead of any length of time being necessary, I found my charcoal-heap blazing away as if air entered at twenty places. Being my first attempt as a practical burner, I somehow expected this, and therefore carried off the failure as a thing intended, for Walderheros began to think his learned master a bit of a quack when he found that I was ignorant of the simple native cure for hernia; and he would now have been downright sure of it had he not supposed that all my present proceedings, regarding the charcoal-burning, was necessary to produce the excellent article required to make gunpowder as it was manufactured in my country. I therefore sat and looked at the blazing pile, revolving in my mind what could possibly have caused the failure, for I believed I had observed every particular, that I had been taught was necessary to convert wood into charcoal. Fortunately for my credit, just when I concluded that I knew nothing about it, and had best say so, and before the whole heap had been consumed, a sudden shower of rain poured down; this of course spoiled all my arrangements, and among other things, to all appearance put out the fire. Here was a case for condolence; and Walderheros, thinking I must want something to support me under the disappointment, when the rain had ceased, which was not for some hours, took a straw basket and went to examine the ruins. One effect of the rain, it seems, had been to beat down the dome of earth and moist stalks of the thorn apple, when the support of the wood inside had been lost by the combustion. This buried considerable portions of unburnt extremities of the pieces of ted, and as they continued smouldering underneath the fallen cover, the result was that, much to my surprise, Walderheros brought me back the basket full of beautifully close-grained shining black and very light pieces of charcoal. As Walderheros thought it was all quite natural and right, I made no other remark than merely asking him “if the people in Shoa ever made charcoal like that.”
Having succeeded so well in this, it encouraged us to proceed, and I sent to Tinta to say, that on the morrow he must supply me with hand-mills and mortars to grind down and pulverize the other ingredients, sulphur and saltpetre, of which a large quantity of each had been brought to my house from Ankobar during the day.
Both sulphur and saltpetre abound in Shoa, the former being obtained from the volcanic country immediately to the west of the Hawash, near Azbottee. From an extinct crater, nearly half a mile from our halting-place at Lee Adu, I had brought to me a piece of the purest sulphur, that required no farther process of refinement than the natural sublimation by which it had been deposited in the fissures of the cone. The Adal Bedouins who occupy that neighbourhood bring it to the Negoos of Shoa as a kind of tribute, and sometimes a demand is made upon them for a certain quantity, which is delivered in a few days, so plentifully is it found, to the Wallasmah Mahomed, who forwards it to the Negoos.
Saltpetre is found in many places, both on the table-land of Shoa, and in the valley countries to the south and east. It is principally brought from Bulga, where the grey rubbly earth it forms is ploughed over, and the disturbed soil containing more than fifty per cent. of the salt is placed in immense earthenware jars containing water, in which, by frequent agitation, the saltpetre becomes suspended. The liquor is then decanted, and in large saucers allowed to evaporate, when the finest needle-formed crystals of the salt are formed.