Staying at Farree with Mr. Scott.—Both placed under parole.—Description of the houses of Farree.—Of the flour mill.—Some remarks upon the origin of the Amhara.—Dr. Prichard upon identity of the Amhara with the Antomali of Herodotus.—Physical characters of the people.—Interview with the Wallasmah.—Saltpetre rock.—Province of Efat.—Take leave of Escort.—Tyrannical conduct of the Wallasmah.
May 26, 1842.—After Mr. Scott joined me at Farree, I considered that all my troubles were at an end, although I had still to go above fifty miles before I could meet the members of the British Political Mission who had accompanied the King to his residence at Angolahlah, the most western town of his dominions. An establishment was still kept up at Ankobar, situated about one third of the way between Farree and Angolahlah, at the head of which was the naturalist attached to the Mission, Dr. Roth, with whom was Mr. Bernatz, the artist, and there also Mr. Scott was stationed. Captain Harris the Ambassador, Captain Graham, the second in command, and Mr. Assistant-Surgeon Kirk, lived at Angolahlah, where I now expected to be permitted to go by my gaoler the Wallasmah. I found, however, I was reckoning without my host, for a new difficulty had arisen, from the circumstance of Mr. Scott having come down to Farree without the permission of Walda-anna, the Governor of Ankobar. He was accordingly given to understand that he must consider himself a prisoner with me until the pleasure of the negoos should be known as to our disposal. It was in vain we expostulated with our surly gaoler; we were to be opposed by force if we attempted to leave Farree, and other sentinels were charged with the care of us. Something we did effect, and that was the liberation of the messenger who was detected bringing me a letter the day before, for as soon as this request was made to the Wallasmah it was at once acceded to, and the man was ordered to be set at liberty. Taking this as an evidence of some relaxation of the harsh treatment with which we had been treated, we sat sometime chatting with the old gentleman, and I hinted my intention of making him some present if he would honour me so far as to accept of my poor gifts. When we got up from the ground where we had been sitting, the Wallasmah directed his son, a fine young man about three or four and twenty years old, to accompany us to our residence; a sufficient intimation of his being graciously disposed, without the broad hint given by one of his followers, who whispered into the ears of Mr. Scott, “Give your memolagee to that man.” Our imprisoned servant not making his appearance before we left the Wallasmah, we asked where he was, and were surprised to hear that he had left Farree for Angolahlah without seeing us, but which we supposed he had been obliged to do, so that there should be no chance of our slipping a note into his hands for our friends in that town.
We returned to our house, and for the rest of the day amused ourselves with hearing and telling whatever most interested us, whether of home or foreign news. I must observe that a present of three pieces of calico and a pound of gunpowder was made to the Wallasmah, who sent us back his compliments, and that he was highly delighted with the present, but would be obliged for a little more gunpowder.
Mr. Scott and I were entertained and taken care of for four days in Farree, much to our discomfort and vexation. Fortunately this gentleman had brought with him two native servants, who made themselves useful by marketing and cooking during the term of our confinement, so we suffered nothing from want of food. We could also walk about the straggling town on pledging our word that we would not attempt to escape, although our parole was not deemed sufficient, for, like Buonaparte at St. Helena, two sentinels, on such excursions, always followed at a certain distance in our rear.
Many of the houses in Farree, instead of being the usual circle of closely placed sticks, some five feet high and surmounted by a high conical straw roof, are partial excavations in the soft trachytic stone, so as to leave a back and sides of natural rock. Over this is laid a flat roof, consisting of untrimmed rafters covered by a thick layer of brushwood, upon which is placed a layer of earth some inches in thickness, well stamped down with the feet. A front of wattled sticks, in which the entrance is made, completes the house, and in one such as this was I lodged during my stay in this town.
The internal arrangements were equally simple. A raised platform of stones and clay, about two feet high, occupied one half of the single apartment, and upon one end of this, reaching to the roof, stood a huge butt-like basket, smoothly plastered over inside and out with clay. This was the family granary, in which was preserved the teff seed, or wheat, from the depredations of the numerous mice that are a thorough pest in Abyssinia. In a corner below, stood side by side two of the peculiar handmills used in this country, each consisting of a large flat stone of cellular lava, two feet long and one foot broad, raised upon a rude pedestal of stones and mud, about one foot and a half from the ground. The rough surface of this stone sloped gradually down from behind forwards into a basin-like cavity, into which the flour falls as it is ground. A second stone, grasped in the hand of the woman who grinds, weighs about three pounds, beneath which, as it is moved up and down the inclined plane of the under millstone, the grain is crushed, and gradually converted into a coarse flour.
This is the same kind of mill that was used by the ancient Egyptians, and is represented in the excellent work upon those people, recently written by Sir G. Wilkinson, although he describes it as being used for fulling clothes, having mistaken, I suppose, the flour represented as falling into the cup-like recipient for a stream of water. I observe, also, in another plate in the same work, a representation of this mill, but without any allusion to its real purposes. Moses, in the fifth verse of the eleventh chapter of Exodus, describes exactly the character of the occupation, and the instrument, where he speaks “of the maid-servant that is behind the mill,” for women are only employed on this duty, and they always stand in the rear, leaning forward over their work. Very few houses, those only of the poorest people, have but one mill; generally two or more stand side by side in a row, and the number is always mentioned when the idea is wished to be conveyed of the large dependent retinue that the master of the house feeds.
A few large jars containing water, or ale, ranged along one side of the house, and a shield hung from the projecting end of one of the sticks that formed the front, were the only articles that occupied prominent positions as furniture in my residence. Three or four “maceroitsh,” or earthenware pots for cooking, generally lay upset in the white wood ashes contained in the large circular hearth that occupied a portion of the floor opposite to the mills; and some of the necessary but small instruments for clearing or spinning cotton were placed when not being used upon a skin bag, in which a quantity of that useful material was contained.
I was very much struck with the extreme contrasts that could be drawn between the inhabitants of Farree and the Dankalli Bedouins. The large and portly forms of the former, their apparent love of quiet, the affection they evinced for their children, and that of the children for their parents, were all points characteristic of these great differences. The physiognomy of the two people exhibited equally varying features, and as the men of Farree are a good type of the real Amhara population, I shall endeavour to give an idea of the form of the countenance and the head peculiar to this family of man, by a description drawn from my first observations in that town, where the people have less admixture of Galla blood, than the inhabitants of the table land of Shoa above and beyond them.
This will be preceded, however, by some necessary, and, I believe, novel information respecting the origin of the Amhara, which I became acquainted with during my residence in Shoa, and which has been singularly confirmed by a comparison of the reports and prejudices I noted down while in that country, with recorded circumstances of the earlier history of Egypt, and of other powerful empires that once existed along the course of the Nile.