The Amhara face is ovate, having a considerably greater expression of breadth in the upper than in the lower part. The scalp in front encroaches upon the forehead, making its length disproportionate to its height, and, in consequence, it appears exceedingly low. The eyes are long, but rather full, and the separation of the eyelids longitudinal, as in Europeans. Their cheeks are high, yet finely rounded, and sometimes, with the long forehead, giving to the countenance a nearly triangular form. The nose straight and well-formed, with a small and beautiful mouth, a finely-curved edge gradually rising from the commissure to the fulness of a most inviting pair of lips. A voluptuous fulness, in fact, pervades the whole countenance; a something more than muscular fibre, yet not exactly fat, giving a healthy fleshiness, that reminds you of the chubbiness of children; and I expect the fascinating expression so generally ascribed to Abyssinian beauties by all orientals is owing to the idea of innocence and simplicity, that inseparably connects itself with this infantile character of face. The hair is soft and long; it is neither woolly, like the negro, nor is it the strong, coarse, straight hair of the Gongas, or yellow inhabitants of the right bank of the Abi and Abiah branches of the Azzabi, or red Nile.
I saw few or no cases of distortion among the families I met with in Efat, and my impression is that they but rarely occur, the natural and simple lives of the people conducing to easy parturition and a healthy offspring. The Amhara, however, in their most unchanged condition in Gurague, and the neighbouring Christian states, have yet to be visited. The inhabitants of these countries may exhibit characteristic traits that I have had no opportunities of observing, for those I met with were the most favourable specimens of the imported slaves, or their immediate descendants, who were married to Mahomedans of Efat.
Individuals possessing what I believe to have been the characteristic features of the genuine Amharic countenance are but seldom seen on the high land of Shoa, although it might naturally be expected that their situation would favour a lighter complexion than the dark-brown Shoans exhibit. This is to be attributed to the very recent period that their Galla ancestorial relations intruded themselves into this former Amhara district, as Abyssinian history records that the first appearance of these invaders from the low plains of Adal occurred no later than the year 1537.
From the 27th to the 31st of May, Mr. Scott and I remained in easy durance at Farree. We were frequently summoned to the presence of the Wallasmah, whom we would amuse by firing off my gun, or teaching his son, a boy about fourteen years old, to let off percussion caps without shutting his eyes. The dreadful experiment would never be attempted by papa, but he wonderfully enjoyed the bright promise of his hopeful progeny, the child of his old age, who, on the other hand, annoyed us not a little by the unsatisfied pertness with which he demanded to be so indulged.
Day after day were we most solemnly promised that we should start upon the morrow, but without any intention of being permitted to do so, beyond the accident occurring of our being sent for by the King. Perhaps our importunity excited a desire to gratify us, and what they wished for our sake the kind-hearted people of Farree asserted would be, because of the great probability that the messenger who had been sent to the King to receive his commands, would return sooner than he did.
I am not going to acquit the Wallasmah on this plea, for his want of courtesy towards us; for from some incomprehensible antipathy, he would, had he dared, have placed us in irons, and even on occasions of our visiting him, when we endeavoured to do everything we could to please him, a surly smile was our only return for some little gratification we might afford to his boy. His people frequently made excuses for the conduct of their chief, by stating that he either had been drinking, or else that he had not; so, drunk or sober, it seemed quite natural to them that the old fellow should be in a continual ill-humour from some undefined connexion with strong drink.
I took care to promise him another present on the occasion of our leaving Farree, as I conceived that it might be some expectation of the sort that was operating to cause our tiresome detention. I was wrong in this, for it was not his pleasure, but the King’s, his master, that we should be kept at Farree, although he tried to make us believe it was his own, and assuming an authority that did not belong to him, made our confinement more irksome than it needed to have been, on purpose to evince his power. With our sentinels behind us, however, we could wander all over the hill of Farree, and we accordingly amused ourselves by endeavouring to extend our information upon the various subjects of novel interest with which we were surrounded.
One observation I cannot do better than to insert here, respecting the rocks and soil of Farree, which abound with the nitrate of potass, the bald face of the former, in many places, being hollowed into deep grooves by the constant attrition of the tongues of the numerous flocks and herds, which seem to be as fond of this salt as the same animals are of common table salt in other countries; a circumstance that is well shown in those saline resorts of deer and buffaloes, called the “licks” of North America. The geological structure of the hills in this neighbourhood is a finely-grained trachytic rock; grey, save where the intrusion of narrow dykes of some blacker rocks, a few feet in thickness, and evidently heated on their first appearance, has changed the general colour to a deep red, which gradually recovers its natural hue at the distance of some yards on either side the dyke. This rock contains a considerable quantity of decomposing felt-spar, supplying the potass, and, I presume, deriving from the atmosphere, and the moisture it contains, the other necessary elements to form the thick efflorescence of saltpetre that covers in some places the surface of the rock.
The religion of Farree is exclusively Mahomedan, as is also that of more than three-fourths of the towns and villages of the province of Efat, all of which are under the hereditary viceregal Wallasmah, who boasts a descent from the famous Mahomed Grahnè, the Adal conqueror of many portions of the ancient Abyssinian empire, in the sixteenth century. Efat forms a portion of the valley country, or Argobbah, which extends from the edge of the table land of Shoa to the Hawash, that flows along the base of this slope, from the south towards the north. The northern boundary of Efat is the river Robee, the southern one being the Kabani; both of them flow into the Hawash.
Late in the afternoon of the 30th of May, the messenger returned from Angolahlah, with orders from the King that I should be allowed to proceed thither, and that the stores should be conveyed to his presence. Considerable bustle and confusion seemed thereupon to take possession of the previously quiet town. Vociferous proclamations were from time to time issued by the misselannee in person, standing upon the stone enclosure in the centre of the market-place. Numerous informants, willing to be the first bearers of good news, hurried to acquaint us with the cause of all the stir, and to assure us that we were to start in the morning; for that the requisite permission had arrived from the King, and the Wallasmah had directed our mules to be brought in from the grazing ground. The proclamations of the misselannee were to the effect that all persons owing suit and service to the Wallasmah, on account of land held of him, must present themselves; and either personally, or by their slaves, convey the boxes and other packages as far as Aliu Amba, on the road to Angolahlah, from which town a relief party would then take the duty of carrying them the remaining distance.