From the character of the road, badly constructed and in wretched condition, all the packages had to be conveyed up the long ascent to Shoa upon the shoulders of men. Besides, the only beasts of burden, except an occasional worn-out mule or horse, employed by the Abyssinians, are asses, and these were found to be unequal to the carriage of large angular-formed boxes, which, in fact, could not have been properly secured upon the backs of these little animals.
In the evening the Hy Soumaulee came to bid me good-bye, objecting to the cold of Angolahlah, when I asked them if they did not intend to visit me there. They shuddered at the thought of it, and all business transactions, as regarded payment for their services, were referred to the agency of the two heads of the Kafilah, Ohmed Mahomed and Ebin Izaak, who were obliged, of course, to present themselves to the Negoos Sahale Selassee, and to the British ambassador.
I saw them depart with feelings of regret that I had no means in my power to reward the services of these faithful, and I will add, attached Bedouins; beyond bearing testimony to the great capabilities of their people, who are possessed certainly of the greatest virtues and of the noblest attributes of our nature, if judged by the standard of human excellence contained in the Iliad or Æneid, the heroes of which I would undertake to match with many Dankalli warriors of the present day. During my stay in this town, it was customary for them to come from Channo, where they were quartered, to sit with me an hour or so in the cool of the morning or the evening. On these occasions their appearance always gave me pleasure, bursting into sight all at once as they chased each other over the crest of the hill, their dark forms for a moment boldly relieved upon the bright sky behind them; down they would come full speed along the tortuous, but easy sloping descent across the market-place and up the low bank to my residence, shouting as they came, “Ahkeem, ahkeem,” to give me notice of their approach. On entering, four or five of them, with their usual impetuosity, would extend their hands for the sliding contact with the palm of mine, at the same time calling out together the oft-repeated expression, “Negarsee,” or “Myhisee,” which respectively characterizes the evening or morning salutation.
It was after sunset of the last day we were at Farree, before the Wallasmah sent for us to communicate the pleasure of the King, or Negoos, as I shall call him for the future. We were ordered to proceed to Angolahlah; and whilst we were talking, our mules were brought up and delivered over to Mr. Scott’s servants, that we might start as early as we pleased the next morning. The Wallasmah also was ordered to attend at Angolahlah, which was one reason of his having withheld the information of our departure from us until the last moment. The summons which he was obliged to obey did not exactly accord with his wishes, and a two days’ journey for an old man of sixty years of age, we admitted was a sufficient reason for the increased ill-temper with which he received the causers of so much trouble when we visited him on the last occasion. I took with me another pound of gunpowder and some more coloured cotton cloth; and these had the good effect of restoring him to perfect good humour: indeed, to show his regard for us, much to our surprise, he directed some of his attendants to liberate the unfortunate messenger who had been detected bringing me a letter the day before Mr. Scott’s arrival, and who, we conceived, had returned to Ankobar, according as had been stated on one of our first visits by the Wallasmah himself. Instead of this being the fact, we now found that the poor fellow had been the whole time confined in his thatched lock-up, and supplied with a scanty fare of the worst kind of bread and water. I felt very sorry for him when he came staggering out of prison, with blood-shot eyes and squalid look; and it was with feelings of pity rather than of contempt, that I witnessed the broken spirited man, with shoulders bare, and with the most abject submission, stoop and kiss the earth at the feet of his unjust and tyrannical oppressor. The Wallasmah, with the penetrating glance of suspicious cunning, read in my countenance the detestation I felt at such unwarrantable conduct on his part, and muttered in excuse, something about the man having been “one of Krapf’s servants,” as if he considered that quite a sufficient pretext for the harshest treatment. The Mahomedans of Efat fully believe, that the exhortations of that zealous missionary alone prevented the Negoos from changing his religion; as, shortly before his arrival in Shoa, a Koran and a mollum to expound it to the Christian monarch, had been sent for to the palace.
Mr. Scott and I were so astonished at seeing the man whom we thought to be far distant, that we could not say anything. It would have been a great relief to my indignation if I could have told my thoughts to the old scoundrel, but this being out of the question, I walked away as quickly as possible from his presence, followed by Mr. Scott and our servants; and I do hope that our abrupt and unceremonious departure annoyed him a little, and thus retaliated in some measure for his contempt of, and disrespect towards us.
The politic Sahale Selassee, Negoos of Shoa, is well aware of the character of the Wallasmah, and the value of having such an imbecile ruling over the restless Mahomedan population of his kingdom. A governor, indeed, of whom he may truly say, as our Charles the Second did of himself and of his brother the Duke of York, “That his subjects would never kill him to make the other King.”
The inhabitants of Efat, much as they dislike the opprobrious position of living under a Christian monarch, never entertain an idea of revolting from the Negoos to place themselves under the power of that vindictive drunkard the Wallasmah Mahomed; whose only claim to their respect is his religion and his descent from the hero of modern Abyssinian history, Mahomed Grahnè, of whose extensive kingdom of Adal this little province of Efat, not so large as Middlesex, is all that has remained to his family, and even that is now a portion of the Christian state of Shoa.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Dr. Stukeley. “Stonehenge, a British Temple,” page 53.