Jan. 12.—A good breakfast and some hot cocoa soon warmed us up, and we started for Beatmohar, the place where General Kirkham has a house. This is the first table-land of Abyssinia that one comes to, travelling by this route. Our luggage was now carried by mules, donkeys, and bullocks, driven by Shoho Arabs. It rained the whole day, so the view of the hills was spoilt, which I regretted very much. At the sides of the hills at the feet of which the path wound, it was covered with a gigantic Euphorbia, called Qualqual in Abyssinia; it is a sort of cactus, or grows like cactus, to the height of forty feet or more. When its branches are wounded, a milky juice oozes out, which is highly poisonous; if the least drop gets into one's eye it nearly blinds one. In India, in 1870, when shooting in the Himalayas, I was amusing myself with my hunting-knife by slashing at a plant, very much like this one; a drop of the juice squirted into my eye. One of the hunters, a native, brought me a sort of creeper with a leaf much like a vine. He screwed up the stalk of it, and catching the juice in the palm of his hand, offered me some, and told me to put it in my eye; it afforded instantaneous relief. I do not think this cure is known to the Abyssinians, as their woodcutters sometimes lose their eyesight. Later in the day, as we reached a higher altitude, we saw no more of this poisonous plant. We travelled on slowly through the mist and rain, the bullocks slipping about over the rocks, and frequently having to be reloaded, or the leather thongs which bound their baggage tightened up.
At last we came to an open dell in the hills, one of the camping-places on this road, called Mehdet. Kirkham and myself with great difficulty, and after wasting a number of matches, managed to light a fire, and we warmed up some cold venison, frying it in oil that Kirkham produced. H. did not like the dish, saying that it tasted like hair grease; he preferred the venison au naturel: we ate a box of sardines, and then started again. The road became very steep; at four in the afternoon we reached the top of the pass, a narrow gully between high rocks: there would be just room for two men to walk abreast.
The road after this for a short way was very good, like a good hill-road in the Himalayas. At the bottom of this road was a small valley, called Maihenzee: this was to be our camping-place for the night, and one of the stages between Asmarra and Gindar. This was the place where merchants from the interior generally stop on their way to Massowah.
There was good water in the valley; we pitched our tents, but everything was wet and miserable. Kirkham told us that to-morrow we should be out of these rains, which I was very thankful to hear.
The cook Ali, a Cairo man, who, like all his species, did not relish this sort of life, but wished himself on board a comfortable diabeha navigating the Nile and smoking cigarettes in the sun, made a bad fire, and I saw very little prospect of dinner. I had to take his place; and I concocted some soup with the help of Liebig's extract, and I made a venison stew. We ate this and then turned in as quickly as we could, before our blankets got wet with the mist.
CHAPTER IV.
A STRANGE "GET-UP"—AN UNLUCKY SHOT—CRANES—AN INSOLENT "CHICKER"—OUR COOLIES STRIKE—FLORICAN—SERVANT HUNTING—NIGHT MARCHING—FIRST SIGHT OF THE MAREB—"LONG LIE"—COPTIC CHURCH—A PEAL OF STONE BELLS—HIGHWAY ROBBERY—A CHASE—DOMESTIC QUARREL—LUGGAGE DIFFICULTIES—A MOONLIGHT RACE.
Jan. 13.—We made an early start this morning, as it was a lovely day, and left the tents behind to stand and dry, as they would have been very heavy to pack wet. The General accompanied us; he would have looked a queer figure on an Aldershot field day. He wore an undress general's uniform, with a large sword clanking by his side, sitting on an Abyssinian saddle with rather faded trappings; he rode a mule, the sword clanking against every rock on the narrow path. We saw some partridges on the road, and I had a crack at one and wounded it, but it soon made away. Kirkham jumped off his mule and rushed after the bird, sword and all, to finish it off or catch it; but these birds run like hares, and the game was soon lost in the thick bushes.
We went on ascending, and as we did the vegetation became thinner and thinner. At the top stunted yew-trees grew, so it must be cold here at most seasons of the year. We then went over some low hills, and at length found ourselves on a large plain, with cultivated land here and there. A flock of large cranes were flying round and round; at last they settled on a bit of ploughed land not far from the road.
I rode towards them and tried to stalk them, but they would not let me come very close. I fired my 16-bore gun into the "brown" as they rose, but it had no effect. I would recommend all future sportsmen to take out wire cartridges with them: one never knows what one may come across in a wild country, and a wire cartridge at close quarters would act like a bullet, and for long shots of course they are capital.