I left Maihenzee about mid-day. It was very curious to observe the change in the vegetation at the top of the pass; the coast rains had ceased on the side nearest Massowah, and everything on that side was green and beautiful, whilst in the part I had just traversed the ground was completely dried up, and bushes and trees were bare. I stopped at Mehdet and procured something to eat, then I travelled on and got to Gindar about 8 P.M., feeling very tired and ill, although the men had carried me well. I sent for Aristides, the Greek, who was still here building a house. He was very glad to see me, and he told me in broken French that I looked very ill, and that he would accompany me next day into Massowah. K., to whom Gindar belongs, had presented me with some land—the whole side of a mountain, and a small hill in the valley; and I engaged Aristides to build me a small house, so if I should go to Abyssinia again I shall have a place to live in. In exchange for this land which K. gave me, I promised to send him out a box-full of the seeds of all our English vegetables.
March 25: Gindar.—This little valley is looking very beautiful, all the vegetation green and sprouting, and the grass up to one's knees; the whole air is alive with bees and insects in quest of honey from the flowers.
How changed was everything since the last time I was here! In my former visits I was full of hopeful expectation, looking forward to pleasant adventures and good sport; and now I was returning completely knocked down by illness, and counting the hours which would elapse before my arrival at the coast. The scene was even brighter and more glorious than when I had left it; but, alas! I scarcely possessed the power to appreciate it, and certainly I could not enjoy it. Aristides breakfasted with me this morning, and I killed a sheep and presented him with the meat. He promised me that, after I had left the country, he would look after things at Gindar. I proposed that he should take the eggs from the guinea-fowl, which abound here, and put them under hens, so as to bring them up tame; as, if they were fattened and kept in a civilised state, they would be excellent eating. I should also like to try the experiment of introducing rabbits, which I am sure would do very well, yet perhaps too well, so as to eat up every green thing.
I started in the afternoon for Massowah, having arranged that I should be carried to a place called Maital, on a different road from that which we had come by, but the usual one for merchants. I reached Maital about dark, halted for an hour, obtained something to eat, and slept for awhile; then I lay on my angareb, and I was carried off again all through the night. I thought the darkness would never come to an end, and, towards morning, quite exhausted, notwithstanding the jolting of the angareb, I fell asleep, and woke up just at dawn: we were close to the village of Moncullu. The cocks were crowing, and some of the people might be seen moving about. When we arrived here my coolies actually began running along with me, and singing and laughing. These men had been marching for more than fourteen hours, and during that time had eaten scarcely anything at all! As I approached Massowah I saw in the distance a steamer lying in the harbour; this was indeed a great joy to me, as now I should speedily get home. I was carried into Massowah more dead than alive. I went first to the Divan, and found that Arrekel Bey was away, but the acting governor knew I was coming, and put me into some rooms over the telegraph office. M. de Sarzec, the French Consul, came to see me, after I had eaten some breakfast; he was very civil and kind, but he said it was very lucky I had arrived at the time that I did as the steamer was a day late, and, in the absence of the Governor, the man who was acting for him would not have dared to keep the boat waiting. I dined in the evening with the French Company, a mercantile house of which M. de Lanfrey is the manager. They keep all kinds of stores, such as beads, cotton cloth, silk, sugar, etc., which are sold to the Abyssinian merchants, who take them up the country. The dinner was very pleasant, and it was agreeable to have the opportunity of talking to white men again, after having led the life of a savage for some little time.
Before finishing the account of my journey up the Red Sea, I must beg my readers to go back into Abyssinia with me, and try to follow the sort of sport my friend H. had been having, and did have, since we parted. He wrote me a letter, saying that directly he had received my note from Azho, dated the 12th of March, and found that I was so ill, he came straight up from the Mareb, and started off with Fisk and Brou for Adiaboo. He arrived there on the 15th, hoping to meet me; but they told him—which he was very sorry to hear—that I was two days in front of him, and also making long marches in order to reach Massowah in time for the steamer. He saw it was useless going on, and so returned that same evening to Adaajerra, which was better known to us by the name of Barrakee's village. On his way back he met with a most unpleasant adventure. It may be remembered by my readers that, on our former visit, Zardic, the old chief of Adiaboo, was excessively rude to us, and we believed it was owing to him that our donkeys were stolen, and also that so large a price was charged for the ones that we bought. H. was travelling quietly along with Fisk and three servants, when suddenly he heard a yelling and shouting, and three or four hundred Abyssinians, with Zardic at their head, rushed down upon them, pulled them off their mules, and began beating them with sticks and spears, and poking their guns into their ribs. This was far from pleasant, and, after it was all over, H. and his party were more dead than alive. I am afraid that I was unjustly the cause of this little contretemps, as Zardic swore that I had knocked down a man at Azho, and then shot at him, and, as they could not catch me, because I passed so quickly through Adiaboo, they thought they would assail H., as they considered he was just as bad. A few days after the assault by Zardic and his men, H. wrote to Rass Baria, the chief of Tigré, a letter of complaint, and, later on, wrote to the King himself about it. He subsequently heard there was a tremendous "row" about all this, and that Zardic was going to be chained, and the governorship of the province taken away from him. I think the punishment very just, and well merited by this chief.
During H.'s first excursion to the Mareb he shot 4 buffaloes, 1 leopard, 1 wadembie (which is a much larger kind of deer than either hagazin or hartebeest), also 1 very large turtle, and 2 crocodiles. This was certainly very good sport, and how I afterwards regretted I was not able to be with him to swell the bag! This was before he came up to try and join me at Adiaboo; when he left Adiaboo, he went to the Cassoua and Sherraro plains. There he shot 8 tora (hartebeest), 3 of them being very large and fine animals, 1 hagazin, and 2 pigs. Also, he says in his letter to me, that he killed "any number" of small game, partridges, &c. These plains, according to his account, swarm with all varieties of antelope, and, in fact, he seems to have seen a great deal more game than we did in any other part of Abyssinia. He stayed there twelve days, and then went back to Barrakee's village for a day and a half to get flour and provisions for himself and servants; after which he again went down to the Mareb, and stayed there till the 11th of April, and would have remained longer, but the rains had just begun, and he was afraid of fever. Of course his great object was to get a lion, and for six successive nights he sat up watching over an old bullock—a beast that we had brought down to the Tackazzee with us, and one of those which was so nearly drowned in crossing over that river. On the sixth night a lion pounced upon the buffalo, and H. shot it as dead as a door-nail. Naturally he was very pleased, as he very truly said that he would not have liked to leave Africa without having shot either a lion or an elephant. There was great rejoicing in camp next morning among his servants, as Abyssinians think a great deal of shooting a lion, although the king of beasts does not stand so high in scale with them as the elephant. He said Barrakee stayed with him the whole time, and turned out a first-rate guide that knew every inch of the country, and I am sure H. never regretted having kept him. He gave him Fisk's gun as a present on leaving, which delighted him very much. H. had on one occasion saved his life. Barrakee got knocked down by a wounded buffalo, and the beast was just going to trample him to pieces, when H. came up and shot it dead; the consequence being that Barrakee was only laid up for a couple of days with a stiff neck, instead of being gored to death. This man was, on the whole, the best specimen of an Abyssinian we had anything to do with while we were in the country. He had been taught a good deal by the missionaries, and he remembered the Powell who, some of my readers may remember, was murdered by the Shangalla tribe some time ago. Altogether Barrakee turned out a most useful and faithful servant to us. In addition to the lion H. shot 8 more buffaloes, 1 wadembie, 12 tora, and some gazelles. On the 11th of April he started for Adowa. Alas! when he got there he found that no attention had been paid to the orders we had given for shields and black leopard skins. He tried all over the town to get them, but could not procure one. Rass Baria, who lived at Adowa, had left, with most of the population of the town, to join the king, who was fighting a shifter, or robber, near Dembellas; so nothing could be done, and the man to whom we had sent the order said he could not make the shields without the money. When H. went to try and see him he found that, like all the rest, he had gone with Rass Baria to the king. H. stopped a day at Adowa, and then went straight on to Massowah.
His bag on the whole, that is to say, of large game, was as follows: 1 lion, 12 buffaloes, 20 hartebeest, 2 hagazin, 2 wadembie, 1 leopard, 1 large deer with straight horns, 36 gazelles, 1 very large crocodile, 2 pigs, and an enormous turtle; of course any amount of guinea fowl and partridges. He says, "As for hartebeest and buffalo, at Sherraro and on the Mareb, you can go out and shoot as many as ever you like; upon my word, they are more like cows than anything else. I saved all the best heads and skins, and shall send them home from Suez. I cannot tell you how glad I am that I went down to the Mareb. Day after day I watched for elephant and rhinoceros, but I never even got a shot at one, and as for rhinoceros I never even saw a track of one." This information as regards the rhinoceros is rather curious, and only shows that they must be much farther west, in fact, in the country which was explored by Sir Samuel Baker.
CHAPTER XIII.
FRENCH FRIENDS—ON BOARD—COMPARATIVE COMFORT—A QUEER FISH—A DINNER PARTY—A CARGO OF GAZELLES—ROUGH WEATHER—VOYAGE TO SUEZ—AND ARRIVAL.
March 27: Massowah.—I was very ill all night, and this morning I went to the French Company to get myself some clothes, as what I had on were rather curious garments after the journey. I also bought some stores for the voyage, and two fine elephants' tusks, which were evidently not Abyssinian ivory, as they were much too large. The Abyssinian elephants have very small tusks, and the ivory does not command a very high price. I was afraid my donkeys would not come up till after the steamer had sailed, but M. de Sarzec promised me to have all my things packed up and sent on. I may as well tell my readers that eventually everything arrived safe in England, in as good condition as I left it when last I saw it in Abyssinia. I lunched with the French Consul, who entertained us most liberally and produced some very good "tej," which he makes himself. I went to the French Company's house in the afternoon; it overlooked the sea, and observing a boat coming up alongside, I hailed it. An Englishman was sitting in the stern, who turned out to be Mr. Cordock, the engineer of the S.S. Massowah. I asked him to come into the house and speak to me, told him that I was going away by the steamer to Suez, and that I had been very ill. The boat was to sail the next day, so that evening he dined with me at the French Company's, and we went off to the ship together. He gave up his cabin to me, and he was altogether most kind and considerate.