[Illustration: SUMMIT OF ZER AMBA FORTRESS NEAR TECHELGA.]
In Begemder plundering was out of the: question; the peasants were always on the watch, and on the slightest sign of a move were everywhere on the alert, killing the stragglers and plunderers, and keeping out of the way of the gunmen who stood around the Emperor. Theodore remembered a rich district not as yet plundered, Belessa, at the north-east of Begemder. In order to surprise the inhabitants completely, he proclaimed some days before that he was going on an expedition in quite a different direction, and to make his army appear as formidable as possible, he had given orders that every one who possessed a horse or a mule, or a servant, must send them, under penalty of death, to accompany the expedition. The Belessa people, far from being surprised, had been informed of his intention by their spies, and Theodore, to his disappointment, saw from a distance their villages on fire; the peasants themselves having preferred destroying their homes to leaving them a prey to the invader. Under the conduct of a gallant chief, Lij Abitou, a young man of good family, and a runaway officer, from the Imperial household, the peasants, well armed, took up a position on a small plateau, separated by a narrow ravine from the route Theodore would take. To his surprise, instead of running away at the mere sight of his charger, they not only stood their ground, but several well-mounted chiefs rode out in front and bid defiance to Theodore himself. Astrologers must have told him that the day was not favourable, as after several of his chiefs who had answered the cartel had been laid dead on the field, he still refused to lead his men in person, and before this unexpected resistance gave way and ordered a retreat. Belessa was saved: the hungry, famished robbers that Theodore called soldiers passed a dreadful night; tired, hungry, and cold, they could not sleep, for the peasants might surprise and attack them, in their turn. The cruelties Theodore perpetrated after his return to Debra Tabor were fearful; too horrible to be related. At last, tired of taking his revenge on the innocent, he turned his thoughts to the place he might most easily plunder, and fixed upon the island of Metraha.
That island, situate in the Tana Sea, about twenty miles north of Kourata, is only a few hundred yards from the mainland. It was considered in the light of an asylum, and protected by its sacred character, priests and monks resided there in peace; while merchants and rich landowners sent their goods and stores there for safe custody. Theodore had no scruples about violating the sanctity of the island: the asylum afforded by the churches to all before his time he had long ago violated, and, certain of a large booty, did not hesitate to add another sacrilege to his numerous crimes. On his arrival before Metraha, he at once ordered his people to make rafts. Whilst Theodore was occupied in their construction, a priest came in a boat, and approaching within speaking distance, inquired of the Emperor what it was that he desired. Theodore told him the grain that they had in store. The priest replied that they would send it to him; but Theodore, not satisfied with the grain alone, told the priest not to be afraid, but to send their boats. He took a solemn oath that he would not injure them, nor remove anything but the grain he required. The priest, on his return to the island, informed the people of his conversation with the Emperor, and the majority being in favour of complying with his requests, it was agreed that all the available boats should be taken to the mainland. A few who had no trust in Theodore's word entered their canoes, and paddled away in an opposite direction. Theodore ordered the Europeans to fire upon them with the small cannons they had brought. They complied; but, to Theodore's great disappointment, failed to hit any of the fugitives. No sooner had Theodore and a select party been admitted on the island than he caused all the remaining inhabitants to be shut up in a few of the larger houses; and after all the grain, silver, gold, and merchandise had been removed, he set the place on fire, and burnt to death priests, merchants, women and children!
For a while, abundance reigned in Theodore's camp. The work of casting the big cannon had been going on for some time: the day of its completion at last arrived, and Emperor and workmen anxiously awaited the result of their labours. The Europeans, to their great dismay, saw that they had failed; but Theodore, not in the least put out, told them not to be afraid, but to try again: perhaps they would succeed another time. Theodore examined carefully everything, connected with the smelting, in order to find out the cause of the failure, and he soon perceived that it was due to the presence of some water around the mould. He at once set to work, and had a large, deep, broad trench constructed from beneath the mould to some distance outside. This drain dried up the place, and on a second attempt being made the success was complete. Theodore was delighted; he made handsome presents to the workmen, and prepared everything requisite to carry away with him his immense piece of ordnance.
During that rainy season (1867) Theodore's difficulties were very great: indeed, the punishment of his evil deeds was falling heavily upon him, and to his proud nature it must have been a daily and constant agony. The rebels were now so little afraid of Theodore that every night they made attacks on his camp, and were always on the watch to seize stragglers, or camp-followers. They had at last become such a terror to the soldiers that, to protect them, and at the same time check, to a certain extent, desertion, Theodore had a large stockade built around the foot of the hill on which his camp was pitched. A war of extermination on both sides now took place; Theodore showing no pity to the peasants whom he succeeded in capturing, and they, on their side, torturing and murdering any one who belonged to the Emperor's camp. A detailed account of the atrocities committed by Theodore during the last month of his stay in Begemder would be too horrible to narrate: suffice it to say that he burnt alive, or sentenced to some cruel death, in that short space of time, more than 3,000 persons! His rage at times was so blind that, unable to satisfy his revenge by punishing those who daily insulted and scorned him, he vented his anger on the few remaining faithful companions who shared his fate: chiefs who had fought by his side for years, friends whom he knew from his childhood, old respectable men who had protected him in former days, all had to suffer more or less for their faithfulness, and fell innocent victims to his mad fits of violence. Many succumbed to a lingering death, or chains and torture, for no reason whatever except that they loved him!
Desertions were still frequent, but the difficulty of escape was greater than before; the peasants often put to death the fugitives; and always stripped and plundered them of everything they had. The gates of the fence were guarded night and day by faithful men, and it required often a good deal of ability and cunning to be able to pass through them. I was told an anecdote which exemplifies the expedients the soldiers resorted to in order to get out of the dreaded camp. One evening, about half an hour before sunset, a woman presented herself at the gate, carrying on her head one of the large flat baskets used for keeping bread; she said, with tears in her eyes; that her brother was lying down some short distance from the fence so dangerously wounded that he could not walk; she had brought him a little bread and water, etc. The guards allowed her to pass. A few minutes afterwards a soldier presented himself at the gate, and asked if they had seen a woman go through, giving the description of the one that had just gone out. The guards said that they had; the soldier appeared to be in a fearful passion, and said that she was his wife, who had made an assignation to run away with her lover; and he threatened to report them to the Emperor. The guards told him that she could not be far off, and that he had better go quickly and overtake her; off he went: as might be expected, neither appeared again.
To the annoyances and difficulties caused by the presence of large bodies of armed peasants, day and night hanging about the outskirts of the camp, were soon added the evils of famine: a small Abyssinian loaf cost a dollar; a salt and a half, a dollar; butter could not by any means be obtained; and hundreds died daily of want and starvation. When the grain plundered at Metraha was consumed, no more could be found; plundering was now quite impossible, and as long as Theodore did not move his camp there was no hope of supplies of any kind being obtained. Almost all the mules, horses, and the few remaining sheep had died from want of food; they could not graze any more in close vicinity to the camp, that pasture being completely eaten up; and as to driving them to some green fields at a distance, that was impossible. The poor animals dropped one after the other, and infected the place by the stench that arose from their dead bodies. The cows had all been killed long before by order of Theodore. One day, when, after one of his first razzias, he had brought back with him to Debra Tabor more than 80,000 cows; at night the peasants came, and from a distance implored him to have pity upon them, and restore them their cattle, without which they were unable to cultivate the soil. Theodore was on the point of acceding to their request, when some of the rascals around him said, "Does not your Majesty know that there is a prophecy in the country, that a king will seize a large amount of cattle, and that the peasants will come and beg him to return them; the king will comply, but soon afterwards die." Theodore replied, "Well, the prophecy will not apply to me." He immediately gave orders for all the cows in camp, those he had lately brought, and all others, to be killed at once; the order was obeyed, and nearly, it is said, 100,000 were killed and left to rot in the plain at a short distance from the camp.
The next day, Theodore, seated outside his hut, perceived a man driving a cow into the fields; he sent for him, and asked him if he had not heard the order. The man replied in the affirmative, but said that he had not killed his cow because his wife having died the day before on giving birth to a child, he had kept that one for the sake of her milk. Theodore told him, "Why did not you know that I would be a father to your child? Kill the man," he said to those around him, "and take care of his child for me."
The waggons being at last ready, Theodore decided upon marching towards Magdala. Pestilence, engendered by famine and the noxious effluvia arising from the heap of unburied dead bodies, now increased the already dismal condition of the Emperor's army; and in a few weeks more he and his whole host must have perished from sickness and want. On the 10th of October, his Majesty set fire to his houses at Debra Tabor, and destroyed the whole place; leaving only, as a record of his stay, a church he had built as an expiation for his sacrilege at Gondar. His march was, indeed, the most wonderful feat he ever accomplished; none but he would have ventured on such an undertaking; and no other man could have succeeded in accomplishing the arduous journey that lay before him: it required all his energy, perseverance, and iron will to carry out his purpose under such immense difficulties.
He had not more than 5,000 men with him, all more or less in bad condition, weakened by famine, discontented, and only awaiting a favourable opportunity to run away. The camp-followers, on the contrary; numbered between forty and fifty thousand helpless and useless beings whom he had to protect and feed. He had, moreover, several hundred prisoners to guard, an immense amount of baggage to carry, fourteen gun-carriages, with cannon or mortars—one of them the famous "Sebastopol," weighing between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds—and ten waggons, the whole to be dragged by men across a country without roads. Theodore did not let himself be influenced by all these unfavourable circumstances; he seemed, for a time, to have regained much of his former self, and behaved with more consideration towards his followers. His daily marches were very short, not more than a mile and a half to two miles a day. A portion of his camp marched early every morning, carrying the heavy luggage, dragging the waggons, and protecting the followers from the attacks of the rebels, who were always hovering in the distance, watching a favourable opportunity to avenge themselves on the Emperor's people for all the miseries they had suffered at his hand; another portion remained behind to guard what could not be carried; off, and, on the return of the first batch, all started for the spot fixed upon for that day's halt, conveying what had been left behind in the morning. Even then the day's work wast not over; the corn was as yet not quite ripe, and stood in the fields by the side of the road; Theodore would set the example, pluck a few unripe ears of barley, rub them between his hands, and, satisfied with this frugal meal, repair to the nearest brook to quench thirst. From Debra Tabor to Checheo, such was the daily routine of the reduced host of Theodore,—harnessed to waggons, in place of the horses and mules now so scarce in the camp; constantly on the alert, as the country was all up in arms against them; with no supplies available, only the unripe barley plucked by the wayside; no peace by day nor rest at night: in a word, a march unequalled in the annals of history.