The payment of the money, perhaps the resentment of the family trepanned, and the appearance of equity which the thing itself bore, suggested to the Moorish merchants that there was some more profit, and not more risk, if they carried off the old priest likewise. But as he had come to Dixan, as it were under public faith, in a trade that greatly interested the town, they were afraid to attempt any thing against him whilst there. They began then as it were to repent of their bargain, from a pretended apprehension that they might be stopped and questioned at going out of town, unless he would accompany them to some small distance; in consideration of which, they would give him, at parting, two pieces of cloth to be added to the other forty, which he was to take back to Tigré with him upon his return.
The beginning of such expeditions is in the night. When all were asleep, they set out from Dixan; the buyers, the seller, and the family sold; and, being arrived near the mountain where the way turns off to the desert, the whole party fell upon the old priest, threw him down, and bound him. The woman insisted that she might be allowed to cut, or tear off the little beard he had, in order, as she said, to make him look younger; and this demand was reckoned too just to be denied her. The whole five were then carried to Masuah; the woman and her two children were sold to Arabia; the two priests had not so ready a market, and they were both in the Naybe’s house when I was at Masuah, though I did not then know it.
The Naybe, willing to ingratiate himself with Ras Michael at a small expence, wrote to him an account of the transaction, and offered, as they were priests, to restore them to him. But the Ras returned for answer, that the Naybe should keep them to be his chaplains; as he hoped, some day, he would be converted to the Christian faith himself; if not, he might send them to Arabia with the rest; they would serve to be carriers of wood and drawers of water; and that there still remained at Damo enough of their kind to carry on the trade with Dixan and Masuah.
This story I heard from Ras Michael himself, at his grand-daughter’s marriage, when he was feasting, and in great spirits. He, and all the company, laughed heartily; and although there were in the room at least two dozen of priests, none of them seemed to take this incident more seriously than the rest of the company. From this we may guess at the truth of what the Catholic writers advance, with regard to the respect and reverence shown to the priesthood by the government and great men in Abyssinia.
The priest of Axum, and those of the monastery of Abba Garima, are equally infamous with those of Damo for this practice, which is winked at by Ras Michael, as contributing to his greatness, by furnishing fire-arms to his province of Tigré, which gives him a superiority over all Abyssinia. As a return for this article, about five hundred of these unfortunate people are exported annually from Masuah to Arabia; of which three hundred are Pagans, and come from the market at Gondar; the other two hundred are Christian children, kidnapped by some such manner as this we have spoken of, and in times of scarcity four times that number. The Naybe receives six patakas of duty for each one exported. Dixan is in lat. 14° 57´ 55´´ North, and long. 40° 7´ 30´´ east of the meridian of Greenwich.
From Dixan we discovered great part of the province of Tigrè full of high dreadful mountains. We, as yet, had seen very little grain, unless by the way-side from Taranta, and a small flat called Zarai, about four miles S. S. W. of the town.
CHAP. IV.
Journey from Dixan to Adowa, Capital of Tigrè.
It was on Nov. 25th, at ten in the morning, we left Dixan, descending the very steep hill on which the town is situated. It produces nothing but the Kol-quall tree all around it. We passed a miserable village called Hadhadid, and, at eleven o’clock, encamped under a daroo tree, one of the finest I have seen in Abyssinia, being 7½ feet diameter, with a head spreading in proportion, standing alone by the side of a river which now ran no more, though there is plenty of fine water still stagnant in its bed. This tree and river is the boundary of the territory, which the Naybe farms from Tigré, and stands within the province of Baharnagash, called Midrè Bahar.
Hagi Abdelcader had attended us thus far before he left us; and the noted Saloomè came likewise, to see if some occasion would offer of doing us further mischief; but the king’s servants, now upon their own ground, began to take upon them a proper consequence. One of them went to meet Saloomé at the bank of the river, and making a mark on the ground with his knife, declared that his patience was quite exhausted by what he had been witness to at Masuah and Dixan; and if now Saloomé, or any other man belonging to the Naybe, offered to pass that mark, he would bind him hand and foot, and carry him to a place where he should be left tied to a tree, a prey to the lion and hyæna. They all returned, and there our persecution from the Naybe ended. But it was very evident, from Achmet’s behaviour and discourse, had we gone by Dobarwa, which was the road proposed by the Naybe, our sufferings would not have been as yet half finished, unless they had ended with our lives.