The mountains of Waldubba, resembling those of Adebarea, lay north of us about four or five miles. Waldubba, which signifies the Valley of the Hyæna, is a territory entirely inhabited by the monks, who, for mortification’s sake, have retired to this unwholesome, hot, and dangerous country, voluntarily to spend their lives in penitence, meditation, and prayer. This, too, is the only retreat of great men in disgrace or in disgust. These first shave their hair, and put on a cowl like the monks, renouncing the world for solitude, and taking vows which they resolve to keep no longer than exigencies require; after which they return to the world again, leaving their cowl and sanctity in Waldubba.
These monks are held in great veneration; are believed by many to have the gift of prophecy, and some of them to work miracles, and are very active instruments to stir up the people in time of trouble. Those that I have seen out of Waldubba in Gondar, and about Koscam, never shewed any great marks of abstinence; they ate and drank every thing without scruple, and in large quantities too. They say they live otherwise in Waldubba, and perhaps it may be so. There are women, also, whom we should call Nuns, who, though not residing in Waldubba, go at times thither, and live in a familiarity with these saints, that has very little favour of spirituality; and many of these, who think the living in community with this holy fraternity has not in it perfection enough to satisfy their devotion, retire, one of each sex, a hermit and a nun, sequestering themselves for months, to eat herbs together in private upon the top of the mountains. These, on their return, are shewn as miracles of holiness,—lean, enervated, and exhausted. Whether this is wholly to be laid to the charge of the herbs, is more than I will take upon me to decide, never having been at these retirements of Waldubba.
Violent fevers perpetually reign there. The inhabitants are all of the colour of a corpse; and their neighbours, the Shangalla, by constant inroads, destroy many of them, though lately they have been stopped, as they say, by the prayers of the monks. I suppose their partners, the nuns, had their share in it, as both of them are said to be equally superior in holiness and purity of living to what their predecessors formerly were. But, not to derogate from the efficaciousness of their prayers, the natural cause why the Shangalla molest them no more, is the small-pox, which has greatly reduced their strength and number, and extinguished, to a man, whole tribes of them.
The water is both scarce and bad at Debra Toon, there being but one spring, or fountain, and it was exceedingly ill-tasted. We did not intend to make this a station; but, having sent a servant to Hauza to buy a mule in room of that which the hyæna had eaten, we were afraid to leave our man, who was not yet come forward, lest he should fall in with the Shum of Addergey, who might stop the mule for our arrears of customs.
The pointed mountain of Dagashaha continued still visible; I set it this day by the compass, and it bore due N. E. We had not seen any cultivated ground since we passed the Tacazzè.
The 5th, at seven o’clock in the morning, we left Debra Toon, and came to the edge of a deep valley bordered with wood, the descent of which is very steep. The Anzo, larger and more rapid than the Angueah, runs through the middle of this valley; its bed is full of large, smooth stones, and the sides composed of hard rock, and difficult to descend; the stream is equally clear and rapid with the other. We ascended the valley on the other side, through the most difficult road we had met with since that of the valley of Sirè. At ten o’clock we found ourselves in the middle of three villages, two to the right, and one on the left; they are called Adamara, from Adama a mountain, on the east side of which is Tchober. At eleven o’clock we encamped at the foot of the mountain Adama, in a small piece of level ground, after passing a pleasant wood of no considerable extent. Adama, in Amharic, signifies pleasant; and nothing can be more wildly so than the view from this station.
Tchober is close at the foot of the mountain, surrounded on every side, except the north, by a deep valley covered with wood. On the other side of this valley are the broken hills which constitute the rugged banks of the Anzo. On the point of one of these, most extravagantly shaped, is the village Shahagaanah, projecting as it were over the river; and, behind these, the irregular and broken mountains of Salent appear, especially those around Hauza, in forms which European mountains never wear; and still higher, above these, is the long ridge of Samen, which run along in an even stretch till they are interrupted by the high conical top of Lamalmon, reaching above the clouds, and reckoned to be the highest hill in Abyssinia, over the steepest part of which, by some fatality, the reason I do not know, the road of all caravans to Gondar must lie.
As soon as we passed the Anzo, immediately on our right is that part of Waldubba, full of deep valleys and woods, in which the monks used to hide themselves from the incursions of the Shangalla, before they found out the more convenient defence by the prayers and superior sanctity of the present saints. Above this is Adamara, where the Mahometans have considerable villages, and, by their populousness and strength, have greatly added to the safety of the monks, perhaps not altogether completed yet by the purity of their lives. Still higher than these villages is Tchober, where we now encamped.
On the left hand, after passing the Anzo, all is Shahagaanah, till you come to the river Zarima. It extends in an east and west direction, almost parallel to the mountains of Samen, and in this territory are several considerable villages; the people are much addicted to robbery, and rebellion, in which they were engaged at this time. Above Salent is Abbergalè, and above that Tamben, which is one of the principal provinces in Tigrè, commanded at present by Kefla Yasous, an officer of the greatest merit and reputation in the Abyssinian army.
On the 6th, at six o’clock in the morning, we left Tchober, and passed a wood on the side of the mountain. At a quarter past eight we crossed the river Zarima, a clear stream running over a bottom of stones. It is about as large as the Anzo. On the banks of this river, and all this day, we passed under trees larger and more beautiful than any we had seen since leaving the Tacazzé. After having crossed the Zarima, we entered a narrow defile between two mountains, where ran another rivulet: we continued advancing along the side of it, till the valley became so narrow as to leave no room but in the bed of the rivulet itself. It is called Mai-Agam, or the water or brook of jessamin and falls into the Zarima, at a small distance from the place wherein we passed it. It was dry at the mouth, (the water being there absorbed and hid under the sand) but above, where the ground was firmer, there ran a brisk stream of excellent water, and it has the appearance of being both broad, deep, and rapid in winter. At ten o’clock we encamped upon its banks, which are here bordered with high trees of cummel, at this time both loaded with fruit and flowers. There are also here a variety of other curious trees and plants; in no place, indeed, had we seen more, except on the banks of the Tacazzé. Mai-Agam consists of three villages; one, two miles distant, east-and-by-north, one at same distance, N. N. W.; the third at one mile distance, S. E. by south.