On the 7th, at six o’clock in the morning, we began to ascend the mountain; at a quarter past seven the village Lik lay east of us. Murass, a country full of low but broken mountains, and deep narrow valleys, bears N. W. and Walkayt in the same direction, but farther off. At a quarter past eight, Gingerohha, distant from us about a mile S. W. it is a village situated upon a mountain that joins Lamalmon. Two miles to the N. E. is the village Taguzait on the mountain which we were ascending. It is called Guza by the Jesuits, who strangely say, that the Alps and Pyreneans are inconsiderable eminences to it. Yet, with all deference to this observation, Taguzait, or Guza, though really the base of Lamalmon, is not a quarter of a mile high.
Ten minutes before nine o’clock we pitched our tent on a small plain called Dippebaha, on the top of the mountain, above a hundred yards from a spring, which scarcely was abundant enough to supply us with water, in quality as indifferent as it was scanty. The plain bore strong marks of the excessive heat of the sun, being full of cracks and chasms, and the grass burnt to powder. There are three small villages so near each other that they may be said to compose one. Near them is the church of St George, on the top of a small hill to the eastward, surrounded with large trees.
Since passing the Tacazzé we had been in a very wild country, left so, for what I know, by nature, at least now lately rendered more so by being the theatre of civil war. The whole was one wilderness without inhabitants, unless at Addergey. The plain of Dippebaha had nothing of this appearance; it was full of grass, and interspersed with flowering shrubs, jessamin, and roses, several kinds of which were beautiful, but only one fragrant. The air was very fresh and pleasant; and a great number of people, passing to and fro, animated the scene.
We met this day several monks and nuns of Waldubba, I should say pairs, for they were two and two together. They said they had been at the market of Dobarké on the side of Lamalmon, just above Dippebaha. Both men and women, but especially the latter, had large burdens of provisions on their shoulders, bought that day, as they said, at Dobarkè, which shewed me they did not wholly depend upon the herbs of Waldubba for their support. The women were stout and young, and did not seem, by their complexion, to have been long in the mortifications of Waldubba. I rather thought that they had the appearance of healthy mountaineers, and were, in all probability, part of the provisions bought for the convent; and, by the sample, one would think the monks had the first choice of the market, which was but fit, and is a custom observed likewise in Catholic countries. The men seemed very miserable, and ill-clothed, but had a great air of ferocity and pride in their faces. They are distinguished only from the laity by a yellow cowl, or cap, on their head. The cloth they wear round them is likewise yellow, but in winter they wear skins dyed of the same colour.
On the 8th, at three quarters past six o’clock in the morning, we left Dippebaha, and, at seven, had two small villages on our left; one on the S. E. distant two miles, the other on the south, one mile off. They are called Wora, and so is the territory for some space on each side of them; but, beyond the valley, all is Shahagaanah to the root of Lamalmon. At a quarter past seven, the village of Gingerohha was three miles on our right; and we were now ascending Lamalmon, through a very narrow road, or rather path, for it scarcely was two feet wide any where. It was a spiral winding up the side of the mountain, always on the very brink of a precipice. Torrents of water, which in winter carry prodigious stones down the side of this mountain, had divided this path into several places, and opened to us a view of that dreadful abyss below, which few heads can (mine at least could not) bear to look down upon. We were here obliged to unload our baggage, and, by slow degrees, crawl up the hill, carrying them little by little upon our shoulders round these chasms where the road was intersected. The mountains grow steeper, the paths narrower, and the breaches more frequent as we ascend. Scarce were our mules, though unloaded, able to scramble up, but were perpetually falling; and, to increase our difficulties, which, in such cases, seldom come single, a large number of cattle was descending, and seemed to threaten to push us all into the gulf below. After two hours of constant toil, at nine o’clock we alighted in a small plain called Kedus, or St Michael, from a church and village of that name, neither beast nor man being able to go a step further.
The plain of St Michael, where we now were, is at the foot of a steep cliff which terminates the west side of Lamalmon. It is here perpendicular like a wall, and a few trees only upon the top of the cliff. Over this precipice flow two streams of water, which never are dry, but run in all seasons. They fall into a wood at the bottom of this cliff, and preserve it in continual verdure all the year, tho’ the plain itself below, as I have said, is all rent into chasms, and cracked by the heat of the sun. These two streams form a considerable rivulet in the plain of St Michael, and are a great relief both to men and cattle in this tedious and difficult passage over the mountain.
The air on Lamalmon is pleasant and temperate. We found here our appetite return, with a chearfulness, lightness of spirits, and agility of body, which indicated that our nerves had again resumed their wonted tone, which they had lost in the low, poisonous, and sultry air on the coast of the Red Sea. The sun here is indeed hot, but in the morning a cool breeze never fails, which increases as the sun rises high. In the shade it is always cool. The thermometer, in the shade, in the plain of St Michael, this day, was 76°, wind N. W.
Lamalmon, as I have said, is the pass through which the road of all caravans to Gondar lies. It is here they take an account of all baggage and merchandise, which they transmit to the Negadé Ras, or chief officer of the customs at Gondar, by a man whom they send to accompany the caravan. There is also a present, or awide, due to the private proprietor of the ground; and this is levied with great rigour and violence, and, for the most part, with injustice; so that this station, which, by the establishment of the customhouse, and nearness to the capital, should be in a particular manner attended to by government, is always the place where the first robberies and murders are committed in unsettled times. Though we had nothing with us which could be considered as subject to duty, we submitted every thing to the will of the robber of the place, and gave him his present. If he was not satisfied, he seemed to be so, which was all we wanted.
We had obtained leave to depart early in the morning of the 9th, but it was with great regret we were obliged to abandon our Mahometan friends into hands that seemed disposed to shew them no favour. The king was in Maitsha, or Damot, that is to say, far from Gondar, and various reports were spread abroad about the success of the campaign; and these people only waited for an unfavourable event to make a pretence for robbing our fellow-travellers of every thing they had.
The persons whose right it was to levy these contributions were two, a father and son; the old man was dressed very decently, spoke little, but smoothly, and had a very good carriage. He professed a violent hatred to all Mahometans, on account of their religion, a sentiment which seemed to promise nothing favourable to our friend Yasine and his companions: but, in the evening, the son, who seemed to be the active man, came to our tent, and brought us a quantity of bread and bouza, which his father had ordered before. He seemed to be much taken with our fire-arms, and was very inquisitive about them. I gave him every sort of satisfaction, and, little by little, saw I might win his heart entirely; which I very much wished to do, that I might free our companions from bondage.