Tecla Mariam, the king’s secretary, came in at that instant with a number of other people. I wanted to take Confu aside to ask him further if he knew who this governor was, but he shuffled among the crowd, saying, “My mother will tell you all; the man who is appointed is your friend, and I think Yasine may be the deputy.” I now lost no time in going to Ozoro Esther to intercede for the government of Ras el Feel for Yasine.
Among the crowd I met first Tecla Mariam, the king’s secretary, who taking me by the hand, said, with a laughing countenance, “O ho, I wish you joy; this is like a man; you are now no stranger, but one of us; why was not you at court?” I said I had no particular business there, but that I came hither to see Ayto Confu, that he might speak in favour of Yasine to get him appointed deputy of Ras el Feel. “Why don’t you appoint him yourself? says he; what has Confu to do with the affair now? You don’t intend always to be in leading strings? You may thank the king for yourself, but I would never advise you to speak one word of Yasine to him; it is not the custom; you may, if you please, to Confu, he knows him already. His estate lies all around you, and he will enforce your orders if there should be any need.”
“Pardon me, Tecla Mariam, said I, if I do not understand you. I came here to solicit for Yasine, that Confu or his successor would appoint him their deputy, and you answer that you advise me to appoint him myself.”—“And so I do, replies Tecla Mariam: Who is to appoint him but you? You are governor of Ras el Feel; are you not?” I stood motionless with astonishment. “It is no great affair, says he, and I hope you will never see it. It is a hot, unwholesome country, full of Mahometans; but its gold is as good as any Christian gold whatever. I wish it had been Begemder with all my heart, but there is a good time coming.”
After having recovered myself a little from my surprise, I went to Ayto Confu to kiss his hand as my superior, but this he would by no means suffer me to do. A great dinner was provided us by the Iteghé; and Yasine being sent for, was appointed, cloathed, that is invested, and ordered immediately to Ras el Feel to his government, to make peace with the Daveina, and bring all the horses he could get with him from thence, or from Atbara. I sent there also that poor man who had given us the small blue beads on the road, as I have already mentioned. The having thus provided for those two men, and secured, as I thought, a retreat to Sennaar for myself, gave me the first real pleasure that I had received since landing at Masuah; and that day, in company with Heikel, Tecla Mariam, Engedan, Aylo, and Guebra Denghel, all my great friends and the hopes of this country, I for the first time, since my arrival in Abyssinia, abandoned myself to joy.
My constitution was, however, too much weakened to bear any excesses. The day after, when I went home to Emfras, I found myself attacked with a slow fever, and, thinking that it was the prelude of an ague, with which I was often tormented, I fell to taking bark, without any remission, or, where the remission was very obscure, I shut myself up in the house, upon my constant regimen of boiled rice, with abundant draughts of cold water.
I was at this time told that there was a great commotion at Gondar; that a monk of Debra Libanos, a favourite of the Iteghè and of the king too, had excommunicated Abba Salama in a dispute about religion at the Itchegué’s house; and, the day after, Hagi Mahomet, one of Ras Michael’s tent-makers, who lived in the town below, through which the high road from Gojam passes, came to tell me, that many monks from Gojam had passed through the low town, and expressed themselves very much dissatisfied by hearing that a frank (meaning me) was in the town above. He said that when they came in sixes and sevens at a time, there was no fear; but when they returned altogether (as Michael sometimes made them do) they were like so many madmen; therefore, if I resolved to stay at Emfras, he wished I would order him send me some Mahometan soldiers, who would strictly act as I commanded them.
At the same time I received news that my great friend, Tecla Mariam, and his daughter of the same name, the most beautiful woman in Abyssinia after Ozoro Esther, were both ill at Gondar. There needed no more for me to repair instantly thither. I muffled my head up as great officers generally do when riding near the capital. I passed at different times above twenty of these fanatics on the road, six and seven together; but either they did not know me, or at least, if they did, they did not say any thing; I came to Ayto Aylo’s, who was sitting, complaining of sore eyes, with the queen’s chamberlain, Ayto Heikel.
After the usual salutation, I asked Aylo what was the matter in town? and if it was true that Sebaat Gzier had excommunicated Abba Salama? and told him that I had conceived these disputes about faith had been long ago settled. He answered with an affected gravity, “That it was not so; that this was of such importance that he doubted it would throw the country into great convulsions; and he would not advise me to be seen in the street.”—“Tell me, I beseech you, said I, what it is about. I hope not the old story of the Franks?”—“No, no, says he, a great deal worse than that, it is about Nebuchadnezzar:”—and he broke out in a great fit of laughter. “The monk of Debra Libanos says, that Nebuchadnezzar is a saint; and Abba Salama says that he was a Pagan, Idolater, and a Turk, and that he is burning in hell fire with Dathan and Abiram.”—“Very well, said I, I cannot think he was a Mahometan if he was a Pagan and Idolater; but I am sure I shall make no enemies upon this dispute.”—“You are deceived, says he; unless you tell your opinion in this country you are reckoned an enemy to both parties. Stay, therefore, all night, and do not appear on the streets;” and, upon my telling them I was going to Tecla Mariam’s, who was ill, they rose with me to go thither, for the strictest friendship subsisted between them. We met there with Ozoro Esther, who was visiting the beautiful Tecla Mariam in her indisposition. Seeing Aylo, Heikel, and me together at that time of night, she insisted that the young lady and I should be married, and she declared roundly she would see it done before she left the house. As neither of my patients were very ill, a great deal of mirth followed. Ozoro Esther sat late; there was no occasion for the compliment of seeing her home, she had above three hundred men with her.
After she was gone the whole discourse turned upon religion, what we believed or did not believe in our country, and this continued till day-light, when we all agreed to take a little sleep, then breakfast, and go to court. We did so, but Aylo went to Koscam, and Tecla Mariam to the Ras, so I met none of them with the king. When I went in he was hearing a pleading upon a cause of some consequence, and paying great attention. One of the parties had finished, the other was replying with a great deal of graceful action, and much energy and eloquence.—They were bare down to their very girdle, and would seem rather prepared for boxing than for speaking.
This being over, the room was cleared, and I made my prostration. “I do demand of you, says the king abruptly, Whether Nebuchadnezzar is a saint or no?” I bowed, saying, “Your majesty knows I am no judge of these matters, and it makes me enemies to speak about them.”—“I know, says he gravely, that you will answer my question when I ask it; let me take care of the rest.”—“I never thought, said I, Sir, that Nebuchadnezzar had any pretensions to be a saint. He was a scourge in God’s hand, as is famine or the plague, but that does not make either of them a wholesome visitation.”—“What! says he, Does not God call him his servant? Does he not say that he did his bidding about Tyre, and that he gave him Egypt to plunder for his recompence? Was not it by God’s command he led his people into captivity? and did not he believe in God, when Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego escaped from the fiery furnace? Surely he must be a saint.”—“I am perfectly satisfied, said I, and give my consent to his canonization, rather than either your majesty, or Abba Salama, should excommunicate me upon the question.” He now laughed out, and seemed greatly diverted, and was going to speak, when Tecla Mariam, and a number of others, came in. I withdrew to the side with respect, as the secretary had a small piece of paper in his hand. He staid about two minutes with the king, when the room filled, and the levee began. I wished Tecla Mariam might not be the worse for last night’s sitting up. “The better, the better, says he, much the better. You see we are becoming all good, day and night we are busy about religion.”—“Are you upon Nebuchadnezzar to-day, friend? said I; the king says to me he is a saint.”—“Just such a saint, I suppose, says he, as our Ras Michael, who, I believe, is jealous of him, for he is going himself to decide this dispute immediately. Go to the Ashoa[112] and you will hear it.”