——Destruction in a monarch’s voice
Cried havock, and let slip the dogs of war.
For, strict and just as he was in time of peace, or in preserving the police, the security of the ways, and the poor from the tyranny of the rich, he was most licentious and cruel the moment he took the field, especially if that country which he entered had ever shewn the least tincture of enmity against him.
About 11 o’clock in the morning the king’s Fit-Auraris passed. He was a near relation of Ayamico, one of the chiefs of the Agows who was a relation of the king, as I have before mentioned, and slain by Fasil at the battle of Banja. With him I had contracted a great degree of friendship; he had about 50 horse and 200 foot: as he passed at several places he made proclamation in name of the king, That nobody should leave their houses, but remain quiet in them without fear, and that every house found empty should be burnt. He sent a servant as he passed, telling me the king was that night to lie at Lamgué, and desiring me to send him what spirits I could spare, which I accordingly did, upon his providing a man who could protect the houses adjoining mine from the robbery and the violence of which the inhabitants were in hourly fear.
About the close of the evening we heard the king’s kettle-drums. Forty-five of these instruments constantly go before him, beating all the way while he is on his march. The Mahometan town near the water was plundered in a minute; but the inhabitants had long before removed every thing valuable. Twenty different parties of stragglers came up the hill to do the same by Emfras. Some of the inhabitants were known, others not so, but their houses had nothing in them; at last these plunderers all united in mine, demanding meat and drink, and all sort of accommodation. Our friend, left with us by the Fit-Auraris, resisted as much as one man could do with sticks and whips, and it was a scuffle till mid-night; at last, having cleared ourselves of them, luckily without their setting fire to the town, we remained quiet for the rest of the night.
On the 14th, at day-break, I mounted my horse, with all my men-servants, leaving the women-servants and an old man to take care of the house. It was very unsafe to travel in such company at such an hour. We crossed the river Arno, a little below Emfras, before we got into the plain; after which we went at a smart gallop, and arrived at Lamgué between eight and nine o’clock.
Early as it was, the king was then in council, and Ras Michael, who had his advisers assembled also in his tent, had just left it to go to the king’s. There was about 500 yards between their tents, and a free avenue is constantly left, in which it is a crime to stand, or even to cross, unless for messengers sent from the one to the other. The old general dismounted at the door of the tent; and though I saw he perceived us, and was always at other times most courteous, he passed us without taking the least notice, and entered the tent of the king.
Although my place in the household gave me free access to wherever the king was, I did not choose, at that time, to enter the back tent, and place myself behind his chair, as I might have done; I rather thought it better to go to the tent of Ozoro Esther, where I was sure at least of getting a good breakfast: Nor was I disappointed. As soon as I shewed myself at the door of the tent of that princess, who was lying upon a sofa, the moment she cast her eyes upon me, cried out, There is Yagoube! there is the man I wanted! The tent was cleared of all but her women, and she then began to enumerate of several complaints which she thought, before the end of the campaign, would carry her to her grave. It was easy to see they were of the slightest kind, though it would not have been agreeable to have told her so, for she loved to be thought ill, to be attended, and flattered; she was, however, in these circumstances, so perfectly good, so conversable, so elegant in all her manners, that her physician would have been tempted to wish never to see her well.
She was then with child by Ras Michael; and the late festival, upon her niece’s marriage with Powussen of Begemder, had been much too hard for her constitution, always weak and delicate since her first misfortunes, and the death of Mariam Barea. After giving her my advice, and directing her women how to administer what I was to send her, the doors of the tent were thrown open; all our friends came flocking round us, when we presently saw that the interval employed in consultation had not been spent uselessly, for a most abundant breakfast was produced in wooden platters upon the carpet. There were excellent stewed fowls, but so inflamed with Cayenne pepper as almost to blister the mouth; fowls dressed with boiled wheat, just once broken in the middle, in the manner they are prepared in India, with rice called pillaw, this, too, abundantly charged with pepper; Guinea hens, roasted hard without butter, or any sort of sauce, very white, but as tough as leather; above all, the never-failing brind, for so they call the collops of raw beef, without which nobody could have been satisfied; but, what was more agreeable to me, a large quantity of wheat-bread, of Dembea flour, equal in all its qualities to the best in London or Paris.
The Abyssinians say, you must plant first and then water; nobody, therefore, drinks till they have finished eating; after this the glass went chearfully about; there was excellent red wine, but strong, of the nature of cote-roti, brought from Karoota, which is the wine country, about six miles south-east from the place where we then were; good new brandy; honey-wine, or hydromel, and a species of beer called Bouza, both of which were fermented with herbs, or leaves of trees, and made very heady; they are disagreeable liquors to strangers. Our kind landlady, who never had quitted her sofa, pressed about the glass in the very briskest manner, reminding us that our time was short, and that the drum would presently give the signal for striking the tents. For my part, this weighed exceedingly with me the contrary way to her intentions, for I began to fear I should not be able to go home, and I was not prepared to go on with the army; besides, it was indispensibly necessary to see both the king and Ras Michael, and that I by no means chose to do when my presence of mind had left me; I therefore made my apology to Ozoro Esther, by a message delivered by one of her women, and slipt out of the tent to wait upon the king.
I thought to put on my most sedate appearance, that none of my companions in the king’s tent should see that I was affected with liquor; tho’ intoxication in Abyssinia is neither uncommon nor a reproach, when you are not engaged in business or attendance. I therefore went on as composedly as possible, without recollecting that I had already advanced near a hundred yards, walking on that forbidden precinct or avenue between the king’s tent and Ras Michael’s, where nobody interrupted me. The ease with which I proceeded, among such a crowd and bustle, soon brought my transgression to my mind, and I hurried out of the forbidden place in an instant.