He then gave me the gun sullenly enough; and I continued, “I will this very night present you with one of the handsomest Turkish sashes that Mahomet has to sell. I saw him in the king’s house, with many new ones that he had procured, a little before I went to Emfras.” I cannot pretend to say whether his visage cleared up, for he was still perfectly hid with the carpet, as it began to grow cool as well as dark; but the sight of the lights in the houses of Dara, and the promise of the new cloaths and the sash, had very much softened his voice and expressions.
“Sir, says he, bringing his mule close up to mine, now, you are not in a passion, one may speak to you. Do you not think that it is tempting Providence to come so far from your own country to seek these d—n’d weeds and flowers, at the risk of having your throat cut every hour of the day, and, what is worse, my throat cut too, and of being gelded into the bargain? Are there no weeds, and bogs, and rivers in your own country? what have you to do with that d—n’d Nile, where he rises, or whether he rises at all, or not? What will all those trees and branches do for you when these horrid blacks have done your business, as they were near doing mine? He then made a sign towards his girdle with his fingers, which made me understand what he meant—“Nile, says he, curse upon his father’s head the day that he was born.”
“Strates, replied I gravely, he has no father, and was never born. Fertur sine teste creatus, says the poet.”—“There’s your Latin again; the poet is an ass and a blockhead, let him be who he will, continued Strates; and I do maintain, whether you be angry or not, that at Stanchio and Scio there are finer trees than ever you saw, or will see in Abyssinia. There is a tree, says he, that fifty men like you, spreading all your hands round about, would not be able to grasp it. Nay, it is not a tree, it is but half a tree; it is as old, I believe, as Methuselah: Did you ever see it?”—“I tell you, friend Strates, said I, I never was at Scio in my life, and, therefore, could not see it.”—“Nor at Stanchio?”—Yes, I have been at Stanchio, and have seen the large plane-tree there. I believe it may be about eighteen or twenty feet in circumference.”—“Galen and Hippocrates lived, adds he, there together, 2000 years before our Saviour: Did you ever hear that?”—“I have read, said I, Strates, that, about 500 years before Christ, Hippocrates did live there; but Galen was not born till 200 years after Christ. I do not recollect if he was ever at Stanchio; but, surely, never lived there with Hippocrates.”
Strates was in the middle of a declaration, that those were all falsehoods of Latins and Papists; and we were ascending, composedly enough, through a narrow, rocky road, thick-covered with high trees and bushes, when, just before our entrance into the village of Dara, a gun was fired, and the ball distinctly heard passing through the leaves among the branches. This occasioned a great alarm to our disputant, who immediately supposed that Guebra Mehedin, and all his robbers, were there expressly waiting for us; nor was he the only person that felt uneasily. Netcho, myself, and the generality of his officers, thought this was more than probable; we all therefore dismounted, loaded our fire-arms, halted till all our stragglers came up, and consulted what we were to do.
Strates, though tired and naked, found it was better to go back under his carpet, and, if possible, overtake Ayto Adigo, than take possession of his new cloaths from Negadé Ras Mahomet, with the risk of meeting Guebra Mehedin there. In vain I remonstrated to him, that he, of all others, had nothing to lose but Netcho’s old cloak and the carpet. His fears, however, made him think otherwise, nor could he banish his apprehensions of the crooked knives, and, what he called, the operation. Netcho having ordered and conversed with his men in his own language, which I did not understand, said after, with great composure and firm tone of voice, That he had come to lodge in the market-place of Dara that night, and would not be put out of his quarters by boys of the character of Mehedin and Confu; that, in his present circumstances, with the few troops he had, he did not seek to fight, but even with this force, such as it was, if attacked, he would not decline it.—Whatever country, or whatever distance of time and place heroes live at, their hearts are always in unison, and speak the same language on similar and great occasions. There old Netcho, without having ever heard of Shakespeare, repeated the very words that, 300 years ago, our great king Henry V. did before the battle of Agincourt:—
The sum of all my answer is but this,
We would not seek a battle as we are;
Yet, as we are, we say we will not shun it.
So tell your master——
Shakespeare.
We had not advanced but a few paces, before two of the town came to us; the noise of our approach had been heard, and all the dogs had been barking for half an hour. Soon after, arrived a son of Negadé Ras Mahomet, who assured us all was in peace; that they had been expecting us and Ayto Adigo with us; that he heard nothing of Guebra Mehedin, only that he had retreated with great precipitation homewards across the plain, as they apprehended, from fear of the approach of our party. He had, indeed, for some days, been guilty of great irregularities; had slain two men, and wounded the son of Mahomet, the Shum, or chief of Alata, in attempting to take from him the revenue due from that territory to the king; after which they had been beat back by Mahomet without their booty, and nothing more was known of them.
This brought us to Negadè Ras Mahomet’s house, who killed a cow for Netcho, or rather allowed him to kill one for himself; for it is equal to a renunciation of Christianity to eat meat when the beast is slaughtered by a Mahometan. Strates, who from his infancy, in his own country, had fared on nothing else, was not so scrupulous, though he concealed it; he therefore had a very hearty supper privately with Negadé Ras Mahomet and his family, who very willingly promised to get his new cloaths ready by the next morning.
As I was myself, however, full of thoughts upon the difficulties and dangers I was already engaged in, and of the prospect of still greater before me, I had no stomach for either of their suppers, but ordered some coffee, and went to bed. After I lay down I desired Negadè Ras Mahomet to come to me, and, when we were alone, I interrogated him if he knew any thing of the rebellion in Begemder. At first he declared he did not; he laughed at the notion of Guebra Mehedin and Confu being Fit-Auraris to Gusho and Powussen, and said, that either of these generals would hang them the first time they came into their hands. He told me, however, that Woodage Asahel had been assembling troops, and had committed some cruelties upon the king’s servants in Maitsha; but this, he imagined, was at the instigation of Fasil, for he never was known to have been connected either with Powussen or Gusho. He told me after, under the seal of secrecy, that Ras Michael had halted two days at Derdera; that, upon a message he had received from Begemder, he had broke out into violent passions against Gusho and Powussen, calling them liars and traitors, in the openest manner; that a council had been held at Derdera, in presence of the king, where it was in deliberation whether the army should not turn short into Begemder, to force that province to join them; but that it was carried, for the sake of the Agows, to send Powussen a summons to join him for the last time: that, in the mean while, they should march straight with the greatest diligence to meet Fasil, and give him battle, then return, and reduce to proper subordination both Begemder and Amhara.
This was the very worst news I could possibly receive according to the resolutions that I had then taken, for I was within about fourteen miles of the great cataract, and it was probable I never again should be so near, were it even always accessible; to pass, therefore, without seeing it, was worse, in my own thoughts, than any danger that could threaten me.