Negade Ras Mahomet was a sober plain man, of excellent understanding, and universal good character for truth and integrity; and, as such, very much in the favour both of the King and Ras Michael. I therefore opened my intentions to him without reserve, desiring his advice how to manage this excursion to the cataract. “Unless you had told me you was resolved, says he, with a grave air, though full of openness and candour, I would, in the first place, have advised you not to think of such an undertaking; these are unsettled times; all the country is bushy, wild, and uninhabited, quite to Alata; and though Mahomet, the Shum, is a good man, my friend and relation, and the king reposes trust in him, as he does in me, yet Alata itself is at any time but a bad, straggling place, there are now many strangers, and wild people there, whom Mahomet has brought to his assistance, since Guebra Mehedin made the attack upon him. If, then, any thing was to befal you, what should I answer to the king and the Iteghè? it would be said, the Turk has betrayed him; though, God knows, I was never capable of betraying your dog, and rather would be poor all my life, than the richest man of the province by doing the like wrong, even if the bad action was never to be revealed, or known, unless to my own heart.”
“Mahomet, said I, you need not dwell on these professions; I have lived twelve years with people of your religion, my life always in their power, and I am now in your house, in preference to being in a tent out of doors with Netcho and his Christians. I do not ask you whether I am to go or not, for that is resolved on; and, tho’ you are a Mahometan, and I a Christian, no religion teaches a man to do evil. We both agree in this, that God, who has protected me thus far, is capable to protect me likewise at the cataract, and farther, if he has not determined otherwise, for my good; I only ask you as a man who knows the country, to give me your best advice, how I may satisfy my curiosity in this point, with as little danger, and as much expedition as possible, leaving the rest to heaven.”—“Well, says he, I shall do so. I think, likewise, for your comfort, that, barring unforeseen accidents, you may do it at this time, without great danger. Guebra Mehedin will not come between this town and Alata, because we are all one people, and the killing two men, and wounding Mahomet’s son, makes him a dimmenia[115]. At Alata he knows the Shum is ready to receive him as he deserves, and he is himself afraid of Kasmati Ayabdar, with whom he is as deep in guilt as with us, and here he well knows he dare not venture for many reasons.” “Ayabdar, said I, passed the Karoota three days ago.” “Well, well, replied Mahomet, so much the better. Ayabdar has the leprosy, and goes every year once, sometimes twice, to the hot wells at Lebec; they must pass near one another, and that is the reason Guebra Mehedin has assembled all these banditti of horse about him. He is a beggar, and a spendthrift; a fortnight ago he sent to me to borrow twenty ounces of gold. You may be sure I did not lend it him; he is too much in my debt already; and I hope Ras Michael will give you his head in your hand before winter, for the shameful action he has been guilty of to you and yours this day.”
“Woodage Asahel, said I, what say you of him?”—“Why, you know, replied Mahomet, nobody can inform you about his motions, as he is perpetually on horseback, and never rests night nor day; however, he has no business on this side of the water, the rather that he must be sure Ras Michael, when he passed here, took with him all the king’s money that I had in my hands. When day-light is fairly come, for we do not know the changes a night may produce in this country, take half a dozen of your servants; I will send with you my son and four of my servants; you will call at Alata, go down and see the cataract, but do not stay, return immediately, and, Ullah Kerim, God is merciful.”
I thanked my kind landlord, and let him go; but recollecting, called him again, and asked, “What shall I do with Netcho? how shall I rejoin him? my company is too small to pass Maitsha without him.”—“Sleep in peace, says he, I will provide for that. I tell you in confidence, the king’s money is in my hands, and was not ready when the Ras passed; my son is but just arrived with the last of it this evening, tired to death; I send the money by Netcho, and my son too, with forty stout fellows well armed, who will die in your service, and not run away like those vagabond Christians, in whom you must place no confidence if danger presents itself, but immediately throw yourself among the Mahometans. Besides, there are about fifty soldiers, most of them from Tigré, Michael’s men, that have been loitering here these two days. It was one of these that fired the gun just before you came, which alarmed Netcho; so that, when you are come back in safety from the cataract, they shall be, by that time, all on their march to the passage. My son shall mount with you; I fear the Nile will be too deep, but when once you are at Tsoomwa, you may set your mind at rest, and bid defiance to Woodage Asahel, who knows his enemy always before he engages him, and at this time will not venture to interrupt your march.”
As I have mentioned the name of this person so often, it will be necessary to take notice, that he was by origin a Galla, but born in Damot, of the clan Elmana, or Densa, two tribes settled there in the time of Yasous I. that he was the most intrepid and active partizan in his time, and had an invincible hatred to Ras Michael, nor was there any love lost betwixt them. It is impossible to conceive with what velocity he moved, sometimes with 200 horse, sometimes with half that number. He was constantly falling upon some part of Michael’s army, whether marching or encamped; the blow once struck, he disappeared in a minute. When he wanted to attempt something great, he had only to summon his friends and acquaintance in the country, and he had then a little army, which dispersed as soon as the business was done. It was Ras Michael’s first question to the spies; Where was Woodage Asahel last night? a question they very seldom could answer with certainty. He was in his person too tall for a good horseman, yet he was expert in this qualification by constant practice. His face was yellow, as if he had the jaundice, and much pitted with the small-pox; his eyes staring, but fiery; his nose as it were broken, his mouth large, his chin long and turned up at the end; he spoke very fast, but not much, and had a very shy, but ill-designing look. In his character, he was avaricious, treacherous, inexorable, and cruel to a proverb; in short, he was allowed to be the most merciless robber and murderer that age had produced in all Abyssinia.
Wearied with thinking, and better reconciled to my expedition, I fell into a sound sleep. I was awakened by Strates in the morning, (the 21st of May) who, from the next room, had heard all the conversation between me and Negadé Ras, and began now to think there was no safety but in the camp of the king. I will not repeat his wise expostulations against going to the cataract. We were rather late, and I paid little regard to them. After coffee, I mounted my horse, with five servants on horseback, all resolute, active, young fellows, armed with lances in the fashion of their country. I was joined that moment by a son of Mahomet, on a good horse, armed with a short gun, and pistols at his belt, with four of his servants, Mahometans, stout men, each having his gun, and pistols at his girdle, and a sword hung over his shoulder, mounted upon four good mules, swifter and stronger than ordinary horses. We galloped all the way, and were out of sight in a short time. We then pursued our journey with diligence, but not in a hurry; we went first to a hilly and rocky country, full of trees, mostly of unknown kinds, and all of the greatest beauty possible, having flowers of a hundred different colours and forms upon them, many of the trees were loaded with fruit, and many with both fruit and flowers. I was truly sorry to be obliged to pass them without more distinct notice; but we had no time, as the distance to the cataract was not absolutely certain, and the cataract then was our only object.
After passing the plain, we came to a brisk stream which rises in Begemder, passes Alata, and throws itself into the Nile below the cataract. They told me it was called Mariam Ohha; and, a little farther, on the side of a green hill, having the rock appearing in some parts of it, stands Alata, a considerable village, with several smaller, to the south and west. Mahomet, our guide, rode immediately up to the house where he knew the governor, or Shum, resided, for fear of alarming him; but we had already been seen at a considerable distance, and Mahomet and his servants known. All the people of the village surrounded the mules directly, paying each their compliments to the master and the servants; the same was immediately observed towards us; and, as I saluted the Shum in Arabic, his own language, we speedily became acquainted. Having overshot the cataract, the noise of which we had a long time distinctly heard, I resisted every entreaty that could be made to me to enter the house to refresh myself. I had imbibed part of Strates’s fears about the unsettledness of the times, and all the kind invitations were to no purpose; I was, as it were, forced to comply to refresh our horses.
I happened to be upon a very steep part of the hill full of bushes; and one of the servants, dressed in the Arabian fashion, in a burnoose, and turban striped white and green, led my horse, for fear of his slipping, till it got into the path leading to the Shum’s door. I heard the fellow exclaiming in Arabic, as he led the horse, “Good Lord! to see you here! Good God! to see you here!”—“I asked him who he was speaking of, and what reason he had to wonder to see me there.”—“What! do you not know me!” “I said I did not.”—“Why, replied he, I was several times with you at Jidda. I saw you often with Capt. Price and Capt. Scott, with the Moor Yasine, and Mahomet Gibberti. I was the man that brought your letters from Metical Aga at Mecca, and was to come over with you to Masuah, if you had gone directly there, and had not proceeded to Yemen or Arabia Felix. I was on board the Lion, with the Indian nokeda (so they call the captain of a country ship) when your little vessel, all covered with sail, passed with such briskness through the English ships, which all fired their cannon; and everybody said, there is a poor man making great haste to be assassinated among those wild people in Habesh; and so we all thought. He concluded, Drink! no force! Englishman! very good! G—d damn, drink!” We had just arrived, while my friend was uttering these exclamations, at the place where the Shum and the rest were standing. The man continued repeating the same words, crying as loud as he could, with an air of triumph, while I was reflecting how shameful it was for us to make these profligate expressions by frequent repetition, so easily acquired by strangers that knew nothing else of our language.
The Shum, and all about him, were in equal astonishment at seeing the man, to all appearance, in a passion, bawling out words they did not understand; but he, holding a horn in his hand, began louder than before, drink! very good! Englishman! shaking the horn in the Shum his master’s face. Mahomet of Alata was a very grave, composed man; “I do declare, says he, Ali is become mad: Does anybody know what he says or means?”—“That I do, said I, and will tell you bye-and-bye; he is an old acquaintance of mine, and is speaking English; let us make a hasty meal, however, with any thing you have to give us.”
Our horses were immediately fed; bread, honey, and butter served: Ali had no occasion to cry, drink; it went about plentifully, and I would stay no longer, but mounted my horse, thinking every minute that I tarried might be better spent at the cataract. The first thing they carried us to was the bridge, which consists of one arch of about twenty-five feet broad, the extremities of which were strongly let into, and rested on the solid rock on both sides; but fragments of the parapets remained, and the bridge itself seemed to bear the appearance of frequent repairs, and many attempts to ruin it; otherwise, in its construction, it was exceedingly commodious. The Nile here is confined between two rocks, and runs in a deep trough, with great roaring and impetuous velocity. We were told no crocodiles were ever seen so high, and were obliged to remount the stream above half a mile before we came to the cataract, through trees and bushes of the same beautiful and delightful appearance with those we had seen near Dara.