The cataract itself was the most magnificent sight that ever I beheld. The height has been rather exaggerated. The missionaries say the fall is about sixteen ells, or fifty feet. The measuring is, indeed, very difficult, but, by the position of long sticks, and poles of different lengths, at different heights of the rock, from the water’s edge, I may venture to say that it is nearer forty feet than any other measure. The river had been considerably increased by rains, and fell in one sheet of water, without any interval, above half an English mile in breadth, with a force and noise that was truly terrible, and which stunned and made me, for a time, perfectly dizzy. A thick fume, or haze, covered the fall all round, and hung over the course of the stream both above and below, marking its track, though the water was not seen. The river, though swelled with rain, preserved its natural clearness, and fell, as far as I could discern, into a deep pool, or bason, in the solid rock, which was full, and in twenty different eddies to the very foot of the precipice, the stream, when it fell, seeming part of it to run back with great fury upon the rock, as well as forward in the line of its course, raising a wave, or violent ebullition, by chaffing against each other.
Jerome Lobo pretends, that he has sat under the curve, or arch, made by the projectile force of the water rushing over the precipice. He says he sat calmly at the foot of it, and looking through the curve of the stream, as it was falling, saw a number of rainbows of inconceivable beauty in this extraordinary prism. This however I, without hesitation, aver to be a downright falsehood. A deep pool of water, as I mentioned, reaches to the very foot of the rock, and is in perpetual agitation. Now, allowing that there was a seat, or bench, which there is not, in the middle of the pool, I do believe it absolutely impossible, by any exertion of human strength, to have arrived at it. Although a very robust man, in the prime and vigour of life, and a hardy, practised, indefatigable swimmer, I am perfectly confident I could not have got to that seat from the shore through the quietest part of that bason. And, supposing the friar placed in his imaginary seat under the curve of that immense arch of water, he must have had a portion of firmness, more than falls to the share of ordinary men, and which is not likely to be acquired in a monastic life, to philosophise upon optics in such a situation, where every thing would seem to his dazzled eyes to be in motion, and the stream, in a noise like the loudest thunder, to make the solid rock (at least as to sense) shake to its very foundation, and threaten to tear every nerve to pieces, and to deprive one of other senses besides that of hearing. It was a most magnificent sight, that ages, added to the greatest length of human life, would not deface or eradicate from my memory; it struck me with a kind of stupor, and a total oblivion of where I was, and of every other sublunary concern. It was one of the most magnificent, stupendous sights in the creation, though degraded and vilified by the lies of a groveling, fanatic peasant.
I was awakened from one of the most profound reveries that ever I fell into, by Mahomet, and by my friend Drink, who now put to me a thousand impertinent questions. It was after this I measured the fall, and believe, within a few feet, it was the height I have mentioned; but I confess I could at no time in my life less promise upon precision; my reflection was suspended, or subdued, and while in sight of the fall I think I was under a temporary alienation of mind; it seemed to me as if one element had broke loose from, and become superior to all laws of subordination; that the fountains of the great deep were extraordinarily opened, and the destruction of a world was again begun by the agency of water.
It was now half an hour past one o’clock, the weather perfectly good; it had rained very little that day, but threatened a showery evening; I peremptorily refused returning back to Alata, which our landlord importuned us to. He gave us a reason that he thought would have weight with us, that he, too, had his meery, or money, to send to the king, which would be ready the next morning as early as we pleased. The mention of to-morrow morning brought all my engagements and their consequences into my mind, and made me give a flat refusal, with some degree of peevishness and ill-humour. I had soon after found, that he had otherwise made up this affair with Mahomet our guide; but being resolute, and, a moment after, taking leave of our kind Shum, we were joined by Seide his eldest son, and our English friend Drink, each upon a mule, with two servants on foot, his father, as he said, being unwilling to spare more people, as the whole inhabitants of Alata, their neighbours and friends, intended soon to surprise Guebra Mehedin, if a feasible opportunity offered.
Though we went briskly, it was past five before we arrived at Dara. Netcho had not stirred, and had procured another cow from Mahomet, of which all the strangers, and soldiers who remained, partook. Mahomet, I believe, out of kindness to me, had convinced them of the necessity of taking along with them the Shum of Alata’s money; and Netcho well knew that those who brought any part of the revenue to Ras Michael were always received kindly; and he was not interested enough in the cause to make more haste than necessary to join the king.
Strates was completely cloathed, and received his sash upon my arrival. He feigned to be wonderfully hurt at my having left him behind in my excursion to the cataract. At supper I began to question him, for the first time, what had happened to him with Guebra Mehedin. “Sure, Strates, said I, you two were once friends; I have dined with you together many a time at Ayto Engedan’s, and often seen you with him in Gondar.”—“Gondar! says he, I have known him these fourteen years, when he was a child in his father Basha Eusebius’s house; he was always playing amongst us at his uncle Kasmati Eshté’s; he was just one of us; nay, he is not now twenty-six.”
Strates proceeded—“We were crossing the plain below Dara, and not being inclined to go into the town without you, we made to a large daroo-tree, and sat down to rest ourselves till you should come up. As the ground was somewhat elevated, we saw several horses in the bed of a torrent where there was no water running, and, when these were pulled up the bank, their masters got immediately upon them. I conceived the one with the red sash upon his head was Guebra Mehedin, and presently eight or ten naked people, armed with lances and shields, came out of the hole nearest me. I was surprised, and thought they might be robbers, and, kneeling down upon one knee, I presented the large blunderbuss at them. On this they all ran back to their hole, and fell flat on their faces; and they did well; I should have given them a confounded peppering.”—“Certainly, said I, there is little doubt of that.”—“You may laugh, continued Strates, but the first thing I saw near me was Confu and Guebra Mehedin, the one with a red, the other a kind of white fillet tied round his forehead. O ho! friend, says Guebra Mehedin, where are you going? and held out his hand to me as kindly, familiarly, and chearfully as possible. I immediately laid down my blunderbuss, and went to kiss his hand. You know they are the good old queen’s nephews; and I thought if their house was near we should have good entertainment, and some merriment that night. I then saw one of their servants lift the blunderbuss from the ground, but apparently with fear, and the rest took possession of the mules and baggage. I began to ask Guebra Mehedin what this meant? and said accidentally, ente you! instead of speaking it entow, as you know they pronounce it to great people. Without further provocation he gave me a lash with his whip across the eyes, another behind took hold of your sword that was flung upon my shoulders, and would have strangled me with the cord if I had not fallen backwards; they all began then to strip me. I was naked in a minute as I was the hour I was born, having only this night-cap; when one of them, a tall black fellow, drew a crooked knife, and proposed to pay me a compliment that has made me shudder every time I have since thought of it. I don’t know what would have been the end of it, if Confu had not said, Poh! he is a white man, and not worth the scarifying: Let us seek his master, says Guebra Mehedin, he will by this have passed the Gomara; he has always plenty of gold both from the king and Iteghé, and is a real Frank, on which account it would be a sin to spare him. On this away they went skirmishing about the plain. Horsemen came to join them from all parts, and every one that passed me gave me a blow of some kind or other. None of them hurt me very much, but, no matter; I may have my turn: we shall see what figure he will make before the Iteghé some of these days, or, what is better, before Ras Michael.”
“That you shall never see, says Negadé Ras Mahomet, who entered the room in the instant, for there is a man now without who informs us that Guebra Mehedin is either dead or just a-dying. A shot fired at him, by one of you at the Gomara, cut off part of his cheek-bone; the next morning he heard that Kasmati Ayabdar was going to the hot waters at Lebec with servants only, and the devil to whom he belonged would not quit him; he would persist, ill as he was, to attack Ayabdar, who having, unknown to him, brought a number of stout fellows along with him, without difficulty cut his servants to pieces. In the fray, Tecla Georgis, a servant who takes care of Ayabdar’s horse, coming up with Guebra Mehedin himself, hurt as he was, struck him over the skull with a large crooked knife like a hatchet, and left him mortally wounded on the field, whence he was carried to a church, where he is now lying a miserable spectacle, and can never recover.” Strates could hold no longer. He got up and danced as if he had been frantic, sometimes singing Greek songs, at another time pronouncing ten thousand curses, which he wished might overtake him in the other world. For my part, I felt very differently, for I had much rather, considering whose nephew he was, that he should have lived, than to have it said that he received his first wound, not a mortal one, but intended as such, from my hand.