Ammonios was a man of approved courage and conduct, and had been in all the wars of Ras Michael, and was placed about Ayto Confu, to lead the troops, curb the presumption, and check the impetuosity of that youthful warrior. He was tall, and aukwardly made; slow in speech and motion, so much as even to excite ridicule; about sixty years of age, and more corpulent than the Abyssinians generally are; in a word, as pedantic and grave in his manner as it is possible to express. He spent his whole leisure time in reading the scripture, nor did he willingly discourse of any thing else. He had been bred a foot-soldier; and, though he rode as well as many of the Abyssinians, yet, having long stirrup-leathers, with iron rings at the end of them, into which he put his naked toe only, instead of stirrups, he had no strength or agility on horseback, nor was his bridle such as could command his horse to stop, or wind and turn sharply among trees, though he might make a tolerable figure on a plain.
A Boar, roused on our right, had wounded a horse and a footman of Ayto Confu, and then escaped. Two buffaloes were found by those on the right, one of which wounded a horse likewise. Ayto Confu, Engedan, Guebra Mariam, and myself, killed the other with equal share of merit, without being in any sort of danger. All this was in little more than an hour, when our sport seemed to be at the best; our horses were considerably blown, not tired, and though we were beating homewards, still we were looking very keenly for more game. Ammonios was on the left among the bushes, and some large, beautiful, tall spreading-trees, close on the banks of the river Bedowi, which stands there in pools. Whether the buffalo found Ammonios, or Ammonios the buffalo, is what we could never get him to explain to us; but he had wounded the beast slightly in the buttock, which, in return, had gored his horse, and thrown both him and it to the ground. Luckily, however, his cloak had fallen off, which the buffalo tore in pieces, and employed himself for a minute with that and with the horse, but then left them, and followed the man as soon as he saw him rise and run. Ammonios got behind one large tree, and from that to another still larger. The buffalo turned very aukwardly, but kept close in pursuit; and there was no doubt he would have worn our friend out, who was not used to such quick motion. Ayto Engedan, who was near him, and might have assisted him, was laughing, ready to die at the droll figure a man of Ammonios's grave carriage made, running and skipping about naked, with a swiftness he had never practised all his life before; and Engedan continued calling to Confu to partake of the diversion.
The moment I heard his repeated cries, I galloped out of the bushes to the place where he was, and could not help laughing at the ridiculous figure of our friend, very attentive to the beast's motions, which seemed to dodge with great address, and keep to his adversary with the utmost obstinacy. As soon as Engedan saw me, he cried, "Yagoube! for the love of Christ! for the love of the blessed Virgin! don't interfere till Confu comes up." Confu immediately arrived, and laughed more than Engedan, but did not offer to interfere; on the contrary, he clapped his hands, and cried, "Well done, Ammonios," swearing he never saw so equal a match in his life. The unfortunate Ammonios had been driven from tree to tree, till he had got behind one within a few yards of the water; but the brush-wood upon the banks, and his attention to the buffalo, hindered him from seeing how far it was below him. Nothing could be more ridiculous than to see him holding the tree with both his hands, peeping first one way, and then another, to see by which the beast would turn. And well he might be on his guard; for the animal was absolutely mad, tossing up the ground with his feet both before and behind. "Sir, said I, to Ayto Confu, this will be but an ugly joke to-night, if we bring home that man's corpse, killed in the very midst of us, while we were looking on." Saying this, I parted at a canter behind the trees, crying to Ammonios to throw himself into the water, when I should strike the beast; and seeing the buffalo's head turned from me, at full speed I ran the spear into the lower part of his belly, through his whole intestines, till it came out above a foot on the other side, and there I left it, with a view to hinder the buffalo from turning. It was a spear which, though small in the head, had a strong, tough, seasoned shaft, which did not break by striking it against the trees and bushes, and it pained and impeded the animal's motions, till Ammonios quitting the tree, dashed through the bushes with some difficulty, and threw himself into the river. But here a danger occurred that I had not foreseen. The pool was very deep, and Ammonios could not swim; so that though he escaped from the buffalo, he would infallibly have been drowned, had he not caught hold of some strong roots of a tree shooting out of the bank; and there he lay in perfect safety from the enemy, till our servants went round, and brought him out of the pool on the further side.
In the mean time, the buffalo, mortally wounded, seeing his enemy had escaped, kept his eyes intent upon us, who were about forty yards from him, walking backwards towards us, with intent to turn suddenly upon the nearest horse; when Ayto Confu ordered two men with guns to shoot him through the head, and he instantly fell. The two we first killed were females; this last was a bull, and one of the largest, confessedly, that had ever been seen. Though not fat, I guess he weighed nearer fifty than forty stone. His horns from the root, following the line of their curve, were about fifty-two inches, and nearly nine where thickest in the circumference. They were flat, not round. Ayto Confu ordered the head to be cut off, and cleared of its flesh, so that the horns and skeleton of the head only remained; this he hung up in his great hall among the probosces of elephants, and horns of rhinoceroses, with this inscription in his own language, "Yogoube the Kipt killed this upon the Bedowi."
We were now within sight of home, to which we went straight without further hunting. Neither the ridicule nor the condolence of the young men could force one word from Ammonios; only when I asked him whether or not he was hurt, he answered from the scripture, "He that loveth danger shall perish in it." But at night Ozoro Esther, either really or feignedly, expressing herself as displeased with her son Ayto Confu, Ammonios, who loved the young man sincerely, could not bear to be the occasion of this; so that all resolved itself into mirth and joke. What added to the merriment was, that the messengers from the Iteghé brought a large increase to our stock of brandy; but brought also positive orders, both from her and the king, to Ozoro Esther, to determine me, by all possible means, to return to Gondar, or else to repair thither instantly herself.
The evening of the day whereon we set out to hunt, some men arrived from Ras el Feel, sent by Yasine, with camels for our baggage, nothing but mules being used at Tcherkin. They brought word, that the Shangalla were down near the Tacazzé, so that now was the time to pass without fear; that Abd el Jeleel, the former Shum of Ras el Feel, Yasine's mortal enemy, had been seen lurking in the country near Sancaho; but as he had only four men, and was himself a known coward, it was not probable he would attempt any thing against us, though it would be always better that we keep on our guard.
Tcherkin has a market on Saturdays, in which raw cotton, cattle, honey, and coarse cotton cloths are sold. The Shangalla formerly molested Tcherkin greatly, but for thirty years past they had done little damage. The small-pox raged so violently for a number of years among them, that it has greatly diminished their numbers, and consequently their power of troubling their neighbours. At Tcherkin we saw a prodigious quantity of black scorpions, of a very small kind, seldom in the houses, but chiefly hid under stones; several of our people were stung by them, but no other mischief followed, but a small swelling, and a complaint of cold in the part, which went away in a few hours.
From the descent of Moura, after leaving Debra Tzai, and Koscam, all was thick woods till we arrived at Tcherkin; the roads very rugged and broken, but the weather was exceedingly pleasant; for though the thermometer was sometimes at 115°, it was always cool in the shade; and by the side of every river there was a fresh gentle breeze from N. E. especially at mid-day. The mornings were always calm, or with little wind at N. E. It regularly changed about nine to N. W. and then fell calm. About four in the afternoon it generally was at west or near it; but two currents were constantly distinguished at night; the lower N. E. veering easterly towards morning; while the white small clouds very thin and high, coming very rapidly from the S. W. shewed the direction and strength of the higher current. The mornings and nights were cloudy from the first of January, but the days perfectly serene.
On Wednesday the eighth of January, having rectified my quadrant with great attention, I found the latitude of Tcherkin, by a meridian altitude of the sun, to be 13° 7´ 30´´ N.; and taking a mean between that and the meridian altitude of eleven different stars, the following night, I found the true latitude of Tcherkin Amba to be 13° 7´ 35´´ north. But though from that time I was ready to depart, I could not possibly get disengaged from my friends, but by a composition, which was, that I should stay till the 15th, the day before Ozoro Esther and her company were to set out on their return to Gondar; and that they, on their part, should suffer me to depart on that day, without further perswasion, or throwing any obstacle whatever in my way. The king had recommended to them this sort of agreement, if I was obstinate, and this being settled, we abandoned ourselves to mirth and festivity.