Sometime before I left Gondar I had been threatened with an attack of the dysentery. At my arrival at Hor-Cacamoot it grew worse, and had many unpromising symptoms, when I was cured by the advice and application of a common Shangalla, by means of a shrub called Wooginoos[21], growing very common in those parts, the manner of using which he taught me.
The country, from Tcherkin to Ras el Feel, or Hor-Cacamoot, is all a black earth, called Mazaga, which some authors have taken for the name of the province. However, the word Mazaga, in the language of the country, signifies fat, loose, black earth, or mold, such as all that stripe of land from 13° to 16° of latitude is composed of, at least till you reach to the deserts of Atbara, where the rains end. Ras el Feel is, I suppose, one of the hottest countries in the known world. On the 1st day of March, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Fahrenheit's thermometer, in the shade, was 114° which was at 61° at sun-rise, and 82° at sun-set. And yet this excessive heat did not make a proportional impression upon our feelings. The evenings, on the contrary, rather seemed cold, and we could hunt at mid-day. And this I constantly observed in this sultry country, that, what was hot by the glass, never appeared to carry with it any thing proportionate in our sensations.
Ras el Feel formerly paid 400 ounces of gold, which is 4000 crowns; Sancaho paid 100. But trade having decreased, since the expedition of Yasous II. to Sennaar, without the king's demand being lessened, many people have left it, and are gone to Tcherkin.
I have several times, in the course of this work, taken notice of a black nation called Shangalla, who surround all the N. N. W. and N. E. of Abyssinia, by a belt scarcely sixty miles broad. This is called by the Abyssinians, Kolla, or the Hot Country, which is likewise one of their names for hell. Two gaps, or spaces, made for the sake of commerce, in this belt, the one at Tchelga, the other at Ras el Feel, have been settled and possessed by strangers, to keep these Shangalla in awe; and here the custom-houses were placed, for the mutual interest of both kingdoms, before all intercourse was interrupted by the impolitic expedition of Yasous against Sennaar. Ras el Feel divides this nation of woolly-headed blacks into two, the one west below Kuara, and bordering on Fazuclo (part of the kingdom of Sennaar) as also on the country of Agows. These are the Shangalla that traffic in gold, which they find in the earth, where torrents have fallen from the mountains; for there is no such thing as mines in any part of their country nor any way of collecting gold but this; nor is there any gold found in Abyssinia, however confidently this has been advanced; neither is there gold brought into that kingdom from any other quarter but this which we are now speaking of; notwithstanding all the misrepresentations of the missionaries to make the attempts to subdue this kingdom appear more lucrative and less ridiculous to European princes. The other nation, on the frontiers of Kuara, has Ras el Feel on the east, about three days journey from the Cacamoot. The natives are called Ganjar; a very numerous and formidable nation of hunters, consisting of several thousand horse. The origin of these is said to have been, that when the Funge (or black nation now occupying Sennaar) dispossessed the Arabs from that part of the country, the black-slaves that were in service among these Arabs, all fled and took possession of the districts they now hold; where they have greatly increased in numbers, and continue independent to this day. They are the natural enemies of Ras el Feel, and much blood has been shed between them, from making inroads one upon the other, murdering the men and carrying their women into slavery. Yasine, however, had become too strong for them, by the assistance of Ayto Confu, and they had offered to assist the king at the campaign of Serbraxos. But they were found not fit to be trusted, so were sent away, under pretence that they should attack Coque Abou Barea governor of Kuara for the rebels, and hinder him from coming to their assistance; and even this they did not do.
The title of their chief is Sheba, which signifies the Old Man. His residence is called Cashumo, by his own people; and Dendy Kolla, by the Abyssinians of Kuara. Yasine, however, was now at peace with them, without which our journey would scarce have been possible. Sheba sent his son to see me at Ras el Feel; we thought, at that time, he came as a spy. However, when we departed I gave him a small present; and we swore mutual friendship, that he was to be ready always to fight against my enemies, and that we were to act kindly by each other, though we were to meet, horse to horse, alone in the desert.
Yasine had done every thing, on his part, to secure me a good reception from Fidele Shekh of Atbara. Every assurance possible had been given, and I had before travelled some thousand miles upon much slighter promises, which had, however, been always faithfully kept; so that I did not at all suspect that any thing unfair could be intended me at Teawa, where Fidele resided. But as the loss of life was the consequence of being mistaken, I never did omit any means to double my security.
Mahomet Gibberti, as we have before observed, had already carried a letter of mine from Gondar to his master Metical Aga, Selictarto the Sherriffe of Mecca in Arabia, requesting that he would write to some man of consideration in Sennaar, and, taking it for granted that I was then arrived at Teawa, desire that a servant of the king might be sent to give me safe conduct from that frontier to the capital. Yasine had written to the same effect, directly to Sennaar, and sent a servant of his, who, for security sake, had nothing but the letter and an old ragged cloth about his waist; and he had long ago arrived at Sennaar, the before-named place of his destination.
Among the tribes of Arabs that were protected by Yasine, and furnished with pasture, water, and a market for their cattle, and milk and butter, at Ras el Feel, were the Daveina, by much the most powerful of all the Arabs in Atbara; but they ventured no further southward than Beyla, for fear of the troops of Sennaar.