Stirring scenes in savage lands

by James Greenwood

Although the African warrior has already occupied rather more than his fair share of our space, we must still find room for a description of an Abyssinian chief as he was witnessed by our countryman Mr. Bruce. His name was Guangoul, and he was chief of the eastern Galla. He came one day, accompanied by about 500 foot and 40 horse, to pay his respects to the king. He was a little, thin, cross-made man, of no apparent strength or swiftness, so far as could be conjectured; his legs and thighs being small for his body, and his head large. He was of a yellow, sickly colour, neither black nor brown, had long hair plaited and interwoven with the bowels of oxen, and so knotted and twisted together as to render it impossible to distinguish the hair from the bowels, which hung down in long strings, part before and part behind, forming the most extraordinary ringlets ever seen. He had, likewise, a wreath of ox bowels hung about his neck and several rounds of the same about his middle which served as a girdle, under which was a short cotton cloth dipped in butter, and all his body was wet, and running down with the same. In his country, when he appears in state, the beast he rides upon is a cow. He was then in full dress, and mounted upon one not of the largest size, but which had monstrous horns; and rode without saddle. He had short drawers, which did not reach to the middle of his thighs; his knees, legs, feet, and all his body, being bare. He had a shield of a single hide, warped by the heat in several directions, and much in the shape of a large high-crowned hat. He carried a short lance in his right hand, with an ill-made iron head, and a shaft that seemed to be of thorn-tree, but altogether without ornament, which is seldom the case with the arms of barbarians. Whether it was necessary for poising himself on the sharp ridge of the beast’s back, or whether it was meant for graceful riding, Mr. Bruce could not determine, being quite unskilled in cowmanship; but this barbarian leaned exceedingly backwards, pushing out his belly, and holding his left arm and shield extended on one side, and his right arm and lance in the same way on the other, like wings. The king was seated on his ivory chair, almost in the middle of his tent. The day was very hot, and an intolerable stench announced the approach of the filthy chieftain to all in the tent, before they saw him. The king, when he perceived him coming, was so struck with his whole figure and appearance, that he was seized with an immoderate fit of laughter, which he found it impossible to stifle. He therefore rose from his chair, and ran as fast as he could into another apartment, behind the throne. The savage alighted from his cow, at the door of the tent, with all his tripes about him; and while the officers in attendance were admiring him as a monster, seeing the king’s seat empty, he imagined that it had been prepared for him, and down he sat upon the crimson silk cushion, with the butter running from every part of his body. A general cry of astonishment was raised by every person in the tent, on which he started up; and before he had time to recollect himself, they all fell upon him, and with pushes and blows drove this greasy chieftain to the door of the tent, staring with wild amazement, not knowing what was the matter. It is high treason and punishable with immediate death, to sit down in the king’s chair; and Guangoul owed his life to his ignorance alone. The king had beheld the scene through the curtain; if he laughed heartily in the beginning, he laughed ten times more at the catastrophe. The cushion was thrown away, and a yellow India shawl spread on the ivory stool; and ever afterwards, when it was placed, and the king not there, the stool was turned on its face upon the carpet, to prevent similar accidents.”

Before starting on any war expedition, the Abyssinians, like the ancient Romans, listen for the voice of certain birds, and according to whether their notes are heard on the right hand or on the left, so do they anticipate a prosperous or unfavourable journey. Many expeditions for the purposes of war or hunting are postponed at the moment, when, if undertaken, success seemed nearly certain, simply because a little bird called from the left-hand side at starting. Similarly, many a wife has been kept for several days anxiously expecting her husband because the bird chose to perch on the right hand, the right hand omen being propitious for setting out from home, and left for returning. The black and white falcon, called here gaddy-gaddy, is considered a bird of omen in some parts of Tigre. If this bird fly away at the approach of travellers, the sign is unfavourable, while on the contrary, if it remained perched and looking at them, they count upon a most prosperous journey. “Hunters on the Mareb,” says a recent traveller, “follow much the warning of a small bird as to the direction they should take, and I have known parties turn back from pursuing the fresh trail of a herd of buffaloes and take an opposite direction, merely because its chirp was heard on the wrong side. Once a party of about thirty Barea having been reported to be in the neighbourhood, a large force collected, perhaps a hundred and fifty men; but after arriving in sight of the enemy, the gallant army returned peaceably home, and considered such a course not only justifiable, but right, because when halting to reconnoitre, the omen had been heard on the side favourable to their adversaries. On another occasion I had started on a hunting and foraging expedition, with some fifteen tried and picked men. We had remained a fortnight in the frontier woods, and had seen nothing of the Barea; one day, however, a bird gave us an omen of success, and the night following we discovered their fires on a hill, scarce a mile distant from where we lay. Our party was in a moment on the qui vive, primings were looked to, edges of knives felt, and rubbed on a stone, and each one anticipated the glory he was to gain for himself in butchering a few of the enemy. Some were even so much excited that they began to strut about and count their deeds of valour in expectancy of what they would have to do on their return home, and to use a Yankee expression the whole felt themselves “half froze for hair,” or rather for the still more cruel trophies which Abyssinians take from their slaughtered enemies, But a night bird’s voice settled the whole business, and instead of waiting as had been our intention for a few hours before sunrise to strike the coup, we all sneaked off homeward like so many whipped dogs, for the vain-glory of the warriors had oozed out of their finger ends at this intimation of the beaked augur, that they would be safest in the bosoms of their family circles. In advancing, signs of the Barea were eagerly sought for; in retreating, so great was the panic caused by the unwitting bird, that we kept the sharpest look out lest they should come upon us unawares.”

During his sojourn in Abyssinia, the renowned traveller Bruce found himself on one occasion the guest of a vain, bragging officer of the king’s army, one Guebra Mascal. In Guebra’s estimation no one was so good a fellow or marksman as himself, and when some one happened to praise Mr. Bruce’s skill with the gun, Guebra Mascal greeted the remark with an annoying and contemptuous laugh. Our traveller was angry, and told him, that in his gun the end of a tallow-candle would do greater execution than an iron ball in the best of Guebra Mascal’s, with all his boasted skill. The Abyssinian called him a liar, and a Frank; and, upon his rising, immediately gave him a kick with his foot. Mr. Bruce, in a transport of rage, seized him by the throat, and threw him on the ground. Guebra drew his knife; and attempting our traveller, gave him a slight cut near the crown of his head. Hitherto Mr. Bruce had not struck him; he now wrested the knife from him and struck him on the face so violently with the handle, as to mark him with scars which continued discernible even amid the deep pitting of the small-pox. All was now confusion and uproar. An adventure of so serious a nature overcame the effects of the wine (for there had been drinking) upon our countryman. He wrapped himself in his cloak, returned home, and went to bed. His friends were eager to revenge the insult which he had received; and the first news he heard in the morning was that Guebra Mascal was in irons at the house of the Ras. Mr. Bruce, though still angry, was at a loss what measures to take. The Ras would probably hear his complaints; but his adversary was formidable. Instead, therefore, of demanding justice, Mr. Bruce excused and palliated the conduct of Guebra Mascal, and obtained his liberty.

Mr. Bruce, however, was sensible that the cause of his quarrel with Guebra Mascal was not immediately forgotten at court. The king, one day, asked him whether he was not drunk himself, as well as his opponent, when that quarrel arose. Mr. Bruce replied that he was perfectly sober; for their entertainer’s red wine was finished, and he never willingly drank hydromel. His Majesty, with a degree of keenness, returned: “Did you then soberly say to Guebra Mascal, that an end of a tallow-candle in a gun in your hand would do more execution than an iron bullet in his?” “Certainly, sir, I said so.” “And why?” “Because it was truth.” “With a tallow-candle you can kill a man or a horse?” “Pardon me, sir; your Majesty is now in place of my sovereign; it would be great presumption in me to argue with you, or urge a conversation against an opinion in which you are already fixed.” The king’s kindness and curiosity, and Mr. Bruce’s desire to vindicate himself, carried matters at length so far, that an experiment with a tallow-candle was proposed. Three courtiers brought each a shield; Mr. Bruce charged his gun with a piece of tallow-candle, and pierced through three at once, to the astonishment, and even the confusion, of the Abyssinian monarch and his courtiers. A sycamore table was next aimed at, and as easily perforated as the shields. These feats the simple Abyssinians attributed to the power of magic; but they made a strong impression on the mind of the monarch in favour of our traveller.

Before we quit the subject of Savage Warfare, it may not be out of place to say a word or two concerning the manufacture of savage war tools. Turning back these pages we may find that, as a man of battle, our brother the barbarian, despite his profound ignorance, is by no means a bungling craftsman. His business is to knock his enemy on the head—to knock his life out, in fact; and this operation may be performed as neatly with the iron-wood meré of the New Zealander, or the waddi of the Australian Aborigine, as by a leaden pellet from the mouth of the modern Minié or Whitworth—at least if not as neatly, quite as effectively. The savage has no notion of refinement in killing; give him a revolver, perfected with the very latest improvements, and explain to him how that it will send a man to death with as fine a hole in his carcass that the grim extinguisher of life himself shall be almost puzzled to discover his title to the slain one, and he—the savage—will reject it; it is a “witch thing,” and he would rather let such alone. At the same time, if you will make him the present, untrammelled by conditions, he will accept it; as by thrusting a tough stick up one of the barrels the revolver may be converted into a handy club, with which a man may kill his enemy in such a way that half a glance will show the manner of his death.

The club, then, is the universal weapon among the utterly savage; it is a weapon which may be procured without trouble; a round stone lashed to the end of a stick, the thigh-bone of a buffalo,—anything in fact of a handy length and with a heavy knob to it will suffice. As soon, however, as the savage advances a step—as soon as he learns the nature of iron and what sort of thing a sharp-edged chopper is—his blunt-headed club ceases to give him satisfaction. It is much more satisfying to slash an enemy than to simply bruise him—to poke and stab him full of red holes than to thump him—therefore there follows an immediate demand for sharp spikes and edged knives, and at least one member of every family sets up as a blacksmith.

Papuan Blacksmiths.

But to be a blacksmith in ever so rude and humble a way, certain tools are absolutely necessary; the ambitious one must have a fire, a hammer, an anvil, and last, though most important of all, a pair of bellows. A fire he has; for a hammer his old stone-headed club does service; a handy bit of rock serves as an anvil; it is the bellows which is the toughest obstacle; and there can be little doubt that many a grand notion of blacksmithery has been nipped in the bud because of the projector’s inability to find anything animate or inanimate of so accommodating a nature as to hold and husband for his convenience so slippery a thing as the wind. Wonderful are the devices resorted to, all however more or less tedious and imperfect; of all sorts and sizes, from the bottle-like bag which the blacksmith holds under his arm, extracting therefrom a feeble blast as a Highlander manufactures bag-pipe music, to the elaborate machine in vogue in certain parts of Polynesia. Take that used by the Papuans as an example. Here we find two hollow pillars of wood fixed close together and furnished within a foot of the ground with a connecting pipe terminating in a nozzle. The interior of the pillars are perfectly smooth and furnished each with a “sucker” consisting of a sort of mop of finely-shredded bark; squatting on the top of these pillars the bellows-blower takes the mop-handles in hand and works them up and down, causing a tolerably strong and regular blast to emit from the nozzle.

It is related by the missionary Ellis, that King Pomare entering one day the shed where an European blacksmith was employed, after gazing a few minutes at the work, was so transported at what he saw that he caught up the smith in his arms and, unmindful of the dirt and perspiration inseparable from his occupation, most cordially embraced him, and saluted him according to the custom of the country by touching noses.