The Highlands of Ethiopia

by Sir William Cornwallis Harris

It was at the close of the fifteenth century that Mafoodi, the bigoted king of Hurrur, unfurling the green banner of the Prophet, commenced those devastating inroads upon the frontiers of Shoa, which finally led to the dismemberment of the Ethiopic empire, and proved the greatest calamity that has ever befallen the country. Under a vow that he would annually spend the forty days of Lent among the Abyssinian infidels, he overran Efát and Fátigar when the people, weakened by rigorous fasting, were less capable of bearing arms—burned churches and monasteries, slew without mercy every male who fell in his way, and driving off the women and children, sold some into foreign slavery, and presented others to the Sheriffe of Mecca. Alexander, the then reigning emperor, was assassinated at Tegulet by Za Selássie, commander-in-chief of the royal body-guard, who had been bought over by Mafoodi. The eyeballs of the regicide were seared with a red hot iron; his hands and feet were chopped off; and he was stoned to death amid the curses and execrations of the populace, after he had been paraded on an ass in this mutilated condition throughout Shoa and Amhára.

Debra Berhán is one of the principal depôts for the numerous royal slaves, the possession of whom casts the foulest blot on the character of the Christian monarch. A strange clatter, and a Babel-like mixture of tongues, greets the ear of the visitor, and the features of many races, and of many nations, are distinctly visible among the crowd that throngs the gate, although all are alike enveloped in the disguising costume of Abyssinia.

The huge black Shankela, with blubber lip and bloodshot eye, is resting for a moment against the broken wall, and stretching a brawny limb which might have supported the bully Hercules himself. Grinning from ear to ear as his burly neighbour sports some savage joke in licence unrestrained, he seizes with a three-horse power his bundle of split wood, which two Amhára could with difficulty raise, and poising it like a feather upon his woolly head, walks away in all the vigour of a young giant.

With his own approving eye the monarch has selected this specimen from a lot of powerful negroes captured beyond the Nile, and fifteen silver crowns must not be lightly squandered even by the great sovereign of Southern Abyssinia. Rations are well supplied to support his sinewy form, and unless on a cold raw day, when the soaking rain has penetrated every thread of his black blanket, and his shivering frame brings vividly to mind the difference of climate, the enslaved pagan, in his present condition, as hewer in the royal forests, enjoys himself fully as well as if ranging in savage liberty over his own free country of the sun.

Not so the scowling Galla who follows in his rear. The spirit of roving independence is still unsubdued in his fiery eye; and the slender figure and the bent leg proclaim the wild rider of the grassy plain. Heavy and heartbroken he plods along under a burthen to which his strength is quite inadequate; and the groan escapes from his lips as the bitter thoughts enter his soul of the disgraceful lash of the task-master, that perhaps awaits his return, and he remembers the lost wife and little ones whom he has for ever left on the distant savannahs of the Háwash.

Issuing from the gateway under the authority of a bloated eunuch, a numerous flock of brown damsels take their way to the river. Heavy earthen jars are slung over their slender backs, and the light forms of the unfortunates are little concealed by their torn and scanty attire. These are newly purchased Christians from the last Guráguê caravan, and the language of the Amhára is still strange to their ear. Garlands of the yellow buttercup deck the plaited raven locks of each captive maid, and a plaintive song is chanted in soft mellow notes to beguile the hours of toil. But the lines of slavery have already found place among their youthful features, which possess beauty unknown to those of their oppressors. The low chorus swelling mournful and piteous from the band, has recalled thoughts of home and liberty to the joyless breast; and the sad tear is brushed from the long dark eye-lash at the recollection of happier hours spent in their own sweet land of spices.

Following close behind comes a group of favoured dames of a certain age, from whose minds time has effaced all remembrance of country and of kindred. Exalted to the post of mistresses of the royal brewery, and decked out like the first ladies of the land, in flowing garments resplendent with crimson stripes, they have little reason to wish for a change of condition. Bars and studs of solid silver load their perforated ears, and ponderous pewter bangles encircle each wrist and ankle. Their wigs, arranged according to the most becoming fashion, in minute rows of tiny curls, glisten under a coat of butter, and their fat cheeks, plastered with grease and red pigment, are calculated to strike respect into the heart of the most indifferent beholder. Their unceasing clack and clatter tell the tale of the wonted freedom of female tongue, but the small jar with the green branch protruding from the narrow neck, is strapped over the breast with the thong of slavery; and the attending eunuch, with his long thin wand—an emblem of his own withered person—proclaims the fact that the ladies cannot roam at pleasure over the verdant mead, but must restrict themselves in the beaten path according to the cracked voice of their driver.

Seated upon a gaily caparisoned mule, amidst the jingling of bells and brass ornaments, the general of the gun-men proceeds in state across the green parade. He is attired in the richest garments that the land can produce. A glaring cloth of red silk is wound about his brow, a silver sword decorates his right side, and fifty robed followers attend his every behest. But he too is a slave, as was his father before him, and as his son will be after him. All the bones and sinews of his attendants are the purchased property of the monarch, and it is only by the imperial will and pleasure, which may be changed to-morrow, that he is now ambling in chintz and satin to dine at the royal board, instead of holding place in the foremost group, with a black blanket over his shoulder, and a load of wood upon his head for fuel in the royal kitchen.

Here comes a demure damsel from the harem, disfigured by all the foul garments and native filth which delight the inhabitant of Shoa. It is Wuletta Georgis, one of Her Majesty’s confidential slaves, and she is revolving in her mind, how, in executing her mistress’s commission, she can contrive to promote her own interests. Born and bred in the palace, the Abigail is ordinarily treated with kindness, unless the fracture of a brittle decanter, or the unbidden attack upon some savoury dish, involve a little wholesome correction. Unlike the philosophical maid in Rasselas, who had broken the porcelain cup, she needs pecuniary aid, and thus is her request sobbed out: “Only one dollar to replace the queen’s looking-glass, and may God reward you!” But the sob is evidently assumed for the occasion, and a sly glance may be detected in the corner of her cunning eye, to observe the effect of her false appeal. The full price of the fractured mirror has already been received from three several individuals, and her mistress will assuredly confiscate the profits; but the tenure of property during even one short half hour possesses charms irresistible, and the poor girl falls prostrate on the ground as the silver is dropped into her unwashed fingers.

A last group is straggling through the gateway. The aged and the infirm, who can still perform a light task, have just received their daily dole from the royal storehouse at the niggard hand of the pampered steward. The vigour of their youth has been expended in the service of the despot, and now, in the evening of life, their original scanty pittance is yet further reduced. A wistful glance is cast upon the handful of raw barley, which must content them for the day. Hunger and destitution are painfully portrayed in the deep furrows of each withered face, and the shrunken limb totters as the keen wind whistles through the wet folds of the tattered goat-skin girdle, which reaches barely to the knee. No fostering hand awaits their return to the cheerless hut, to minister in kindness to the necessities of age; and the last closing scene will drop a welcome curtain of repose over sinews ground by indigence and toil, during half a century of hopeless bondage.