The rival armies were on the point of engaging, in the year 1559, when the high priest of Debra Libanos rushed before the emperor to declare a vision, in which the angel Gabriel had warned him not to suffer the king of the church of Ethiopia to expose himself in a needless fight. Thus discouraged, the cowardly Abyssinians instantly fled, leaving Claudius supported only by a handful of Portuguese soldiers, who were soon slain around his person, and he immediately afterwards fell, covered with wounds. His head was cut off, and laid by Noor at the feet of Del Wumbarea, who, in observance of her pledge, became his wife, and with truly savage ferocity commanded the trophy to be suspended by the hair to the branches of a tree before her door, in order that her eyes might continually be gladdened by the sight. It hung in this position during three years, ere it was purchased by an Armenian merchant, who caused it to be interred in the holy sepulchre of Saint Claudius at Antioch; and the name of the hero who had been victorious in every action save that in which he died, has since been enrolled in the voluminous catalogue of Abyssinian saints, where it now occupies a conspicuous place, as the destroyer of Mohammad, surnamed “the Left-handed.”
To the present day the most preposterous legends are believed with reference to the personal prowess of this fierce invader, his gigantic stature, and the colossal size of his steed. He is said to have wielded a brand twenty feet in length; and although it is matter of notoriety that he fell in the manner above narrated, by the hand of a Portuguese soldier, he is represented to have received no fewer than four thousand musket bullets before yielding up the ghost. The supernatural achievements of Graan are handed down to posterity in an extant Amháric volume; and his inroads gave birth in the mind of the people of Shoa to a superstitious dread of the Adaïel, such as was long entertained of the Turks in Northern Europe, and which it has been seen extends even to the warlike monarch.
Volume Two—Chapter Twenty Nine.
Proceedings at Angollála.
Certain Abyssinian potentates of old are recorded by their biographers to have bestowed in religious charity all their worldly substance, saving the crown upon their heads. But such will never be said of Sáhela Selássie, whose endowments, although frequent, are invariably regulated by prudence. Avarice stigmatises his every gift, and even adulterates the incense of his sacrifice. The countless droves of sturdy beeves which now ranged over the royal meadows were daily inspected with evident signs of satisfaction; but whilst the sleekest were distributed over the various pasture-lands, the leanest kine were despatched to the several churches and monasteries, as offerings after the successful campaign.
At this season of rejoicing and festivity, the host of loathsome objects that habitually infest the outer court, or crawl in quest of alms around the precincts of the palace, had increased to a surprising extent, in order to share the royal bounty. Swarms of itinerant paupers, who bivouacked under the old Galla wall, sang psalms and hymns in the streets during the entire night; and long before dawn the clamour commenced around the tents of a throng of mendicants, resembling the inmates of a lazar-house, who, with insolent importunity, reiterated their adjurations for relief by Georgis, Miriam, Michael, and every other saint in the Abyssinian calendar. Many petty pilferings were of course committed by this ragged congregation; and a deputation of the inhabitants of Angollála soon presented a petition to the throne, praying for the dismissal of the vagrants, who had become an intolerable public nuisance.
On the festival of Tekla Haïmanót we received an invitation to witness the distribution of royal alms, which was to be followed by a beggars’ feast. The wonted inmates of the palisaded enclosure were no longer there, but their place was occupied by a shoal of even more wretched beings, just imported with a caravan from Guráguê. Upwards of six hundred slaves, of every age, from childhood to maturity, and most of them in a state of perfect nudity, who had been snatched by the hand of avarice from the fair land of their birth, were here huddled together under the eye of the rover for inspection by the officers of the crown, preparatory to being driven to market; and the forlorn and destitute appearance both of old and young, stamped them objects but too well fitted for participation in the charity of a Christian monarch.
Immediately on our arrival within the court-yard of the palace, we were conducted by the king to the royal bedchamber—a gloomy apartment, lighted chiefly by the blaze of an iron chafing-dish, and shared not only by a Moolo Fálada cat, with a large family of kittens, but by three favourite war-steeds, whose mangers were in close proximity to the well-screened couch. Cleanliness did not characterise the warm curtains; and although cotton cloth had been pasted round the mud walls for the better exclusion of the wind, an air of peculiar discomfort was present. A rickety alga in one corner, a few hassocks covered with black leather, an Ethiopic version of the Psalms of David, and a carpet consisting of withered rushes, were the only furniture; and the dismal aspect of the room was further heightened by the massive doors and treble palisades which protect the slumbers of the suspicious despot. The mystery of our introduction into the precincts of the harem, was presently explained by the appearance of one of the young princes of the blood royal, who had arrived in the course of the morning, and, with eyes veiled, was now led in by a withered eunuch, in order that he might receive medical assistance.