As each evening closed, the nobility were to be seen streaming towards our tents from the royal banquet, supported upon their ambling mules by a host of armed and not very sober retainers; and a tribe of ragged pages bringing messages from the palace, accidentally entered at the same time to report the substance of the conversation, although many of the illustrious visitors were absolutely inarticulate. Lances were hurled at a target to the imminent peril of all spectators; and the neck of the vanquished having been duly trampled under foot, according to the ancient Oriental form of military triumph, all who anticipated any difficulty in reaching their own abodes, staggered back to the Gyptzis to laugh at the mad pranks of Dághie, the obsequious court buffoon, and the flower of Abyssinian minstrelsy.
Decked by the favour of the monarch in a shining silver sword, this Merry Andrew, fiddle in hand, came scraping and chanting his way homeward, with eyes sufficiently inflamed to indicate where he had been dining. Kissing the earth as he took his seat in the tent, amid many antics, grimaces, and inquiries, he proceeded to elicit from his instrument imitations of the human voice under various intonations of joy, surprise, and sorrow; and a host of retainers, crowding round the doors with shoulders bared, next shouted their approval to some travestie of the wild Adel slogan, or joined their voices in full chorus to swell the Amhára death triumph, or this, the pibroch of the Nile:—
“The sword is burning for the fight,
And gleams like rays of living light;
Let thoughts of fear inthral the slave—
Rouse to the strife, ye Gojam brave.
“Clustering they come, the Turkish rout
Ring back on high the Amhára shout;
For honour, home, or glorious grave—
Rouse to the strife, ye Gojam brave.
“The sword of Confu leads the war.
And dastard spirits quail afar;
None here to pity, none to save—
Rouse to the strife, ye Gojam brave.
“Our swords in tint shall soon outvie
Yon scabbard of the crimson dye.
And overhead shall ruddy wave—
Rouse to the strife, ye Gojam brave.
“Red as their belts their blood shall flow,
Deep as the hue of sunset glow;
Mercy to none who mercy crave—
Rouse to the strife, ye Gojam brave.”
Pages and abigails were hourly in attendance, on the part of their royal master or mistress, with some rubbish from the palace, which was carefully removed from its red and yellow basket of Guráguê grass, divested of all its numerous wrappers, and confidentially exhibited with an inquiry, sotto voce, “whether more of the same description was not to be obtained?” The outcry raised for detonating caps was wearisome and incessant; for although it was notorious that the royal magazines boasted a hoard sufficient to answer the utmost demand of at least three generations, the king was ever apprehensive of bankruptcy, in event of a quarrel with the Adaïel, “because his own people knew not the road beyond the world of waters.” Thus it happened that Kidána Wold, “the long gunman,” who had charge of the royal armoury, received private instructions to look in at the Residency at least twice a week, with a mamálacha for fifty or a hundred tezábs, and regularly once a month averred that he had been so unfortunate as to drop from his girdle another box of His Majesty’s patent anticorrosives—a loss which, unless timely repaired, must inevitably result in the forfeiture of his liberty. “The Gaita has discovered my carelessness,” he would add, with tears in his eyes; “and, by Mary, if you don’t help me immediately, I shall be sent to Góncho.” Treble strong canister gunpowder was also in high demand, its superiority over the manufacture of Shoa being admitted even by the maker. But the sulphur monopoly remained as heretofore most jealously guarded. The ill-starred individual who had charge of the mines on the frontier, in an evil hour accepted silver for a lump of the purified commodity, which was required for the cure of applicants having the beggar’s disease; and spies reporting the peculation, the delinquent was condemned to perpetual labour in the hot valleys of Giddem.
This convict was accompanied in his exile by a shrewd lad, who had been detected at the Bool Worki market in giving circulation to two counterfeit dollars. Weeks of incessant toil had enabled him to produce out of a lump of pewter, very creditable imitations of the coinage of Maria Theresa. Every spot and letter had been most closely represented with a punch and file; and the ingenious artist, naturally enough, seemed vastly mortified at the untoward consequences of his labour. “Tell me,” inquired the king, as the culprit was being removed, “how is that machine made which in your country pours out the silver crowns like a shower of rain?”
Architecture now occupied a full share of the royal brain. The hand corn-mills presented by the British Government had been erected within the palace walls, and slaves were turning the wheels with unceasing diligence. “Demetrius the Armenian made a machine to grind corn,” exclaimed His Majesty, in a transport of delight, as the flour streamed upon the floor; “and although it cost my people a year of hard labour to construct, it was useless when finished, because the priests declared it to be the Devil’s work, and cursed the bread. But may Sáhela Selássie die! These engines are the invention of clever heads. Now I will build a bridge over the Beréza, and you shall give me your advice.”
Early the ensuing morning the chief smith was accordingly in attendance with hammer and tongs; and “when the sun said hot,” the pious monarch, having first paid his orisons in the church of the Trinity, proceeded, with all suitable cunning, to plan the projected edifice beneath a fortunate horoscope. Twelve waterways were traced with stones under his skilful superintendence on a site selected after infinite discussion; and in five minutes a train of slaves from the establishment at Debra Berhán were heaping together piles of loose boulders to serve as piers. Splinters of wood connected the roadway, and in three days the structure was complete, its appearance giving promise of what actually happened—demolition within as many short hours, on the very first violent fresh to which the river is subject during the annual rains.
But our predictions of this impending catastrophe were received with an incredulous shake of the head; and my advice that orders should be issued to the Governors on the Nile to keep a vigilant lookout for the upper timbers on their voyage down to Egypt, was followed by a good-humoured laugh and a playful tap on the shoulder of the audacious foreigner, who, to the horror and amazement of the obsequious courtiers, had thus ventured to speak his mind to the despot. In vain was it that I proposed to construct a bridge upon arches which might defy the impetuosity of the torrent. “All my subjects are asses,” retorted His Majesty: “they are idle and lazy, and devoid of understanding. There is not one that will consent to labour, no, not one; and if through your means they should be compelled to perform the task, they would weep, and invoke curses on the name of the Gyptzis. Your corn mills are approved, because they save the women trouble, but by the shades of my ancestors!—a bridge—” Here all sense of the decorum due to the sceptre was forgotten for the moment, and the monarch whistled aloud.
And the king was right. Weaving excepted, which in so cold a climate is an art indispensable to existence, the people of Shoa can hardly be said to practise any manufacture. The raw cotton, which is as cheap as it is excellent and abundant, is, by him who would be clad, handed over with a number of ámoles proportioned to the size of the cloth required. A common bow is used to spread the wool; and the spinning jenny being unknown, the thread is twisted by means of the ancient spindle, to which motion is imparted by a rapid pressure betwixt the left palm and the denuded thigh, whilst the right hand is simultaneously carried upwards for the purpose of “roving.” Time is here held of no account; and female labour having supplied the want of machinery in these preliminary operations, the twist is transferred to a rude locomotive loom, and a warm durable mantle is produced with the aid only of a simple shuttle.
British commerce has not only forced its way, but created markets and customers in many a wilder and more inaccessible portion of the globe than highland Abyssinia, and its operation promises to open the only means of improvement and civilisation. Even in the absence of water carriage, the experience of many years has proved that the living ship of the desert is a machine of transport adequate to the most important traffic; and, if once established, that traffic would in a few years doubtless bind both people and ruler in the strongest chains of personal interest. It would rapidly change the pursuits of the people—convert the rude hut into a comfortable dwelling—limit, if not extinguish, the slave trade with Arabia, and if not reform, at least enlighten, the clouded Christianity of Ethiopia.