Agriculture there is none. Every man is a merchant, and waxes sufficiently rich on his extensive slave exportations, to import from other climes the produce he requires. An extensive traffic is carried on with Aussa and Abyssinia, in which nearly all are engaged at some period of the year. Indian and Arabian manufactures, pewter, zinc, copper and brass wire, beads, and salt in large quantities, are at these inland marts exchanged for slaves, grain, ivory, and other produce of the interior,—salt and human beings forming, however, the chief articles of barter. Virgin Mary German crowns of Maria Theresa, 1780, as integrals, and strips of raw hide for sandal soles, as fractionals, form the currency of the sea-port; beads, buttons, mirrors, trinkets, empty bottles, snuff, and tobacco, for which latter there is an universal craving, being also received in exchange for the necessaries of life.
Avarice is the ruling passion—the salient point in the character of the Dankáli. His whole soul is engrossed in amassing wealth, whilst he is by nature indolent and lazy, and would fain acquire riches without treading the laborious uphill path towards their attainment. Miserly in disposition, there is not an individual of the whole community, from the Sultán downwards, who would not infinitely prefer the present receipt of two pieces of silver, to a promissory note for twenty at the expiration of a week, upon the very best security. “Trees attain not to their growth in a single day,” remarked Ali Shermárki, after remonstrating with the grasping ruler on his inordinate love of lucre—“take the tree as your text, and learn that property is only to be accumulated by slow degrees.”
“True,” retorted the old miser—“but, Sheikh, you must have lost sight of the fact, that my leaves are already withered, and that if I would be rich I have not a moment to lose.”
Volume One—Chapter Nine.
Foretaste of Danákil Knavery.
A share of thirty thousand German crowns, the annual profits accruing from the sale of three thousand human beings kidnapped in the interior, renders every native of Tajúra a man of competent independence. It is not, therefore, surprising that the usual rates of transport hire, added to a knowledge of the exigencies of the Embassy, should have produced in this avaricious, but indolence-loving race, no particular desire to bestir themselves. All are camel-owners to a greater or less extent; but the presence of so many interested parties tended not a little to increase the difficulties inseparable from dealings with so listless and dilatory a set of savages—it being of course requisite to consult the advantage of all, to which, as might be conjectured, all are most feelingly alive. The ashes of ancient feuds were still smoking on the arrival of the British; and notwithstanding that it was matter of notoriety that the amount disbursed at the time of departure for Shoa, would be diminished in the exact ratio of the delay experienced—and although, to judge from the surface, affairs looked prosperous enough towards the speedy completion of carriage, there was ever an adverse under-current setting; and the apathy of the savage feeding upon listless delays, the party were doomed for a weary fortnight to endure the merciless heat of the Tajúra sun, whose tardy departure was followed by a close muggy atmosphere, only occasionally alleviated by the bursting of a thunder-storm over the peak of Jebel Goodah, and to be perpetually deceived by the falsest promises, without being able to discover where to lay the blame. Bribes were lavished, increased hire acceded to, and camels repeatedly brought into the town; but day after day found the dupes to Danákil knavery still seated like shipwrecked mariners upon the shore, gazing in helpless melancholy at endless bales which strewed the strand, as if washed up by the waves of the fickle ocean.
During this tedious detention, which, as the sun shone fiercer and the close nights grew hotter with the rapidly advancing season, waxed daily more irksome and insupportable, and even threatened to arrest the journey altogether, the most conflicting accounts were received from various interested parties, of the actual extent of the Sultán’s jurisdiction, averred by himself to have no limits nearer than the frontier of Efát. His revenues were ascertained to be restricted to two hundred head of oxen, camels, sheep, and goats, paid annually by the adjacent Danákil tribes, and it was certain that he enjoyed circumscribed prerogatives, based upon ancient usage; but although nothing is done or undertaken, without his concurrence duly obtained, he possesses no discretion to punish disobedience of his will, and is precluded from acting in the most trivial matter without the consent in full conclave, of the majority of the chiefs. Possessing little or no power over his nominal subjects, he is merely a puppet, looked up to by the wild tribes as the head of the principal family—infirmity and utter imbecility of character rendering His Highness at the same time, little better than a laughing-stock.
Faithless and rapacious, his insatiable avarice induced him to take every extortionate advantage of the helpless party at his mercy, whilst his tottering sway debarred him the power of reserving to himself the exclusive right of pillage. Private as well as public kaláms were daily held for hours at the sacred threshold of the mosque, during which new schemes of villainy and plunder were devised; and date leaves were indolently plaited by a host of apathetic legislators, as the propriety of permitting the departure inland of the Christian Kafirs was fully discussed and deliberated over with all the vicious bigotry of the Moslem zealot.