In order to ascertain how far fraud and impertinence might be carried with impunity, a deputation of the artful elders beleaguered the pavilion during the dead of night, to complain, in no measured terms, that certain of the followers, regardless of orders, had been seen endeavouring, with beads and trinkets, to betray the virtue of females who drew water at the well—a tale which proved, on due inquiry instituted, to be, like other Danákil asseverations, devoid of the slightest truth or foundation. Not even a paltry water skin was to be purchased from a schoolboy under the disbursement of a silver fuloos, value four sterling shillings; and a courier, who had, at three times the established charge, been furnished on the security of the high and mighty Sultán, to convey to Ankóber a letter advising the King of Shoa of the advent of the Embassy, was, after being three entire days and nights in possession of his ill-gotten wealth, discovered to be still snug within his mat-house, in the bosom of his family.
The letter in question had fixed the day of departure, and had been written in the most public manner before the assembled chiefs, in order, if possible, to counteract in some measure the tissue of underplots hourly developing, and to demonstrate to the Danákil capacity, that, whether camels were forthcoming or not, the journey would positively be undertaken; and the nefarious detention of the document, after the receipt of such exorbitant hire, being perfectly in keeping with the outrageously unprincipled and underhand treatment experienced from the first moment of arrival, the Sultán was at last plainly informed that further shuffling and falsehood would avail him nothing; since, if carriage were not immediately furnished in accordance with the plausible agreement concluded, the heavy baggage would be reshipped for Cape Aden, and the party would advance in defiance of opposition, with ten camels that had been brought by sea from Zeyla, by the nephews of Sheïkh Shermárki. Mohammad Ali, too, was now heart and hand in the cause, and his jealous rival, on receipt of this unpleasant intimation, began plainly enough to perceive that his guests were in right earnest, and that the golden opportunity of filling his coffers was passing rapidly away.
The royal salute, fired alternately from the decks of the brig and the schooner, each tricked out in all her colours, with gay signal flags in honour of the natal day of her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, enveloped the town during forty minutes in a dense white smoke, accompanied by a most unpleasant smell of gunpowder; and during the entire day the beach in front of the British encampment wore the semblance of a disturbed ant-hill. European and native—master and servant—the latter from every nation under the sun, Arab, Persian, Nubian, Armenian, Egyptian, Syrian, Greek, and Portuguese,—all in a state of most active bustle, were selecting light baggage for the approaching departure; whilst crowds of oily savages, squatted on their hams, looked on in smiling apathy at the heaps of valuable commodities that were tossing about the sands. Twenty-one British officers subsequently sate down to dinner in the crimson pavilion, and the health of Queen Victoria having been given with nine times nine, another salute bursting from the sides of the vessels of war, shook the frail town to its foundations, and re-echoed long and loud among the mountain-glens—flights of rockets ascending at short intervals to illumine the dark sky.
The deafening din of the 32 pound stern chaser of the “Constance,” which pointed directly towards the royal abode, proved too much for the nerves of the timid Sultán; and no sooner had the lights been extinguished, than his spectral figure, which ever shunned the day, glided into the tent unannounced, and ghostlike, muttered the agreeable intelligence that His Highness, after consulting the horoscope, and ascertaining beyond all doubt that the journey would prove propitious—a fact not previously determined—had come to the resolution, wise though late, of supplying the desired carriage without further delay, and deputing his own son as a safeguard through the tribes—services for which the apparition felt confident of receiving a suitable reward. The voice of the chieftains had become unanimous. At the last of a long succession of meetings convened for the purpose of taking the affair into full consideration, Abdool Rahmán, the Kázi, in his capacity of lawgiver, had risen from his seat in the assembly, and ably demonstrated to his mat-weaving audience, why all animosities and heart-burnings must be sunk in the general object of making money, and getting rid as expeditiously as possible of a party of Kafirs, whose guns, unshotted, threatened the destruction of the mosque of the true believer, and the total demolition of Tajúra. The Fátheh, being the first chapter of the holy Korán, was duly read, and the Danákil conclave with one voice vociferated a loud Ameen, even so let it be!
Volume One—Chapter Ten.
Long Adieu to the Unprincipled Sultán.
From this eventful epoch each sultry day did indeed bring a numerical accession to the beasts of burthen collected in the town; but they were owned of many and self-willed proprietors; were, generally speaking, of the most feeble description, melancholy contrasts to the gigantic and herculean dromedary of Egypt and Arabia; and no trifling delay was still in store through their arrival from distant pastures bare-backed, which involved the necessity of making up new furniture for the march. The Dankáli saddle is fortunately a simple contrivance; a mat composed of plaited date leaves thrown over the hump, supporting four sticks lashed together in couples, and kept clear of the spinal process by means of two rollers as pads, having been proved by centuries of experience to be not more light than efficient. Accoutrements completed, and camels ready for the march, other provoking excuses for delay were not wanting, to fill, even to overflowing, the measure of annoyance. The demise of a nephew of the Sultán—the protracted funeral obsequies of the deceased—and the almost nightly abstraction of one or more hired camels by the lurking Bedouin, all contributed their mite. At length however no further pretext could be devised, and nine loads being actually in motion towards Ambábo, the first halting ground on the road to the kingdom of Shoa, the schooner “Constance,” getting under weigh, stood up the bay of Tajúra, and cast anchor off the incipient camp, of which the position was denoted by a tall cluster of palms.
Endless objections being now provokingly raised to the shape, size, and weight of the boxes to be transported, it next became requisite to reduce the dimensions of the greater number, in the progress of which operation it was discovered that the hurry of transhipment at Aden had resulted in the substitution of several dozens of choice marasquino, for a similar number of cases, of equal size, freighted with round shot for the galloper-guns. The work in hand was one of no ordinary labour and difficulty; and, after all, its completion proved insufficient to satisfy the parties. One blockhead complained that his load was heavier than his neighbour’s, who had wisely risen earlier in the morning to make his selection; another, that his case, although confessedly light, was not of convenient size; one was too long, another not long enough, a third too deep, and a fourth too loosely packed. From earliest dawn, until final close of day, on a sandy beach, under a broiling sun, was this torment continued without intermission, until the 30th of May, when, by dint of coaxing, menacing, and bribing, every article had been removed saving an unwieldy hand-organ, at which every camel-owner had shaken his wig in turn, and a few stand of arms which had been removed from wooden cases, and repacked in mats and tarpaulins. A great hulking savage finally proposed to carry these latter, upon condition of their being transversely divided with a saw to suit the backs of his wretched hip-galled camels. “You are a tall man,” quoth Aboo Bekr drolly, “suppose we shorten you by the legs?”