No sooner had the unwieldy monster fallen in its last struggles, than Adam, the chief of the braves, having severed the windpipe with true Mohammadan skill, advanced at the head of his band, and falling prostrate on the ground, kissed my feet. To allay my thirst, a shield full of water was brought from the river. Every creese was then drawn, and the solid hide, after being removed with all expedition, was, for the convenience of carriage, divided into six portions suited for bucklers. Repeated blows from a heavy stone detached the great crescent horns from the beetling brow; and these, with the ears, hoofs, and tufted tail, we bore off as trophies to be laid at the royal footstool. Elated at the conquest of a formidable and much-dreaded beast, whose destruction by this rude people—a feat sometimes occupying many days—is esteemed equivalent to the slaughter of eight Pagans in battle, the excited savages were presently retracing their steps through the intricacies of the wilderness.
Flourishing the spoils aloft in earnest of victory, they alternately whistled and chanted their wildest war-dirge, and the deep chorus raised at intervals made the recesses of the grove to ring again.
Awaiting my return with some anxiety, Ayto Habti Mariam, surrounded by his array of warriors, was seated beneath the spreading arms of a venerable acacia, which leaned in hoary pride over the bank of the bubbling Casam. Godána, the Adel brave, galloping wildly into the ring, vaulted from his rude saddle, and casting a sixth of the hide contemptuously upon the ground, declared the feat to be achieved! During the performance of the war-dance, by which his gaunt and sinewy frame was long violently convulsed, he sprang from side to side, quivering his spear with the most ferocious gestures, and chuckling in imitation of vultures revelling over their prey. His exhibition concluded, the other doughty heroes who had been present at the death, each in his turn, flung his trophy upon the earth; and the whole, with shouts, and yells, and war-whoops, accompanied by all manner of savage antics, triumphed over the spoils of the slain.
Greatly to our disappointment and surprise, the governor now intimated the necessity of our returning forthwith to the high country. The prolific covert teeming with game of every description, a respite of only one day was earnestly and repeatedly solicited, but in vain. The Amhára, who had embarked in the rash enterprise with the utmost reluctance, oppressed by the direct influence of the solar rays, and most anxious to terminate their sojourn on a perilous border, heretofore untrodden by Christian foot, with unanimous voice declared their provisions to be at an end; whilst the Adaïel, who still mistrusted the motive of the visit, and, now that the avowed object had been accomplished, would hear of no further tarry on their frontier, urged as an argument for instant departure, that the Ittoo, “having heard the reports of the rifles, would not fail to be down in strength during the night.”
Desultory hostilities are continually waged between these wild borderers, whose broils and feuds are endless; and not six months had passed away since five hundred Pagans, bursting over the frontier, had plundered the Moslem valleys. But the tocsin, resounding from village to village, was promptly responded to by the gathered population, who pursued the marauders—recovered all the booty wherewith they were laden—and left the bodies of one hundred and twenty a prey to the vultures of the air. Although a brave soldier, Habti Mariam was evidently apprehensive of a brawl in some quarter, and very unwilling to incur the responsibility. “You came,” he repeated, “to hunt buffaloes; and by God’s aid you have succeeded. My control extends not to these disturbed districts; and if blows should be struck, what account shall I render unto the king my lord?”
Further remonstrance being obviously useless, the Adaïel were assembled, and complimentary speeches having been delivered laudatory of their assistance, an Abyssinian, cloth and a handful of German crowns were placed among them for division. Godána, on the part of his avaricious tribe, made an oration in reply; and waxing more and more animated as he drew towards the conclusion of the harangue, ended by praying in a loud voice, “that Allah might conduct the princely visitors in safety to their homes, and cause their spear-blades to prevail over every foe!—that the eyes of their adversaries might be blinded in battle—that plenty might crown their harvests, and blood, as now, ever bedew their hunting trail!” And during the pause that followed the interpretation of each of these benedictions, the governor, with his assembled host, ejaculated “Amen!”
We had recrossed the Casam, and commenced the ascent of the hills, when the sudden appearance of a colony of pig-faced baboons, crowning the bank of the volcanic cleft, gave birth for some minutes to an apprehension amongst the Amhára, that the much-dreaded Ittoo were already hovering on the flank. But certain playful bounds on the part of the suspected objects soon dispelled the illusion; and the setting sun saw us safely encamped on a height overlooking a bend of the river, where a group of thermal springs issue from the sod-grown channel at a temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit, and flow steaming on beneath a grove of odoriferous fan-palms. Celebrated for their sanative properties, these baths were speedily thronged by all who laboured under any real or imaginary ailment; and notwithstanding that they shrunk from the extreme heat, which threatened to scald a European finger, the immersion was perseveringly continued by a succession of patients so long as the daylight lasted.