Squatted beside his foreign wares and glittering beads, see the wily huckster of Hurrur, with his turban and blue-checked kilt. His dealings, it is true, are of no very extensive amount, and salt, not silver, is the medium of exchange; but there is still room for the exercise of his knavery. The countenance both of buyer and seller exhibits an anxious and business-like expression, and the same noise and confusion prevails regarding an extra twopence-halfpenny, as if the transaction involved a shower of golden guineas.
The Christian women flit through the busy fair with eggs and poultry, and other produce of the farm. Their ill-favoured features are not improved either by the eradication of the eyebrow, or by the bare shaven crown dripping with rancid butter; and the dirty persons of all are invariably shrouded in yet dirtier habiliments, from the tall masculine damsel of sixteen summers, to the decrepit and wrinkled hag who in cracked notes proclaims ever and anon, “amole alliche bir,” “salt to sell for silver.”
The free and stately mien of the oriental female, and the light graceful garment of the east, are alike wanting. The heavy load is tied as upon the back of the pack-horse, and the bent and broken figure of the Amhára dame is debarred by the severe law of the despot from the decoration of finery or costly ornament. A huge bee-hive-shaped wig, elaborately curled and frosted, and massive pewter buttons thrust through the lobe of the ear, constitute her only pride; and nature, alas! has too often withheld even the smallest portion of those feminine attractions which in other climes form the charm of her sex.
The inhabitants of Argóbba or Efát, under the control of the sinister eye of the Wulásma, are followers of the false Prophet, and speak a distinct language. Little difference, however, is observable in the external appearance of the males from that of the Amhára subject of the empire; and it is not until the removal of the muffling cloth that the rosary of bright-spotted beads is displayed in lieu of the dark blue emblem of Christianity worn throughout Ethiopia. The women, on the other hand, are at once recognisable, no less by their Arab gypsy features, than by their long braided tresses streaming ever the shoulder, the ample smock of red cloth, dyed purple with accumulated lard, and the nunlike hood of the same material, buttoned close under the chin.
Fairer, more slender, and better favoured than their coarse Christian sisters of the more alpine regions, they are still scarcely less greasy and unattractive. Loaded with amulets and beads, their belief is proclaimed by the oft-repeated exclamation, “Hamdu-lillah!” “Praise be unto Allah!”—the courteous interrogatories of every passer-by, anent health, rest, and welfare, being by the burly and masculine ladies of Shoa, responded by the words “Egzia behere maskin!” “Thanks be unto God!” Unrestricted by harem law they fidget about in every direction, their great sparkling eyes peering through a mass of coal-black hair, half concealed by the crimson cowl, and the large shining necklace of amber reaching nearly to the waist. But the hideous sack chemise veils every feature of figure and personal beauty, and the naked hands and feet are alone exhibited, both rather misshapen from hard work and undue exposure to the climate.
The crowd makes way for a great Christian governor, probably from some distant province near the Nile. He is surrounded by a boisterous host of armed attendants, and, like them, paddles with unshod feet through the stiff black mire. The capacious stomach, and the bright silver sword with tulip scabbard, betoken high honour and command. An ambling mule tricked out in brass jingles and chains follows in his path; a long taper wand towers above his shoulder; and his portly figure is completely shrouded in the folds of a cotton robe, bedecked from end to end with broad crimson stripes. The garment might be improved by ablution; but repose upon the hide of a bullock is no aid to purity of apparel, and it is white in comparison with those of his unwashed retinue.
The arrangement of his hair has occupied the entire morning, and the steam of the fetid butter, which glistens among the minute curls, pervades the entire atmosphere. Muffled high above the chin, the eyes and nose of the functionary are alone submitted to the vulgar gaze, and as he halts for a moment to wonder at the unwonted sight of the Gyptzi strangers, the bloodshot eye betrays the midnight debauch, and the wrinkles of his turned-up nose, the scorn of the savage at the difference of costume and complexion. Approaching the acacia his shoulders are temporarily bared to the pompous dignitary presiding over the fair, who rising to receive him, returns the compliment, and there ensues a tissue of inquiries unknown even to the code of Chesterfield. Cantering over the tiny plain—a scanty level of an hundred yards—the wild Galla enters the scene of confusion, his long tresses streaming in the wind, and his garment blue with the grease of ages. A jar of honey, or a basket of butter, is lashed to the crupper of his high-peaked saddle; the steed is lean and shaggy as the rider, and the snort and the start from either proclaim undefined terror and amazement at the strange sights, and the rugged rocks and precipices, unknown to the boundless meadows of their own green land.
Dandies there are none, in aught of outward appearance, for the arrangement of the hair is the only latitude allowed to the invention of the would-be fop. The cotton cloth in every degree of impurity, floats over the swart shoulder both of noble and of serf. Bare heads and naked feet are the property of all, and the possession of the spear and shield alone marks the difference of rank. The chief scorns to carry a weapon except during the foray or the fight, whereas his followers never leave the threshold of their rude dwellings, without the lance in their hand, and buckler on their arm.
The terror and abhorrence in which the low country and its attendant dangers are held by the Abyssinian population, have placed nearly the entire trade of Alio Amba in the hands of the Danákil, who are treated by the monarch of Shoa with all deference and respect. Caravans arrive every month during the fair season from Aussa and Tajúra, and the traffic, considering the manifold drawbacks, may be said to be brisk and profitable. Numbers of foreign merchants, those of Hurrur especially, whilst disposing of their goods, hold their temporary residence at the market-town, the climate of which, many degrees warmer than the cold summit of the range which towers two thousand feet above, proves far more congenial to their taste and habits.
With the proceeds of foreign imported merchandise, human beings kidnapped in the interior countries of Africa are purchased in the adjacent slave mart of Abd el Russool. These wretched victims are then taken through the Amhára province of Giddem to the Wollo and Argóbba frontiers, some five days’ journey to the north, and resold at a profit of fifty per cent,—the sums realised being there invested in amoles, or blocks of black salt, the size of a mower’s whetstone. Obtained between Agámê and the country of the Dankáli, from a salt plain which not only supplies all the Abyssinian markets, but many also far in the interior of Africa, they pass as a currency, and, being bought on the frontier at the rate of twenty-five for a German crown, are retailed in Alio Amba at a profitable exchange. A large investment of slaves is finally purchased with the wealth thus laboriously amassed, and the merchant returns to his native country to traffic in human flesh at the sea-ports of Zeyla and Berbera, or on the opposite coast of Arabia—anon to revisit Shoa with a fresh invoice of marketable wares.