Sir William Cornwallis Harris (continued 8)

Volume Two—Chapter Three.

Interviews with the King.

Meanwhile, during the tedious fast observed by all classes in commemoration of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin, the king continued his residence at Machal-wans. On such occasions. His Majesty seeks the retirement of a country seat, and subsists upon raw fish, with vegetable oil and pepper. He is moreover averse to occupy the palace at Ankóber in the rainy season, when the elevated position of the isolated peak whereon it stands becomes a fearful mark for lightning, by which it is often struck; whilst huge masses of rock, loosened from the adjacent heights, come thundering into the valley, to the annihilation of every house that opposes their headlong course. The greater part of the court, however, continued to reside at the capital, and many were the demands made for presents by public officers of the state, amongst whom the Abyssinian habit of begging is sufficiently rife.

“There be pleasing things in my country which are not in yours,” was the usual form of application, “and fine things in your country which are not found in mine.” Well assured that no return would be accepted for what they coveted, many had recourse to a species of refinement in the art of begging—the offer of block salt—and ámole in hand, they desired that the wares brought for sale might forthwith be exposed. Others tendered mamálachas, or trifling offerings, which, if once accepted, are considered to establish a claim to ready acquiescence in demands the most preposterous. Broken decanters were exhibited four times over by the domestics of the royal household, who, with tears in their eyes, entreated the price of the vessel as the only means of saving them from condign punishment. A shield was never defaced, nor a mule lost, that the delinquent did not refer himself to the Residency for the amount of the fine imposed; and one of the imperial footmen finally sought to place beyond all question his right to appropriate the very cloth upon the table. “I am the waiter in the great banqueting-hall,” quoth the modest applicant, “and therefore I require this cloth as a dress.”

Nor were even the royal family idle during this interval. Belete-Shatchau, “superior to all,” a notable shrew lately divorced by the governor of Mans, and daughter of the queen by a former marriage—first in order—and then Worka Ferri, “golden fruit,” another of the princesses royal—established their respective claims to articles of British manufacture, beads, chintz, and tinsel, by the presentation of potent hydromel in long-necked barilles, screened under wicker cases. Their example was speedily followed by the illustrious Queen Besábesh, “thou hast increased,” who begged to be informed what “delighting things” had been brought for her acceptance. But the report of this fact being immediately conveyed to the despotic ears, His Majesty lost not a moment in hinting “that it were desirable that all presents intended for the palace, should pass through his own hands.”

It is not permitted to any subject of the realm to receive the smallest gift without submitting it forthwith to the Negoos, who either appropriates it with an “Egzihér istikh!” “May the Lord reward thee!” or accords permission to its retention; and concealment is sure to be visited, on discovery, with the severest punishment. Birroo, the son of a defunct nobleman, and the especially favourite page of the king, had been appointed báldoraba, or “introducer” to the Embassy, and in this dignified capacity had occasion to pay me almost daily visits with messages or commissions from the throne. Dilapidated matchlocks and swivels were to be restocked by the carpenters of the European escort, musical boxes to be repaired, garments were to be embroidered, or state umbrellas to be renewed; and every task had fortunately been achieved to the entire of the royal satisfaction. Before taking leave, the court favourite never failed to beg for something, and, being a pet with all, he never asked in vain; but it shortly became matter of public notoriety that he had been disgraced, and thrown into durance, upon being detected in the act of burying the dollars and other presents that he had received.

The king commanded that a portion of the gifts which had led to this disaster should be returned to me, and I entreated pardon for the juvenile indiscretion of the page. “Birroo has been degraded,” replied His Majesty, “but you must not be concerned thereat; for not only did he conceal from me all that you had given him, but, on being detected, swore falsely upon my own life that he had received much less than proved to be the case. I have dismissed him for ever from my presence, but his punishment is light when compared with the enormity of his transgression.” The delinquent was, however, released upon a second representation, and restored to the possession of his gun, which had been forfeited; and although not reinstated in the royal confidence, he was subsequently appointed one of the adrásh adáree, or “keepers of the great room.”

The first visit that we paid to Machal-wans was on the occasion of the king’s indisposition. The high-priest, the chief eunuch, the purveyor-general, Wulásma Mohammad, and ten or twelve other of the courtiers, were in attendance; but they were dismissed after the customary compliments had passed; and His Majesty, reclining as usual upon the throne, thus proceeded, through the interpretation of the Reverend Dr Krapf, to detail the long catalogue of his ailments.

“You may listen. I am not now so hale as in my younger days. Mine eyes trouble me day and night. I have pains in the neck. My teeth have grown long and become loose from fever, and my body has wasted away. Draw nigh whilst I recount the particulars of my late illness.

“I was returning from the expedition against the rebel Galla. I felt suddenly unwell. My head grew giddy. The earth turned round. It became blue under my feet. I fell from my mule. I believed myself dead. I was no longer sensible. My gun-men became afraid. They ran away to a man. The enemy made a show of attack. The army was in confusion. A governor rebelled. He sought to place his son upon the throne. The people dashed cold water over me. I recovered my senses. I was able to resume the command, and order was restored.”

Priest-ridden and superstitious to the last degree, the monarch undertakes nothing without first consulting the superiors of the Church, and is deterred from change of residence, or from projected military expeditions, by their prophecies and pretended dreams, which are of course modelled according to the bribes that have been received from parties interested. On two occasions only is he said to have acted in opposition to the ecclesiastical counsel. The first cost him eight hundred warriors, who were cut up by the Galla during the passage of a morass, and the second the severe indisposition of which he still felt the effects.

The royal swoon, thus amusingly narrated, had been followed by the consignment to captivity for life in the dungeons of Góncho, of the traitor who had so prematurely sought the elevation of his son, and who was the proprietor of the Residency. Medicines administered to the king are invariably tasted by the physician in the presence of the patient, and on a phial of goulard lotion being now sent to the palace for external application to the despot’s neck, it was returned in consequence of its being labelled “Poison.” Of this he entertains the most undisguised dread, and it was not possible to overcome his apprehensions that a drop might find its way into his mouth during the hours of repose, and so cut short his reign.

But although living in perpetual alarm of assassination, and never moving abroad without weapons concealed under his garments, or unaccompanied by a numerous and trustworthy escort. His Majesty’s fears did not extend to his British guests; and during our subsequent visits to Machal-wans, he hesitated not to trust us all about his person with loaded fire-arms, when none of his attendants were present. Many were the curious discussions held at these confidential interviews. Portraits were executed by the royal command—architectural plans prepared—and hunting expeditions or wars of extermination plotted against colonies of baboons and monkeys, the only quadrupeds of which the country can boast. Magazines were exploded by means of detonating shells—seven-barrelled pistols and stick-guns for the first time introduced at court—and a liege subject of the realm was nearly shot dead by the royal hand, when clumsily making trial of an air cane, from which a wax bullet had previously been fired through the wicker table.

“My son,” quoth the king, “I am old, and have but few years more to live. I have seen many strange things from your country, but none that surpass this engine, which without the aid of gunpowder can destroy men. Sorrow were it that I should have died and gone down to the grave before beholding and understanding so wonderful an invention. It is truly the work of a wise people who employ strong medicines!”

Volume Two—Chapter Four.

Special Summons to Machal-Wans.

His Majesty had more than once intimated an intention of holding consultation relative to his projected expedition on the termination of winter, and early one morning an express courier arrived to desire our immediate attendance at the palace. Blacksmiths and workers in silver were as usual plying their craft in the verandah, under the royal eye—artists were daubing red and yellow paint over the pages of the Psalter, or illuminating the lives of the saints with white angels and sable devils—saddles and warlike furniture were in course of repair—spears were being burnished—gun-locks cleaned—and musket barrels engraved with the despot’s name; but the artificers were all summarily dismissed, and the king, rising from his seat in the portico, beckoned us to follow into the audience hall.

“Gaita,” “master,” he cautiously began, “there is yet another subject upon which I am desirous of taking counsel, and wherein I need your assistance. It is my intention shortly to undertake an expedition to the great lake in Guráguê. In it be many islands which contain the treasures of my ancestors. There are jars filled with bracelets of solid gold. There are forty drums made of elephants’ ears, and many holy arks pertaining unto ancient churches, besides seven hundred choice Ethiopic volumes, some of which have unfortunately been defaced by the animals called ashkóko (Hyrax Abyssinicus). Elephants abound on the borders. In the trees are found black leopards of a most ferocious nature, multiplying always among the branches, and never descending upon the earth; and the waters of the lake, which are smooth as glass, and without bottom, teem with monstrous gomári (Hippopotamus amphibius), and with fish of brilliant colours, red, yellow, green, and blue, such as have never before been seen.

“Moreover there are specifics against small-pox and other dreadful diseases. No resistance is to be anticipated, for the inhabitants, who are chiefly Christian monks, have often invited me. I must no longer delay to recover the lost wealth of my forefathers, and it is fitting that you, with the British officers who have come hither from a far country, should accompany me and construct boats. Hereof my people are ignorant, and your name as well as mine will therefore become great, and will live in the annals of this kingdom.

“From the summit of a lofty hill near Aiméllele, I have beheld through a telescope the lake and its tall trees, but the elephants came in numbers. I feared that my people would be destroyed. I ran, and they all ran with me. Now, what say you? What is your advice in this matter? Are you able to build boats?”

In furtherance of His Majesty’s intentions, I caused models of skin punts, gun rafts, and a pontoon train, to be prepared upon the most approved design, with crews and ordnance complete, and advised that every requisite should be prepared at Ankóber whilst leisure served, in order that he might take the field with ample means at his disposal. The king expressed himself above all things pleased both with models and advice, which he declared to come from wise and expert soldiers; but he was still obviously undecided, and the fear of wild beasts and of the lone forest at length kicked the vibrating beam. The castle visions of glory mounted far out of reach, and his fickle ambition evaporated in a bluster of empty words—

“My people will weep at the carriage of such ponderous engines.” “The preparations must be made on the banks of the Háwash, or on the borders of the Lake Zooai, where timber grows abundantly. A man of rank, one of the frontier governors, who resides near Aiméllele, should be summoned as guide to the expedition, and might then be consulted.” But the presence of the great functionary was ever wanting—no further wish escaped the lips of the vacillating monarch—and engrossed with the passing whim of the moment, the chivalrous project of the day had vanished. So passed the dreary winter on. The arrival in the kingdom of Shoa of the many valuable presents brought by the Embassy, had not proved more agreeable to the traders from Gondar and Tigré who reside in Ankóber, than to the narrow-minded governor of Alio Amba. These men had been in the habit of selling glass-ware, cloths, and fire-arms to the king at a very considerable premium, and now did not fail to repeat and to improve the absurdities circulated by the mischievous Danákil regarding the foreign intruders. The Gypzis were pronounced eaters of serpents, mice, and other reptiles, and had come with the design of possessing themselves of the country by the aid of magic and medicine.

Great umbrage was taken at our practice of toasting the wretched half-baked dough which we received, under the denomination of bread, from the royal stores; and a soldier who carried a metallic pitcher to the stream, was roundly taxed with having used charms to poison the water, which was consequently condemned as unfit for use until purified by the blessing of the priest. Predictions of the impending fate of Abyssinia were derived from the fact of the foreigners employing instruments which read the stars; and the despot was repeatedly and earnestly warned to be upon his guard. But His Majesty cut short these insinuations by threatening to extract the tongues of three or four of the maligners, and paid no attention whatever to the threat of excommunication extended to him by the fanatic clergy of Arámba, who had declared the ban of the Church to be the just punishment due for the admission into the empire “of red heretics, who ought carefully to be shunned, since they practised witchcraft, and by burning the king’s bread threatened to bring a famine upon the land.”

Taking their cue from the feelings of the people, the Shoan sorcerers gave out that Sáhela Selássie was to be the last of the Ethiopian dynasty, descended from the house of Solomon, who should sit upon the throne of his forefathers, and that a foreign king would come by way of Alio Amba to usurp the dominion. It is, amusing to trace the progress of these crafty insinuations among an ignorant and weak-minded people. In some of the northern provinces it was confidently asserted that the Sultán of the Mohammadans had already conquered Shoa, and that all the surrounding Moslem potentates were about to unite with him in a war of extermination against the Christians; whilst in others it was believed that an Alaka, or chief of the Gypts from Grand Cairo, had contrived to smuggle himself into the capital, carrying his sovereign in a box, and that after consulting the heavenly bodies until a favourable horoscope was presented, he stamped his foot upon the ground, which opened, and ten thousand red soldiers, with beards flowing to their girdles, springing forth out of the chasm, placed the aforesaid monarch upon the throne. “Now,” said the magicians, “will Theodórus arise according to the tradition, that he will come in the latter days of -Ethiopia, and create a kingdom of Peace.”

Theodórus was one of the emperors who reigned during the fifteenth century, and was canonised. It is recorded, that during the observance of his festival the queen-dowager had prepared a great entertainment, and the guests being all assembled, the heavens rained down a shower of fishes ready roasted. In the Ethiopic liturgy, the miracle is thus commemorated. “Peace be upon thee. King of the Agaazi nation, Theodórus, Son of the Lion; thy memory shall this day be celebrated with the slaughter of oxen and sheep, with which alone Zion Mogáss, thy mother, kept it not, for the clouds also dropped fishes.” It is confidently believed that this saint will rise again from the dead, and reign a thousand years, during which period neither war, famine, nor discord, is to disturb the happiness of Abyssinia.

Volume Two—Chapter Five.

Termination of Winter.

In due process of time, spite of the denunciations of the fanatic priesthood, the silver and beef of the foreigners attracted the denizens of the adjacent villages, and we acquired a respectable retinue, such as an Abyssinian deems indispensable on all excursions abroad. A house better adequate to our wants had been purchased, and the bargain duly concluded according to the custom of the country by an oath on the life of the despot; but this was shortly annulled through the officious interference of the governor of the town, and it was not until the eleventh hour, when rain had begun to abate, that the Master of the Horse was prevailed upon to rent his newly-erected domicile. A fat ox having been slaughtered to drive out the Devil, it was handed over to the domestics, and wading through the blood which flowed over the threshold, we entered upon the premises in due form, and having hoisted the Union Jack over the new Residency, we quaffed with the burly landlord several horns of old hydromel for good luck. “Have you a better house than this in your country?” he inquired exultingly: “I rather suspect not.”

Ayto Melkoo, the Baldarás, or King’s Master of the Horse, has under his charge the royal stud, saddles, and accoutrements, as also the workers in leather—is equerry in waiting, and conservator of pastures and meadows pertaining to the crown. He is moreover the greatest gourmand in the kingdom, and condescending to honour the denounced Christians with his company at the house-warming, did ample justice to the novel viands that were placed before him. He even submitted to the innovation of a silver fork, and politely partook of a salad, notwithstanding his firm conviction that the undressed vegetable would cause a return of ailments to which he had been a martyr in youth. The circulation of water for the ablution of fingers caused no little diversion on the removal of the cloth; but the marasquino which followed was unhesitatingly pronounced to be a nectar fit for princes alone. “Were but the Negoos aware with what good things the board of you English is spread,” he exclaimed, smacking his lips after the last glass, “His Majesty would come and dine with you as often as you chose to invite him.”

“But let me give you a lesson in politeness,” added the old man, when, in reply to his abrupt intimation of intended departure, he was wished a “safe entrance to his house,” in accordance with Abyssinian etiquette—“You should have said ‘stay.’” “Such is not the fashion of the countries across the water,” was Graham’s reply: “every man is permitted to withdraw as he lists, and be happy in his own way.”

“Ay, ay,” returned the guest; “but then if you had pressed me to tarry, I would at all events have stopped with you until the moon rose. Do you see?”

The fast of the Assumption having meanwhile terminated, the king announced his intention of removing to Angollála, his favourite place of residence; and thither, in defiance of excessively heavy rain, he set out on the day appointed by the household priests. “My children,” said His Majesty at parting, “ye have travelled far on my account, and have no kinsman saving myself. My people are bad people, and I am sorry thereat. They bring me daily all manner of reports regarding yourselves and your evil intentions. The rumours have doubtless reached your ears, but ye must not suppose that Sáhela Selássie believes one of them. Ye are my friends, and I will deal with you accordingly. I will that ye come shortly to Debra Berhán and witness the great annual review at the feast of Máskal. Ayto Wolda Hana shall conduct you.”

But the important functionary thus selected was of all others arrayed in the most open hostility, and, unlike the majority of his avaricious colleagues, his enmity had been proof against overtures and advances. “I am a lone man,” he invariably replied, “and have neither wife nor child. Grey hairs have come out on me. I am the son of sixty years. I want nothing in this world but the favour of the king.” To judge from appearances, the pinnacle of his loyal ambition had already been attained. Governor of Ankóber, and president of the mádi beit, or kitchen, wherein are prepared hydromel, pepper soup, and sour beer—comptroller of all the royal porters and of the household slaves, who are the hewers of wood and the carriers of water, who grind, bake, express oil, and manufacture candles—receiver-general into the imperial magazines of all tribute in cotton, grain, thread, sheep, and poultry—and charged with the superintendence, the erection, and the repair of all public buildings throughout the realm, as well as with the arrangement of the interior economy of the capital—Ayto Wolda Hana can have little left to desire; and so conscientiously does he acquit himself of these manifold onerous duties, that it is affirmed his royal master could scarcely exist without him.

A visible diminution in the male population of Ankóber follows the departure of the monarch to either of his more distant places of residence. During his absence the administration of affairs devolves chiefly upon Ayto Kidána Wold, who may be termed the viceroy. In charge of the secret police and magisterial department, he adjusts all private differences, watches over the public safety, and besides ministering daily to the wants of all consigned to him, gives annually three great entertainments at the expense of the crown. He has been honoured with the hand of Woïzoro Askuala Work, sister to the queen-dowager, and as the receipt of the promised invitation to Debra Berhán required an intimation of intended departure, it afforded me a long sought opportunity of making the acquaintance of this stately dame. Seated in the utmost of Abyssinian pomp, and surrounded by a goodly train of slaves, pages, and handmaidens, she received us with the greatest affability, and in the temporary absence of her lord, expressed the highest gratification at the attention of our visit, although unable to accept the presents that I offered, from an apprehension of the royal displeasure.

But conversation during a morning call is here little more than a string of the most earnest and pathetic inquiries respecting one’s own health, and that of one’s wife, relatives, and children. Even two old crones, who are obviously tottering on the very brink of the grave, and who are afflicted with every pain and with every sorrow entailed by the fall of our first parents, never meet in the street without indulging in a string of good wishes which are reiterated so long as their breath will permit. “How are you? How do ye do? How have you passed your time? Are you well? Are you very well? Are you quite well? Are you perfectly well? Are you not well?”—are questions which serve as the prelude to a thousand other interrogatories; and at each response the Deity must be invoked as to the unadulterated happiness and perfect felicity that has been unremittingly experienced since the last meeting.

Should the encounter take place twenty or even a hundred times during one and the same day, a repetition of the ceremony is enforced, and for each progressive stage of morning, noon, evening, and night, there exists a distinct set of phrases, which, from the never-ending repetition, are grating and wearisome. Passengers stand in the lane, denude their shoulders, and roar out salutations intended for the inmates of huts some hundred yards from the hedge. The slumberer is started from sleep by the dinning “How do ye do?” from some gentleman passing ere the day has dawned to his country residence; and from morning until even-tide, one’s ears are assailed by a most harassing tissue of polite inquiries from every individual of whatever rank, who may think proper to pass himself off as an acquaintance.

Volume Two—Chapter Six.

Debra Berhán, the Hill of Glory.

In Shoa the preliminaries of a journey are replete with noise, inconvenience, and confusion. Friends come to “see you off,” as an indispensable piece of etiquette, and the lounging townspeople, who have at no time much business of their own, flock to assist the traveller by filling the court-yard, choking the door-way, and amusing themselves by canvassing the property packed. Should rain be falling, which is too frequently the case, the rabble take shelter inside the house, subject every article within their reach to the pollution of greasy paws, leave the carpet an inch thick in mire, and, unless by dint of shoving and elbowing, debar all egress to the lawful proprietor.

It was in the midst of attentions such as these on the part of the idlers of Ankóber, on a raw, cold, foggy morning in September—the last of the Ethiopic year—that we took the road to Debra Berhán. The sun was already high when the sure-footed mules were mounted, and as the retiring mist scudded over the face of the mountains, many were the bold beauties revealed. Cascades tumbled down the stupendous range on the one hand, amid snug houses and tufted knolls, and on the other, at the foot of perpendicular crags thundered the river Airára. On its bank stands the only piece of machinery in the kingdom—a rude watermill constructed by an Albanian visitor; but the intolerant and ignorant priesthood pronouncing the revolution of the wheel to be the work of devils and genii, its use was interdicted after three days, and it has since remained silent.

Beyond the ford of the foaming torrent the road becomes extremely rough, steep, and difficult. The first traveller had been unable to breast the mountain side outright; and his zigzag route remains untouched by the hand of the pioneer. The craggy rock must be surmounted, and the narrow and slippery channel be still threaded with the same risk as when the first bold foot was planted on the serrated ridge; and the torrent of centuries, whilst indenting the furrow yet deeper, has added the impediment of slimy residuum.

The range whereof the Chaka forms a part divides the streams that flow into the Nile, from those which are tributary to the Háwash; and the ascent above Ankóber being not less than two thousand feet, the difference in temperature on the summit was fully perceptible. Half an hour was occupied in the scramble to a crumbling basaltic pillar styled “Room dingai,” “the standing stone,” which very aptly transfers its name to this most indifferent pass to the new capital of Shoa. Mamrat still towered overhead full three or four thousand feet, making its total height above the level of the sea at least thirteen thousand; yet is snow a stranger to its cloud-capped summit, and indeed to the language of all Amhára, south of the cold mountains of Simien.

It is from June to September that old Father Nilus carries plenty into “the land of marvels”—and rolling on to its mouths in solitary grandeur, without receiving a single tributary in its long course of thirteen hundred and fifty nautical miles below the junction of the Tacazzé, it may fairly be stated that Abyssinia holds in her Christian hands the inexhaustible riches of Egypt. Hatzé Tekla Haïmanót the Great, had therefore reason on his side when, in the beginning of the twelfth century, he wrote under the style of “Son of the King of the Church of Ethiop to the Pacha and the Lords Commanders of the Militia at Grand Cairo, desiring attention to the fact that in himself for the time being was vested power to render the Nile an instrument of vengeance for overt acts of hostility—the Almighty having given into his hands its fountains, its passage, and its increase, and thus entrusted him with power to make the river work good or evil.”

Among the numberless fictions recorded of this emperor, it is said that when he was about to relinquish the cares of government in order to retire to a cloister, he divided his countless wealth with his feet into two parts, the one designed as an offering to the Church, the other to be distributed in alms among the poor: and both heaps, although mountain high, were, on being weighed, found exactly equal. Lalíbela, one of his successors, is believed to have attempted the diversion to the Indian Ocean and to the Lake Zooai, of all those principal tributaries to the Nile which take their source in the highest table land. The measure was in resentment for the persecutions exercised towards the Christians in Egypt after the Saracen conquest, and the monarch was only induced to relinquish his gigantic project by the earnest remonstrance of the monks, who strongly urged the impolicy of fertilising the arid Moslem countries that intervene betwixt the mountains and the sea.

On the summit of the Chaka commences an uninterrupted terrace, stretching hundreds of miles to the southward, through the fair territories of the Galla. Glimpses of blue sky, of a brightness unseen for months, now gave happy presage of coming fine weather, and a cold bracing breeze from the eastward announced the termination of the protracted season of rain. The country had assumed the uninteresting character inseparable from elevated downs—rich swampy meadows, clothed with camomile, clover, and trefoil, and covered with oxen, horses, and sheep, being intersected by gentle undulations of moor-land, with occasional oviform hills. Bare-banked rills, streaming through the lower tracts, succeed each other in quick succession, and drain the table-land to the sources of the Beréza; whilst the great extent of ground under cultivation, waving crops of wheat, beans, and barley, with independent farm-houses scattered over the face of the landscape, proclaim a government which cannot be of a very bad description, and regions long exempt from the presence of an inimical power.

Across the Toro Mesk, the principal streamlet that intersects the road, and the sources of which are visible at a great distance to the north-east, is a rude pile of stones bearing the dignified appellation of “the King’s Bridge.” Johannes, the Armenian architect, received the hand of a high-born dame in reward of his skill, and by no foot save that of the despot, is the barred entrance ever passed. Two other bridges, upon the same primitive principle, have since been constructed over nameless but rapid rivulets, and if not very durable, they serve greatly to facilitate the royal progress at periods when the country is inundated.

During the reign of the sire and grandsire of the present monarch, the entire tract between Ankóber and Debra Berhán was in the hands of the heathen Galla; and Tenna Káloo, the last daring chieftain who disputed its possession, has left in the minds of the present generation the recollection of the prowess in arms that he evinced to their fathers, numbers of whom fell in the strife. Not a tree, nor even a shrub higher than the Abyssinian thistle, is to be seen, save here and there a solitary “cosso,” whose venerable boughs, the witnesses of idolatrous rites, mark the ancient site of villages now gone to decay. Flourishing Christian hamlets have risen in their stead; yet the visible population is small, and the long naked sweeping plains, silent and lonesome, present a stern and melancholy appearance, which the absence of groves and hedges and singing birds tends materially to heighten. The vulture and the eagle are alone seen wheeling above the green cliffs, or a solitary buzzard soaring in quest of his prey over the great sheets of cultivation. Shepherds, wearing high conical hempen caps, lay ensconced, with their large shaggy dogs, under the shelter of knolls and caves; and in some few of the fields, where last year’s crops were yet unhoused, or the land remained untilled, the peasantry pursued their industrious occupation.

At length the monotonous view opened over a wide plateau sloping gently to the west. The blue peaks of Sallála Moogher, beyond which flows the infant Nile, rose faintly in the distance, and the intervening country, still destitute of wood, was traversed by broad, broken, precipitous ravines. On a hill to the northward is visible the extensive market-place of Bool Worki, “the cave of gold,” a great mart for horses, mules, and woollen cloths, which, with grain, asses, and horned cattle, are brought every Saturday by the adjacent Galla tribes. and, when sold, pay a heavy duty to the crown. To account for the name of the place, there is a tradition extant, that in days of yore, many holy arks with vast quantities of the purest gold were deposited by the emperors of Ethiopia in a certain deep cave having a bottomless lake interposed to save them from the grasp of the avaricious. Its waters form the abode of a legion of evil spirits, whose Alaka gratuitously exhibited himself one market-day, mounted upon an ambling mule loaded with massive golden trappings, and attended by a black cat wearing about its neck a bell of the same costly metal—a sight quite sufficient to deter intrusion on the part of the curious.

A cluster of white-roofed houses, straggling beyond the walled palace and the church of the Holy Trinity—long indistinctly visible—now rose rapidly to view; and a small eminence having been ascended, the goal was presently attained. As we passed the royal lodge, a page mounted on one of the king’s horses rode forth to reconnoitre, and, taking a hasty glance, galloped off to make his report. The customary announcement through an Afero, who has always access to the palace, elicited a pair of monstrous Galla rams, which were thrust into observation while the message which follows—one strictly in accordance with Abyssinian etiquette—was delivered with shoulders bare by him to whom it had been confided:—“Are you well? Are you well? Are you well? Have you been quite well since our last interview? Are you all well? Have my children had a good journey? Have they entered in safety? My love amounts to heaven and earth; therefore the king said, they might eat these sheep.”

Awnings, wrought of goats’ hair, and resembling the black tents of Kedar, had meanwhile been erected for us on the green-sward, and we had no sooner taken up our quarters than there came, by a succession of maids of honour, bread in wicker baskets, old hydromel in coloured decanters, pots of honey, and compliments in profusion from the queen. Many of the courtiers visited us in the evening, too evidently fresh from the royal banquet, which is daily spread in the great hall, and from which few ever rise in a state of sobriety—their amount of friendship professed, and the modicum of flattery that they bestowed, being in the exact ratio of the potations swallowed during their revel. Glimmering lights soon illumined the straggling hamlet—dancing and singing occupied both sexes of the inhabitants—and with almost as much pomp and ceremony as in more civilised lands, the departed year was consigned to its last long resting-place in the relentless tomb of Time.

Volume Two—Chapter Seven.

The Royal Slave Depôt.

No royal residence can be conceived more desolate and less princely than the palace at Debra Berhán, “the Hill of Glory.” Crumbling walls of loose uncemented stone, patched in their various breaches and dilapidations by splintered palisades, surround a vast assemblage of wattle and dab edifices, of various shapes and dimensions, which are clumped together in separate court-yards, without any regard to appearance. Six rude gateways on the southern side conduct through as many miry enclosures, lined with troops, and crowded with herds, flocks, and applicants for justice. A paddock, covered with bright green turf, extends in front of the chamber of audience. Hoary junipers stretch their moss-grown branches fantastically over the lawn; and at the further extremity of the enclosure rise the mouldering remains of the palace of Zára Yácoob.

This monarch, who was the founder of Debra Berhán, is reputed to have been endowed with the wisdom of Solomon, his great ancestor: and the vestiges that remain of his abode, certainly exhibit an order of architecture far superior to that of the present degenerate day. It has been composed of large blocks of hewn, though unsculptured, stone; but, in common with every other boasted edifice erected in the height of Ethiopic splendour, it perished during the reign of Nebla Dengel, by the hand of the destroyer Graan. Hatzé Zára Yácoob first attached capital punishment to the continuance of idolatry. He instituted an inquisition, and persecuted every one who paid adoration to the cow and serpent. Amongst others who underwent execution were two of his own sons-in-law; and he finally issued a proclamation, confiscating the lands of those who should thenceforth neglect to carry on the right arm an amulet inscribed with the words, “I have renounced the Devil and all his works for Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Tradition asserts that “the Hill of Glory,” now barren of trees, was in days of yore thickly covered with forest, through which ran a single path. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the founder, who was also styled Constantine, fled into its depths before an invasion of the Adaïel, and becoming bewildered in the intricacies, hurried hither and thither, exclaiming in his dilemma, “Ber eza, her eza?” “Where is the road?” Suddenly there shone forth over the eminence a great halo of light from heaven, which served him as a beacon by which to escape out of the labyrinth. In some of the adjacent swamps are to be seen the ancient remains of decomposed timber, and a few venerable junipers still survive within the palace enclosure; but beyond these monuments of antiquity the truth of the legend rests solely on the name of the river Beréza, a serpentine stream winding round the foot of the hill, and forming one of the principal sources of the Blue Nile.

Tegulet, “the city of the wolves,” the capital of all Abyssinia in her brighter days, and a spot untrodden by European foot since the visit of Father Alvarez, forms a conspicuous feature in the view presented from the village. Occupying a commanding promontory, round which flows the river Salácha, it is environed by singular bluffs; and one natural fissure, visible from a great distance, affords the only practicable ascent to the impregnable fortress, upon which the Galla, in the meridian of their power, were unable to make the slightest impression during reiterated attempts to carry it by storm. The Alaka of Tegulet is superior also of the celebrated shrine of Séna Márkos, a saint of the days of Tekla Haïmanót. The monastery, named after its founder, occupies a similar inaccessible fastness, overlooking a part of the valley of the Nile, and the whole of the north and west of Shoa, as far as the chain of lofty mountains which here form the bulwark of the Christian kingdom.

The view from the village of Etteghe, near Tegulet, is so extensive that it has given rise to a proverb, “From Etteghe is the Echegue or Grand Prior of the Monks, to be seen at Gondar.” Forty-four rivulets, corresponding in number with the churches of that city, are said to pay tribute through this district to the Adabai, which sends its waters down the Jumma to the Nile; their short course of little more than one hundred and fifty miles, involving so rapid a declination to the westward, that nearly all have cataracts in some part, and are consequently destitute of finny inhabitants. The immediate environs of Tegulet are intersected by the beds of rapid torrents, having high precipitous banks, which afford few accessible roads, whether to man or beast—a fact to which this portion of Shoa may be concluded to have owed its security during the inpourings of heathen and Mohammadan hordes. Tegulet-wat, “the devouring depths,” a fathomless abyss yawning on the banks of one of these streams, and described as the habitation of demons, is believed by the superstitious to communicate with the “great water.” It proved the grave of numerous Christian warriors, who, during the bloody contest with the Adaïel, tumbled unexpectedly into its dark bosom, and were heard of no more.

It was at the close of the fifteenth century that Mafoodi, the bigoted king of Hurrur, unfurling the green banner of the Prophet, commenced those devastating inroads upon the frontiers of Shoa, which finally led to the dismemberment of the Ethiopic empire, and proved the greatest calamity that has ever befallen the country. Under a vow that he would annually spend the forty days of Lent among the Abyssinian infidels, he overran Efát and Fátigar when the people, weakened by rigorous fasting, were less capable of bearing arms—burned churches and monasteries, slew without mercy every male who fell in his way, and driving off the women and children, sold some into foreign slavery, and presented others to the Sheriffe of Mecca. Alexander, the then reigning emperor, was assassinated at Tegulet by Za Selássie, commander-in-chief of the royal body-guard, who had been bought over by Mafoodi. The eyeballs of the regicide were seared with a red hot iron; his hands and feet were chopped off; and he was stoned to death amid the curses and execrations of the populace, after he had been paraded on an ass in this mutilated condition throughout Shoa and Amhára.

Debra Berhán is one of the principal depôts for the numerous royal slaves, the possession of whom casts the foulest blot on the character of the Christian monarch. A strange clatter, and a Babel-like mixture of tongues, greets the ear of the visitor, and the features of many races, and of many nations, are distinctly visible among the crowd that throngs the gate, although all are alike enveloped in the disguising costume of Abyssinia.

The huge black Shankela, with blubber lip and bloodshot eye, is resting for a moment against the broken wall, and stretching a brawny limb which might have supported the bully Hercules himself. Grinning from ear to ear as his burly neighbour sports some savage joke in licence unrestrained, he seizes with a three-horse power his bundle of split wood, which two Amhára could with difficulty raise, and poising it like a feather upon his woolly head, walks away in all the vigour of a young giant.

With his own approving eye the monarch has selected this specimen from a lot of powerful negroes captured beyond the Nile, and fifteen silver crowns must not be lightly squandered even by the great sovereign of Southern Abyssinia. Rations are well supplied to support his sinewy form, and unless on a cold raw day, when the soaking rain has penetrated every thread of his black blanket, and his shivering frame brings vividly to mind the difference of climate, the enslaved pagan, in his present condition, as hewer in the royal forests, enjoys himself fully as well as if ranging in savage liberty over his own free country of the sun.

Not so the scowling Galla who follows in his rear. The spirit of roving independence is still unsubdued in his fiery eye; and the slender figure and the bent leg proclaim the wild rider of the grassy plain. Heavy and heartbroken he plods along under a burthen to which his strength is quite inadequate; and the groan escapes from his lips as the bitter thoughts enter his soul of the disgraceful lash of the task-master, that perhaps awaits his return, and he remembers the lost wife and little ones whom he has for ever left on the distant savannahs of the Háwash.

Issuing from the gateway under the authority of a bloated eunuch, a numerous flock of brown damsels take their way to the river. Heavy earthen jars are slung over their slender backs, and the light forms of the unfortunates are little concealed by their torn and scanty attire. These are newly purchased Christians from the last Guráguê caravan, and the language of the Amhára is still strange to their ear. Garlands of the yellow buttercup deck the plaited raven locks of each captive maid, and a plaintive song is chanted in soft mellow notes to beguile the hours of toil. But the lines of slavery have already found place among their youthful features, which possess beauty unknown to those of their oppressors. The low chorus swelling mournful and piteous from the band, has recalled thoughts of home and liberty to the joyless breast; and the sad tear is brushed from the long dark eye-lash at the recollection of happier hours spent in their own sweet land of spices.

Following close behind comes a group of favoured dames of a certain age, from whose minds time has effaced all remembrance of country and of kindred. Exalted to the post of mistresses of the royal brewery, and decked out like the first ladies of the land, in flowing garments resplendent with crimson stripes, they have little reason to wish for a change of condition. Bars and studs of solid silver load their perforated ears, and ponderous pewter bangles encircle each wrist and ankle. Their wigs, arranged according to the most becoming fashion, in minute rows of tiny curls, glisten under a coat of butter, and their fat cheeks, plastered with grease and red pigment, are calculated to strike respect into the heart of the most indifferent beholder. Their unceasing clack and clatter tell the tale of the wonted freedom of female tongue, but the small jar with the green branch protruding from the narrow neck, is strapped over the breast with the thong of slavery; and the attending eunuch, with his long thin wand—an emblem of his own withered person—proclaims the fact that the ladies cannot roam at pleasure over the verdant mead, but must restrict themselves in the beaten path according to the cracked voice of their driver.

Seated upon a gaily caparisoned mule, amidst the jingling of bells and brass ornaments, the general of the gun-men proceeds in state across the green parade. He is attired in the richest garments that the land can produce. A glaring cloth of red silk is wound about his brow, a silver sword decorates his right side, and fifty robed followers attend his every behest. But he too is a slave, as was his father before him, and as his son will be after him. All the bones and sinews of his attendants are the purchased property of the monarch, and it is only by the imperial will and pleasure, which may be changed to-morrow, that he is now ambling in chintz and satin to dine at the royal board, instead of holding place in the foremost group, with a black blanket over his shoulder, and a load of wood upon his head for fuel in the royal kitchen.

Here comes a demure damsel from the harem, disfigured by all the foul garments and native filth which delight the inhabitant of Shoa. It is Wuletta Georgis, one of Her Majesty’s confidential slaves, and she is revolving in her mind, how, in executing her mistress’s commission, she can contrive to promote her own interests. Born and bred in the palace, the Abigail is ordinarily treated with kindness, unless the fracture of a brittle decanter, or the unbidden attack upon some savoury dish, involve a little wholesome correction. Unlike the philosophical maid in Rasselas, who had broken the porcelain cup, she needs pecuniary aid, and thus is her request sobbed out: “Only one dollar to replace the queen’s looking-glass, and may God reward you!” But the sob is evidently assumed for the occasion, and a sly glance may be detected in the corner of her cunning eye, to observe the effect of her false appeal. The full price of the fractured mirror has already been received from three several individuals, and her mistress will assuredly confiscate the profits; but the tenure of property during even one short half hour possesses charms irresistible, and the poor girl falls prostrate on the ground as the silver is dropped into her unwashed fingers.

A last group is straggling through the gateway. The aged and the infirm, who can still perform a light task, have just received their daily dole from the royal storehouse at the niggard hand of the pampered steward. The vigour of their youth has been expended in the service of the despot, and now, in the evening of life, their original scanty pittance is yet further reduced. A wistful glance is cast upon the handful of raw barley, which must content them for the day. Hunger and destitution are painfully portrayed in the deep furrows of each withered face, and the shrunken limb totters as the keen wind whistles through the wet folds of the tattered goat-skin girdle, which reaches barely to the knee. No fostering hand awaits their return to the cheerless hut, to minister in kindness to the necessities of age; and the last closing scene will drop a welcome curtain of repose over sinews ground by indigence and toil, during half a century of hopeless bondage.

Volume Two—Chapter Eight.

New Year’s Day.

New Year’s Day, which fell on the 10th of September, was, according to the Abyssinian calendar, the eighteen hundred and thirty-fourth since the nativity of Christ, and it was celebrated with much rejoicing and festivity. Betimes in the morning came a summons to the presence of the Negoos, who, seated in the portico of the audience chamber, was enjoying the genial warmth of the rising sun. The interior of the hall was strewed throughout with newly-plucked rushes, and under a large iron chafing-dish, with a cheerful wood-fire, basked a whole host of sleek cats in couples—a portion of the dower received with the fair daughter of the Galla Queen of Moolo Fálada.

The king was particularly affable, and in the highest spirits. His hand having been extended to each of us in turn, with the usual inquiries relative to our “safe entrance,” the congratulations of the season were offered to His Majesty, according to the customary form: “As the departed year of Saint Matthew has closed happily upon your auspicious reign, so also may the coming year of Saint Mark! May God prolong your days, and continue the throne in the line of your ancestors unto your children’s children, to the end of time! May He extend the boundaries of your dominions, and cause your spear to prevail over the lance of the enemy! May He endow you with wisdom to judge your subjects aright, and move your heart unto clemency; and may He cause high and low alike to understand and to appreciate the equitable sway of the Father, whom Heaven has appointed to rule over them!”

Elaborate models of a domed palace, completely furnished, and an English saddle and bridle, were next presented, and received with every manifestation of delight, coupled with a prayer from the royal lips that “God might glorify the donor.” A long and minute scrutiny led to an infinity of questions, not easily answered, as to how the shield was to be slung to the pommel, and why the entire foot, instead of the great toe only, should be inserted in the stirrup? “The sun in different countries shines with more or less brilliancy,” exclaimed His Majesty, with truly royal eloquence, as he concluded the examination—“the birds and the beasts are different, and so are the plants. I am fond of new inventions, if it be only to look at them, and although they should prove on trial to be inferior to old ones.”

Abd el Yonag, the chief of the Hurrur slave-merchants, was seated, rosary in hand, during this conversation, and in his weather-beaten countenance were displayed all the cunning lineaments of the petty retailer in small wares, curiously contrasted with the sagacity of the extensive dealer in politics, who had succeeded in obtaining an accurate measure of the monarch’s foot. The knave too protested to have seen the world, and gave out that with his own grey eyes he had beheld the glories of Britain’s eastern possessions.

To support his widely circulated character for universal knowledge, the Moslem miscreant now seized between his bony fingers two handsome pieces of sprigged muslin, fresh from the looms of Manchester, which I had presented for Queen Besábesh, and throwing them contemptuously towards the corner of the throne, muttered betwixt his lips the word “Bombay.”

“What’s that, what do you say?” cried the king, in his usual abrupt manner.

“May it please your Majesty,” returned the turbaned traveller, to our great diversion, “’tis the name of this cloth—it is called Bombay.”

But an opportunity presently occurred of laughing at the beard of the irreverent pedlar, nor was it suffered to pass unheeded. The despot exhibited a silver sword scabbard, which had been curiously enamelled to represent one of the scaly inhabitants of the deep, and it was acknowledged nemine contradicente that the artist had succeeded in producing a highly creditable resemblance to a fish. “A fish,” quoth the man of Hurrur, “what is that?” Even the monarch smiled when the explanation was rendered. “Fishes live in the great sea between Abyssinia and Bombay, and he whose eyes have not suffered under Oubié’s searing irons, might behold numbers every day of the voyage.” “Istigh-far-allah,” “Heaven defend me,” growled the discomfited Wurj, as he slunk into a corner—“’tis passing strange that Abd el Yonag should have never seen the wild beast of the water.”

Attended by the dwarf father confessor, and holding deep consultation with several of the household priests, the king presently led the way through the secret door on the north-eastern side of the palace enclosure. Two umbrellas of crimson velvet, surmounted by silver globes and crosses—his never-failing attendants on all occasions of state—were supported by sturdy slaves, and twelve richly caparisoned steeds, representing the months of the year, were led by the royal grooms. A numerous and motley retinue of dismounted cavaliers followed, and on reaching the meadow, the brows both of monarch and subject were bound by the monks with green fillets of a wiry grass, styled “enkotátach” whence the festival takes its appellation.

Unlike the rugged mountains of Ankóber, which can alone be traversed by the sure-footed mule, the country around Debra Berhán is well adapted for the equestrian, and the bright azure of the sky, mottled by fleecy clouds, the fresh verdure of the turf, and the elasticity of the air, all lent their aid to the coming tournament. Armed with a slender staff, the king mounted his charger, and bounding over the green-sward, opened the sports of the day. Groups of wild savages were instantly to be seen scouring in every direction, engaged in the gombéza, or joust, but His Majesty in flaunting striped robes shone conspicuous. Well mounted, a fearless horseman, and admirably skilled in the use of the spear, he had on no previous occasion been seen to so great advantage as during his participation in the warlike exercises of the new year—now pursuing, and now in turn pursued by the warrior whom he had honoured by selection as his antagonist in the tilt.

“Guebroo is sick,” quoth the monarch, the moment this display was over; “he has received a severe wound in the head during a skirmish with the rebel Galla, and I am desirous that you should now visit him, taking with you the medicine for putrid sores!”

Ayto Berkie, the governor of Bulga, volunteered his escort to Dalúti, the abode of his invalid brother. Crossing the serpentine Beréza, the road led through swampy meadows, and over little cultivated knolls destitute of either tree or shrub, towards Angollála, which, after a gallop of seven miles, opened in the distance. On the summit of a tabular eminence rose the king’s two-storied palace, above churches and conical houses; and five distinct knolls, forming an arc in the intermediate and otherwise level landscape, were severally crowned by the abodes of favourite courtiers—that on the extreme right, embowered in luxuriant trees, pertaining to Ayto Guebroo, governor of Mentshar.

Ascending the tumulus by a steep and stony path, and passing through a muddy court-yard, we reached to the abode of the great man. Surrounded by mournful attendants, he reclined on an alga before a fierce fire, his right eye screened by a shade of blue calico, and his comely partner sobbing violently at his feet. The Gillé and Loomi Galla, bordering on the ancient province of “Fátigar,” having revolted, the warrior had taken the field with his contingent, and becoming opposed to a rebel in hand to hand combat, had received the first spear on his buckler, which was now ostentatiously displayed. The horse of his adversary fell under a well-directed lance, and the dismounted pagan sued for quarter; obtaining which, he treacherously launched his remaining shaft, which had cleft the forehead, and passed through the corner of the eye, although without destroying the vision.

The patient having pledged himself to submit to the prescribed treatment, which few in Abyssinia will do, an operation was successfully performed by Dr Kirk. Drying her tears, the hostess had meanwhile slaughtered a ram, and made extensive preparations for a repast. Piles of thin teff cakes, which loaded the low wicker table, were flanked by decanters of mawkish old honey wine; bowls of pepper porridge smoked at the place appointed for each guest, and lumps of raw meat were in profusion; nor was it without infinite surprise that the hospitable entertainers and their domestics beheld the chops submitted in the first instance to the influence of the hot embers. “Do all of your nation thus burn their meat?” inquired the lady, after long and attentive observation: “I was told that such was the case, and that you burnt the king’s bread too, but could never have believed it.”

No small difficulty was experienced by the despot in comprehending how an eye could be restored by the use of the knife; but His Majesty was at a still greater loss to understand by what means a subject had been cured, whilst himself remained in partial blindness. Ayto Kátama was present at this observation, and turning to one of the party, he whispered, “You must not suppose that the Negoos is blind of that eye: may Sáhela Selássie die, he sees better with it than with the other!” Like -sop of old, who was once a bondsman, the general of the body-guard still retained the grovelling spirit of slavery, varnished with the address of the artful courtier; and he thus invariably followed the advice given to Solon by the hunchback author of the Fables, “that we should either not come near crowned heads at all, or speak those things only that will prove agreeable to them.”

Volume Two—Chapter Nine.

The Falls of the Beréza.

Hunting expeditions filled up the leisure hours of the busy monarch. Standing on the verge of the deep ravine by which the now deserted fastness of Tegulet is insulated from the plain of Debra Berhán, it was His Majesty’s diversion to project stone balls from his rifle at the hyenas basking upon huge fragments of fallen rock, which form caverns one thousand feet below, and choke the bed of the pathless chasm. Then the steps of the royal cavalcade would be directed to the valley of the Beréza, where “Satan’s horses,” in the shape of gigantic adjutants, were striding over the plain on their long stilt-like legs, with well-filled pouches dangling beneath their bills. Here, seated upon the green turf, the Negoos awaited the report of his scouts. Whilst turning the corner of the numerous abrupt eminences, his ears were ever saluted by loud cries of “Abiet! Abiet!” from the mouth of many a petitioner, and a very respectable body of plaintiffs and defendants were continually in attendance.

Judgment was calmly delivered until the arrival of some breathless horseman with intelligence of the discovery of a colony of baboons, would arrest the proceedings of the sylvan court. “Sáhela Selássie ye moot?” inquired the sporting monarch on one of these occasions, adjuring the informant by his own illustrious life; “are they well surrounded?” “May Sáhela Selássie die if they be not,” responded the slave, as he bowed his head to the dust; “hundreds graze in yonder corn-field.” “Then by the death of Woosen Suggud they shall be slain,” was the rejoinder, as His Majesty galloped towards the spot, followed by a train of attendants carrying every rifle and fowling-piece of which the imperial armoury could boast.

On the verge of the deep valley we presently descried a countless pig-faced army, laying waste the rising crops. Lusty veterans, muffled in long flowing manes, strutted consequentially among the ladies; and others, squatted upon their hunkers, with many a ghastly grin displayed their white teeth whilst hunting down the vermin that infested their rough shaggy coats. Casting aside his chequered robe, the king, with all the ardour of a schoolboy, dashed into the middle of the amazed group, and under a running fire from himself and courtiers, the field was presently strewed with slain and wounded. Mangled wretches were now to be seen endeavouring to reach the precipitous chasm of the Beréza, whose white foaming waters were thundering below, whilst the grimacing survivors, far out of danger, whooped in echoes amid the bush-grown clefts, to reassemble the discomfited forces.

Return from this brilliant victory was celebrated by the war-chorus, until the appearance of an erkoom waddling over the ploughed land, again proved the signal for general pursuit. This gigantic and deformed bird is of the genus Hornbill, and an abrupt unmeaning excrescence above his huge jagged forceps, imparts a fancied resemblance to the slaves of the king, who carry water-jars upon their heads, which has dignified him with the title of “Abba Gumbo,” “the Father of the Pitcher.” It has blue wattles, which, when the bird is worried, become inflamed like those of the turkey-cock; and from the fact of its always constructing the door of its nest to the eastward, the Abyssinians assert that it will never build out of sight of a church.

The plumage throughout is to appearance of a sooty black; but the expansion of the wings displays an assemblage of snowy quills which form the pride of the warrior who has slain his enemy in battle. Mules were abandoned with one accord; and under the encouraging gaze of the despot, the courtiers, springing into their high-peaked saddles, scoured after the devoted quarry. Weary with its long flight, the heavy bird alighted a dozen times, but no rest was ever allowed. Again he was turned, and again he distanced his pursuers, until beleaguered on all sides, he was finally speared by the chief smith and body physician, who, as an equestrian, shone facile princeps. His skill rewarded the head of each hero engaged with the coveted white plume, which is the Amháric emblem of death.

“My children have never seen the ‘Devil’s sheep,’” gravely observed His Majesty, as he ascended towards the palace preceded by strains of martial music. “They live in holes in the rocks under the great waterfall, and have long snouts. My people are afraid. Take guns in the morning, and the pages shall show you the road. Now you may eat.”

Heavy dew covered the waving grass, as, accompanied by the promised escort, we proceeded at an early hour to gratify the royal curiosity by the destruction of the dreaded monster. It proved on realisation to be an inoffensive badger; and although the sport did not afford very much diversion, the cataract amply repaid the ride across the meadow. Leaving the terrace of table-land, the serpentine river, far hid from sight, winds through a succession of rounded hills towards a precipitous valley, down which the foaming torrent rushes over a descent of eight rocky basins. Hemmed in by fantastic pillars of basalt, composed of irregular disjointed polygons, the dark craggy surface, laid bare by the violence of ages, is at strange variance with the bright emerald turf which creeps luxuriantly to the very verge of the frowning abyss; whilst twelve hundred feet below, the sparry walls suddenly contract to the breadth of fifteen yards, and the accumulated waters of the cascades, discharging through this natural flood-gate, boil onwards in their wild career.

At some distance from this point are the royal iron mines, and near them a perpendicular crag, which rears its crumbling form from the very bottom of the vale to the level of the upper stream, marks the suddenness of the descent. The entire lace of the verdant hills that repose above the roaring cataract, were covered with thyme and other aromatic herbs, yielding up their fragrance at every step; and new and lovely flowers, sparkling under the morning dew, carpeted the slope. From the very brink of the dizzy torrent, lofty junipers raised their tall stems, and flung their mossy arms to a vast height, though still appearing but as small twigs; and the white cloud of foam and spray which arose from the gloomy chasm, reflecting the prismatic colours of the rainbow, completed a picture of singular wildness and magnificence.

How different, indeed, is the fate awaiting the waters of one and the same shower discharged over the high ridge of the Abyssinian Alps! A drop, falling on the eastern slope of the shed, wends its short course by the nearest streamlet towards the muddy Háwash; and, if not absorbed by the thirsty plains of the Adaïel, adds its mite to the lagoon of Aussa—to filter, perhaps, through some subterranean channel into the Indian Ocean. But far distant is the pilgrimage that awaits the more ambitious cloud that sinks on the western side. Joining the Beréza, and taking the sudden leap over the dazzling cataract of Debra Berhán, it hurries down the Jumma on its impetuous course to the Bahr el Azreek—rolls through the golden sands of Damot—and, after visiting Meroë and Thebes, and all the stately pyramids, either adds its humble tribute to the blue waves of the Mediterranean, or is sacrificed to the fertility of the land of Egypt:

“Where with annual pomp, Rich king of floods! o’erflows the swelling Nile.”

Volume Two—Chapter Ten.

The Annual Review.

As the month rolled on, under a cold and pleasant sky, the governors of the adjacent districts flocked with their quotas to Debra Berhán, to be in readiness against the approaching anniversary of “Máskal.” On this festival, which is held in commemoration of the discovery of the Holy Cross by Saint Helena, the rabble militia composing the Amhára forces is marshalled in order of review, and the grassy slope in front of the palace became daily more and more thickly dotted with black booths and mules and neighing steeds. Honours, appointments, and rewards, are now conferred upon the brave and the deserving; and this being also the season of retribution, the forfeited property and the household chattels of delinquent officers add to the fair-like confusion. Herds of cattle, and long files of confiscated slaves, wooden tables, rickety bedsteads, and other paltry prizes of royal seizure, crowded the bustling parade; whilst groups of shivering camels, transferred by writ of execution to an uncongenial clime, took up their cold station on the bare ground, which was in a few days to receive their long scraggy bones.

On the eve of the anxiously expected day of jubilee, the din of the nugáreet, followed by the repeated discharge of heavily-loaded matchlocks, proclaimed the movement of the household troops towards the palace portals, in order to guard the imperial person from any sudden outbreak of the wild host encamped in the environs. Halting in front of the tents of the Embassy, they performed the war-dance in our honour by the light of numerous torches. Whilst the leaders solaced themselves with a cup of our curaçoa, their curvetting chargers, ridden by confidential henchmen, bore gallantly among the dense mass; and the bright metal stars and studs of their appointments gleamed amid the dark ranks of the warriors, as they howled the Amhára death chorus. Bidding us good night, the Master of the Horse declared, amongst the affirmative whoops of his followers, that next to the royal safety, the lives of his much-esteemed foreign friends should be uppermost in his thoughts during the coming vigil.

Most unkingly was the appearance presented by the palace at break of day, for all was disorder and confusion among the court. Dirt and filth reigned paramount in every purlieu—mire to the ankle obstructed every gateway—and the rods of the wearied door-keepers were broken to splinters in their laudable endeavours to check the rush of the eager and greasy mob. The very houses themselves seemed more gloomy, and the time-worn mud plaster of the ancient walls more sombre and dilapidated than usual.

The despot was for some hours to be seen squatted in the porch of the banqueting hall, surrounded by all the concomitant litter of a forge, which, puffing away at the foot of his alga, under the personal supervision of the chief smith, blew a cloud of dust and ashes into the royal nostrils. Decorum seemed to be laid aside for the day. Chattering and noise resounded in every quarter. Restraint was removed from the tongues of all, and the uplifted voice of the monarch was at times scarcely audible, amid the clatter of surrounding courtiers, and the ringing of the crow upon the anvil.

Twenty sallow eunuchs, acting each at one and the same time as master of the ceremonies, introduced to the royal notice the crowds of lieges, who, arrayed in most filthy garbs, came crushing together to the front. Priests, and monks, and petty governors, women, slaves, and cultivators, bore each some present to swell the imperial stores. Honey, butter, and beads, sticks, crutches, and censers, were alike received with complimentary speeches, saving in the instance of one burly knave, who had presumed to come before the king with a poor bundle of grass. Of him no notice whatever was taken. The very crowd seemed ashamed of so scurvy an offering, and an opening being spontaneously made, a few kicks and shoves sent the ill-provided vassal speedily out of sight, unrewarded by the customary “God give thee more!” from the lips of his puissant sovereign.

But a very different scene presented itself when, at a later hour, we were ushered through the grassy lawn to make our bows to His Majesty. Surrounded by the grandees of the court, in their holiday attire, the generals of the cavalry and body-guard, the household officers, and the alakas and high-priests of all the principal churches, he reclined on a moveable throne, tricked out for the occasion in velvet and satin. Rich kimkhabs, gay silken vests, and a profusion of silver swords and decorations for gallant conduct, sparkled on the persons of the courtiers; and the turmoil attending the early hours of business had given place to the unbending gravity of Abyssinian etiquette.

The artillery escort having, greatly to the admiration of the bystanders, gone through the manual and platoon exercises with blank cartridge, three hundred Aferoch, under the command of the purveyor-general, entered the arena, elevating high above their heads bundles of peeled wands, bound together with wisps of rushes, and decked with garlands of the yellow “cross-flower.” The wild song of rejoicing at the return of spring, and of the season of blossoms, “when the fleas retire and the flies appear,” had been heard a considerable time, waxing louder and louder, as these lictors, with their fasces, approached the scene of exhibition. Shouting the war-chorus, they now moved forward with a mincing gait, and after the most abject prostration to the earth, with a yell, hurling their rods in a heap before the palace steps, the whole crouched in a semicircle. Their leader and his stewards, some on horseback, others on foot, clothed in the spoils of wild beasts, then displayed themselves individually in the dance, galloping or vaulting between the open ranks, encouraging the men to fight, and demean themselves as warriors in the day of battle—each ending his recitative by a terrific howl, in which he was joined by the whole band.

This exhibition terminated, we were marshalled to a gay Turkish pavilion, which had been purposely erected, below the royal inspection tower. A small, roofed building, resembling the judge’s stand on a country race-course, occupies a raised platform immediately within the palace enclosure. Gaudy cloth hangings enveloped this cage, and carpets and rugs of all colours covered the top of the rude wall for some distance on either side. The Negoos was already seated when we cantered past, and taking off our hats, received his condescending salutation. The usual paraphernalia of silver-embossed velvet floated at his feet. The chiefs of the churches, and the civil officers of state—a gorgeous band—were arranged along the platform, whilst a motley crowd of many thousand spectators stood closely packed over the plain below.

Dense masses of cavalry were in readiness at the further extremity of the parade, to perform the pageant of the day. At the distance of one hundred yards from the imperial stand, a stack of tall leafless willow staves had been erected on the bright green turf which extended far and wide in front. Around it were squatted files of warriors, ensconced under their round shields like the tortoise beneath his shell—the management of sundry huge culverins, of inordinate dimensions, being divided betwixt every three. The muzzle rested over the shoulder of one, a second worked the butt, and a third was prepared, with blazing brand, to fire on the signal given.

The review commenced by the advance of Ayto Kátama’s body-guard, consisting entirely of fusiliers, three-fourths of whom were on this occasion equipped with the muskets that I had recently presented. Divided into four bodies, consisting each of about one hundred men, they moved slowly forward, shouting the usual war-chorus, in imitation of the voice of the lion, and were kept in line by the vigorous application of the rattan. Numerous bracelets, the reward of distinguished gallantry, glittered throughout the band, and the fixed bayonets, heretofore unknown in Southern Abyssinia, gleamed brightly in the sunshine. Gaining the prescribed distance, the warriors crouched on the ground as if to receive cavalry. A grey-headed but energetic veteran sprang to the front—danced during some time in a variety of uncouth capers—and uttering a howl such as might be conjectured to issue from the demon in the wolfs glen, discharged his piece. The signal was followed by a running fire along the entire line, when the remaining companies, advancing in succession in the same order, went through similar evolutions, and all marched off dancing and singing to the outer ring.

The commander-in-chief of this doughty band had meanwhile formed a conspicuous, although rather a ludicrous figure in the performance. Adorned with a flowing garment of his favourite chintz, the flaring pattern of which the kaleidoscope itself must have found difficulty in devising, Ayto Kátama, a bondsman from his youth, exhibited himself in front of the phalanx of slaves, his head enveloped in a crimson harlequin cap. Tripping and mincing with the most unseemly capers and gestures, he brandished his crooked blade in a fashion which could alone have proved dangerous to himself. An inveterate chronic sore throat had rendered his voice husky; and his vapouring unmilitary motions, which reminded us of the strut of a crippled peacock, shed a broad light of caricature over this opening scene of the pantomime.

But the king’s Master of the Horse next advanced with his glittering squadron of picked household cavalry—the flower of the Christian lances. Ayto Melkoo was arrayed in a parti-coloured vest, surmounted by a crimson Arab fleece, handsomely studded with silver jets. A gilt embossed gauntlet encircled his right arm from the wrist to the elbow. His targe and horse-trapping displayed a profusion of silver crosses and devices, and he looked a stately and martial warrior, curvetting at the head of his troop of well-appointed lancers.

Forming line at the distance of half a mile, and approaching the willow pile with a musical accompaniment from a mounted band of kettle-drums, the squadron halted, and the leader, couching his lance, advanced in front. Whilst putting his charger through all the evolutions of Abyssinian manège, he vaunted his prowess in arms, recited the prodigies of valour performed in the service of his royal master, and proclaimed his continued good faith, and future bold intentions—his followers, at intervals, like the Romans of old, responding their assent by the loud clatter of lance against shield. The harangue concluded, his spears were dashed upon the ground, and the chieftain, drawing his broad two-edged falchion, brandished it in the air: “Tockatoo, Loolá, Loolá, Gummoo, Sik, Oooooh,” he vociferated, as he dashed his heels into the flanks of his prancing steed. An instantaneous howl, and independent discharge of culverins, answered the signal, and the wild troop swept past at a gallop to the further extremity of the parade.

At the royal request, I caused a salute of twenty-one guns to be fired by the artillery escort, from the brass three-pounder, which had been dragged by oxen below the willow-stack. Great was the admiration of the wild Galla multitude as they gazed on the appointments and embroidered housings of the British officers now assembled on horseback in front of the watch-tower; and sufficiently diverting were the remarks they passed on our fluttering plumes of white and red feathers—their own emblems of bloody though not chivalrous deeds. When the cannonade opened upon ears that had never before listened to the thunder of ordnance, and a cloud of white smoke curled high above the heads of those who had hitherto beheld such volumes arise only from their own burning hamlets, a buzz of applause pealed from end to end of the extended fine. Each echoing report carried to the hearts of the disaffected a powerful argument for future loyalty, and it needed little discrimination to unravel the royal policy which had dictated the display.

Thirteen governors, clothed in spoils stripped from the lion and the leopard, with other conspicuous trophies of the chase, next passed successively in order of review. Decked in emblems of blood—rings, feathers, bracelets, and gauntlets—tokens all of individual prowess in hand to hand combat with the king’s foes—the leader of each glittering cohort indulged in a long rambling harangue, ere shouting the signal for the charge. Many there were who wore the akodáma—a massive transverse beam of silver projecting across the brows, and hung with a profusion of chains and pendants, the reward for the slaughter of an Adel, several of which respectable body, including the Ras el Káfilah and his fiery coadjutor, Ibrahim Shehém, were spectators of the martial manoeuvres of the Amhára troops.

An interesting, though perhaps not a very military sight, was witnessed as the hours drew on. The famished governors, judges, chiefs, nobles, courtiers, and dignitaries of the church, who occupied the elevated platform on either side of the royal box, unable longer to resist the calls of hunger, were suddenly to be perceived in the act of employing their crooked swords in reducing the dimensions of several sides and flaps of raw beef, which had been furnished by the king’s munificence, and were ostentatiously displayed by as many menials—nor, under the well-directed and vigorous attacks of the assembly, were the reeking collops long in disappearing.

A few only of the detachments, whose leaders were not gifted with eloquence, charged past without a halt from the ground on which they had formed; and it is not improbable that these, having made the circuit of the palace enclosure, had swelled the pageant by appearing a second time on the stage. Others, dismounting, performed various evolutions on foot—ancient heroes, with falchions of truly portentous dimensions, capering and striding before the line, until on a signal made by the culverins, they vaulted again into the saddles, and dashed onward over the green-sward, now fast fading under the tramp of hoofs.

Last of all came the tall martial figure of Abogáz Maretch, chief of all the tributary Galla in the south, at the head of his Abitchu legion, who closed the display of barbarian tactics. Three thousand in number, the sea of wild horsemen moved in advance to the music of the kettledrums, their arms and decorations flashing in the sun-beam, and their ample white robes and long braided hair streaming to the breeze. At the shrill whoop of their leader, with the rushing sound of a hurricane, the cohort clattered past the royal stand, and the moving forest of lances disappeared under a cloud of dust.

From eight to ten thousand cavalry were present in the field, and the spectacle, which lasted from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon, was exceedingly wild and impressive. Did the warriors who this day recounted their valorous achievements before the monarch only possess hearts of a measure with their good weapons and strong seats, they could not fail to prove the means of extensive power and conquest under the control of an aspiring chief; but such unfortunately is not the case, and the speed of their stout hardy steeds is too frequently exerted in the wrong direction.

As soon as it became dark, several rockets which we had brought with us were discharged from our tents by the king’s express desire. With fire-arms the Abyssinians were previously acquainted, and the brass galloper which had echoed so recently, although viewed with wonderful respect, was still only the engine on a colossal scale, to which they were familiarised. But these were the first rockets of which His Majesty had viewed the flight, and the impression they produced upon his mind, as he gazed from his watch-tower, was scarcely less than that worked upon his assembled subjects. Night had thrown her mantle around, and the novel principle of ascent, with the grandeur of the brilliant rush into the skies, afforded matter of amazement to all spectators. When the projectile started with a loud roar from its bed, men, women, and children, fell flat upon their faces. Horses and mules broke loose from their tethers, and the warrior who had any heart remaining shouted aloud. The Galla tribes who witnessed the meteor-like explosion from the vicinity, ascribed the phenomenon to the use of potent medicines, and declared that since the Gyptzis could at pleasure produce comets in the sky, and rain fire from heaven, there was nought for them left, save abject submission to the king’s commands.

The ceremony of burning the stack of willow staves on the parade commenced shortly after this exhibition, and, superintended by His Majesty in person, terminated the proceedings of the busy day. Shrouded from the gaze of the populace, the ladies of the royal harem danced and clapped their hands together, as their white ghostlike figures moved in circling procession around the pile so shortly to be committed to the flames. Then followed a rush of torch-bearers from various quarters, mingled with the corps of Aferoch, and all reeling under the effects of strong old hydromel. Three hundred flower-decked fasces, displayed bright and fresh in the morning, but now withered and faded, were with savage shouts and yells cast simultaneously on the pyre, and a burst of lurid glare, which revealed all that was passing, at once proclaimed their ignition. Thousands crowding to the spot added their tribute, and joined in the din of voices. Black crosses to repel the devil were by many described on their foreheads with the charred wood, in the struggle to obtain which hard blows were dealt lustily about, and some of the competitors were even forced into the pile. The legend asserts, that on the discovery of the Holy Cross by the mother of Constantine the Great, she caused beacon fires to be lighted on all the high hills of Palestine, upon beholding which a general shout of joy was raised by the people of Constantinople. In imitation hereof, wild songs and yells of triumph from the inebriated Christians of Shoa, now completed the turmoil and confusion, and with the crackling red flames that curled up the tall dry staves, ascended high towards the starry vault of heaven in honour of Saint Helena.

Volume Two—Chapter Eleven.

The Galla Capital.

Angollála, on the Galla frontier, founded ten years since by the reigning monarch, is now the capital of the western portion of Shoa, and during the greater part of the year it forms His Majesty’s favourite place of residence. Thither he proceeded on the morning following the festivities of Máskal. Upwards of three thousand horsemen composed the cortège, which was swelled every quarter of a mile by large detachments of cavalry. Led by their respective chiefs, each band dismounted at a considerable distance on the flank, and advancing on foot with shoulders bared, fell prostrate with one accord before the state umbrellas. The Negoos bestrode a richly caparisoned mule, with swallow-tailed housings of crimson and green, and massive silver collars; and he was closely followed by the corps of shield-bearers under the direction of the Master of the Horse, who, by vigorous sallies, and the judicious exercise of a long stick, kept the crowd from encroaching upon the royal person, during our eight-mile ride over the level plain.

From four to five hundred circular huts, consisting of loose stone walls very rudely thatched, cover the slopes of a group of tabular hills that enclose an extensive quadrangle. On the summit of the largest eminence, near the church of Kidána Meherát, stands the palace, defended by six rows of stout high palisades. A clumsy stone edifice of two stories, rising in the form of a dove-cot, occupies the centre. It was erected by Demetrius, an Albanian visitor, and is considerably superior in point of architecture to all other domiciles in the realm, although somewhat tottering in appearance, and deserted from an apprehension of earthquake, which holds strong possession of the royal mind. “Earthquakes are bad things,” was His Majesty’s remark, “for they overthrow houses, and demolish my people.”

The rugged ascent up the steep hill-side was thronged with spectators, male and female, assembled to greet the arrival of their sovereign, and to stare at the foreigners. Paupers and mendicants crowded the first enclosure; and the approach from the second gate through four court-yards, to the King’s quarters, was lined with matchlock-men and fusiliers, who, as the Embassy passed between the ranks, made a laughable attempt to present arms in imitation of the artillery escort at the review. Kitchens, magazines, and breweries were scattered in all directions; and, with the long banqueting-hall, the chamber of audience, the apartments of the women, and the solitary cells, formed a curious, but far from imposing group of buildings.

The despot, in high good-humour, conducted us over the unswept premises, and up a rude ladder to the attic story, which commands a pleasant prospect over wide grassy meadows, intersected by serpentine streamlets, and covered with the royal herds. Upon a floor strewed with newly-cut grass, blazed a wood fire in an iron stove, with the never-failing cats luxuriating under its influence. A dirty couch graced the alcove, and a few guns and fowling-pieces the rudely white-washed walls, but otherwise the dreary chamber was unfurnished. “I have brought you here,” quoth His Majesty, “that you may understand what I want. These rooms require to be ornamented; and I wish your artist to cover them with elephants and soldiers, and with representations of all the buildings and strange things in your country, which my eyes have not yet seen. At present my children may go.”

Awnings had been pitched on the summit of Debra Máskal, (The Hill of the Cross) the southern eminence. The weather was now intensely cold, and a fire during the evening hours could not be dispensed with. As the embers died away, and the smoke cleared from the interior of the flimsy pall, our teeth chattered under the pinching exhalation from the ground. Rifles became rusty in a single night from the heavy white dew that saturated the cloth—watches stopped beneath the pillow—and heaps of blankets proved of small avail to warm our cramped and shivering limbs, which told full well of the hoar frost that was encrusting the verdure of the adjacent meadow.

In the filthy purlieus of the palace, and close to the outer gate, stands a mound of ashes and rubbish, mingled with the noisome lees that stream over the road from the adjacent royal breweries. Packs of half-wild dogs, the pest of Angollála, luxuriate hereon during the day, and at night set forth on their reckless foray, dispelling sleep, and destroying tents in their pilfering invasions. Long before the dawn, the shrill crowing of a thousand cocks first startles the slumberer from his uneasy repose. The wild whoop of the oppressed Galla, who demands redress, then mingles with the “Abiet! Abiet!” reiterated by the more civilised Amhára from every hill-top; and the memory of those who have ever witnessed the breaking of the glorious day amid nature’s luxuriant forests of the East, is forcibly carried back to the tangled thicket, where the campanero tolls her bell-like note from the branches of the spreading tamarind, and the wild ape fills up the interval with his deep voice of exultation, as he pounces upon the bitter apple of the wood.

Bands of mendicant monks next silently take post on the crest of a crumbling wall, within spear’s length of the slumberer’s pillow, and by a shrill recitative, followed by a chorus of independent voices, dispel the morning dream, whilst they scream with a pertinacity that bribery can alone quell. Psalms and hymns never fail to usher in the morn; and when the asperity of cracked and aged throats is somewhat mellowed by distance, the chant of Christian praise—now rambling wildly through all the varied shakes and intonations of a single voice—now swelling with the choral unison of many—is not altogether unpleasant. But greatly more melodious would it fall upon the mortal ear, if a lesson in music were taken from the larks, which rise in hundreds from the steaming meadows, to lift their matin song—at intervals warbling far and faint in the cool dewy air, and again approaching with one rich quaver of delicious harmony, as they fearlessly alight upon the awning.

To the cry of “Abiet!” which now resounded so unceasingly, the Abyssinians attach the opinion that, on the last day, Satan, taking up his post before the gates of heaven, will continue thus to vociferate until he gains admittance. On presenting himself before the judgment-seat, it will be asked “what he would have?” “The souls which have been wrested from me by the angels,” is to be the reply; but on his acknowledging inability to specify the names of those who have robbed him, the Father of Evil will receive a command to be gone, and never to shew his face again.

Importunity is an attribute which stands prominently forth in the character of a native of Southern Abyssinia. For hours together the numerous applicants for redress continue thus to call upon the “master” from every eminence around the palace, until at length the door-keepers appearing, beckon the petitioners to draw nigh. Well aware, however, of the existing understanding between these servitors and the very judges against whose decision they would appeal, they give no heed to the summons, but thrusting their fingers into their ears, do but lift up their voices the louder, until the king commands one of his pages to cause the whole to assemble in the court-yard, where, with shoulders bared to the waist, the parties fearlessly bring their complaint before the throne.

Opportunities were therefore daily afforded of witnessing the dispensation of justice in this singular and anomalous land, where an Ethiopic translation of the code of Justinian, adapted to the customs of the country, forms the basis of legal decisions. The Fétha Negést, or “Judgment of the Kings,” as this volume is entitled, is said to have fallen from heaven during the reign of Constantine the Great; but its statutes, although liberally quoted on all convenient occasions, are not considered binding upon the monarch, unless found in perfect unison with his own despotic pleasure. Disputes are first adjusted by the governors of provinces, who, in the powers with which they are invested, resemble the feudal barons of the middle ages, and often perpetrate the grossest injustice. But the injured party can always seek redress in the court of the Four Wamberoch, or “the chairs,” who are the judges civil and criminal. These dignitaries daily take their seat in the verandah of a building allotted in one of the palace courts, where accuser and accused delivered their conflicting statements in an equally elevated tone of oratory, accompanied by much theatrical gesture. The decision lies again under appeal to the throne; and whensoever the king sees fit to reverse it, the severest censure is invariably passed upon the delinquent “chairs.” The lives and the lands of every subject of Shoa belong de jure to Sáhela Selássie, and of their persons and worldly substance he is absolute master. Whether at the demise of the king or of the subject, the estates of the latter are again at the disposal of the crown, and without the occurrence of either contingency, the mere will and pleasure of the despot is alone requisite to their resumption. Violent use, however, is not often made of this arbitrary power, and it is rarely resorted to except in cases of high treason or of offences against the state, which, in place of capital punishment, are visited by confiscation of property, with imprisonment for life. But if the criminal shall have taken timely sanctuary in the monastery of Affaf Woira, his person is held inviolate, even by the king, and the monks can generally mediate with success. Slavery, either limited to the offender, or extended to his whole family, and continued to his descendants, during one, two, or even seven generations, is a punishment from which no class is held exempt, but exile is usually substituted for offences committed by the clergy, the banished ecclesiastic being then commanded to “stay not by day, neither to tarry by night,” if he would avoid the penalty that awaits delay.

In accordance with the Mosaic dispensation, a life for a life is the sentence passed upon the murderer; but, obtaining the consent of the relatives of the deceased, he is authorised by law to purchase his pardon, and to beg through the land until he shall have accumulated the stipulated ransom. His escape under any circumstances involves forfeiture of property by all his relatives who may be residing north of the river Airára, and unless he be produced, the attachment continues in full force during three generations. Robbery is usually investigated through the Lebáshi, or “thief-taker,” who is indispensable to Abyssinian jurisprudence, and the unhappy wretch whom his imp selects, if unable to pay the fine adjudged, is visited by castigation either with a whip or cudgel. If a Christian, he is then confided to the care of a follower of the Prophet in some of the hot unwholesome Mohammadan districts—if an Islám, to that of a Christian—the party on whom the culprit is thus quartered, being in either case held responsible to the crown for his safe custody during his term of hard labour.