Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 2/Book 4/Chapter 8
BACUFFA.
From 1719 to 1729.
HONEST men, who loved their country, saw the dangerous situation it was then in. Every day had produced instances of a growing indifference to that form of government which, from the earliest times, they had looked upon as sacred; and upon every slight and unreasonable disgust a person of consequence thought he had met with, a party was immediately formed, and nothing less was agreed on than directly imbruing their hands in the blood of their sovereign.
A prince was necessary who had qualities of mind proper to enable him to put a stop to these enormities before they involved the state in one scene of anarchy and ruin, Bacuffa was thought to answer these expectations; and, in the end, he was found to exceed them.— Silent, secret, and unfathomable in his designs, surrounded by soldiers who were his own slaves, and by new men of his own creation, he removed those tyrants who opposed their sovereigns upon the smallest provocation. Conspiracy followed conspiracy, and rebellion rebellion; but all were defeated, as soon as they had birth, by the superior activity and address of the king.
I have said he was called Bacuffa by the Galla; but, in compliance with the custom of Abyssinia, already mentioned, he had assumed still two other names, which were, Atzham Georgis, his name of baptism, and Adebar Segued, which means "reverenced by the towns or inhabited places of the country," given him at his inauguration. As for that of Bacuffa, which meant the inexorable, it was the less dishonourable from having been given him by impartial strangers from their own observation while he was yet in private life; his whole conduct afterwards shewed how justly.
The king has near his person an officer who is meant to be his historiographer. He is also keeper of his seal, and is obliged to make a journal of the king's actions, good or bad, without comment of his own upon them. This, when the king dies, or at least soon after, is delivered to the council, who read it over, and erase every thing false in it; while they supply any material fact that may have been omitted, whether purposely or not. This would have been a very dangerous book to have been kept in Bacuffa's time; and, accordingly, no person chose ever to run that risk; and the king's particular behaviour afterwards had still the further effect, that nobody would supply this deficiency after his death, a general belief prevailing in Abyssinia that he is alive to this day, and will appear again in all his terrors. It is owing to this circumstance that we have nothing complete of this king's reign; only a few anecdotes are preserved, some of them very odd ones. I shall only, for the present, choose such of those as lead me to the subject I have in hand.
Bacuffa was exceedingly fond of divinations, dreams, and prophecies, so are all the Abyssinians; but he imbibed an additional propensity to these, among the Pagans to whom he had fled. One day, when walking alone, he perceived a priest exceedingly attentive in observing the forms that little pieces of straw, cut to certain lengths, made upon a pool of water into which ran a small stream. From the combination of these in letters, or figures, as they chanced to fall, an answer is procured to the doubt proposed, which, if you believe these idlers, is perfectly infallible.
Bacuffa in disguise, dressed like a poor man, is said to have asked the priest after what he was inquiring. The priest answered, He was trying whether the king would have a son, and who should govern the kingdom after him. The king abode the investigation patiently; and the answer was, That he should have a son; but that a Welleta Georgis should govern the kingdom after him for thirty years, though that Welleta Georgis should be neither his son nor any descendant of his. Full of thought at this untoward prediction, he harboured it in his breast without communicating it to any one, and resolved to blast the hopes of every Welleta Georgis that should be so unfortunate as to stand within the possibility of reigning after him. Many innocent people of different parts disappeared from this unknown crime; and eleven princes on the mountain of Wechne, some say more, lost their lives for a name that is very common in Abyssinia, without one overt act of treason, or even a suspicion of what they were accused. A panic now struck all ranks of people, without terminating in any scheme of resistance; which sufficiently shewed that the king had succeeded in dissolving all confederacies among his subjects, and destroying radically that rebellious spirit which had operated so fatally in the last reigns.
It is a custom among the kings of Abyssinia, especially in intervals of peace, to disappear for a time, without any warning. Sometimes, indeed, one or two confidential servants, pretending to be busied in other affairs, attend at a distance, and keep their eye upon him, while, disguised in different manners, he goes like a stranger to those parts he intends to visit. In one of these private journeys, passing into Kuara, a province on the N. E. of Abyssinia, near the confines of Sennaar, Bacuffa happened, or counterfeited, to be seized by a fever, a common disease of that unwholesome country. He was then in a poor village belonging to servants of a man of distinction, whose house was on the top of the hill immediately above, in temperate and wholesome air. The hospitable landlord, upon the first hearing of the dialects of a stranger, immediately removed him up to his house, where every attention that could be suggested by a charitable mind was bestowed upon his diseased guest, who presently recovered his former state of health, but not till the kind assistance and unwearied diligence of the beautiful daughter of the house had made the deepest impression upon him, and laid him under the greatest obligations.
The family consisted of five young men in the flower of their youth, and one daughter, whose name was Berhan Magass, the Glory of Grace, exceedingly beautiful, gentle, mild, and affable; of great understanding and prudence beyond her age; the darling, not only of her own family, but of all the neighbourhood.
Bacuffa recovering his health, returned speedily to the palace, which he entered privately at night, and appeared early next morning fitting in judgment, and hearing causes, which, with these princes, is the first public occupation of the day.
A messenger, with guards and attendants, was immediately sent to Kuara, and Berhan Magass hurried from her father's house, she knew not why, but her surprise was carried to the utmost, by being presented and married to the king, no reply, condition, or stipulation being suffered. She gained, however, and preserved his confidence as long as he lived: not that Bacuffa valued himself upon constancy to one wife, more than the rest of his predecessors had done. He had, indeed, many mistresses, but with these he observed a very singular rule; he never took to his bed any one woman whatever, the fair Berhan Magass excepted, without her having been first so far intoxicated with wine or spirits as not to remember any thing that passed in conversation. While Bacuffa was on his concealed journey to Kuara, a very dangerous conspiracy was forming at Gondar, under the immediate conduct of Ozoro Welleta Raphael, the king's sister, a very ambitious woman, and of an unquiet, enterprising temper. Disgusted by her brother's refusal of a gift of some crown lands which were then vacant, and without any owners, she thought no vengeance adequate to the affront, but dethroning Bacuffa. With this view she engaged several men of power in her interest, and particularly the black servants of the palace who attend immediately upon the king's person, and were to seize upon, or destroy him, the moment he returned. This plot, in all its particulars, was conveyed to the king.
There was an old, abandoned house of king Yasous, at Bartcho, about a day's journey south of Gondar; it stands on a very extensive plain. The king intending, as he said, to repair, or rather clean and prepare this house for his immediate reception, ordered all the black slaves from Gondar thither for that purpose, together with some of their ringleaders. Kasmati Waragna, in the mean time, was ordered to bring a thousand horsemen of his Galla Djawi. He arrived at Bartcho nearly at the fame time with the black servants, who being unarmed, as suspecting nothing, and on foot, after a sharp reproof from the king, were all surrounded and cut to pieces by the hands of Waragna, and orders were immediately sent to Gondar to extirpate the remainder there; and this execution laid a foundation for a feud that endures to this day between the Galla troops and the black horse, who were then abolished, as the Galla have been since, though both were part of the king's household formerly, before David's or Bacuffa's time. As for Welleta Raphael, she was seized that same night, and was conveyed to Walkayt, to be confined there, with private instructions, however, to put her to death speedily, which were executed accordingly.
The queen had a son within the year, whom the council named Yasous, after his grandfather, whose memory will ever be dear in Abyssinia; and this again revived the old apprehensions that Welleta Georgis was to govern the country (as the prophet said) for thirty years. Tormented with this idea, rather than the havoc it had occasioned, he devised with himself a scheme which he thought would certainly detect this future usurper of his crown and dethroner of his child. But first he directed that the queen should be crowned, a ceremony that carries great consequences along with it when solemnized properly, as at that time she is made regent, or Iteghè, in all minorities that may happen afterwards.
After he had created his wife Iteghè, Bacuffa pretended to be sick: several days passed without hopes of recovery; but at last the news of the king's death were published in Gondar. The joy was so great, and so universal, that nobody attempted to conceal it. Every one found himself eased of a load of fear which had become insupportable. Several princes escaped from the mountain of Wechne to put themselves in the way of being chosen; some were sent to by those great men who thought themselves capable of effecting the nomination, and a speedy day was appointed for the burial of the king's corpse, when Bacuffa appeared, in the ordinary feat of justice, early in the morning of that day, with the Iteghè, and the infant Yasous, his son, sitting in a chair below him.
There was no occasion to accuse the guilty. The whole court, and all strangers attending there upon business, fled, and spread an universal terror through the whole streets of Gondar. All ranks of people were driven to despair, for all had rejoiced; and much less crimes had been before punished with death. What this sedition would have ended in, it is hard to know, had it not been for the immediate resolution of the king, who ordered a general pardon and amnesty to be proclaimed at the door of the palace.
There are two kettle-drums of a large size placed one on each side of the outer gate of the king's house. They are called the lion and the lamb. The lion is beat at the proclamations which regard war, attainders for conspiracies and rebellions, promotions to supreme commands, and suchlike high matters. The lamb[1] is heard only on beneficent, pacific occasions, of gifts from the crown, of general amnesties, of private pardons, and reversals of penal ordinances. The whole town was in expectation of some sanguinary decree, when, to their utter surprise, they heard the voice of the lamb, a certain sign of peace and forgiveness; and speedily followed by a proclamation, forbidding people of all degrees to leave their houses, that the king's word was pledged for every one's security; and that all the principal men should immediately attend him within the palace, in a public place which is called the Ashoa, and that upon pain of rebellion.
The king appeared cloathed all in white, being the habit of peace; his head was bare, dressed, anointed, and perfumed, and his face uncovered. He thus advanced to the rail of the gallery, about 10 feet above the heads of the audience, and, in a very graceful, composed, but resolute manner, began a short oration to the people. "He put them in mind of their wantonness in having made Oustas, a man not of the royal line of Solomon, king of Abyssinia; of their having incited his brother, Tecla Haimanout, to assassinate their father Yasous; that they had afterwards murdered Tecla Haimanout himself, one brother, and lately his other brother David, his own immediate predecessor: That he had taken due vengeance upon all the ringleaders of those crimes, as was the duty of his place, and, if much blood had been shed, it was because many enormities had been committed; but that knowing now that order was established, and conspiracies extinguished among them, he had counterfeited death, to signify an end was put to Bacuffa and his bloody measures; that he now was risen again, and appeared to them by the name of Atzham Georgis, son of Yasous the Great; and ordered every man home to his house to rejoice at the accession of a new king, under whom they should have justice, and live without fear, as long as they respected the king that God had anointed over them."
This speech was followed by the loudest acclamations, "Long live Bacuffa! Long live Atzham Georgis!" It was well known that this king never failed in his word, or any way prevaricated in his promises. Every one, therefore, went home in as perfect peace as if war had never been among them; and Bacuffa's delicacy in this respect was seen a few days after; for Hannes his brother having been brought clandestinely from Wechne by Kasmati Georgis, a nobleman of great consequence, they were both taken by the governor of Wechne and sent in chains to the king. The ordinary process would have been to put them instantly to death, as being apprehended in the very highest act of treason; nor would this have alarmed any person whatever, or been thought an infraction of the king's late promise, Bacuffa, however, was of another mind. He sent the criminal judges, who ordinarily sit upon capital crimes, to meet the two prisoners in their way to Gondar, and carried them back to the foot of the mountain of Wechne to have their crimes proved, and to be tried there out of his presence and influence, where they were both condemned, Hannes to have an arm cut off, Georgis to be sent to prison to the governor of Walkayt, with private orders, to put him to death; both which sentences were executed, though Hannes so far recovered that he was king of Abyssinia in my time, notwithstanding this mutilation; but it was a direct violation of the laws of the land.
It is said that a discovery, which happened in the king's feigned illness, promoted this sudden revolution of manners. In one of his secret tours through Begemder, (after Tigre, the most powerful province in Abyssinia, and by much the most plentiful) being disguised like a poor man, dirty and fatigued with the length of the way and heat of the weather, he came to the house of a private person, not very rich indeed, but of noble manners and carriage, and who, by the justice and mildness of his behaviour and customs, had acquired a great degree of influence among his neighbours. The father was old and feeble, but the son in the vigour of his age, who was then standing in a large pool of water, at his father's door, washing his own cotton cloak, or wrapper, which is their upper garment; an occupation below no young man in Abyssinia.
Bacuffa, as overcome with heat, threw himself down under the shade of a tree, and, in a faint voice and foreign dialect, intreated the young man to wash his cloak likewise, after having finished his own. The young man consented most willingly; and, throwing by his own garment, fell to washing the stranger's with great diligence and attention. In the mean time, Bacuffa began questioning him about the king, and what his opinion was of him. The young man answered, he had never formed any. Bacuffa, however, still plied him with questions, while he continued washing the cloak, without giving him any answer at all; at last, being able to hold out no longer, he gathered Bacuffa's cloak in his arms, wet as it was, and threw it to him: "I thought, says he, when you prayed me to take your cloak, that I was doing a charitable action to some poor Galla fainting with fatigue, and perhaps with hunger; but, since I have had it in my hands, I have found you an instructor of kings and nobles, a leader of armies and maker of laws. Take your cloak, therefore, and wash it yourself, which, is what Providence has ordained to be your business; it is a safer trade, and you will have less time to censure your superiors, which can never be a proper or useful occupation to a fellow like you."
The king took his wet cloak, and the rebuke along with it, and, on his return, he sent for the man to Gondar, and raised him in a short time to the first offices in the state. He possessed his entire confidence; and he deserved it. He was the only man to whom the king had confided his fears of the usurper Welleta Georgis. While Bacuffa was supposed to be ill, the queen and this officer only present, he mentioned, for the first time, some surprise that no such person as Welleta Georgis had appeared during so long and so many inquiries, and could not help dropping some words as if he doubted the truth of this prophecy.
Badjerund Waragna, for that was the name of the king's friend, maintained modestly that it might be a temptation of the devil to mislead him to his destruction. He told the king, that, by his own account of it, this Welleta Georgis was to have no power over him as he was only to appear in his son's time. He begged him, therefore, to lay aside all further thoughts of his prophecy, whilst he trusted his son's succession to God's mercy, and to the prayers, the charity, and prudence of the queen. The Iteghé all this time was lost in silence. She desired the king to repeat to her the whole circumstances of the prophecy, which he distinctly did. "I wish," says she laughing, "this Welleta Georgis may not be now nearer us than we imagine; perhaps in the palace." "In the palace!" says the king, with great emotion. "I doubt so," says the queen; "suppose it should be me your own wife; for Welleta Georgis was the name given to me in baptism; and your late coronation of me, should a minority happen in the person of your son, or even a grandson, undoubtedly leaves me regent of the kingdom by your own intentions when you made me Iteghe.
Whether the king was convinced or not, is not known; but he, from this time, desisted from his persecution of Welleta Georgis; and this the queen often told me among several anecdotes of that singular reign. She was my great patroness while at Gondar, and from her I received constant protection in the most disastrous times. To the credit of the prophet, the continued regent full thirty years; till the folly and ambition of her own family gave her a master that put an end to all her influence, except what she enjoyed from exemplary piety, and the most extensive works of charity and mercy.
The king died after a vigorous reign, and after having cut off the greatest part of the ancient nobility near Gondar, who were of age to have been concerned in the transactions of the last reigns. This has rendered his memory odious, though it is universally confessed he saved his country from an aristocratical or democratical usurpation; both equally unconstitutional, as they equally struck at the root of monarchy.
The queen, with very great prudence, concealed the day of the king's death; nor did any one, after the last experiment, affect rashly to believe that his death was real. Thus all were upon their guard against another resurrection. In that interval, she called her brothers from Kuara, and strengthened her son's and her own government, by putting the principal offices of state into the hands of persons attached to her family, so that, though her son Yasous was an infant, no attempt was at that time made towards any lution. Even after the king's death was known to be real, for many years afterwards there were people of credit at different times found, who said they had met him at sundry places alive; whether by instigation for any particular purpose, or not, is difficult to say.
- ↑ This drum is of beaten silver; the Abyssinians say, that this metal alone is capable of conveying the sweet sound contained in a proclamation of peace. It was carried off by the rebels after the retreat of Serbraxos,