Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 4/Book 7/Chapter 10
CHAP. X.
ABOUT eight o'clock in the morning of the 29th of May, the day immediately following the night of our retreat, came Gusho's Fit-Auraris, and marked out the camp for his master between the Mahometan town and the church of Ledeta, on the very spot where Michael had encamped after his late return from Tigrè; Coque Abou Barea from Ledeta to Koscam; Aylo and Ayabdar on the other side of the Kahha, in a line passing by Kedus Raphael, the Abuna's house at the foot of the mountain, above Debra Berhan; Ayto Tesfos in the valley below, by the side of the Angrab; on the road from Woggora to Gondar, and all along the Angrab, till it joined the Kahha, and Kasmati Gusho's camp, were Powussen and the rest of the confederate army; so that by nine o'clock the town was completely invested, as if a wall had been built round it. The water being all in possession of the enemy, centinels were by them placed along the banks of each river, with orders to suffer every townsman to fill single jars, such as one man or woman could carry, and to break any supernumerary jars, that might be brought by way of securing a larger provision[1]. All the people of consequence who had property in and about Gondar, who had fled to Fasil and to the provinces, from fear of Ras Michael when he returned from Tigre, had gone back upon Gusho's word, each man to his house; Gondar was full of men in arms. In Gusho's and Ayabdar's army, and depending on them, was the property of all Gondar. Ras Woodage, Gusho's father, and brother to Ayabdar, had been Ras in Yasous' time, till he died, universally beloved and regretted; Ayto Engedan and Aylo, sons of Kasmati Eshté, (by a sister of king Yasous) had the property of near one half of the town. Though Engedan was prisoner, and Aylo had married Ras Michael's daughter, they were, by interest and inclination, united to Gusho, and had served Michael only through fear, from attachment to the king, so that Gusho and Ayabdar were the only citizens in whom the inhabitants of Gondar confided. Powussen, and the rest, were looked upon as free-booters in their inclinations, at least by the townsmen; very little better than Michael, or his troops of Tigré.
From the moment the town was invested, and indeed in the field, before Gusho had taken the lead, and though neither Ayabdar nor Powussen were his friends, all Gondar was at his command; and in it an army infinitely superior in number and riches, now they had got such a chieftain, to all the Confederates put together, and Michael's army added to them. Gusho, a man of great understanding, born and bred in Gondar, knew this perfectly well, and that he alone was looked up to as the father of his country. He knew, moreover, that he could not ruin Michael so effectually as to lodge him safely in Gondar, amidst a multitude of enemies, and blockade him there before he had time for resources. He therefore detached Ayro Tesfos, the very day he arrived before the town, after Darien, Basha of Belessin, whom Ras Michael had sent before him into Woggora to effect a passage through that province into Tigre by fair means, promises, and presents. Tesfos came up with Darien before he had time to enter upon his commission, and, having beaten and taken him prisoner, raised all Woggora in arms against Michael, so that not a man could longer pass between Tigre and Gondar.
No person from the rebel army had yet entered Gondar. The king's secretary, Azage Kyrillos, a relation of Gusho, had gone to his camp the day of his arrival. The same day the kettle-drums were brought to the brink of Kahha, and a proclamation made. That all soldiers of the province of Tigre, or who had bore arms under Ras Michael, should, on the morrow before mid-day, bring their arms, offensive and defensive, and deliver them on a spot fixed upon near the church of Ledeta, to commissaries appointed for the purpose of receiving them; with further intimation to the inhabitants of Gondar, That any arms found in any house in that town, after noon of the day of proclamation, should subject the owner of such house and arms to death, and the house, or houses, to be razed to their foundation.
The first of the Tigrè troops who set this example was Guebra Mascal; he carried down to the place appointed, and surrendered, about 6000 musquets, belonging to the Ras and his family; all the rest of the principal officers followed, for the inhabitants of Gondar were willing inquisitors, so that the whole arms were delivered before the hour appointed, and locked up in the church of Ledeta, under a strong guard both without and within the church. The Tigrè soldiers, after surrendering their arms, were not suffered to depart, but a space was assigned between Gusho's tent and the town, where they were disposed that night, and centinels placed upon them, that they might not disperse. This indeed was needless; for they were every day surrounded with troops and enemies, so that all their wealth remained with their landlords in Gondar, which home they were not suffered again to enter, a measure which greatly added to Gusho's popularity in the town. A great number of flour sacks were brought down to Gusho's camp, and many mules, loaded therewith, were delivered to the disarmed army, sufficient to carry them by speedy marches to their own country, for which they had orders to set out the next morning.
Kefla Yasous alone, with about 400 men, had shut himself up in the church of Debra Berhan, where there was water, and he had carried in sufficient provisions for several days. He refused therefore to surrender upon the general summons; on which Powussen, who was encamped immediately below him, sent an officer to require him to submit, which he not only peremprorily refused, but told the officer, that, unless he instantly retired, he would give orders to fire upon him, as he had a treaty with Gusho, and, till that was ratified by Gusho himself, he would not surrender, nor suffer any other person to approach his post; at any rate, that he did not intend to surrender to a man of Powussen's low birth, however high his present post had raised him, which he no longer acknowledged, being the mere gift of Michael, one complaint against whom was that of levelling and confounding the nobility with their inferiors.
Gusho accordingly sent an officer, a man of great character, and a relation of the king, with a confirmation of his promise; whereupon Kefla Yasous surrendered, and sent down his foldiers, with what arms he pleased, to Gusho's camp, carrying the rest privately to his own house, to which he retired that very evening. Kefla Yasous was much beloved by the inhabitants of Gondar, though a Tigran, and perhaps in neither party was there a man so universally esteemed. He had done the townsmen often great service, having always stood between Michael and them in those moments of wrath and vengeance when no one else dared to speak; and, in particular, he had saved the town from burning that morning the Ras had retired with the king to Tigrè, when warned, as he said, by an apparition of Michael the archangel, or more probably of the devil, to put the inhabitants of Gondar to the sword, and set the city on fire; a measure that was supported by Nebrit Tecla, and several other leading men among the Tigrans. If the devil can speak true, here surely was one example of it, Gondar that very day had proved fatal to the Ras; and Kefla Yasous himself told me, long after Michael was gone, and all was peace, that having visited him that very evening he left Debra Berhan, Michael had privately upbraided him with having prevented his burning the town, and told him, that his guardian spirit, Saint Michael the archangel, or the devil, or whatever we may please to call it, had left him, and never appeared to him again since he had passed the river Tacazzé on his return to Gondar; and to this he attributed his present misfortunes.
All the king's arms were surrendered with the rest, and Kefla Yasous was the only man that remained unsubdued, a distinction due to his superlative merit, and preserved to him by his enemies themselves in the very heat of conquest.
As for the Ras, he had continued in the house belonging to his office, visited only by some private friends, but had sent Ozoro Esther to the Iteghé's at Koscam, as soon as he entered Gondar. He ate, drank, and slept as usual, and reasoned upon the event that had happened with great equanimity and seeming indifference. There was no appearance of guards set upon him; but every motion and look were privately, but strictly watched. The next day, when he heard how ill his disarmed men were treated by the populace, when, they were dismissed to Tigre, he burst into tears, and cried out in great agony, Had I died before this I had been happy. He played no more at drafts, by which game formerly he pretended to divine the issue of every affair of consequence, but gave his draft-board and men to a private friend; at the fame time renouncing his pretended divinations, as deceitful and sinful, by the confidence he had placed in them.
The king behaved with the greatest firmness and composure; he was indeed graver than usual, and talked less, but was not at all dejected. Scarce any body came near him the first day, or even the second, excepting the priests, some of the judges, and old inhabitants of the town, who had, taken no part. Some of the priests and monks, as is their custom, used certain liberties, and mixed a considerable degree of impertinence in their conversations, hinting it as doubtful, whether he would remain on the throne, and mentioning it, as on the part of the people, that he had imbibed from Michael a propensity towards cruelty and bloodshed, what some months ago no man in Gondar dared to have surmised for his life. These he only answered with a very severe look, but said nothing. One of these speeches being reported to Gusho, not as a complaint from the king, but through a by-stander who heard it, that nobleman ordered the offender (a priest of Erba Tensa, a church in Woggora) to be stript naked to his waist, and whipt with thongs three times round Aylo Meidan, till his back was bloody, for this violation of the majesty of the sovereign: and this example, which met with the public approbation of all parties, the clergy only excepted, very much lessened that insolence which the king's misfortunes had excited.
He had ate nothing the first day but a small piece of wheat-loaf, dividing the rest among the few servants that attended him, who had all fared better than he, among their friends in town, though they did not own it. The second day began in the same stile, and lasted till noon, without any appearance of provisions. After the surrendry of the arms, however, came great plenty, both from the town and the camp, and so continued ever after; but he ate very sparingly, though he had generally a very good appetite, and ordered the residue to be given, to his servants, or the poor about the gates of the palace, many of whom, he said, must starve by the long stay of so large an army. He seemed to be totally forgotten. About three o'clock of the second day came his secretary from Gusho, staid about an hour, and returned immediately; but what had passed I did not hear, at least at that time. There was no alteration in his looks or behaviour. He went early to bed, and had not yet changed the cloaths in which he came from the camp.
The next day the unfortunate troops of Tigré, loaded with curses and opprobrious language, pelted with stones and dirt, and a few way-laid and slain for private injuries, were conducted up the hill above Debra Berhan, on the road through Woggora to Tigré, by a guard of horse from Gusho's camp, who protected them with great humanity as far as they were able; but it was out of the power of any force but that of an army to protect them from the enraged populace, over whom they had tyrannised so many years. Arrived at the river Angrab, in the rear of Powussen's army, they were consigned to him, and he delivered them to Ayto Tesfos, who was to escort them across the Tacazzé. Many of the mob, however, continued to pursue them even farther; but these were all to a man disarmed, and stript naked, on their return to Gondar, by Tesfos and Powussen's soldiers, who justly judged, that in the like situation they would themselves have met with no better treatment.
While every rank of people was intent upon this spectacle, a body of Galla, belonging to Maitsha, stole privately into the town, and plundered several houses; they came next into the king's palace, and into the presence-chamber, where he was sitting alone in an alcove, whilst, just by his side, but out of sight, and without the alcove, I and two of his servants were sitting on the floor. This room, in the time of Yasous and the Iteghé, (the days of luxury and splendour of the Abyssinian court), had been magnificently hung with mirrors, brought at great expence from Venice, by way of Arabia and the Red Sea; these were very neatly fixed in copper-gilt frames by some Greek filligrane-workers from Cairo; but the mirrors were now mostly broken by various accidents, especially when the palace was set on fire, in Joas's time, upon Michael's coming from the campaign of Begemder. These savages, though they certainly saw the king at the other end of the room, attached themselves to the glass nearest the door, which was a large oblong one, and after they had made many grimaces, and a variety of antics before it, one of them struck it just in the middle with the butt-end of his lance, and broke it to slivers, which fell tinkling on the floor. Some of these pieces they took up, but in the end they were mostly reduced to powder with the repeated strokes of their lances. There were three glasses in the alcove where the king sat, as also one in the wings on each side without the alcove; under the king's right hand we three were sitting, and the Galla were engaged with a mirror near the door, at the other end of the room, on the left side, so that there was but one glass more to break before they arrived at those in the alcove where the king was sitting.
I was in great fear of the consequences, as they were about thirteen or fourteen in number; nor did we know how many more of their companions might be below, or in the town, or of what party they were, nor whether resistance on our part was lawful. We three had no arms but a short knife at our girdle, nor had the king any, so that we were in the greatest fear that, if their humour of breaking the glasses had continued when they came near the king, he would strike one of them, and we should be all massacred: We all three therefore got up and stood before the king, who made a gentle motion with his hand, as if to say, "Stay a little, or, have patience." At this instant, Tensa Christos, (a man of considerable authority in Gondar, who was understood by Gusho to be trusted with the care of the town, though he had no name or post, for there was yet no form of government settled,) hearing the Galla had plundered houses, and gone into the palace, followed them as fast as possible, with about a hundred stout young men belonging to Gondar, well-armed. The Galla soon saw there was a more serious occupation awaiting them, and ran out to the great hall of the king's chamber, called Aderatha, when one of these soldiers of Gondar shut the door of the room where the king sat. The Galla at first made a shew of resistance; but two of them being very much wounded, and feeing themselves in a house where they did not know their way, and all assistance from their comrades impossible, they surrendered their arms; they then were tied two and two, and sent in this manner down to Gusho's camp, who immediately ordered two of them to be hanged, and the rest to be whipt and dismissed.
Tensa Christos, after having done this good service, came into the room to the king, and kissed the ground in the usual manner before him. The king immediately ordered him to rise, gave him his hands to kiss, and then permitted him to withdraw, without having said one word in his commendation for having delivered him from so great a danger. That same day, a little after noon, a party of soldiers was sent into the town, who apprehended Shalaka Becro and his son; Nebrit Tecla, and his two sons; two sons of Lika Netcho a priest, and another man, whose name I have forgot, in all eight persons, natives of the province of Tigre, dependants and servants of Ras Michael, and murderers of the late king Joas. These being brought to the market-place, were delivered into the hands of the Edjow Galla, formerly Joas's guard. Becro and his son were hewn to pieces with knives; Nebrit Tecla's sons, the eldest first. and then the youngest, were thrust through with lances; and their father being then brought to them where they lay, and defused to say if he knew who they were, and answering in the negative, he was immediately cut to pieces, as were the others, with great circumstances of cruelty, and their mangled bodies thrown about the streets, These were all the executions which followed this great and sudden revolution; a proof of very exemplary moderation in the conquerors, considering the number of people concerned in the parricide first, and the consequential rebellion after. Lika Netcho, in particular, fully as guilty as his sons, was nevertheless spared, because he had married one of the king's relations. As yet none of the chiefs of the rebels had entered Gondar. Messages had passed, but not frequently, between the king and Gusho; fewer still between him and Powussen; as for the rest, they seemed to take no lead at all.
On the 1st of June, Gusho and Powussen came both to the house of the Ras, where they interrogated him very roughly as to all his past conduct. Till the execution of Joas's murderers, he had constantly dressed himself in his very best apparel, with all the insignia of command. As soon as this was told him, he cloathed himself plainly, and constantly in white, with a cowl of the fame colour on his head, like the monks, a sign he had retired from the world. It seemed as if this was done through a fondness for life, for by that act he devoted the remainder of his days to obscurity and penitence. Nothing remarkable happened at this interview, at least as far as was known. From thence Gusho and Powussen went to the king's palace, where they did homage, and took the oaths of allegiance.
It was there resolved that Gusho should be Ras, and the other places were all disposed of. From this time forward the king began to have a shew of government, no party having testified any sort of discontent with him; on the contrary, each of the rebel chiefs now waited upon him separately, and had long conferences with him; but, what bade fairest to re-establish his authority entirely was, the dissentions that evidently reigned among the leaders of the rebels themselves, whom we, however, shall no longer consider as such, not because their treason had prospered, but because they were now returned to their duty. It was strongly suspected that a treaty was on foot between Gusho and Michael, by which the latter, in consideration of a large sum, was to put the former again in possession of the province of Tigre; others again said, that Kefla Yafous, at Ras Michael's desire, was to be made governor of Tigre, and to have a large sum of gold, which Michael was supposed to have concealed there, and which he was to remit to Gusho, whilst he and Michael were to understand each other about the government of the province.
Be that as it may, Powussen, on the 4th of June, without any previous notice given to Gusho, marched into Gondar with a thousand horse, and, without further ceremony, ordered Ras Michael to be placed upon a mule, and, joining the rest of his army, who had all struck their tents, marched away so suddenly to Begemder, that Ozoro Esther, then residing at the queen her mother's house at Koscam, had scarcely time to fend her old husband a fresh mule, and some supply of necessary provisions. All the rest of the troops decamped immediately after, the rains beginning now to be pretty constant, and the soldiers desirous to be at home. Some of the great men, indeed, remained at Gondar, such as Ayabdar, Engedan, and others, who had views of preferment, Gusho took possession of the Ras's house and office; the king's officers and servants returned to the palace; the places of those that had fallen in battle were filled, and the whole town began to resume an appearance of peace, which every one who considered feared would be of a very short duration.
A few days after the army of Begemder had left Gondar, Powussen sent the usurper Socinios, loaded with irons, from Agar Salam, a small town in Begemder, where he had been kept prisoner. He was brought before the king in the same equipage he arrived, and being interrogated who he was, answered with great boldness, that he was Socinios, son to king Yasous, son of Bacuffa; that he had not sought to be made king, but was forced by the Iteghe and Sanuda; this every one knew to be true. Soon after his mother was examined; but denying now what she had formerly sworn, that she ever had any intimate connexion with the late king Yasous, Socinios was sentenced to death; but being in his manners, figure, and conversation perfectly despicable, the king directed he should serve as a slave in his kitchen, whence he was taken, some time afterwards, and hanged for theft.
On the 21st of June, the Iteghe arrived from Gojam, and all the people of Gondar flocked to fee her without the town. Gusho had met her at Tedda; and, at the same time that he welcomed her, told her, as from the king, that it was his orders that neither Palambaras Mammo, nor Likaba Beccho, were to enter the town with her. This she considered as a very high affront, and the work of Gusho, not the king's orders. She upbraided Gusho with avarice, pride, and malice, declared him a greater tyrant than Michael, without his capacity, forbidding him to appear any more before her, and with great difficulty could be prevailed to go on to Koscam instead of returning to Gojam. It is impossible to conceive the enthusiasm with which the fight of the old queen inspired all sorts of people. Gusho had no troops, the king as few, being left even without a servant in his palace. Then was the season for mischief, had not Fasil been hovering with his army, without declaring his approbation or disapprobation of any thing that had been done, or was doing.
About the end of June he came at once to Abba Samuel, without announcing himself before hand, according to his usual custom, and he paid his first visit to the Iteghe, then a short one to the king, where I saw him: he was very facetious with me, and pretended I had promised him my horse when I returned from Maitsha, which I excused, by observing the horse was out of town. Well, well, says he, that shall not save you; tell me where he is and I will send for him, and give you the best mule in the army in exchange, and take my chance of recovering him wherever he is. With all my heart, replied I; you will find him perhaps in the valley of Serbraxos, at the foot of the hill, opposite to the south ford of the river Mariam. He laughed heartily at this, shook me by the hand at parting, saying. Well, well, for all this you shall not want your mule.
The king was exceedingly pleased at what had passed, and said, "I wish you would tell me, Yagoube, how you reconcile all these people to you. It is a secret which will be of much more importance to me than to you. There is Gusho now, for example, so proud of his present fortune, that he scarcely will say a civil word to me; and Fasil has brought me a list of his own servants, whom he wants to make mine without asking my leave, (Adera Tacca Georgis, whom he named to be Fit-Auraris to the king, as he had done formerly when he wanted to quarrel with Socinios, Gubena to be Cantiba, and some others), yet he never sees you come into the room but he begins immediately joking and pleasant conversation, After these appointments, which were not disputed with him, though otherwise very much against the king's inclination, Fasil retired with his army to Maitsha.
In the mean time, Gusho set every thing to sale, content with the money the offices produced, and what he could squeeze from people who had crimes, real or alledged, to compound for. He did not perceive that steps were taking by his enemies which would soon deprive him of all the advantages he enjoyed. Instead of attending to this, he amused himself with mortifying the Iteghe, whose daughter, Welleta Israel, he had formerly married, but who had long left him by the persuasion of her mother. He thought it was an affront to his dignify that the king had pardoned Likaba Beecho, and Palambaras Mammo, the very day after he had forbid them to enter the town; and, what was still stronger, that the king, without his consent, had sent an invitation to the Iteghé to return to Gondar, and govern, as his mother, to the extent she did in the time of Joas; he resolved therefore to attempt the creating a misunderstanding between the king and queen, a matter not very difficult in itself to bring about.
Gusho had confiscated, in the name of the king, all the queen's villages, which made her believe that this offer of the king to bring her to Gondar was an insidious one. In order to make the breach the wider, he had also prevailed upon the king's mother to come to Gondar, and instill with her son to be crowned, and take the title and state of Iteghé. The king was prevailed upon to gratify his mother, under pretence that the Iteghé had refused to come upon his invitation; but this, as it was a pretence only, so it was expressly a violation of the law of the land, which permits but one Iteghé, and never allows the nomination of a new one while the former is in life, however distant a relation she may be to the then reigning king. In consequence of this new coronation, two large villages, Tshemmera and Tocussa, which belonged to the Iteghé as appendages of her royalty, of course devolved upon the king's own mother, newly crowned, who sending her people to take possession, the inhabitants not only refused to admit her officers, but forcibly drove them away, declaring they would acknowledge no other mistress but their old one, to whom they were bound by the laws of the land.
If Gusho, in this manner, dealt hardly with the queen, his behaviour to the king was neither more just nor generous: he had not only failed to advance any gold for the king's subsistence, but had intercepted that part of his revenue which he knew was ready to be paid him, and in the hands of others of his subjects. A stated daily allowance was, indeed, delivered to the king in kind for the maintenance of his household, but even this was smaller than had been settled by Ras Michael; besides which, 120 jars of honey, being one day sent the king from Damot, and at the same time 1000 cotton coats from Walkayt, both these were seized upon by Gusho, without any part being offered to the king, who thereupon determined to break with him, as did the Iteghé from the former provocation.
Ayabdar, never reconciled to him before the battle of Serbraxos, had fresh reason of difference with him from an unequal distribution of Ras Michael's effects, while Engedan, who had been promised the province of Kuara, and whom the king very much favoured, sollicited that post in vain, unless he would advance a thousand ounces of gold, which he positively refused to do. The king fomented all these complaints by sending a person of consequence to Powussen, who advised him to arrest Gusho immediately, and promised, if resistance was made, to be at Gondar in three days. Engedan and Ayabdar were trusted with the execution of this, but as Gusho was beloved by the people of Gondar, the secret was not so well kept but that it came to his ears.
On the 16th of July, (the feast of Saint Michael) Gusho pretended he had made a vow to visit the church of that Saint at Azazo, and accordingly, early in the morning, he set out for that village, attended with thirty horse and fifty musqueteers; but no sooner had he passed the church than his real intention appeared, and he was pursued by Gubeno, Cantiba of Dembea; Ayto Adigo, Palambaras; and Ayto Engedan. Gubeno alone, being hearty in the cause, came up with him first, as they had passed the river Derma, when Gusho, seeing Gubeno's troops close behind him, turned quickly upon them, repassed the river, and, having killed two of the foremost with his own hand, and repelled the rest, he returned across the river, and faced about upon the banks of it. Upon the other troops coming up, he called to Engedan, putting him in mind how lately he had been in his hands, and advising them all to return to Gondar, and tell the king he should again be with him in fifteen days.
A council was thereupon held, and as it was plain, from the countenance of the man, that he was resolved to resist to the utmost, none of the leaders then present thought themselves warranted to risk the death of a person so noble, and so powerfully related, especially in an obscure skirmish, such as was then likely to happen, the motives for which were not publicly known; they accordingly all returned to Gondar, leaving the Ras to pursue his way, who being now advanced as far as Degwassa, and thinking himself out of all danger, was suddenly surrounded by Aclog, governor of a little district; there, and even from him he would have escaped by his own courage and exertion, had not his horse sunk in miry ground whence he could not recover him. After receiving these news, the king sent his Fit-Auraris, Adera Tacca Georgis, and Ayto Engedan, with a number of troops, to bring Gusho to town, when he returned a miserable figure, with his head shaven: he was cloathed in black, and was confined that same day (the first of August) a close prisoner, and in irons, in a high, damp, uninhabited tower of the king's house, without being pitied by either party.
It was now the season of the year when this country used to overflow with milk and honey; because, being in all the low part of it covered with rain, the horsemen and soldiers, who used to obstruct the roads, were all retired to quarters, and the peasants, bringing provisions to the market, passed the high grounds in safety; all sorts of people, profiting by the plenty which this occasioned, indulged themselves to the greatest excess in every sort of pleasure to which their respective appetites led them. The rains had fallen, indeed, as usual, but had not, however, stopped the march of the armies, and if not a famine, at least a scarcity of provisions in Gondar, had been the consequence; not a word was heard, indeed, of Ras Michael, whether he was alive or dead, but his familiar spirits seemed to preside in the air, and pour down mischief.
- ↑ For extinguishing fire.