Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 3/Book 5/Chapter 5

by James Bruce

 

 

CHAP. V.

 

Arrive at Adowa—Reception there—Visit Fremona and Ruins of Axum—Arrive at Siré.

 

Adowa is situated on the declivity of a hill, on the west side of a small plain surrounded everywhere by mountains. Its situation accounts for its name, which signifies pass, or passage, being placed on the flat ground immediately below Ribieraini; the pass through which every body must go in their way from Gondar to the Red Sea.

 

This plain is watered by three rivulets which are never dry in the midst of summer; the Assa, which we cross just below the town when coming from the eastward; the Mai Gogua, which runs below the hill whereon stands the village of the same name formerly, though now it is called Fremona, from the monastery of the Jesuits built there; and the Ribieraini, which, joining with the other two, falls into the river Mareb, about 22 miles below Adowa. There are fish in these three streams, but none of them remarkable for their size, quantity, or goodness. The best are those of Mai Gogua, a clear and pleasant rivulet, running very violently and with great noise. This circumstance, and ignorance of the language, has misled the reverend father Jerome, who says, that the water of Mai Gogua is called so from the noise that it makes, which, in common language, is called guggling. This is a mistake, for Mai Gogua signifies the river of owls.

 

There are many agreeable spots to the south-east of the convent, on the banks of this river, which are thick-shaded with wood and bushes. Adowa consists of about 300 houses and occupies a much larger space than would be thought necessary for these to stand on, by reason that each house has an inclosure round it of hedges and trees; the last chiefly the wanzey. The number of these trees so planted in all the towns, screen them so, that, at a distance, they appear so many woods. Adowa was not formerly the capital of Tigré, but has accidentally become so upon the accession of this governor, whose property, or paternal estate, lay in and about it. His mansion-house is not distinguished from any of the others in the town unless by its size; it is situated upon the top of the hill. The person who is Michael's deputy, in his absence, lives in it. It resembles a prison rather than a palace; for there are in and about it above three hundred persons in irons, some of whom have been there for twenty years, mostly with a view to extort money from them; and, what is the most unhappy, even when they have paid the sum of money which he asks, do not get their deliverance from his merciless hands; most of them are kept in cages like wild beasts, and treated every way in the same manner.

 

But what deservedly interested us most was, the appearance of our kind and hospitable landlord, Janni. He had sent servants to conduct us from the passage of the river, and met us himself at the outer-door of his house. I do not remember to have seen a more respectable figure. He had his own short white hair, covered with a thin muslin turban, a thick well-shaped beard, as white as snow, down to his waist. He was clothed in the Abyssinian dress, all of white cotton, only he had a red silk sash, embroidered with gold, about his waist, and sandals on his feet; his upper garment reached down to his ancles. He had a number of servants and slaves about him of both sexes; and, when I approached him, seemed disposed to receive me with marks of humility and inferiority, which mortified me much, considering the obligations I was under to him, the trouble I had given, and was unavoidably still to give him. I embraced him with great acknowledgments of kindness and gratitude, calling him father; a title I always used in speaking either to him or of him afterwards, when I was in higher fortune, which he constantly remembered with great pleasure.

 

He conducted us through a court yard planted with jessamin, to a very neat, and, at the same, time, large room, furnished with a silk sofa; the floor was covered with Persian carpets and cushions. All round, flowers and green leaves were strewed upon the outer yard; and the windows and sides of the room stuck full of evergreens, in commemoration of the Christmas festival that was at hand. I stopt at the entrance of this room; my feet were both dirty and bloody; and it is not good-breeding to show or speak of your feet in Abyssinia, especially if any thing ails them, and, at all times, they are covered. He immediately perceived the wounds that were upon mine. Both our cloaths and flesh were torn to pieces at Taranta, and several other places; but he thought we had come on mules furnished us by the Naybe. For the young man I had sent to him from Kella, following the genius of his countrymen, tho' telling truth was just as profitable to him as lying, had chosen the latter, and seeing the horse I had got from the Baharnagash, had figured in his own imagination, a multitude of others, and told Janni that there were with me horses, asses, and mules in great plenty; so that when Janni saw us passing the water, he took me for a servant, and expected, for several minutes, to see the splendid company arrive, well mounted upon horses and mules caparisoned.

 

He was so shocked at my saying that I performed this terrible journey on foot, that he burst into tears, uttering a thousand reproaches against the Naybe for his hard heartedness and ingratitude, as he had twice, as he said, hindered Michael from going in person and sweeping the Naybe from the face of the earth. Water was immediately procured to wash our feet. And here began another contention, Janni insisted upon doing this himself; which made me run out into the yard, and declare I would not suffer it. After this, the like dispute took place among the servants. It was always a ceremony in Abyssinia, to wash the feet of those that come from Cairo, and who are understood to have been pilgrims at Jerusalem.

 

This was no sooner finished, than a great dinner was brought, exceedingly well dressed. But no consideration or intreaty could prevail upon my kind landlord to sit down and partake with me. He would stand, all the time, with a clean towel in his hand, though he had plenty of servants; and afterwards dined with some visitors, who had come out of curiosity, to see a man arrived from so far. Among these was a number of priests; a part of the company which I liked least, but who did not shew any hostile appearance. It was long before I cured my kind landlord of these respectful observances, which troubled me very much; nor could he wholly ever get rid of them, his own kindness and good heart, as well as the pointed and particular orders of the Greek patriarch, Mark, constantly suggesting the same attention.

 

In the afternoon, I had a visit from the governor, a very graceful man, of about sixty years of age, tall and well favoured. He had just then returned from an expedition to the Tacazzè, against some villages of Ayto Tesfos^[1], which he had destroyed, slain 120 men, and driven off a number of cattle. He had with him about sixty musquets, to which, I understood, he had owed his advantage. These villages were about Tubalaque, just as you ascend the farther bank of the Tacazzé. He said he doubted much if we should be allowed to pass through Woggora, unless some favourable news came from Michael; for Tesfos of Samen, who kept his government after Joas's death, and refused to acknowledge Michael, or to submit to the king, in conjunction with the people of Woggora, acted now the part of robbers, plundering all sorts of people, that carried either provisions, or any thing else, to Gondar, in order to distress the king and Michael's Tigré soldiers, who were then there.

 

The church of Mariam is on the hill S.S.W. of the town, and east of Adowa; on the other side of the river, is the other church, called Kedus Michael. About nine miles north, a little inclined to the east, is Bet Abba Garima, one of the most celebrated monasteries in Abyssinia. It was once a residence of one of their kings; and it is supposed that, from this circumstance ill understood, former travellers^[2], have said the metropolis of Abyssinia was called Germè.

 

Adowa is the seat of a very valuable manufacture of coarse cotton cloth, which circulates all over Abyssinia instead of silver money; each web is sixteen peek long of 1¾ width, their value a pataka; that is, ten for the ounce of gold. The houses of Adowa are all of rough stone, cemented with mud instead of morter. That of lime is not used but at Gondar, where it is very bad. The roofs are in the form of cones, and thatched with a reedy sort of grass, something thicker than wheat straw. The Falasha, or Jews, enjoy this profession of thatching exclusively; they begin at the bottom, and finish at the top.

 

Excepting a few spots taken notice of as we came along from Ribieraini to Adowa, this was the only part of Tigrè where there was soil sufficient to yield corn; the whole of the province besides is one entire rock. There are no timber trees in this part of Tigrè unless a daroo or two in the valleys, and wanzeys in towns about the houses.

 

At Adowa, and all the neighbourhood, they have three harvests annually. Their first seed time is in July and August; it is the principal one for wheat, which they then sow in the middle of the rains. In the same season they sow tocusso, teff, and barley. From the 20th of November they reap first their barley, then their wheat, and last of all their teff. In room of these they sow immediately upon the same ground, without any manure, barley, which they reap in February; and then often sow teff, but more frequently a kind of veitch, or pea, called Shimbra; these are cut down before the first rains, which are in April. With all these advantages of triple harvests, which cost no fallowing, weeding, manure, or other expensive processes, the farmer in Abyssinia is always poor and miserable.

 

In Tigré it is a good harvest that produces nine after one, it scarcely ever is known to produce ten; or more than three after one, for peas. The land, as in Egypt, is set to the highest bidder yearly; and like Egypt it receives an additional value, depending on the quantity of rain that falls and its situation more or less favourable for leading water to it. The landlord furnishes the seed under condition to receive half the produce; but I am told he is a very indulgent master that does not take another quarter for the risk he has run; so that the quantity that comes to the share of the husbandman is not more than sufficient to afford sustenance for his wretched family.

 

The soil is white clay, mixed with sand, and has as good appearance as any I have seen. I apprehend a deficiency of the crop is not from the barrenness of the soil, but from the immense quantity of field-rats and mice that over-run the whole country, and live in the fissures of the earth. To kill these, they set fire to their straw, the only use they make of it.

 

The cattle roam at discretion through the mountains. The herdsmen set fire to the grass, bent, and brushwood, before the rains, and an amazing verdure immediately follows. As the mountains are very steep and broken, goats are chiefly the flocks that graze upon them.

 

The province of Tigré is all mountainous; and it has been said, without any foundation in truth, that the Pyrenees, Alps, and Apennines, are but mole-hills compared to them. I believe, however, that one of the Pyrenees above St John Pied de Port, is much higher than Lamalmon; and that the mountain of St Bernard, one of the Alps, is full as high as Taranta, or rather higher. It is not the extreme height of the mountains in Abyssinia that occasions surprise, but the number of them, and the extraordinary forms they present to the eye. Some of them are flat, thin, and square, in shape of a hearth-stone, or slab, that scarce would seem to have base sufficient to resist the action of the winds. Some are like pyramids, others like obelisks or prisms, and some, the most extraordinary of all the rest, pyramids pitched upon their points, with their base uppermost, which, if it was possible, as it is not, they could have been so formed in the beginning, would be strong objections to our received ideas of gravity.

 

They tan hides to great perfection in Tigré, but for one purpose only. They take off the hair with the juice of two plants, a species of solanum, and the juice of the kol-quall; both these are produced in abundance in the province. They are great novices, however, in dyeing; the plant called Suf produces the only colour they have, which is yellow. In order to obtain a blue, to weave as a border to their cotton clothes, they unravel the blue threads of the Marowt, or blue cloth of Surat, and then weave them again with the thread which they have dyed with the suf.

 

It was on the 10th of January 1770 I visited the remains of the Jesuits convent of Fremona. It is built upon the even ridge of a very high hill, in the middle of a large plain, on the opposite side of which stands Adowa. It rises from the east to the west, and ends in a precipice on the east; it is also very steep to the north, and slopes gently down to the plain on the south. The convent is about a mile in circumference, built substantially with stones, which are cemented with lime-morter. It has towers in the flanks and angles; and, notwithstanding the ill-usage it has suffered, the walls remain still entire to the height of twenty-five feet. It is divided into three, by cross walls of equal height. The first division seems to have been destined for the convent, the middle for the church, and the third division is separated from this by a wall, and stands upon a precipice. It seems to me as if it was designed for a place of arms. All the walls have holes for muskets, and, even now, it is by far the most defensible place in Abyssinia. It resembles an ancient castle much more than a convent.

 

I can scarce conceive the reason why these reverend fathers misrepresent and misplace this intended capital of Catholic Abyssinia. Jerome Lobo calls this convent a collection of miserable villages. Others place it fifty miles, when it is but two, from Adowa to the north-east. Others say it is only five miles from the Red Sea, while it is an hundred. It is very extraordinary, that these errors should occur in the situation of a place built by their own hands, and where their body long had its residence; and, what makes it more extraordinary still, it was the domicil which they first occupied, and quitted last.

 

The kindness, hospitality, and fatherly care of Janni never ceased a moment. He had already represented me in the most favourable light to the Iteghè, or queen-mother, (whose servant he had long been) to her daughter Ozoro Esther, and Ozoro Altash; and, above all, to Michael, with whom his influence was very great; and, indeed, to every body he had any weight with; his own countrymen, Greeks, Abyssinians, and Mahometans; and, as we found afterwards, he had raised their curiosity to a great pitch.

 

A kind of calm had spread itself universally over the country, without apparent reason, as it has been in general observed to do immediately before a storm. The minds of men had been wearied rather than amused, by a constant series of new things, none of which had been foreseen, and which generally ended in a manner little expected. Tired of guessing, all parties seemed to agree to give it over, till the success of the campaign should afford them surer grounds to go upon. Nobody loved Michael, but nobody neglected their own safety so much as to do or lay any thing against him, till he either should lose or establish his good fortune, by the gain or loss of a battle with Fasil.

 

This calm I resolved to take advantage of, and to set out immediately for Gondar. But the 17th of January was now at hand, on which the Abyssinians celebrate the feast of the Epiphany with extraordinary rejoicings, and as extraordinary ceremonies, if we believe what their enemies have said about their yearly repetition of baptism. This I was resolved to verify with my own eyes; and as Alvarez, chaplain to the embassy from Don Emanuel, king of Portugal, to king David III. says he was likewise present at it, the public will judge between two eye-witnesses which is likeliest to be true, when I come to give an account of the religious rites of this people. Adowa is in lat. 14° 7′ 57″ north.

 

On the 17th, we set out from Adowa, resuming our journey to Gondar; and, after passing two small villages Adega Net, and Adega Daid, the first about half a mile on our left, the second about three miles distant on our right, we decamped at sun set near a place called Bet Hannes, in a narrow valley, at the foot of two hills, by the side of a small stream.

 

On the 8th, in the morning, we ascended one of these hills, through a very rough stony road, and again came into the plain, wherein stood Axum, once the capital of Abyssinia, at least as it is supposed. For my part, I believe it to have been the magnificent metropolis of the trading people, or Troglodyte Ethiopians called properly Cushites, for the reason I have already given, as the Abyssinians never built any city, nor do the ruins of any exist at this day in the whole country. But the black, or Troglodyte part of it, called in the language of scripture Cush, in many places have buildings of great strength, magnitude, and expence, especially at Azab, worthy the magnificence and riches of a state, which was from the first ages the emporium of the Indian and African trade, whose sovereign, though a Pagan, was thought an example of reproof to the nations, and chosen as an instrument to contribute materially to the building of the first temple which man erected to the true God.

 

The ruins of Axum are very extensive; but, like the cities of ancient times, consist altogether of public buildings. In one square, which I apprehend to have been the center of the town, there are forty obelisks, none of which have any hieroglyphics upon them^[3]. There is one larger than the rest still standing, but there are two still larger than this fallen. They are all of one piece of granite; and on the top of that which is standing there is a patera exceedingly well carved in the Greek taste. Below, there is the door-bolt and lock, which Poncet speaks of, carved on the obelisk, as if to represent an entrance through it to some building behind. The lock and bolt are precisely the same as those used at this day in Egypt and Palestine, but were never seen, as far as I know, in Ethiopia, or at any time in use there.

 

I apprehend this obelisk, and the two larger that are fallen, to be the works of Ptolemy Evergetes. There is a great deal of carving upon the face of the obelisk in a Gothic taste, something like metopes, triglyphs, and guttæ, disposed rudely, and without order, but there are no characters or figures. The face of this pyramid looks due south; has been placed with great exactness, and preserves its perpendicular position till this day. As this obelisk has been otherwise described as to its ornaments, I have given a geometrical elevation of it servilely copied, without shading or perspective, that all kind of readers may understand it.

 

After passing the convent of Abba Pantaleon, called in Abyssinia, Mantilles, and the small obelisk situated on a rock above, we proceed south by a road cut in a mountain of red marble, having on the left a parapet-wall about five feet high, solid, and of the same materials. At equal distances there are hewn in this wall solid pedestals, upon the tops of which we see the marks where stood the Colossal statues of Syrius the Latrator Anubis, or Dog Star. One hundred and thirty-three of these pedestals, with the marks of the statues I just mentioned, are still in their places; but only two figures of the dog remained when I was there, much mutilated, but of a taste easily distinguished to be Egyptian. These are composed of granite, but some of them appear to have been of metal. Axum, being the capital of Siris, or Sirè, from this we easily see what connection this capital of the province had with the dog-star, and consequently the absurdity of supposing that the river derived its name from a Hebrew word^[4], signifying black.

 

Obelisk at Axum. There are likewise pedestals, whereon the figures of the Sphinx have been placed. Two magnificent flights of steps, several hundred feet long, all of granite, exceedingly well-fashioned, and still in their places, are the only remains of a magnificent temple. In the angle of this platform where that temple stood, is the present small church of Axum, in the place of a former one destroyed by Mahomet Gragné, in the reign of king David III.; and which was probably remains of a temple built by Ptolemy Evergetes, if not the work of times more remote.

 

The church is a mean, small building, very ill kept, and full of pigeons dung. In it are supposed to be preserved the ark of the covenant, and copy of the law which Menilek son of Solomon is said, in their fabulous legends, to have stolen from his father Solomon in his return to Ethiopia, and these were reckoned as it were the palladia of this country. Some ancient copy of the Old Testament, I do believe, was deposited here, probably that from which the first version was made. But whatever this might be, it was destroyed, with the church itself, by Mahomet Gragné, though pretended falsely to subsist there still. This I had from the king himself.

 

There was another relique of great importance that happened to escape from being burnt, by having, in time, been transferred to a church in one of the islands in the lake Tzana, called Selé Quarat Rafou. It is a picture of Christ's head crowned with thorns, said to be painted by St Luke, which, upon occasions of the utmost importance, is brought out and carried with the army, especially in a war with Mahometans and Pagans. We have just seen, it was taken, upon Yasous's defeat at Sennaar, and restored afterwards upon an embassy sent thither on purpose, no doubt, for a valuable consideration.

 

Within the outer gate of the church, below the steps, are three small square inclosures, all of granite, with small octagon pillars in the angles, apparently Egyptian; on the top of which formerly were small images of the dog-star, probably of metal. Upon a stone, in the middle of one of these, the king sits, and is crowned, and always has been since the days of Paganism; and below it, where he naturally places his feet, is a large oblong slab like a hearth, which is not of granite, but of free stone. The inscription, though much defaced, may safely be restored.

 

ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΤ ΕVΕRΓΕΤΟΤ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ

 

Poncet has mistaken this last word for Basilius; but he did not pretend to be a scholar, and was ignorant of the history of this country.

 

Axum is watered by a small stream, which flows all the year from a fountain in the narrow valley, where stand the rows of obelisks. The spring is received into a magnificent bason of 150 feet square, and thence it is carried, at pleasure, to water the neighbouring gardens, where there is little fruit, excepting pomegranates, neither are these very excellent.

 

The present town of Axum stands at the foot of the hill, and may have about six hundred houses. There are several manufactures of coarse cotton cloth; and here too the best parchment is made of goats skins, which is the ordinary employment of the monks. Every thing seemed later at Axum, and near it, than at Adowa; the teff was standing yet green.

 

On the 19th of January, by a meridian altitude of the sun, and a mean of several altitudes of stars by night, I found the latitude of Axum to be 14° 6′ 36″ north.

 

The reader will have observed, that I have taken great pains in correcting the geography of this country, and illustrating the accounts given us by travellers, as well ancient as modern, and reconciling them to each other. There are, however, in a very late publication, what I must suppose to be errors, at least they are absolutely unintelligible to me, whether they are to be placed to the account of Jerome Lobo, the original, or to Dr Johnson the translator, or to the bookseller, is what I am not able to say. But as the book itself is ushered in by a very warm and particular recommendation of so celebrated an author as Dr Johnson, and as I have in the course of this work spoke very contemptibly of that Jesuit, I must, in my own vindication, make some observations upon the geography of this book, which, introduced into the world by such authority, might else bring the little we know of this part of Africa into confusion, from which its maps are as yet very far from being cleared.

 

Caxume^[5] is said to mean Axum, to be a city in Africa, capital of the kingdom of Tigrè Mahon in Abyssinia. Now, long ago, Mr Ludolf had shewn, from the testimony of Gregory the Abyssinian, that there was no such place in Abyssinia as Tigrè Mahon. That there was, indeed, a large province called Tigrè, of which Axum was the capital; and Le Grande, the first publisher of Jerome Lobo, has repeatedly said the same. And Ludolf has given a very probable conjecture, that the first Portuguese, ignorant of the Abyssinian language, heard the officer commanding that province called Tigrè Mocuonen, which is governor of Tigré, and had mistaken the name of his office for that of his province. Be that as it will, the reader may rest assured there is no such kingdom, province, or town in all Abyssinia.

 

There still remains, however, a difficulty much greater than this, and an error much more difficult to be corrected. Lobo is said to have sailed from the peninsula of India, and, being bound for Zeyla, to have embarked in a vessel going to Caxume, or Axum, capital of Tigrè, and to have arrived there safely, and been well accommodated. Now Zeyla, he says, is a city in the kingdom of Adel, at the mouth of the Red Sea^[6]; and Axum, being two hundred miles inland, in the middle of the kingdom of Tigrè, a ship going to Axum must have passed Zeyla 300 miles, or been 300 miles to the westward of it. Zeyla is not a city, as is said, but an island. It is not in the kingdom of Adel, but in the bay of Tajoura, opposite to a kingdom of that name; but the island itself belongs to the Imam of Sana, sovereign of Arabia Felix; so that it is inexplicable, how a ship going to Zeyla should choose to land 300 miles beyond it; and still more so, how, being once arrived at Axum, they should seek a ship to carry them back again to Zeyla, 300 miles eastward, when they were then going to Gondar, not much above a hundred miles west of Axum. This seems to me absolutely impossible to explain.

 

Still, however, another difficulty remains; Tigré is said, by the Jesuits, and by M. Le Grande their historian, to be full of mountains, so high that the Alps and Appenines were very inconsiderable in comparison. And suppose it was otherwise, there is no navigable river, indeed no river at all, that runs through Tigré into the Red Sea, and there is the desert of Samhar to pass, where there is no water at all. How is it possible a ship from the coast of Malabar should get up 200 miles from any sea among the mountains of Tigré? I hope the publisher will compare this with any map he pleases, and correct it in his errata, otherwise his narrative is unintelligible, unless all this was intended to be placed to the account of miracles—Peter walked upon the water, and Lobo the Jesuit sailed upon dry land.

 

Dr Johnson, or his publisher, involves his reader in another strange perplexity. "Dancala is a city of Africa in Upper Ethiopia, upon the Nile, in the tract of Nubia, of which it is the capital;" and the emperor wrote, "that the missionaries might easily enter his dominions by the way of Dancala^[7]." It is very difficult to understand how people, in a ship from India, could enter Abyssinia by the way of Dancala, if that city is upon the Nile; because no where, that I know, is that river in Abyssinia within 300 miles of any sea; and, still more so, how it could be in Nubia, and yet in Upper Ethiopia. Dongola is, indeed, the capital of Nubia; it is upon the Nile in 20° north latitude; but then it cannot be in Upper Ethiopia, but certainly in the Lower, and is not within a hundred miles of the Red Sea, and certainly not the way for a ship from India to get to Abyssinia, which, sailing down the Red Sea, it must have passed several hundred miles, and gone to the northward: Dongola, besides, is in the heart of the great desert of Beja, and cannot, with any degree of propriety, be said to be easily accessible to any, no, not even upon camels, but impossible to shipping, as it is not within 200 miles of any sea. On the other hand, Dancali, for which it may have been mistaken, is a small kingdom on the coast of the Red Sea, reaching to the frontiers of Abyssinia; and through it the patriarch Mendes entered Abyssinia, as has been said in my history; but then Dancali is in lat. 12°, it is not in Nubia, nor upon the Nile, nor within several hundred miles of it.

 

Again, Lobo has said, (p. 30. 31.) "that a Portuguese galliot was ordered to set him ashore at Paté, whose inhabitants were man-eaters." This is a very whimsical choice of a place to land strangers in, among man-eaters. I cannot conceive what advantage could be proposed by landing men going to Abyssinia so far to the southward, among a people such as this, who certainly, by their very manners, must be at war, and unconnected with all their neighbours. And many ages have passed without this reproach having fallen upon the inhabitants of the east coast of the peninsula of Africa from any authentic testimony; and I am confident, after the few specimens just given of the topographical knowledge of this author, his present testimony will not weigh much, from whatever hand this performance may have come.

 

M. de Montesquieu, among all his other talents a most excellent and accurate geographer, observes, that man-eaters were first mentioned when the southern parts of the east coast of the peninsula of Africa came to be unknown. Travellers of Jerome Lobo's cast, delighting in the marvellous, did place these unsociable people beyond the promontory of Prassum, because nobody, at that time, did pass the promontory of Prassum.

 

Above 1200 years, these people were unknown, till Vasques de Gama discovered their coast, and called them the civil or kind nation. By some lucky revolution in that long period, when they were left to themselves, they seem most unaccountably to have changed both their diet and their manners. The Portuguese conquered them, built towns among them, and, if they met with conspiracies and treachery, these all originated in a mixture of Moors from Spain and Portugal, Europeans that had settled among them, and not among the natives themselves. No man-eaters appeared till after the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, when that of the new world, which followed it, made the Portuguese abandon their settlements in the old; and this coast came as unknown to them as it had been to the Romans, when they traded only to Raptum and Prassum, and made Anthropophagi of all the rest. One would be almost tempted to believe that Jerome Lobo was a man-eater himself, and had taught this custom to these savages. They had it not before his coming; they have never had it since; and it must have been with some sinister intention like this, that a stranger would voluntarily seek a nation of man-eaters. It is nonsense to say, that a traveller could propose, as Lobo did, going into a far distant country, such as Abyssinia, under so very questionable a protection as a man-eater.

 

I will not take up my own, or the reader's time, in going through the multitude of errors in geography to be found in this book of Lobo's; I have given the reader my opinion of the author from the original, before I saw the translation. I said it was a heap of fables, and full of ignorance and presumption; and I confess myself disappointed that it has come from so celebrated a hand as the translator, so very little amended, if indeed it can be said to be amended at all.

 

Dr Johnson, in the preface to the book, expresses himself in these words:—"The Portuguese traveller (Jerome Lobo, his original) has amused his reader with no romantic absurdities; or incredible fictions. He seems to have described things as he saw them; to have copied nature from the life; and to have consulted his senses, not his imagination. He meets with no basilisks that destroy with their eyes; and his cataracts fall from the rock, without deafening the neighbouring inhabitants."

 

At first reading this passage, I confess I thought it irony. As to what regards the cataract, one of the articles Dr Johnson has condescended upon as truth, I had already spoken, while composing these memoirs in Abyssinia, long before this new publication saw the light; and, upon a cool revisal of the whole that I have said, I cannot think of receding from any part of it, and therefore recommend it to the leader's perusal. What we have now only to note, is the fidelity of Jerome Lobo, so strongly vouched in the words I have just cited, in the article of basilisks, or serpents, which Dr Johnson has chosen as one of the instances of his author's adhering to fact, contrary to the custom of other writers on such subjects.

 

"In crossing a desert, which was two days journey over, I was in great danger of my life; for, as I lay on the ground, I perceived myself seized with a pain which forced me to rise, and saw, about four yards from me, one of those serpents that dart their poison from a distance. Although I rose before he came very near me, I yet felt the effects of his poisonous breath; and, if I had lain a little longer, had certainly died. I had recourse to bezoar, a sovereign remedy against those poisons, which I always carried about me. These serpents are not long, but have a body short and thick, their bellies speckled with brown, black, and yellow. They have a wide mouth, with which they draw in a great quantity of air, and, having retained it some time, eject it with such force, that they kill at four yards distance. I only escaped by being somewhat farther from him." (Chap. xii. p. 124)

 

Now, as this is warranted, by one of such authority as Dr Johnson, to be neither imagination nor falsehood, we must think it a new system of natural philosophy, and consider it as such; and, in the first place, I would wish to knew from the author, who seems perfectly informed, what species of serpent it is that he has quoted as darting their poison at a distance. Again, what species it is that, at the distance of 12 feet, kills a man by breathing on his back; also, what they call that species of serpent that, drawing in the same outward air which Jerome Lobo breathed, could so far pervert its quality as with it to kill at the distance of four yards. Surely such a serpent, if he had no other characteristic in the world, would be described by a naturalist as the serpent with the foul stomach.—I never saw a poisonous serpent in Abyssinia whose belly is not white; so this one being speckled, brown, black, and yellow, will be a direction when any such is found, and serve as a warning not to come near him, at least within the distance of four yards.

 

Jerome Lobo continues, "that this danger was not to be much regarded in comparison of another his negligence brought him into. As he was picking up a skin that lay upon the ground, he was stung by a serpent that left its sting in his finger; he picked out an extraneous substance about the bigness of an hair, which he imagined was the sting. This slight wound he took little notice of, till his arm grew inflamed all over; his blood was infected; he fell into convulsions, which were interpreted as the signs of inevitable death." (Chap. xii. p. 125.)

 

Now, with all submission to Jerome Lobo, the first serpent had brought him within a near view of death; the second did no more, for it did not kill him; how comes it that he says the first danger was nothing in comparison to the second? The first would have certainly killed him, by blowing upon his back, if he had been nearer than 12 feet. The other had nearly killed him by a sting. Death was the end of them both. I cannot see the difference between the two dangers.

 

The first serpent was of a new species, that kills a man at the distance of 12 feet by breathing upon him. The second was also new, for he killed by a sting. We know of no such power that any of the serpent kind have. If Dr Johnson believes this, I will not say that it is the most improbable thing he ever gave credit to, but this I will say, that it is altogether different from what at this day is taught us by natural philosophy. We easily see, by the strain in which these stories are told, that all these fables of Lobo would have passed for miracles, had the conversion of Abyssinia followed. They were preparatory steps for receiving him as confessor, had his merit not been sufficient to have entitled him to a higher place in the kalendar. Rainy, miry, and cold countries, are not the favourite habitation of serpents. Abyssinia is deluged with six months rain every year while the sun is passing over it. It only enjoys clear weather when the sun is farthest distant from it in the southern hemisphere; the days and nights are always nearly equal. Vipers are not found in a climate like this. Accordingly, I can testify, I never saw one of the kind in the high country of Abyssinia all the time I lived there; and Tigré, where Jerome Lobo places the scene of his adventures, by being one of the highest provinces in the country, is surely not one of the most proper.

 

It was the 20th of January, at seven o'clock in the morning, we left Axum; our road was at first sufficiently even, thro' small vallies and meadows; we began to ascend gently, but through a road exceedingly difficult in itself, by reason of large stones standing on edge, or heaped one upon another; apparently the remains of an old large causeway, part of the magnificent works about Axum,

 

The last part of the journey made ample amends for the difficulties and fatigue we had suffered in the beginning. For our road, on every side, was perfumed with variety of flowering shrubs, chiefly different species of jessamin; one in particular of these called Agam (a small four-leaved flower) impregnated the whole air with the most delicious odour, and covered the small hills through which we passed, in such profusion, that we were, at times, almost overcome with its fragrance. The country all round had now the mosl beautiful appearance, and this was heightened by the finest of weather, and a temperature of air neither too hot nor too cold.

 

Not long after our losing sight of the ruins of this ancient capital of Abyssinia, we overtook three travellers driving a cow before them; they had black goat skins upon their shoulders, and lances and shields in their hands, in other respects were but thinly cloathed; they appeared to be soldiers. The cow did not seem to be fatted for killing, and it occurred to us all that it had been stolen. This, however, was not our business, nor was such an occurrence at all remarkable in a country so long engaged in war. We saw that our attendants attached themselves in a particular manner to the three soldiers that were driving the cow, and held a short conversation with them. Soon after, we arrived at the hithermost bank of the river, where I thought we were to pitch our tent. The drivers suddenly tript up the cow, and gave the poor animal a very rude fall upon the ground, which was but the beginning of her sufferings. One of them sat across her neck, holding down her head by the horns, the other twisted the halter about her forefeet, while the third, who had a knife in his hand, to my very great surprise, in place of taking her by the throat got astride upon her belly before her hind-legs, and gave her a very deep wound in the upper part of her buttock.

 

From the time I had seen them throw the beast upon the ground, I had rejoiced, thinking, that when three people were killing a cow, they must have agreed to sell part of her to us; and I was much disappointed upon hearing the Abyssinians say, that we were to pass the river to the other side, and not encamp where I intended. Upon my proposing they should bargain for part of the cow, my men answered what they had already learned in conversation, that they were not then to kill her, that she was not wholly theirs, and they could not sell her. This awakened my curiosity; I let my people go forward, and staid myself, till I saw, with the utmost astonishment, two pieces, thicker, and longer than our ordinary beef steaks, cut out of the higher part of the buttock of the beast. How it was done I cannot positively say, because judging the cow was to be killed from the moment I saw the knife drawn, I was not anxious to view that catastrophe, which was by no means an object of curiosity; whatever way it was done, it surely was adroitly, and the two pieces were spread upon the outside of one of their shields.

 

One of them still continued holding the head, while the other two were busied in curing the wound. This too was done not in an ordinary manner; the skin which had covered the flesh that was taken away was left entire, and flapped over the wound, and was fastened to the corresponding part by two or more small skewers, or pins. Whether they had put any thing under the skin between that and the wounded flesh I know not, but at the river side where they were, they had prepared a cataplasm of clay, with which they covered the wound; they then forced the animal to rise, and drove it on before them, to furnish them with a fuller meal when they should meet their companions in the evening.

 

I could not but admire a dinner so truly soldier-like, nor did I ever see so commodious a manner of carrying provisions along on the road as this was. I naturally attributed this to necessity, and the love of expedition. It was a liberty, to be sure, taken with Christianity; but what transgression is not warranted to a soldier when distressed by his enemy in the field? I could not as yet conceive that this was the ordinary banquet of citizens, and even of priests, throughout all this country. In the hospitable, humane house of Janni, these living feasts had never appeared. It is true we had seen raw meat, but no part of an animal torn from it with the blood. The first shocked us as uncommon, but the other as impious.

 

When first I mentioned this in England, as one of the singularities which prevailed in this barbarous country, I was told by my friends it was not believed. I asked the reason of this disbelief, and was answered, that people who had never been out of their own country, and others well acquainted with the manners of the world, for they had travelled as far as France, had agreed the thing was impossible, and therefore it was so. My friends counselled me further, that as these men were infallible, and had each the leading of a circle, I should by all means obliterate this from my journal, and not attempt to inculcate in the minds of my readers the belief of a thing that men who had travelled pronounced to be impossible. They suggested to me, in the most friendly manner, how rudely a very learned and worthy traveller had been treated for daring to maintain that he had eat part of a lion, a story I have already taken notice of in my introduction. They said, that, being convinced by these connoisseurs his having eat any part of a lion was impossible, he had abandoned this assertion altogether, and after only mentioned it in an appendix; and this was the farthest I could possibly venture.

 

Far from being a convert to such prudential reasons, I must for ever profess openly, that I think them unworthy of me. To represent as truth a thing I know to be a falsehood, not to avow a truth which I know I ought to declare; the one is fraud, the other cowardice; I hope I am equally distant from them both; and I pledge myself never to retract the fact here advanced, that the Abyssinians do feed in common upon live flesh, and that I myself have, for several years, been partaker of that disagreeable and beastly diet. On the contrary, I have no doubt, when time shall be given to read this history to an end, there will be very few, if they have candour enough to own it, that will not be ashamed of ever having doubted.

 

At 11 o'clock of the 20th, we pitched our tent in a small plain, by the banks of a quick clear running stream; the spot is called Mai-Shum. There are no villages, at least that we saw, here. A peasant had made a very neat little garden on both sides of the rivulet, in which he had sown abundance of onions and garlic, and he had a species of pumpkin, which I thought was little inferior to a melon. This man guessed by our arms and horses that we were hunters, and he brought us a present of the fruits of his garden, and begged our assistance against a number of wild boars, which carried havoc and desolation through all his labours; marks of which were, indeed, too visable everywhere. Such instances of industry are very rare in this country, and demanded encouragement. I paid him, therefore, for his greens; and sent two of my servants with him into the wood, and got on horseback myself. Mirza, my horse, indeed, as well as his master, had recruited greatly during our stay at Adowa, under the hospitable roof of our good friend Janni.

 

Amongst us we killed five boars, all large ones, in the space of about two hours; one of which measured six feet nine inches; and, though he ran at an amazing speed near two miles, so as to be with difficulty overtaken by the horse, and was struck through and through with two heavy lances loaded at the end with iron, no person dared to come near him on foot, and he defended himself above half an hour, till, having no other arms left, I shot him with a horse-pistol. But the misfortune was, that, after our hunting had been crowned with such success, we did not dare to partake of the excellent venison we had acquired; for the Abyssinians hold pork of all kinds in the utmost detestation; and I was now become cautious, lest I should give offence, being at no great distance from the capital.

 

On the 21st we left Mai-Shum at seven o'clock in the morning, proceeding through an open country, part sown with teff, but mostly overgrown with wild oats and high grass. We afterwards travelled among a number of low hills, ascending and descending many of them, which occasioned more pleasure than fatigue. The jessamin continued its increase upon us, and it was the common bush of the country. Several new species appeared, with five, nine, eleven petals, and plenty of the agam with four, these being all white. We found also large bushes of yellow, and orange and yellow jessamin, besides fine trees of kummel, and the boha, both of the largest size, beautifully covered with fruit and flowers, which we never before had seen.

 

We now descended into a plain called Selech lecha, the village of that name being two miles east of us. The country here has an air of gaiety and chearfulness superior to any thing we had ever yet seen. Poncet^[8] was right when he compared it to the most beauteous part of Provence. We crossed the plain through hedge-rows of flowering shrubs, among which the honeysuckle now made a principal figure, which is of one species only, the same known in England; but the flower is larger and perfectly white, not coloured on the outside as our honeysuckle is. Fine trees of all sizes were everywhere interspersed; and the vine, with small black grapes of very good flavour, hung in many places in festoons, joining tree to tree, as if they had been artificially twined and intended for arbours.

 

After having passed this plain, we again entered a close country through defiles between mountains, thick covered with wood and bushes. We pitched our tent by the waterside judiciously enough as travellers, being quite surrounded with bushes, which prevented us from being seen in any direction.

 

As the boha was the principal tree here, and in great beauty, being then in flower, I let the caravan pass, and alighted to make a proper choice for a drawing, when I heard a cry from my servants, "Robbers! Robbers!" I immediately got upon my mule to learn what alarm this might be, and saw, to my great surprise, part of my baggage strewed on the ground, the servants running, some leading, others on foot driving such of their mules as were unloaded before them; in a word, every thing in the greatest confusion possible. Having got to the edge of the wood, they faced about, and began to prepare their fire-arms; but as I saw the king's two servants, and the man that Janni sent with us, endeavouring all they could to pitch the tent, and my horse standing peaceably by them, I forbade our fugitives to fire, till they should receive orders from me. I now rode immediately up to the tent, and in my way was saluted from among the bushes with many stones, one of which gave me a violent blow upon the foot. At the same instant I received another blow with a small unripe pumpkin, just upon the belly, where I was strongly defended by the coarse cotton cloth wrapped several times about me by way of sash or girdle. As robbers fight with other arms than pumpkins, when I saw this fall at my feet I was no longer under apprehension.

 

Notwithstanding this disagreeable reception, I advanced towards them, crying out, We were friends, and Ras Michael's friends; and desired only to speak to them, and would give them what they wanted. A few stones were the only answer, but they did no hurt. I then gave Yasine my gun, thinking that might have given offence. The top of the tent being now up, two men came forward making great complaints, but of what I did not understand, only that they seemed to accuse us of having wronged them. In short, we found the matter was this; one of the Moors had taken a heap of straw which he was carrying to his ass, but the proprietor, at seeing this, had alarmed the village. Every body had taken lances and shields, but, not daring to approach for fear of the fire-arms, they had contented themselves with showering stones at us from their hiding-places, at a distance from among the bushes. We immediately told them, however, that though, as the king's guest, I had a title to be furnished with what was necessary, yet, if they were averse to it, I was very well content to pay for every thing they furnished, both for my men and beasts; but that they must throw no stones, otherwise we would defend ourselves.

 

Our tent being now pitched, and every thing in order, a treaty soon followed. They consented to sell us what we wanted, but at extravagant prices, which, however, I was content to comply with. But a man of the village, acquainted with one of the king's servants, had communicated to him, that the pretence of the Moor's taking the straw was not really the reason of the uproar, for they made no use of it except to burn; but that a report had been spread abroad, that an action had happened between Fasil and Ras Michael, in which the latter had been defeated, and the country no longer in fear of the Ras, had indulged themselves in their usual excesses, and, taking us for a caravan of Mahometans with merchandise, had resolved to rob us.

 

Welleta Michael, grandson to Ras Michael, commanded this part of the province; and being but thirteen years of age, was not with his grandfather in the army, nor was he then at home, but at Gondar. However, his mother, Ozoro Welleta Michael, was at home, and her house just on the hill above. One of the king's servants had stolen away privately, and told her what had happened. The same evening, a party was sent down to the village, who took the ringleaders and carried them away, and left us for the night. They brought us a present also of provisions, and excuses for what had happened, warning us to be upon our guard the rest of the way, but they gave us positive assurance, at the same time, that no action had happened between Fasil and Ras Michael; on the contrary, it was confidently reported, that Fasil had left Buré, and retired to Metchakel, where, probably, he would repass the Nile into his own country, and stay there till the rains should oblige Michael to return to Gondar.

 

On the 22d, we left Selech-lecha at seven o'clock in the morning, and, at eight, passed a village two hundred yards on our left, without seeing any one; but, advancing half a mile further, we saw a number of armed men from sixty to eighty, and we were told they were resolved to oppose our passage, unless their comrades, taken the night before, were released. The people that attended us on the part of Welleta Michael, as our escort, considered this as an insult, and advised me by all means to turn to the left to another village immediately under the hill, on which the house of Welleta Michael, mother to Welleta Gabriel their governor, was situated; as there we should find sufficient assistance to force these opponents to reason. We accordingly turned to the left, and marching through thick bushes, came to the top of the hill above the village, in sight of the governor's house, just as about twenty men of the enemy's party reached the bottom of it.

 

The governor's servants told us, that now was the time if they advanced to fire upon them, in which case they would instantly disperse, or else they would cut us off from the village. But I could not enter into the force of this reasoning, because, if this village was strong enough to protect us, which was the cause of our turning to the left to seek it, these twenty men, putting themselves between us and the village, took the most dangerous step for themselves possible, as they must unavoidably be destroyed; and, if the village was not strong enough to protect us, to begin with bloodshed was the way to lose our lives before a superior enemy. I therefore called to the twenty men to stop where they were, and send only one of their company to me; and, upon their not paying any attention, I ordered Yasine to fire a large blunderbuss over their heads, so as not to touch them. Upon the report, they all fled, and a number of people flocked to us from other villages; for my part, I believe some who had appeared against us came afterwards and joined us. We soon seemed to have a little army, and, in about half an hour, a party came from the governor's house with twenty lances and shields, and six firelocks, and, presently after, the whole multitude dispersed. It was about ten o'clock when, under their escort, we arrived at the town of Sirè, and pitched our tent in a strong situation, in a very deep gulley on the west extremity of the town.

 

---

1. A rebel governor of Samen, of which I shall after have occasion to speak.
2. Gol. p. 22. proem.
3. Poncet says that these obelisks are covered with hieroglyphics; but in this he is wrong; he has mistaken the carving, I shall directly mention, for hieroglyphics. London edit, 12mo. 1709, p. 106.
4. Shihor.
5. See Johnson's translation of Jerome Lobo, p. 29.
6. See page 28.
7. Page 28.
8. Poncet's voyage to Ethiopia, p. 99.