Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 3/Book 6/Chapter 2
CHAP. II.
Battle of Banja—Conspiracy against Michael—The Author retires to Emfras—Description of Gondar, Emfras, and Lake Tzana.
After Fasil's defeat at Fagitta, and the affront he received at Assoa in the heart of his own country, he had continued his route to Burè, a district of the Agows, where was his constant residence. After this he had crossed the Nile into the country of Bizamo, and Boro de Gago had taken up his residence at Buré, when Michael returned to Gondar; but no sooner had he heard of his arrival in those parts than he marched with a number of horse, and forced his rival to retire to Gojam.
The Agows were all loyalists in their hearts, had been forced to join Fasil, but, immediately after his defeat, had declared for Michael. The first thing, therefore, Fasil did, when returned to Burè, was to attack the Agows on every side; a double advantage was sure to follow this victory, the famishing his enemies at Gondar, and converting so rich a territory to his own use, by extirpating the Agows, and laying it open to be possessed by his countrymen, the Galla, from Bizamo.
A very obstinate battle was fought at Banja, one of their principal settlements, in which the Agows were entirely defeated, seven of their chiefs killed, all men of great consequence, among whom was Ayamico, a very near relation of the king. The news were first brought by a son of Nanna Georgis, chief of the Agows, who escaped from the battle. Michael was at dinner, and I was present. It was one of his carousals for the marriage of Powussen, when young Georgis came into the room, in a torn and dirty habit, unattended, and almost unperceived, and presented himself at the foot of the table. Michael had then in his hand a cup of gold, it being the exclusive privilege of the governor of the province of Tigré to drink out of such a cup; it was full of wine; before a word was spoke, and, upon the first appearance of the man, he threw the cup and wine upon the ground, and cried out, I am guilty of the death of these people. Every one arose, the table was removed, and Georgis told his misfortune, that Nanna Georgis his father, Zeegam Georgis, the next in rank among them, Ayamico the king's relation, and four other chiefs, were slain at Banja, and their race nearly extirpated by a victory gained with much bloodshed, and after cruelly pursued in retaliation for that of Fagitta.
A council was immediately called, where it was resolved, that, though the rainy season was at hand, the utmost expedition should be made to take the field; that Gusho and Powussen should return to their provinces, and increase their army to the utmost of their power; that the king should take the low road by Foggora and Dara, there to join the troops of Begemder and Amhara, cross the Nile at the mouth of the lake, above the second cataract, as it is called, and march thence straight to Buré, which, by speedy marches, might be done in five or six days. No resolution was ever embraced with more alacrity; the cause of the Agows was the cause of Gondar, or famine would else immediately follow. The king's troops and those of Michael were all ready, and had just refreshed themselves by a week's festivity.
Gusho and Powussen, after having sworn to Michael that they never would return without Fasil's head, decamped next morning with very different intentions in their hearts; for no sooner had they reached Begemder than they entered into a conspiracy in form against Michael, which they had long meditated; they had resolved to make peace with Fasil, and swear with him a solemn league, that they were but to have one cause, one council, and one interest, till they had deprived Michael of his life and dignity. The plan was, that, in hopes to join with them, the army should pass by Dara and the mouth of the lake, as aforesaid, between that lake, called the lake of Dembea, on the north side, and another small lake, which seems formerly to have been part of the great one, and is called Court-ohha; on the south is the village of Derdera, and the church of St Michael. Here was to be the scene of action; as soon as Michael advanced to Derdera, Gusho and Powussen were to close him behind on the north; Fasil, from Maitsha, was to appear on his front from the south, whilst, between Court-ohha and the lake, in the midst of these three armies, Michael was to lose his liberty or his life. The secret was profoundly kept, though known by many; but every one was employed in preparations for the campaign on the king's part, and no suspicion entertained, for nothing costs an Abyssinian less than to dissemble.
It had been agreed by Gusho and Powussen before parting, in order to deceive Michael, that, should Fasil retire from Buré at their approach, and pass the Nile into his own country, the King, Ras Michael, and part of the army should remain at Burè all the rainy season; that, upon the return of the fair weather, they were all again to assemble at Buré, cross the Nile into Bizamo, and lay waste the country of the Galla, that the vestige of habitation should not be seen upon it.
All this time I found myself declining in health, to which the irregularities of the last week had greatly contributed. The King and Ras had sufficiently provided tents and conveniencies for me, yet I wanted to construct for myself a tent, with a large slit in the roof, that I might have an opportunity of taking observations with my quadrant, without being inquieted by troublesome or curious visitors. I therefore obtained leave from the king to go to Emfras, a town about twenty miles south from Gondar, where a number of Mahometan tent-makers lived. Gusho had a house there, and a pleasant garden, which he very willingly gave me the use of, with this advice, however, which at the time I did not understand, rather to go on to Amhara with him, for I should there sooner recover my health, and be more in quiet than with the King or Michael. As the king was to pass immediately under this town, and as most of those that loaded and unloaded his tents and baggage were Mahometans, and lived at Emfras, I could not be better situated, or more at my liberty and ease, than there.
After having taken my leave of the king and the Ras, I paid the same compliment to the Iteghè at Koscam: I had not for several days been able to wait upon her, on account of the riots during the marriage, where the Ras required my attendance, and would admit of no excuse. That excellent princess endeavoured much to dissuade me from leaving Gondar. She treated the intention of going to the source of the Nile as a fantastical folly, unworthy of any man of sense or understanding, and very earnestly advised me to stay under her protection at Koscam, till I saw whether Ras Michael and the king would return, and then take the first good opportunity of returning to my own country through Tigré, the way that I came, before any evil should overtake me.
I excused myself the best I could. It was not easy to do it with any degree of conviction, to people utterly unlearned, and who knew nothing of the prejudice of ages in favour of the attempt I was engaged in. I therefore turned the discourse to professions of gratitude for benefits that I had every day received from her, and for the very great honour that she then did me, when she condescended to testify her anxiety concerning the fate of a poor unknown traveller like me, who could not possibly have any merit but what arose from her own gracious and generous sentiments, and universal charity, that extended to every object, in proportion as they were helpless. "See, see, says she, how every day of our life punishes us with proofs of the perverseness and contradiction of human nature; you are come from Jerusalem, through vile Turkish governments, and hot, unwholesome climates, to see a river and a bog, no part of which you can carry away were it ever so valuable, and of which you have in your own country a thousand larger, better, and cleaner, and you take it ill when I discourage you from the pursuit of this fancy, in which you are likely to perish, without your friends at home ever hearing when or where the accident happened. While I, on the other hand, the mother of kings who have sat upon the throne of this country more than thirty years, have for my only wish, night and day, that, after giving up every thing in the world, I could be conveyed to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and beg alms for my subsistence all my life after, if I could only be buried in the street within sight of the gate of that temple where our blessed Saviour once lay." This was said in the most melancholy tone possible, an unusual gloom hanging upon her countenance. Her desiring me, however, to stay at Koscam, till I knew whether the king and Michael would return or not, considering the large army they were to lead to the field, and the feebleness of the so-often defeated Fasil, made me from that instant apprehend that there was something behind with which I was yet unacquainted.
Gold, and orders for cattle and provisions while at Emfras, followed this conversation with the queen; this, indeed, had never failed at other times, which, by Ayto Aylo's advice, I never more refused. Here I cannot help observing the different manner in which three people did the same thing. When I received gold from Michael, it was openly from his hand to mine, without compliment, as he paid the rest of the king's servants. When I received it from the king, it was likewise from his own hand; it was always when alone, with a fear expressed that I suffered myself to be straitened rather than ask, and that I did not levy, with sufficient severity, the money the several places allotted to me were bound to pay, which, indeed, was always the case. The queen, on the other hand, from whom I received constant donations, never either produced gold herself, nor spoke of it before or after, but sent it by a servant of hers to a servant of mine, to employ it for the necessaries of my family.
I confess I left the queen very much affected with the disposition I had found her in, and, if I had been of a temper to give credit to prognostics, and a safe way had been opened through Tigré, I should at that time, perhaps, have taken the queen's advice, and returned without seeing the fountains of the Nile, in the same manner that all the travellers of antiquity, who had ever as yet endeavoured to explore them, had been forced to do; but the prodigious bustle and preparation which I found was daily making in Gondar, and the assurances everybody gave me that, safe in the middle of a victorious army, I should see, at my leisure, that famous spot, made me resume my former resolutions, awakened my ambition, and made me look upon it as a kind of treason done to my country, in which such efforts were then making for discoveries, to renounce, now it was in my power, the putting them in possession of that one which had baffled the courage and perseverance of the bravest men in all ages. The pleasure, too, of herborising in an unknown country, such as Emfras was, of continuing to do so in safety, and the approaching every day to the end of my wishes, chased away all those gloomy apprehensions which I imbibed from the appearance and discourse of the queen, and of which I now began to be ashamed.
Gondar, the metropolis of Abyssinia, is situated upon a hill of considerable height, the top of it nearly plain, on which the town is placed. It consists of about ten thousand families in times of peace; the houses are chiefly of clay, the roofs thatched in the form of cones, which is always the construction within the tropical rains. On the west end of the town is the king's house, formerly a structure of considerable consequence; it was a square building, flanked with square towers; it was formerly four storeys high, and, from the top of it, had a magnificent view of all the country southward to the lake Tzana. Great part of this house is now in ruins, having been burnt at different times; but there is still ample lodging in the two lowest floors of it, the audience-chamber being above one hundred and twenty feet long.
A succession of kings have built apartments by the side of it of clay only, in the manner and fashion of their own country; for the palace itself was built by masons from India, in the time of Facilidas, and by such Abyssinians as had been instructed in architecture by the Jesuits without embracing their religion, and after remained in the country, unconnected with the expulsion of the Portuguese, during this prince's reign.
The palace, and all its contiguous buildings, are surrounded by a substantial stone wall thirty feet high, with battlements upon the outer wall, and a parapet roof between the outer and inner, by which you can go along the whole and look into the street. There appears to have never been any embrasures for cannon, and the four sides of this wall are above an English mile and a half in length.
The mountain, or hill, on which the town is situated, is surrounded on every side by a deep valley, which has three outlets; the one to the south to Dembea, Maitsha, and the Agows; the second to the north-west towards Sennaar, over the high mountain Debra Tzai, or the Mountain of the Sun, at the root of which Koscam, the palace of the Iteghé, is situated, and the low countries of Walkayt and Waldubba; the third is to the north to Woggora, over the high mountain Lamalmon, and so on through Tigré to the Red Sea. The river Kahha, coming from the Mountain of the Sun, or Debra Tzai, runs through the valley, and covers all the south of the town; the Angrab, falling from Woggora, surrounds it on the N.N.E. These rivers join at the bottom of the hill, about a quarter of a mile south of the town.
Immediately upon the bank opposite to Gondar, on the other side of the river, is a large town of Mahometans of about a thousand houses. These are all active and laborious people; great part of them are employed in taking care of the king's and nobility's baggage and field-equipage, both when they take the field and when they return from it. They pitch and strike their tents with surprising facility and expedition; they load and conduct the mules and the baggage, and are formed into a body under proper officers, but never suffered, nor do they chuse, to fight on either side.
Gondar, by a number of observations of the sun and stars made by day and night, in the course of three years, with an agronomical quadrant of three feet radius, and two excellent telescopes, and by a mean of all their small differences, is in lat. 12° 34′ 30″; and by many observations of the satellites of Jupiter, especially the first, both in their immersions and emersions during that period, I concluded its longitude to be 37° 33′ 0″ east from the meridian of Greenwich.It was the 4th of April 1770, at eight o'clock in the morning, when I set out from Gondar. We passed the Kahha, and the Mahometan town, and, about ten in the morning, we came to a considerable river called the Mogetch, which runs in a deep, rugged bed of flakey blue stones. We crossed it upon a very solid, good bridge of four arches, a convenience seldom to be met with in passing Abyssinian rivers, but very necessary on this, as, contrary to most of their streams, which become dry, or stand in pools, on the approach of the sun, the Mogetch runs constantly, by reason that its sources are in the highest hills of Woggora, where clouds break plentifully at all seasons of the year. In the rainy months it rolls a prodigious quantity of water into the lake Tzana, and would be absolutely unpassable to people bringing provision to the market, were it not for this bridge built by Facilidas; yet it is not judiciously plaed, being close to the mountain's foot, in the face of a torrent, where it runs strongest, and carries along with it stones of a prodigious size, which luckily, as yet, have injured no part of the bridge. The water of the river Mogetch is not wholesome, probably from the minerals, or stony particles it carries along with it, and the slatey strata over which it runs. We have many rivers of this quality in the Alps, especially between mount Cenis and Grenoble.
Delivered now from the strait and rugged country on the banks of the Mogetch, we entered into a very extensive plain, bounded on the east side by the mountains, and on the west by the large lake of Dembea, otherwise called the lake Tzana, or Bahar Tzana, the Sea of Tzana, which geographers have corrupted into the word Barcena. Rejoiced at last that I had elbow-room, I began the most laborious search for shrubs and herbs all over the plain, my servants on one side and I on the other, searching the country on each side of the road. It appeared to our warm imaginations, that the neighbourhood of such a lake, in so remote a part of the world, ought infallibly to produce something perfectly beautiful, or altogether new. In this, however, we were disappointed, as indeed we always were in meadows, and where grass grew so exuberantly as it did all over this plain.
At eleven o'clock we crossed the river Tedda; here the road divides: that branch to the east leads to Wechnè, in the wild, uncultivated territory of Belessen, famous for no production but that of honey.
We continued along the other branch of the road, which led south to Emfras. One mile distant on our left is the church of St George. About one o'clock we halted at the church Zingetch Mariam; and a few minutes after, we passed the river Gomara, a considerable stream rising in Belessen, which stands in pools during the dry weather, but had now begun to run; its course N.E. and S.W. across the plain, after which it falls into the lake Tzana.
At two we halted at Correva, a small village, beautifully situated on a gentle-rising ground, through which the road passes in view of the lake, and then again divides; one branch continuing south to Emfras, and so on to Foggora and Dara; the other to Mitraha, two small islands in the lake, lying S.W. from this at the distance of about four hours journey. The road from Correva to Emfras, for the first hour, is all in the plain; for the second, along the gentle slope of a mountain of no considerable height; and the remainder is upon a perfect flat, or along the lake Tzana.
The 5th of April, at five in the morning, we left our present station at Correva, where, though we had employed several hours in the search, we found very little remarkable of either plants or trees, being mostly of the kind we had already seen. We continued our road chiefly to the south, through the same sort of country, till we came to the foot of a mountain, or rather a hill, covered with bushes and thorny trees, chiefly the common acacia, but of no size, and seeming not to thrive. I pitched my tent here to search what that cover would produce. There were a great quantity of hares, which I could make no use of, the Abyssinians holding them in abhorrence, as thinking them unclean; but to make amends, I found great store of Guinea fowls, of the common grey kind we have in Europe, of which I shot, in a little time, above a score; and these, being perfectly lawful food, proved a very agreeable variety from the raw beef, butter, and honey, which we had lived upon hitherto, and which was to be our diet (it is not an unpleasant one, at least a part of it) till we reached Emfras.
At eight in the morning I passed through Tangouri, a considerable village. About a hundred yards on the right from this we have a finer prospect of the lake than even from Correva itself. This village is chiefly inhabited by Mahometans, whose occupation it is to go in caravans far to the south, on the other side of the Nile, through the several districts of Galla, to whom they carry beads and large needles, cohol, or Stibium, myrrh, coarse cloths made in Begemder, and pieces of blue cotton cloths from Surat, called Marowti. They are generally nearly a year absent, and bring in return slaves, civet, wax, hides, and cardomum in large beautiful pods; they bring likewise a great quantity of ginger, but that is from farther south, nearer Narea. It appears to me to be a poor trade, as far as I could compute it, considering the loss of time employed in it, the many accidents, extortions, and robberies these merchants meet with. Whether it would be ever worth while to follow it on another footing, and under another government, is what I am not qualified enough to say.
On the left of Tangouri, divided from it by a plain of about a mile in breadth, stands a high rock, called Amba Mariam, with a church upon the very summit of it. There is no possibility of climbing this rock but at one place, and there it is very difficult and rugged; here the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages retreat upon any sudden alarm or inroad of an enemy.
At nine o'clock, after passing a plain, with the lake Tzana all the way on our right, in length about three miles, we came to the banks of the river Gorno, a small but clear stream; it rises near Wechnè, and has a bridge of one arch over it about half a mile above the ford. Its course is north and south nearly, and loses itself in the lake between Mitraha and Lamguè. A mile farther we arrived at Emfras, after a very pleasant, though not interesting excursion.The town is situated on a steep hill, and the way up to it is almost perpendicular like the ascent of a ladder. The houses are all placed about the middle of the hill, fronting the west, in number about 300. Above these houses are gardens, or rather fields, full of trees and bushes, without any sort of order, up to the very top. Emfras commands a view of the whole lake, and part of the country on the other side. It was once a royal residence. On a small hill is a house of Hatzé Hannes, in form of a square tower, now going fast to ruin.
Emfras is in lat. 12° 12′ 38″ N. and long. 37° 38′ 30″ E. of the meridian of Greenwich. The distances and directions of this journey from Gondar were carefully observed by a compass, and computed by a watch of Ellicot's, after which these situations were checked by astronomical observations of latitude and longitude in every way that they could be taken, and it was very seldom in a day's journey that we erred a mile in our computation.
The lake of Tzana is by much the largest expanse of water known in that country. Its extent, however, has been greatly exaggerated. Its greatest breadth is from Dingleber to Lamguè, which, in a line nearly east and west, is 35 miles; but it decreases greatly at each extremity, where it is not sometimes above ten miles broad. Its greatest length is from Bab Baha to a little S.W. and by W. of that part, where the Nile, after having crossed the end of it by a current always visible, turns towards Dara in the territory of Alata, which is 49 miles from north to south, and which extent this lake has in length. In the dry months, from October to March, the lake shrinks greatly in size; but after that all those rivers are full which are on every side of it, and fall into the lake, like radii drawn to a center, then it swells, and extends itself into the plain country, and has of course a much larger surface.
There are forty-five inhabited islands in the lake, if you believe the Abyssinians, who, in every thing, are very great liars. I conceive the number may be about eleven: the principal is Dek, or Daka, or Daga[1], nearly in the middle of the lake; its true extent I cannot specify, never having been there. Besides Dek, the other islands are Halimoon, nearer Gondar; Briguida, nearer Gorgora, and still farther in Galila. All these islands were formerly used as prisons for the great people, or for a voluntary retreat, on account of some disgust or great misfortune, or as places of security to deposit their valuable effects during troublesome times. When I was in Abyssinia, a few weeks after what I have been relating, 1300 ounces of gold, confided by the queen to Welleta Christos, her governor of Dek, a man of extraordinary sanctity, who had fasted for forty years, was stolen away by that priest, who fled and hid himself; nor would the queen ever suffer him to be searched after or apprehended.
- ↑ It signifies the hill, or high ground.