Volume One—Chapter Twenty Six.

Ominous Debates and Intolerable Delays at the Half-Way Stage.

The second knot in the string of the tedious journey had been unloosed by arrival at Killulloo, which is considered exactly half-way from the sea-coast to the frontier of Abyssinia. But although the worst portion of the road was now behind, the Embassy was destined to waste many days of existence in this vile spot, amidst annoying debates and discussions, most trying to the patience, which threatened to terminate so unpleasantly as well nigh to result in the abandonment of the baggage, as affording the only prospect left of ever reaching the destination.

From the very first moment of arrival, Izhák, whose sole object ever appeared to be to render himself disagreeable, devoted his talents and energies to the establishment of a misunderstanding, upon the frivolous grounds of Mohammad Ali having been suffered to distribute a small quantity of tobacco, in order to get rid of some passing unpleasant visitors. “Who gave that man tobacco?” he captiously vociferated, bouncing into the tent as soon as it had been pitched; “this is a piece of interference with my prerogatives as Ras el Káfilah, which cannot be borne.” And the explanation afforded not proving at all to his satisfaction, he roundly declared his determination of resenting the insult by throwing up the charge, and returning with all his paid retainers to Tajúra.

Mohammad Ali being now in the heart of his own country, and having rendered himself extremely useful on the road, whilst his venerable rival had been idle, seemed resolved to assert his claim to a share in the conduct of the caravan. Izhák as unflinchingly maintained his resolution, as brother to the Sultan of Tajúra—a point whereon he greatly piqued himself—to hold the reins exclusively in his own hands, or to decamp with the camels; and the Embassy, avowing themselves to be merely travellers through the country, desirous of conciliating all parties, and of interfering with none, maintained the strictest neutrality, and declined mixing at all in the dispute.

It was already dusk when a visit was received from the three principal persons of the countless multitudes assembled. These were Ibrahim ibn Hámeido, Akil of the Hy Somauli, whose dominion extends from Ramudéle to Suggagédan; and the uncle and father of Mohammad Ali—to wit, Wáyess ibn Haga?o, who divides with his brother Haga?o Lád the government of the Derméla, the Wóema, the Rookhba, and the Midgan, collectively extending from Suggagédan to Waramilli—and Hajji Ali Mohammad, a hoary patriarch of most venerable appearance, commonly styled Ali Abi. As tokens of good-will they brought oxen, sheep, and bags of sour milk; but, owing to an obvious disinclination on the part of Izhák and his sulky colleagues to promote conversation, the interview was extremely stiff; and dates, coffee, and snuff having been duly handed round, the illustrious visitors, signifying an intention of discussing certain topics of importance which had yet to be adjusted, abruptly departed after the polished fashion of the country, without going through the ceremony of taking leave of their entertainers.

A vast concourse of armed natives, members of all the various tribes assembled, had in the meantime convened immediately on the outskirts of the camp, where they continued during the whole night in a violent altercation, which periodical supplies of dates and tobacco proved quite inadequate to allay. The discussion was shared by Izhák and by Mohammad Ali, with their respective partisans and retainers, and it continued during the whole of the next day; meanwhile the tent being perpetually thronged with thieves and idlers, who purloined whatever fell in their way, and contrived frequent broils amongst themselves which led to the drawing of creeses in the very centre of the encampment.

Throughout the whole of the ensuing night, and part of the day following, the wrangling among the tribes continued with little abatement or intermission, the litigants occasionally breaking into small parties, to hold private kaláms, and after much mysterious whispering, again resuming their seats in the general assembly. The question of precedence between the elders, already adverted to, and the propriety of suffering so large a party of armed Franks to proceed into Abyssinia, formed the principal subjects of discussion; and the prevailing opinion on the latter question was, that all ought to be compelled to return, if not to be put to death, as unbelievers whose presence boded evil.

But the opportunity was also taken of arbitrating old feuds and squabbles. Elopements were investigated and arranged, and all disputes and quarrels of a private nature fully dilated upon and digested. Hundreds of ruffians thus sate from the rising up of the sun to the going down of the same, and throughout the livelong night, formed in a wide circle; the chiefs and men of consequence in the centre, and the venerable Ali Abi, with thin floating snow-white locks, and highly ornamented weapons, seated as president of the council. During the lengthy discussion of each case, every spear stood erect in the hand of the warrior; and on the decision being promulgated, the bright blades were lowered with one accord, a portion of the Korán was repeated, and at the termination of every verse, a general hum succeeding, the concurrence of all parties was chanted in a deep stern Ameen!

Killulloo being the great mart between the Bedouin tribes and the passing caravans, where the produce of their flocks is bartered for blue calico and other imports in demand, the news of the arrival of so large a party caused an inpouring from every quarter, and each day presented at the rendezvous some new group of exacting chiefs to be propitiated, with a fresh train of thieving followers to be fed and kept in good humour. Every greasy scoundrel possessed a vote in the congress, together with the inclination to render himself obnoxious, and the ability to add his humble mite towards the irksome detention; and it therefore became requisite to court popularity, and to canvass public favour as sedulously as at a general election for a seat in parliament.

Ever and anon, a great noise and clamour, and the rushing, spear in hand, of all the idlers to one point, proclaimed a gentle passage of arms among the savages, of which, nine times out of ten, a woman was the subject—some gay Lothario having been recognised among the crowd by an injured husband. But no sooner had the cold steel fleshed from the scabbard, than the bullies were secured by the bystanders, and being perfectly au fait at the business, they were easily restrained from doing each other any grievous bodily harm. In one scuffle indeed, a hot-headed fool who had with singular want of discretion engaged in a quarrel at too great a distance from his companions, got his thick wig somewhat unpleasantly shaved to the skull a hand’s breadth or more—a fortunate occurrence indeed as it turned out, since the sight of blood had the instantaneous effect of closing the senatorial proceedings of the great conclave, which had been all night sitting in deliberation, so that its members were yawning in a state of considerable exhaustion and owlish stupefaction. Tolo, the quarrelsome little warrior who thus suddenly adjourned the sessions, lost three of his front teeth by the hands of the husband whom he had injured in more ways than one—but he retained possession of the inconstant lady, and publicly pledged himself, that on his way back from Hábesh he would take measures which should set the matter at rest for ever.

The arrival from Shoa of a slave caravan in charge of the son of Abdool Rahmán Sowáhil, Kazi of Tajúra, added still further to the assembly in the persons of several hundred unfortunate children of all ages, who sought shelter from the fierce rays of the sun beneath the scanty trees which dotted the rugged basaltic valley of Killulloo, or lay huddled together beneath the hot shadow of an impending columnar rock. Each carried a small gourd as a water flagon, and, although generally in good spirits, some idea of the sufferings in store for these hapless beings could be formed by those who had just achieved the lower portion of the perilous and formidable road.

“Have all my children arrived in safety?” inquired a corpulent old slave-merchant who brought up the rear, tenderly accosting his mistress elect, and chucking her playfully under the chin, as she flew to hold the bridle of his mule; “are all my children well?” “Humdu-lillah,” was the reply of the coy damsel, a really beautiful Christian from Guráguê, with long raven tresses, and a very pensive expression, who had been compelled to profess Islamism. Honoured with the caresses of her flit and bigoted purchaser, the poor girl had been made responsible for a drove consisting of three score little sister slaves, all distinguished like herself by a tassel of green beads in the braided hair, and who were now about to be counted by their “father.”

The son of the Kazi having brought letters from Abyssinia, was shortly introduced by Hajji Kásim, own cousin to Izhák, and by far the most reasonable of the Tajúra party. Being in the course of conversation quietly interrogated touching the cause of the Ras el Káfilah’s continued irritation, he turned at once to his companion, and solemnly adjured him by the beard of the Prophet to answer conscientiously the following questions. “A head is ahead, is it not, all the world over?”

“Of course,” responded the descendant of the chief justice, “there can be no disputing that fact.”

“A tail, too, is a tail, or I am much mistaken,” continued the logician, pursuing his thesis,—and this axiom was also unhesitatingly admitted as beyond all controversy. “Well, then,” resumed Kásim, whose intellects had been sharpened by a pilgrimage to the shrine at Medina; “no Káfilah can possess two heads; and so long as Ali Mohammad, who is in fact the tail, continues these underhand attempts to usurp the authority vested in the brother of the Sultán of Tajúra, our acknowledged head, matters can never go on smoothly.”

The old man was quietly reminded that the raw tobacco, which had given rise to so much heart-burning, bickering, and dispute, was the sole property of the British party, and that, with every deference to Izhák’s supreme authority, some control might with propriety be conceded to the owners over their own wares; but that as to any interference in the quarrel for the Ras el Káfilah-ship, the thing was clearly impossible—the business having already been fully discussed and arranged with due Danákil patience, by the Sultán, in some twenty tedious conferences with the camel-owners and chiefs of Tajúra. Izhák, who had been listening to this conversation with a dark scowl upon his brow, now entered as if by accident, twirling his scanty locks, and beaming with smiles; proof of his restoration to good humour being immediately afforded in the extension of his right hand, not to perform the usual ceremony of reconciliation, but in view to the palm being filled with a sufficiency of Dr Ruddiman’s Irish blackguard, to admit of indulgence in his favourite recreation.

Hopes were now reasonably entertained of an amicable adjustment, the real cause of dispute having meanwhile been traced to a jealousy respecting the reward which it was conjectured the leader of the caravan would receive at the hands of His Majesty of Shoa. Mohammad Ali had already been privately satisfied upon this point; and Izhák, in order to strengthen his own claim, falsely asserted himself to have received by the Kázi’s son a letter from Sáhela Selássie, appointing the Sultán of Tajúra to the charge of all his European friends who might desire to visit Southern Abyssinia. But the congress still sat as usual. The dispute arranged to-night was renewed at morning’s dawn, as though it had never formed the subject of deliberation; and at a period when the near approach of rain in the higher regions, and the consequent flooding of the Háwash, rendered every hour one of the utmost importance, not the slightest prospect of departure could be discovered, beyond the oft-repeated assurance, as often followed by disappointment—“Bád bokra Inshállah,” “If it please God, the day after to-morrow.”