Volume One—Chapter Thirty Six.

Valley of Koka?—Hostilities of Wulásma Mohammad.

A cool cloudy morning succeeding to this dreary, boisterous and uncomfortable night, the caravan was in motion before sunrise across the uninteresting plain of Azbóti, in parts completely swamped, and covered towards its borders with one interminable sheet of the alo? and lilium, growing beneath spreading acacias upon a gravelly soil. Then commenced a belt of hummocks, formed by prominences abutting from the high land of Abyssinia—a succession of hill and dale, thickly-wooded with a variety of timber, and still clothed with an undergrowth of the wild alo?, through which wary herds of Baéza threaded their way. The road soon entered the pebbly bed of a mountain stream, running easterly between precipitous basaltic cliffs towards the Háwash; but although such torrents of rain had fallen the preceding night, no water was discovered in the wooded wady of Koka?, until reaching Dathára, nearly thirteen miles from the last encampment, where the party partook of the first crystal brook that had occurred during the entire weary journey from the sea-coast.

Three thousand feet above the ocean, with an invigorating, breeze and a cloudy sky, the climate of this principal pass into Southern Abyssinia, was that of a fine summer’s day in England, rather than of the middle of July between the tropics. Here for the first time during the pilgrimage, the tent was erected under the shade of a wide-spreading tamarind, which, among many other trees of noble growth, graced the sequestered spot. Above the surrounding foliage the long white roofs of many of the royal magazines were visible, perched high on the blue mountain side. In the forked branches overhead were piled haystack-looking nests of gigantic dimensions, thatched with every attention to neatness and comfort—the small aperture left by the feathered architect turned in every instance to the eastward, and carefully secured from the weather; and perched on every twig, an assemblage of strange birds displayed their gay glittering plumage, or filled the cool air with melodious song.

But from the summit of an adjacent basaltic knoll, which was ascended towards the close of day, there burst upon the delighted gaze a prospect more than ever alluring of the Abyssinian Alps. Hill rose above hill, clothed in the most luxuriant and vigorous vegetation. Mountain towered over mountain in a smiling chaos of disorder; and the soaring peaks of the most remote range threw their hoary heads, sparkling with a white mantle of hail, far into the cold azure sky. Villages and hamlets embosomed in dark groves of evergreens were grouped in Arcadian repose. Rich fields of every hue chequered the deep lone valley; and the sun, bidding a diurnal farewell to his much-loved plains of the east, shot a last stream of golden light, varied as the hues of the Iris, over the mingled beauties of wild woodland scenery, and the labours of the Christian husbandman.

No delegate with greetings from the Negoos awaiting the British Embassy, and the frontier town of Fárri, where caravans are received by His Majesty’s officers, being now only five miles distant, a letter was prepared, of which Mohammad Ali volunteered to be the bearer. In signifying gracious acquiescence to this arrangement, the Ras el Káfilah gravely intimated that the escort of Hy Somauli spearmen, famished at Killulloo by Ibrahim ibn Háme?do, declined permitting the departure of the son of Ali Abi, until they should have received the sum at which they were pleased to estimate their services. Little reason existing to be satisfied with the vigilance of this band of warriors, not one of the component members whereof, Doctor Syntax inclusive, had adopted the plan proposed by the poet for lengthening the days of existence by stealing a few hours from the night, compliance to the full extent of the exorbitant demand had previously been evaded. But as Izhák, in whom the truth was not, now falsely asserted and maintained that the Akil had taken his personal security for the sum, and as it was obviously of the last importance that arrival on the frontier should be timely reported, the money was reluctantly paid, and the courier set forth on his journey.

Rain was again ushering in the early hours of the night, when the unpleasant intelligence arrived that a certain Wulásma Mohammad was the delinquent, and that he had contrived effectually to thwart the intentions of his royal master. The king had commanded that his British visitors should be received on the western bank of the Háwash by an escort of honour. Under the commander-in-chief of the body-guard, three hundred matchlock-men had been for this purpose detached from the troops on service with His Majesty, and had actually reached Fárri, whence the jealous Moslem had dared to send them back upon the ridiculous pretext of being unable to obtain any tidings of the expected Franks.

This important functionary, in addition to his office of state-gaoler, is the hereditary Abogáz of the Mohammadan population of Argóbba on the east of Shoa, and the nature of his government exalts him in the eyes of all to the importance of a king. With the title of Wulásma—a word of uncertain derivation, known to Ludolf, the great historian of Abyssinia, who styles the dignitary “Pro rex of Efát”—he possesses unbounded influence over the frontier, his immediate duties being to preserve amicable relations with the Ada?el occupying the plain of the Háwash, and to protect káfilahs and merchants arriving from the independent principality of Hurrur, or from the coast of Tajúra. His functions as keeper of the state prison secure for him the respect of all. Christians as well as Islams, who have the fear of a dungeon before their eyes; and although numerous Abogásoch or Wulásmoch, governors of small detached provinces, share his power, the name and influence of all are dim under the light that glares from his loop-holed residence at Góncho.

It is the invariable policy of the haughty Abogáz to assume the great man to all travellers, since it is generally understood that through him alone foreigners can be received and forwarded, or if necessary presented to the Negoos. This arrangement involves not only trouble, but considerable expense. His despotic Majesty claiming the prerogative of franking every visitor through his territories, and a portion of the attendant outlay falling upon the functionary who may be honoured with the royal commands.

Openly opposed to European innovation, Mohammad particularly disliked the advent of the British Embassy, and was obviously doing his utmost to thwart the more liberal views of the crown, by treating the strangers with disrespect. The imperial order that an escort of matchlock-men should for the first time cross the hill frontier, and proceed into the plain of the Háwash, to do honour to the Christian guests, not only rankled in his Moslem breast, but was calculated to interfere with his resolution to preserve inviolate the avenues to the sea-coast. His intrigues had rendered abortive all attempts to communicate with the Court; and whilst the approach of the Embassy was not reported until its actual arrival at Dathára, his non-compliance with the order given had resulted most prejudicially, the Danákil guides being now more than ever unwilling to persuade themselves that the party would be welcome.

Preparations were making the following morning to continue the march to Fárri, when the burly functionary was seen pompously approaching with measured step, followed by a retinue of many hundred armed followers, whose shaven heads rose unturbaned above flowing white mantles. Far from announcing himself in the customary manner, he remained seated in portentous dignity, beneath the shade of a venerable tamarind by the road-side, until, every camel having been loaded, the caravan was moving off the ground. A peremptory message was then received through one of his myrmidons, to the effect that he stood strictly charged with the king’s commands to suffer not one of the party to advance until the next day, and that he was prepared to enforce the interdiction. There seemed little reason to doubt of this being a premeditated falsehood, as it afterwards proved to be; but the Ras el Káfilah having heard the injunction repeated in presence of the Wulásma Sule?man Moosa, Abogáz of Chánnoo, as coming direct from His Majesty, timidly declined any infringement, and again threw down the loads.

Condescending at length in moody sullenness to approach with his host of retainers, the triumphant potentate, armed with the rosary, or chaplet of one hundred beads, which denoted his intolerant faith, squeezed his pursy figure into a chair, and composed himself with much apparent satisfaction at the success that had attended his scheme of opposition. A debauched, ill-favoured, bloated specimen of mortality, the lines of intemperance were deeply graven on his truculent visage, which was at once cunning, sinister, and forbidding. But the party were not long troubled with his obnoxious presence. The reception he experienced, although civil, was distant and studiously formal, and the sun, beating in a full blaze upon his bald crown, rendered his position so extremely untenable, that after stiffly murmuring replies to the customary inquiries anent the health and well-being of his august master, he rose unceremoniously, and abruptly withdrew.

Throughout this brief and very unbending interview, a brawny retainer stood behind the chair, denuded to the waist. In his right hand he ostentatiously displayed the chief gaoler’s sword of state—a short heavy blade upon the model of the old Roman falchion, enclosed in a scabbard of massive silver; and his left arm supported a buckler of stiff bull’s hide, elaborately emblazoned with crescents and brass studs. The benevolent and prepossessing aspect of the Wulásma Sule?man Moosa, who occupied a second seat, offered a striking contrast to the repulsive arrogance of his scowling colleague. On his right side, protruding upwards with the curve of a scorpion’s tail, he wore a semicircular weapon, also denominated a sword, though in fact more nearly allied to a reaping-hook—a proud badge of office, with a fluted tulip-shaped termination to the silver scabbard, which, according to the wont of the despot, had been conferred on the occasion of his first installation in office, but which ludicrously interfered with comfort in an armchair.

During the residue of the day, the conduct of the state-gaoler was perfectly in unison with his character and previous hostile proceedings. He brought the white visitors neither presents nor supplies, according to the rules of Abyssinian hospitality; and although made fully aware that the camp was drained of provisions, prevented purchases by the undue exercise of his influence and authority. A pelting rain during the night, from which his sleek person was defended by naught save the pervious branches of a tamarind, had not tended to soften the asperities, or to alleviate the sourness of his aspect, when the day dawned; and it was only on finding the party prepared to advance at the hazard of forcible opposition, that he finally yielded the point, and betwixt his closed teeth muttered his grumbling consent to an arrangement which he felt longer unable with prudence to oppose. “The English are a great nation,” whispered the nephew of Ali Shermárki, as he passed the haughty Abogáz, “and you had better take care to treat them civilly. Wullahi! one of their ships of war would carry this káfilah over the water, and you and all your host of followers into the bargain.”