Volume Two—Chapter Twenty One.

The Campaign.

In common with all other African potentates, Sáhela Selássie never engages in war, induced either by public principles, or by national glory, and, least of all, by a love of his people. Whilst the fear of rebellion and disturbance at home deters him from attempting on a grand scale to resume the lost possessions of his ancestors, to wield the sceptre as they did, three hundred miles south of his present limits, and to re-unite the scattered remnants of Christian population who once acknowledged their supremacy—revenge, the almost invariable success attending his arms, and the insatiable love of plunder inherent in the breast of every savage, impel him thrice a year to gather his undisciplined militia, in order to undertake sudden and sweeping inroads, either for the purpose of chastising insurrection among the subjugated usurpers of portions of the ancient empire of -Ethiopia, or of asserting his unstable authority over some neighbouring tribe that may heretofore have succeeded in maintaining its independence.

The wilds of Abyssinia are not easily explored by the solitary traveller, and I therefore gladly embraced the opportunity of acquiring important information relative to the mode of Amhára warfare, as well as of visiting regions almost unknown. Superstition, policy, and fear, alike influenced the wily monarch in his expressed desire to be accompanied by his British guests. The presence of the stranger being considered to shed a blessing over the army, is invariably enforced by royal mandate, which extends indiscriminately to all residing within the kingdom; and whilst His Majesty, distrusting the sojourn in his undefended capital of so large a body of foreigners, sought the augmentation of his consequence in the eyes both of enemies and subjects, I indulged in the hope that the cause of humanity might be promoted by the check which the presence of the European invariably enforces upon the excited savage, during the revolting and sanguinary scenes of exulting victory. From the fact of the army having provided rations for no more than twenty days, it was clearly impossible that operations should be directed against Lake Zooai, in Guráguê, distant from Angollála one hundred and fifty miles; and this circumstance fully explained the before incomprehensible indifference displayed by the Negoos to every preparation which might facilitate the advance of his troops. Keeping the secret of his real intentions fast locked in his own despotic breast, it is the invariable practice of His Majesty to publish a manifesto of the approaching campaign, calculated to mislead his enemies; and he not unfrequently carries the deception so far, as to make three or four marches in a direction quite opposite to that in which he had inwardly resolved to strike the blow. None have the slightest idea in what quarter the thunderbolt is to fall, and as the fatal season draws nigh when the state revenues are to be levied, anxiously must throb the conscious bosom of that vassal who has fallen under the royal displeasure.

Beyond the removal of muskets and matchlocks from their pegs, to be oiled and exposed to the sun before the porch of the great audience hall, few signs of preparation were observable for the approaching foray. Angollála was indeed somewhat more populous than usual, and beggars more numerous and importunate. Wild Galla chieftains, too, were in attendance with propitiatory offerings and outstanding arrears of tribute, and the interior of the palace presented a scene of increased bustle and confusion. His Majesty was to be seen absorbed in the inspection of venerable pots, pans, and pipkins, which would have been esteemed invaluable contributions to the British Museum. Tailors, silks, tinsel, and satin, were in equal requisition towards the decoration of the imperial person, and the fat Master of the Horse, assisted by the élite of the household warriors, sat cobbling old leather with laudable assiduity for the edification of a whole host of eunuchs. But in the arsenal there was no busy note of preparation such as is wont to precede European warfare; no crowding of light ordnance and heavy batteries; no commissariat, waggon-train, or sick carriage; and no interminable files of camels loading for the approaching march.

    “The steed,
    The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,”

had no place on the parade: the complicated and expensive equipment, and the munitions of the siege, were alike wanting; and although a few detachments were bivouacked on the adjacent meadow, and the black pall of a governor was here and there to be seen, it was still difficult even to conjecture whence the army of the despot was to spring.

Abject slaves to superstition, the Amhára never fail to consult the omens before setting out on a military expedition. Priests and monks are referred to by the monarch, and the accidental fall of the targe from a saddle bow, the alighting of a hooded crow in the path of a warrior, or the appearance of a white falcon with the tail towards him, are believed to augur unfavourably to success; whilst the flight of a pair of ravens in any direction, or the descent of a falcon with her head towards the army, are on the other hand esteemed certain prognostications of victory. For a full week prior to the opening of the projected campaign, the nocturnal howling of dogs had boded an inauspicious termination. One cur bayed at the moon as she rose; a second and a third took up the vile note, and a doleful concert of hundreds gave birth in the mind of the Christian soldier to presage of coming evil. Queen Besábesh was to await the issue of the foray at Angollála, and the command of the town meanwhile devolved upon the eunuch Wolda Mariam, with a garrison sufficient to deter visits on the part of the Galla, who have more than once attempted to burn the palace during such incursions into their territories. On the morning of the day appointed, a flourish of trumpets from the royal band proclaimed the exit of the Negoos from the palace, and shortly after sunrise the imperial crimson velvet umbrellas issued through the outer gateway at the head of a numerous procession. Crossing the meadow, His Majesty, resplendent in cloth of gold, took the road to the south by the wicket in the Galla wall, on which a strong advance picquet had already taken post. Every house in Angollála swelled the passing cavalcade; and each valley and hamlet in the environs marshalling its quota of mounted warriors, the nucleus of the incipient army, before advancing many miles, had become thick and dense. Abogáz Maretch with the Abitchu legion streamed from the stockaded hill of Wona-badéra, and a band of veterans occupying the summit of an adjacent rock meanwhile chanted the prowess of the royal warrior, who halted a few seconds in acknowledgment of their flattering eulogium.

Little order or arrangement is attempted during the first march, which invariably terminates at or near Yeolo, in order to afford time to stragglers to rejoin, or to admit of the return of those who may from any circumstance prove incapable of toil, or unprepared for the campaign. Immediately in advance of the army, screened beneath a canopy of scarlet broad-cloth, were borne on an ambling mule the Holy Scriptures and the ark of the cathedral of Saint Michael, the miraculous virtues of which sacred emblem, throwing into shade those of the Palladium of Troy, are believed to ensure victory to the Christian host. Supported by the crimson débaboch, the king rode next upon a richly-caparisoned mule, a small space around the royal person being kept clear by the corps of shield-bearers, who were flanked on the right by fusiliers and matchlock-men of the body-guard, and on the left by the band of kettle-drums on donkeys, with trumpets and wind instruments. Numerous governors, judges, monks, priests, and singers followed, and behind them rode a curious accompaniment to a martial expedition. Forty dames and damsels, professing the culinary art, with elaborately-crisped bee-hive wigs, greased faces bedaubed with ochre, and arched blue eyebrows, were muffled in crimson-striped robes of cotton—a demure assemblage rigorously guarded on all sides by austere eunuchs armed with long white wands. Beyond, far as the eye could penetrate the canopy of dust which hung over the horizon, every hill and valley swarmed with masses of equestrians and pedestrians, warriors, henchmen, and camp-followers, sumpter horses, asses, and mules, laden with tents, horns of old mead, and bags of provisions—throngs of women carrying pitchers of beer and hydromel at their backs, and lads with glittering sheaves of spears upon their shoulders, leading gaily-caparisoned war-steeds—all mixed and crowded together in the most picturesque disorder and confusion.

After crossing the Chácha, the country to the south-west is no longer safe for a single traveller; and owing to the determined hostility of the various wild Galla tribes by which it is inhabited, small Amhára detachments would even find difficulty in passing. The road lay through an amphitheatre of low broken hills, rising amid rich meadows and fields, and clothed in parts with juniper or camel thorn, through dark groves of which peeped numerous tiny Galla hamlets—the distant landscape being bounded by the great blue mountain ranges of Bulga, Garra Gorphoo, and Sallála Moogher, collectively forming a crescent, but towering independently in isolated grandeur.

At the termination of the fifteenth mile, the ladies and their eunuchs, having hovered about for some time in uncertainty, finally settled down, like a flight of flamingoes, in a pretty secluded valley, through which winds the deep muddy Baróga. Their halt, and the selection made of a site for the royal kitchen, proclaimed the encamping ground under a naturally scarped table-hill styled Gimbee Bayéllo, which imparts its name to the spot. A fierce scramble for places ensued, and the several detachments bivouacking sub divo around the dingy palls of their respective leaders, which arose on the next minute, soon spread far and wide over every dell and meadow.

The centre of the straggling camp, which could not have measured less than five miles in diameter, was occupied by the royal suite of tents, consisting of a gay parti-coloured marquee of Turkish manufacture, surrounded by twelve ample awnings of black serge, over which floated five crimson pennons, surmounted by silver globes. Until these had been erected, and duly enclosed by an outer screen of cotton cloths, the Negoos, according to his wont, ascending an adjacent eminence, with all the principal chieftains, and an escort of several hundred picked warriors, remained seated on a cushioned alga; and under the crimson canopy of the state umbrellas, watched the progress making towards his accommodation.

Horses abound in the kingdom of Shoa, as well as throughout the adjacent champaign country of the Galla; but save during the foray, they are rarely mounted by the indolent Amhára, the sure-footed mule being better adapted to his taste, and to the rugged hills that compose the greater portion of the frontier. The note of war, however, had so materially increased the value of the steed, that even the few horses we required had been obtained with difficulty. Every old, unsound, and vicious Rozinante in the realm was speciously presented, and in turn rejected, when Abogáz Maretch at length advertised his stud. Two hundred pieces of salt were the price fixed upon the first purchase; and as this small change was not procurable within thirty miles, and moreover would have formed the load of two jackasses, ten Austrian convention dollars were forwarded in lieu thereof, each valued at ten amoles, and exhibiting all the requisite jewels in the star and coronet of Maria Theresa. “I have kept your silver,” was the chief’s reply, “because you have sent it; but in future when I sell you a horse, I shall expect you to pay me in salt.”

In a country where even the hire of a porter is dependent upon the arbitrary caprice of the despotic sovereign, and where the inferiors of the court, entertaining one and all the most thorough contempt for truth, are lavish of promises without the smallest intention of performing them, no little difficulty had also been experienced in obtaining transport at so busy a season. Our preparations were therefore of an extremely limited nature, no member carrying aught save the scantiest bedding, whilst the general commissariat was restricted to a small bag of flour with the jerked flesh of two oxen that had been provided on the occasion from the royal herds. But orders for the supply of porters, who were not to be hired, had only been issued at the very last moment, when the purveyor-general, with his customary liberality, reducing the kingly grant by one half, those finally furnished—three in number—proved barely sufficient for the carriage of rocket staves, medical stores, and surgical instruments required for the state service; the flimsy cotton awnings and scanty baggage of both officers and escort being reluctantly transported by a few hired domestics, or lashed with sharp leathern thongs upon the galled backs of feeble old pack-horses, purchased on emergency at the adjacent market of Bool Worki.

When contrasted with disciplined forces, the camp equipage of the rabble Amhára was small and portable indeed. A commissariat is unknown, every soldier and follower transporting his own provisions, which are limited to parched grain, or sun-dried flesh; and as, owing to the rapidity of the march, and the usual absence of opposition, the campaign is rarely protracted beyond a fortnight, this system has been found to answer. Governors and leaders alone occupy tents, whilst every component member of their respective quotas, in defiance of cold and rain, bivouacks upon the bare ground, with his head upon the shield, and no screen betwixt himself and the vault of heaven, save the clothes upon his back.

Strange was the sight presented as night closed over the first encampment of the chivalry of Shoa. Rockets were to be fired by the royal request to instil terror into the breasts of the Galla hordes; and we had selected the peak which rose near the head-quarters, as being the most centrical site for the display. Ascending from below, the hum of the mighty host arose in the still clear atmosphere, and the gleam of the bright embers which ran through the depths of the valley, and danced over the intervening heights, until lost in the far distance, presented the appearance of a city of ancient days, whereof the great arteries being alone lit up during the nocturnal hours, full scope was allowed to the imagination to populate at pleasure the intervening gloom.

The appearance at Angollála of the muskets presented to His Majesty by the British Government had already caused no inconsiderable consternation, it being the generally received belief that the bayonet, hitherto a stranger in the land, formed a great receptacle for poisonous spells. The roar of each flight of “fire-rainers” now produced a panic from end to end of the scattered camp. A buzz and a clamour of voices followed each luminous ascent, to burst forth into a loud peal of wonder when the brilliant shower of meteors fell after the explosion. Confusion ensued; horses and mules, breaking from their pickets, scoured away in terror, pursued by henchman and warrior, their figures, flitting in dim perspective among the countless bale-fires, like shades called into existence by some magic agency; and the scene doubtless proved to the gazing monarch that the political object in contemplation had been well and fully accomplished.

Habitual suspicion on the part of the despot inducing him to apprehend desertion to the enemy, the arms of the fusiliers of the body-guard were piled according to long-established usage, in one of the royal tents, and strongly guarded. The chiefs and nobles then sate down to a repast in the pavilion, where hydromel and beer and raw flesh were in regal profusion. As the horn circulated briskly, and the spirits of the guests mounted in proportion, it was curious to listen to the vaunts of coming prowess that arose from the board. No limit was placed upon the victims who were to be gathered to their fathers, and loyalty and devotion knew no bounds. “You are the adorners,” stammered one, as the party broke up, who had been decorated by his English friends; “you gave me scarlet broadcloth, and behold I have reserved the gift for the present occasion. This garment will bring me signal success; for the pagan who espies a crimson cloak over the shoulder of the Amhára, believing him to be a warrior of distinguished valour, takes like an ass to his heels, and is speared without the slightest danger.”