Volume Two—Chapter Twenty Four.

The Royal Achievement.

Welcome to all was the first grey light that illumined the eastern sky, and summoned the warrior from his uneasy slumbers. So uncomfortably had the night been passed, that it was in truth rest to rise. The despot was among the first to abandon his cold couch; and a bulletin of success having been penned by the royal hand, for the information of Queen Besábesh, the main body of the division, convoying the interminable droves of cattle, was in motion across the Ekka valley. Escorted by five thousand cavalry. His Majesty then proceeded to a knoll at some distance within the scene of yesterday’s carnage, upon the summit of which he tarried, whilst parties went out in search of the body of his grand-nephew, the youthful son of Ayto Besuehnech, who, with several others of the Christian host, had fallen in the running conflict.

It was a cool and lovely morning, and the mountain breeze played freshly down each opening glade. The ascending sunbeam danced over the steep rugged sides and ruined stone edifices of the fastness of Entótto, anciently the proud seat of Ethiopic splendour, and still believed to conceal much of the wealth lost to the empire at the period of Graan’s invasion, when Nebla Dengel was driven into Tigré. The great volcanic cone of Sequala, rivalling the lowland Aiúlloo, was again visible in the distance, its once active crater converted by the revolutions of ages into an extensive lagoon, on the banks of which stands the celebrated shrine of Guebra Manfas Kedoos, a saint renowned for the destruction, by his prayers, of live hundred genies. On the one hand frowned the dark wooded slave mart of Roqué, in the Yerrur hill, where millions of Christians have been bought and sold; and on the other rose the mountain Dalácha, sacred to the Wato sorcerers, whose tempting demesnes have escaped pillage and conflagration, in consequence of their blessing having been followed by the birth of Sáhela Selássie. Far in the distance a low belt of vegetation screened the sleepy Háwash, and over the intervening tract numerous tributaries to the Casam, absorbed eventually in the parched plain of the Ada?el, conveyed the eastern drainage of Garra Gorphoo through the ravaged valley of Germáma.

Over this wide expanse not a living inhabitant was now to be seen. In every direction the bloodstained ground was strewed with the slaughtered foe, around whose disfigured corses groups of surfeited vultures flapped their foul wings, and screamed the death note. The embers of deserted villages smouldered over the scorched and blackened plain. Ripe crops, which the morning before had gladdened the heart of the cultivator—now no more—were level with the ground. Flocks of sheep, untended by the shepherd, strayed over the lone meadow; and bands of howling dogs wandered up and down in fruitless quest of their lost masters. A single day had reduced to a wilderness the rich and flourishing vale of Germáma, including the dark forests of Finfinni, which for years had slept in peace; and their late numerous and unsuspecting population had in a few hours been swept from off the face of the earth by the devastating irruption of the barbarian Amhára hordes.

The remains of the fallen chief having, after much search, been recovered from the ashes of a still smoking village, were shrouded with a white cloth, and borne upon a bier from the scene of desolation. Glutted with booty, the despot now left his locusts to pursue their own course up the Ekka valley, where flames and plunder again marked their straggling return towards the mountains of Garra Gorphoo. Each hamlet was ravaged in succession; and cats, the sole remaining tenants of the deserted huts, were dislodged by the torch of the Wóbo.

For miles and miles the road was lined with dusty and wayworn warriors laden with spoil: flocks and herds, donkeys, mules, and horses, honeycombs, poultry, household utensils and farming gear, with captive women and children, indiscriminately mingled with the men-at-arms. Whilst some of these latter, wounded and mutilated, were lashed upon the backs of their palfreys, others, dismounted, were dragging behind them their lame and exhausted steeds; sheep and goats, unable through fatigue to proceed, being cut limb from limb while still alive, and the bleeding trunks left quivering in the path by the wanton butchers.

Re-entering the mountains, across which the sun now cast the long dark shadows of evening, the camp was sought in vain; but the rear division, with tents and baggage, was at length descried pouring down the opposite height under a vast canopy of dust to the encamping ground at Boora Roofa. A long march the preceding day had brought it to Sululta near to Moolo Fálada, where it met and destroyed those who had fled from the immediate scene of the king’s inroad, made numerous female captives, and, with the loss of the sumpter horses laden with horns of hydromel, acquired considerable booty; information casually received of the main division having thence led it back through the mountains to the present halting-ground, after all had made up their minds to another cold bivouac in the open air. During its more recent progress, this division had carried fire and sword through the country of the Sertie Galla, where it yet remained unplundered; and, as the day again closed, the vault of heaven was re-illumined by volumes of lurid smoke from the surrounding hamlets. Such is the appalling retribution with which Sáhela Selássie is wont to visit those rebel tribes who withhold the moderate tribute imposed upon them. The relinquishment to the crown of three or four hundred of the many thousand head of cattle captured during this and the preceding day, would, with some twenty or thirty horses, have averted this awful chastisement, the fearful consequence of taxation refused. The revolt of tribes inhabiting remote portions of His Majesty’s dominions arises too frequently from the oppression of Galla governors, over whose proceedings he can exercise very inadequate control; but it is caused in a principal degree by the absence of outpost or fortification to hold his wild subjects in check. Could he be prevailed upon to abandon his present weak mode of securing the Galla dependencies, to strengthen them by those military arrangements for which the country is so peculiarly adapted, and to place a better limit upon the exactions of frontier governors, what bloodshed and misery might not be averted!

The army halted at Boora Roofa to enable straggling detachments to rejoin; and small parties went out in various directions to complete the work of demolition among the deserted hamlets of the Sertie tribe, some of which, embosomed deep among the mountain glens, had hitherto escaped attention: hives of ungathered honey, heaps of unwinnowed corn, and the half-flayed carcass abandoned within the filthy habitation, bearing ample testimony to the precipitate flight of the hunted inmates, around many of whose bodies gaunt vultures already held their carnival.

Early during the forenoon, horsemen rode in to the royal pavilion with important intelligence, that Ayto Hierát, a favourite governor, had, at the distance of a few miles, surprised and surrounded a Galla in a tree, among the branches of which the caitiff awaited the arrival of the king. Impatient to wreathe his brow with new laurels, the monarch lost not a moment in sallying forth to destroy the unfortunate wretch, taking a most formidable array of single and double-barrelled guns and rifles of every calibre, together with an escort of five thousand cavalry.

Receiving a long shot through the thigh at the royal hands, whilst imperfectly ensconced among the foliage, the victim, abandoning all hope of escape, wisely cast away his weapons, and cried loudly for quarter; being admitted to which, he kissed the feet of His Majesty, and thus escaped his otherwise inevitable fate. To take the life of a Galla, and to secure a prisoner of either sex, are, in Amhára warfare, accounted one and the same thing; and although, where adult males are concerned, the more merciful alternative is rarely adopted, the despot, whose dreams often conjure up his past deeds of blood in judgment against him, has become more lenient than of yore. Yet the valuable presents to which the destruction of a helpless foe entitles him from every governor in the realm, the increased respect acquired in the eyes of his subjects and warriors, and the additional lustre shed over his already chivalrous reputation by each new murder, however foul, induce him still to seek occasions such as this to embrue his hands in gore.

Messenger after messenger now galloped into camp at full speed, with the joyful tidings of the king’s achievement, each new announcement eliciting yet louder and louder songs and shouts from the wotzbeitoch, eunuchs, and parasites at the royal quarters. In another hour the cavalcade returned in triumph, the wounded captive riding on a mule behind the exulting monarch, who, by virtue of his bold exploit, wore in the hair a large green branch of wild asparagus, whilst the greasy garment of his bleeding prisoner graced the proud neck of his war-steed. Repeated volleys of musketry, with the blasts of horns, and the din of kettle-drums, proclaimed the signal prowess of His Christian Majesty. Priests and women flocked to receive him with a clamour of acclamation, and he alighted amid the most stunning uproar.

Through the Master of the Horse I presently received a message to the effect that the attendance of every member of the Embassy had been looked for, the Galla having been entrapped purposely that his destruction might be accomplished by the hand of the King’s British visitors, in view to the exaltation of the national name. “Why tarried ye in the tent? I desired that my children might slay the heathen in the tree; but, when they came not, I myself performed the deed.”

I informed the puissant monarch in reply, “that, independently of its being the Sabbath, and none of the party possessing the smallest inclination to destroy a defenceless human being under any circumstances, no public body was authorised by the law of nations to draw a sword offensively in any country not in open hostility with its own. That in Shoa an elephant was esteemed equivalent to forty armed Galla, and a wild buffalo to five; and of these much-dreaded animals we were ready to destroy any number that he might think proper to permit.”

Great was the triumph and the quaffing of mead, and the feasting on raw beef, during the residue of the day and the early hours of the night, for, lo! the king of kings in single combat had prevailed over his Galla foe. Essential assistance had been afforded by the medical officers of the Embassy to the sick and wounded; amongst the latter, to a brother of the Queen; yet many reproaches were now abroad, in that its members had eaten the royal bread, and destroyed none of the enemies of the state. The example of other foreigners, who were represented to have shot Galla out of trees, was contrasted somewhat unfavourably to British courage; and a private of the artillery escort was roundly taxed with cowardice for permitting the escape of an unarmed peasant, who lay concealed in a bush by the way-side, and could have offered no resistance. The defenceless wretch was subsequently pursued by thirty Amhára horsemen, but escaped unscathed on foot into the forest, under a shower of their Christian lances.

In all countries where a martial spirit is fostered by continual forays, and where the exertions of a single day are sufficient to maintain the successful marauder for six months to come, the daily unceasing labour of the cultivator is forsaken for the shield and spear. But in Abyssinia, where the principal booty is monopolised by the monarch, the case is widely different, since, although military expeditions are of frequent occurrence, the sword of the plunderer is as often turned again into the ploughshare—whilst the despoiled husbandman, again tilling his devastated lands, and occupying the brief intervals of peace and repose in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, the fair provinces of the Galla, flowing with milk and honey, are speedily reclothed in one sheet of luxuriant cultivation.

The Abyssinians have been represented as a bold, martial, and chivalrous race—but in Shoa the “champions of the Cross” are impelled by none of that knightly valour which warmed the breast of the crusader of old. The white feather, that emblem of cowardice in other lands, forms the boast of their murderous exploits; and the system of the noble art of war would seem to consist in the merciless destruction of the enemy by sudden inroad and surprise. Harrying the invaded country with overwhelming masses of undisciplined cavalry, the only opposition to be encountered is an occasional skirmish during the night with an outlying detachment, or by day during the passage of a weak body through morasses or intricate defiles. The appearance of a foe invariably proves the signal for increased disorder, all who are so disposed sallying forth to the assault, when those who harbour animosity against a comrade not unfrequently avail themselves of the opportunity to assassinate him in the mêlée.

Cruelties emanating from the hereditary detestation of the heathen, which, with the barbarous spoils earned during the foray, is handed down as an heir-loom from generation to generation, are unfortunately countenanced by the monarch, who has too often personally set the disgraceful example of mutilation; whilst the bigotry and superstition of the savage Amhára induces him to regard every pagan in the light of a dog, as doth the fanatic Moslem the Christian. The revolting barbarities practised in the hour of victory, which from time immemorial have had existence in Ethiopia, and unfortunately also over the greater portion of unhappy Africa to which discovery has yet extended, are perpetuated by the commission of similar enormities on the part of the Galla usurpers of the fairest portions of the land, who butcher children and old men without distinction, mutilate all who fall into their hands, and enslave females upon every opportunity.

The rapid muster of the Amhára under their respective chieftains, the disorderly march, the rude, but for the purpose sufficient tactics, with the slaughter and devastation consequent upon success, forcibly bring to mind the wars of feudal Europe. The stimulus afforded by individual interest in the murders committed during the foray stands at present in the place of discipline, since without one or the other no army could be brought into the field. Triumph attends the return of the Christian warrior from battle in proportion to the number of lives he bears upon his arm, and for each enemy slain he is entitled to some conspicuous personal badge, which forms his greatest pride. A ring, a gauntlet, or a bracelet, gained at the expense of acts the most dastardly, raises him accordingly in the estimation of relatives and companions in arms, and signal success almost invariably paves the way to royal preferment.

Discipline alone can check the prevailing barbarity, by superseding desultory hand to hand combat, and keeping every soldier in such comparative ignorance of the number that fall to his individual prowess, as to preclude the vaunting of exploits. To those especially who have been eye-witnesses of such a foray, it must afford matter for deep regret that feud and contest should hitherto so effectually have debarred access to the interior, and should have checked the advance of Christianity and civilisation, which, as in happier lands, must bring with them the means of providing for redundant population, and could not fail to ameliorate the horrors attendant upon the existing system of Abyssinian warfare.