Volume Two—Chapter Twenty Six.

The Triumph.

A long march across the Sana Robi next brought the troops to Belát, in the neighbourhood of Yeolo. His Majesty, seated upon his cushioned alga, halted frequently in the wide undulating meadows to witness warlike rehearsals on a still more splendid scale; on the termination of which, many of the quotas having received their dismissal, dispersed to their respective districts, although not until after one Amhára soldier had been treacherously murdered by a rival comrade, and another had been desperately wounded in a trifling dispute.

Before sunrise the ensuing morning the victorious troops, reduced by one third, marched upon Angollála, driving exultingly before them upwards of thirty thousand head of cattle, the entire of which were, par excellence, the property of the king. Arrived within sight of the capital, strains of martial music burst from the centre division, when every throat throughout the vast army joined in one deafening chorus. Half a mile to the south of the Galla wall a tent had been erected, to which His Majesty retiring for a few minutes, arrayed himself preparatory to the triumphal entry; and the various leaders, at the head of their respective squadrons, meanwhile took up the position allotted in the coming pageant.

As the state umbrellas, preceded by the ark of Saint Michael, passed through the Ankóber gate of the defences, the assembled chiefs and warriors who had been most distinguished during the successful foray, arrayed in the glittering badges of former achievements in arms, placed themselves in advance. One hundred gore-stained steeds, resplendent with trappings and brass ornaments, and fancifully caparisoned in gay cloths and chintz housings, bounded and pranced gallantly under this chosen band of proud cavaliers, who, with lances couched, and party coloured robes flaunting in the wind, slowly curvetted over the verdant carpet of turf. Their glossy black hair, loaded with feathers and green branches in token of recent triumph, and their variously emblazoned shields, glancing brightly in the sun-beams, they rent the air with shrill whoops and yells, responded at frequent intervals by loud shouts of welcome from the palace, and from all parts of the town; whilst the dense phalanx of warriors in the rear—their forest of lances partially obscured under a thick canopy of dust—pressing tumultuously forward, and pouring the wildest war-songs from ten thousand throats, completed one of the most brilliant and savage exhibitions that can be conceived.

The king was enrobed in the ample spoils of a noble Hon, richly ornamented, and half concealing beneath their tawny folds an embroidered green mantle of Indian manufacture. On his right shoulder he wore three chains of gold as a symbol of the Holy Trinity, and the fresh-plucked bough of asparagus, which denoted his recent exploit, rose from the centre of an embossed coronet of silver. His dappled war-steed, bedizened with housings of blue and yellow, was led prancing beside him, and immediately in advance bounded the champion, on a coal-black charger, bearing the imperial shield of massive silver, with the sacred emblem of Christianity in high relief, whilst his long plaited raven locks floated wildly behind, over the spotted hide of a panther, by which his broad shoulders were graced. Abogáz Maretch and Ayto Berkie rode on either side of the crimson debáboch, and a marshalled line of shield-bearers, under the Master of the Horse, preserved a clear space around the royal person until the cavalcade had gained the stockaded knoll, upon the summit of which the palace is erected.

Here a deputation of priests, clad in snow-white garments, received the victorious monarch with a blessing, and under a volley of musketry. His Majesty proceeded to ascend. The outer court was crowded with female slaves, beggars, and menials, who, on the first appearance of the umbrellas within the gate, greeted the royal return with the shrillest clamour, and cast themselves prostrate in the dust. Fusiliers and matchlock-men of the imperial body-guard lined the second palisaded enclosure, and under a feu-de-joie, their leader, performing the war-dance before the holy ark, led the procession to the last enclosure, where the king being met by the eunuchs of the royal household, entered the palace by a private door, and surrounded by pages and attendants, presently took seat in a high latticed balcony fronting the inner quadrangle.

Full in the centre stood a gigantic drum, whereat twelve old hags thumped unceasingly with crossed hands, keeping time energetically with their feet, whilst, under the most frightful contortions and gesticulations, they cursed and screamed defiance to the enemies of the state. Sixty concubines, their faces besmeared with red ochre and grease, and their frizzled locks white under a coat of lard, sang and danced with increasing vehemence their shrill melody, regulated by the drum, now dwindling into recitative, now bursting forth into a deafening chorus. Around this strange group, the dismounted cavaliers formed fifteen deep, and filling the entire court, poised each his trophy of blood aloft upon the glittering point of his lance; and as the whole danced, and whooped, and howled like wild beasts, warrior after warrior, springing with a fiendish yell into the centre of the ring, cast his prize contemptuously upon the ground, and kissing the dust, did abject homage at the feet of the triumphant despot.

“Behold in me the king’s great warrior,” now resounded from every quarter. “I it was who slew his enemy in the open field, or speared him in the burning hut. May victory ever attend his armies in the battle! May Sáhela Selássie reign for ever!” A general shout and clashing of shields, with the sudden cessation of the wild music, announced the close of this savage pageant. The curtain dropped before the monarch, and, as the actors dispersed rapidly to the right and to the left, the discharge of an old dismounted iron gun, which, vertically elevated against a stone, was revealed at the further extremity of the court, announced to the public that the tragedy of “the Royal Robber” had been performed with the most brilliant success, and would be repeated again during the season.

Rumours of the destruction of the entire Christian host had flown to Angollála in consequence of the Negoos having, for the first time in his life, passed the night apart from his baggage; and the grief and consternation which prevailed during six days, had only been dispelled by the unexpected and triumphant return of the victorious army. Evil omens had, indeed, resounded through the departing camp, but destiny had been satisfied with a youthful scion of the royal stock; and although the weapons of a lost descendant of the house of Solomon adorned the rude walls of the pagan Galla, still fire and sword had ravaged their fair country; and the rich booty with which the adjacent meadows were profusely dotted, proclaimed a harvest which, during thirty years, and eighty-four successive expeditions, had not been eclipsed in the annals of Amhára bloodshed and rapine.