Volume Three—Chapter Twenty.

Language and Literature.

Geez, the ancient Ethiopic, was the vernacular language of the shepherds. Until the fourteenth century of the Christian era it remained that of the Abyssinian empire, and in it are embodied all the annals of her religion. After the downfall of the Zeguean dynasty, and the restoration of the banished descendants of Solomon, Amháric became the court language, to the complete exclusion of the Geez. It prevails in Shoa, as well as in all the provinces included between the Taccázê and the blue Nile, and is thus spoken by the greater portion of the population of Abyssinia.

The province from which the language has derived its appellation is at the present day in occupation of the Yedjow, and other Mohammadan Galla tribes, who speak a distinct dialect; but the fact of “Amhára” being a term held synonymous with “Christian,” would prove that it must formerly have exerted pre-eminent influence in the empire.

Of Semitic origin, and acknowledging the Ethiopic as its parent, the Amháric displays much interchange with the surrounding African languages—those, especially, which are spoken by the Danákil, the Somauli, the Galla, the people of Argobba, and those of Hurrur and of Guráguê. The cognate dialect peculiar to Tigré has received much less adulteration from other tongues, and consequently preserves a closer similitude to the Ethiopic; and this circumstance may be traced to the greater intercourse maintained with a variety of foreign nations by the versatile and unstable population in the south.

Amháric excepted, none of the many languages extant in Abyssinia have assumed a written form. The Ethiopic characters, twenty-six in number, are the Coptic adaptation of the Greek alphabet, modelled upon the plan of the Arabic, deranged from their former order, and rendered rude and uncouth by the fingers of barbarous scribes. Each individual consonant, being subjected to variations of figure correspondent with the number of the vowels, produces a prolific kaleidoscope mixture, which might have been deemed sufficient. But the ingenious phonologist who applied these to the Amháric tongue, has superadded seven foreign letters, each undergoing seven transformations by the annexure of as many vowel points; and these, with the addition of a suitable modicum of diphthongs, complete a total of two hundred and fifty-one characters, of the separate denomination of any of which, notwithstanding that most have possessed names from all antiquity, it may not perhaps be considered extraordinary that the most erudite in the land should profess entire ignorance.

When the Egyptian monarch interdicted the employment of the papyrus, parchment was invented. The Jews very early availed themselves of the charta pergamena, whereupon to write their Scriptures. The roll is still used in their synagogues; and being introduced into Abyssinia on the Hebrew emigration, it continues the only material used by the scribe. His ink is a mucilage of gum-arabic mixed with lamp-black. It acquires the consistency of that used in printing, and retains its intense colour for ages. The pen is the reed used in the East, but without any nib, and the inkstand is the sharp end of a cow’s horn, which is stuck into the ground as the writer squats to his task.

But it must be confessed that the Abyssinian scribe does not hold the pen of a ready writer; and the dilatory management of his awkward implement is attended with gestures and attitudes the most ludicrous. Under many convulsive twitches of the elbow, the tiny style is carried first to the mouth, and the end having been seized between the teeth, is masticated in a sort of mental frenzy. Throughout the duration of this necessary preliminary, the narrow strip of dirty vellum is held at arm’s length, and viewed askance on every side with looks of utter horror and dismay; and when at last the stick descends to dig its furrow upon the surface, no terrified school-boy, with the birch of the pedagogue hanging over his devoted head, ever took such pains in painting the most elaborate pothook, as does the Abyssinian professor of the art of writing, in daubing his strange hieroglyphics upon the scroll.

As with the Chinaman, each individual character must, on completion, be scrutinised from every possible point of view, before proceeding to the next. Every word must be read aloud by the delighted artist, spelt and re-spelt, and read again; and the greasy skin must be many times inverted, in order that the happy effect may be thoroughly studied. During each interval of approval, the destructive convulsions of the jaw are continued, to the complete demolition of the pencil, and, long before the termination of the opening sentence, European patience has become exhausted at the scene of awkward stupidity, and the gross waste of valuable time which it involves.

Seventeen years have been employed in transcribing a single manuscript, and an ordinary page is the utmost that can be produced by one entire day’s steady application. A book is composed of separate leaves enclosed between wooden boards, usually furnished with the fragment of a broken looking-glass for the toilet of the proprietor, and carefully enveloped in a leathern case. The contents being of a sacred nature, and generally in an unknown tongue, they are looked upon with the eye of superstitious credulity, and more especially venerated if embellished with coloured daubs and an illuminated title-page.

The pictorial art is still far behind the middle ages of Europe; and the appearance of the limner arranging his design with a stick of charcoal, or tilling in the gaudy partitions with the chewed point of a reed dabbled in the yolk of an egg, which is placed on end before him, proves sufficiently diverting. The conceits of some of the most celebrated masters also afford a fund of amusement. Christ stilling the tempest is a subject fraught with perplexity to those who have never seen either a maritime vessel or the “great water,” and firearms are placed somewhat before their invention in the hands of the heroes of antiquity. Our common father in the enjoyment of Paradise is at the present day invariably depicted with an emblazoned buckler, a sprig of asparagus, and a silver sword; and his erring partner appears with a bushy beehive wig most elaborately buttered, and with silver ear-rings resembling piles of cannon shot. But although doubts exist as to the complexion of the first parents of mankind, the fact is not a little complimentary to the heretic Franks, that the fairest skin is given to saints, angels, and the “dead kings of memory,” whereas black or blue are the colours invariably employed in depicting his Satanic majesty.

One hundred and ten volumes (Vide Appendix) comprise the literature at this day extant in Abyssinia; but tradition records the titles of other works, which it has already been said were deposited for security in the islands of the lake Zooai, at the period of the Mohammadan inroads. Of the accumulated lore of ages, four manuscripts only are written in the language at present spoken and understood; and, with exception of the Holy Scriptures, the whole is little more than a tissue of absurd church controversy and lying monkish legend.

Four monstrous folios, styled Senkesar, which are to be found in every church, briefly record the miracles and lives of the numerous saints and eminent persons who receive adoration in Abyssinia; and on the day ordered by the calendar for the service of each, his biography is read for the edification of all those of the congregation who comprehend the Ethiopic tongue. A host of pious worthies thus preside over every day of the entire year; and fables of the most preposterous kind, detailed with scrupulous minuteness, are vouched for upon unexceptionable authority.

Idle legends form the delight of the people of Shoa. The Ethiopic saint is nothing inferior to his western brethren. He performs yet more marvellous miracles, leads a still more ascetic life, and suffers even more dreadful martyrdom; whence he is proportionably adored in the native land of credulity, superstition, and religious zeal. Between apocryphal and canonical books no distinction is made. Bel and the Dragon is read with as much devotion as the Acts of the Apostles, and it might be added, with equal edification too; and Saint George vanquishing his green dragon is an object of nearly as great veneration as any of the heroes in the Old Testament.

But the stores of literature being wholly bound up in a dead letter, few excepting the priests and défteras can decipher them, and many of these learned men are often more indebted to the memory of their early youth than to the well-thumbed page in their hand. The ignorance of the nation is indeed truly deplorable; for those children only receive the rudiments of an education who are designed for the service of the church; and the course of study adopted being little calculated to expand the mind of the neophyte, a peculiar deficiency is presented in intellectual features. The five churches of Ankóber have each their small quota of scholars, but the aggregate does not amount to eighty out of a population of from twelve to fifteen thousand!

Abyssinia, as she now is, presents the most singular compound of vanity, meekness, and ferocity—of devotion, superstition, and ignorance. But, compared with other nations of Africa, she unquestionably holds a high station. She is superior in arts and in agriculture, in laws, religion, and social condition, to all the benighted children of the sun. The small portion of good which does exist may justly be ascribed to the remains of the wreck of Christianity, which, although stranded on a rocky shore, and buffeted by the storms of ages, is not yet wholly overwhelmed; and from the present degradation of a people avowing its tenets, may be inferred the lesson of the total inefficacy of its forms and profession, if unsupported by enough of mental culture to enable its spirit and its truths to take root in the heart, and bear fruit in the character of the barbarian. There is, perhaps, no portion of the whole continent to which European civilisation might be applied with better ultimate results; and although now dwindled into an ordinary kingdom, Hábesh, under proper government and proper influence, might promote the amelioration of all the surrounding people, whilst she resumed her original position as the first of African monarchies.