Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 55, No. 341, March, 1844
ETHIOPIA1
From the various circumstances of our day, the impression is powerfully made upon intelligent men in Europe, that some extraordinary change is about to take place in the general condition of mankind. A new ardour of human intercourse seems to be spreading through all nations. Europe has laid aside her perpetual wars, and seems to be assuming a habit of peace. Even France, hitherto the most belligerent of European nations, is evidently abandoning the passion for conqest, and begining to exert her fine powers in the cultivation of commerce. All the nations of Europe are either following her example, or sending out colonies of greater or less magnitude, to fill the wild portions of the world. Regions hitherto utterly neglected, and even scarcely known, are becoming objects of enlightened regard; and mankind, in every quarter, is approaching, with greater or less speed, to that combined interest and mutual intercourse, which are the first steps to the true possession of the globe.
But, we say it with the gratification of Englishmen, proud of their country's fame, and still prouder of its principlesthat the lead in this noblest of all human victories, has been clearly taken by England. It is she who pre-eminently stimulates the voyage, and plants the colony, and establishes the commerce, and civilizes the people. And all this has been done in a manner so little due to popular caprice or national ambition, to the mere will of a sovereign, or the popular thirst of possession, that it invests the whole process with a sense of unequaled security. Resembling the work of nature in the simplicity of its growth, it will probably also resemble the work of nature in the permanence of its existence. It is not an exotic, fixed in an unsuitable soil by capricions planting; but a seed self-sown, nurtured by the common air and dews, assimilated to the climate, and strikig its roots deep in the ground which it has thus, by its own instincts, chosen. The necessities of British commerce, the urgency of English protection, and the overflow of British population, have been the great acting causes of our national efforts; and as those are causes which regulate themselves, their results are as regular and unshaken, as they are natural and extensive. But England has also had a higher motive. She has unquestionably mingled a spirit of benevolence largely with her general exertions. She has laboured to communicate freedom, law, a feeling of property, and a consciousness of the moral debt due by man to the Great Disposer of all, wherever she has had the power in her hands. No people have ever been the worse for her, and all have been the better, in proportion to their following her example. Wherever she goes, oppression decays, the safety of person and property begins to be felt, the sword is sheathed, the pen and the ploughshare commence alike to reclaim the mental and the physical soil, and civilization comes, like the dawn, however slowly advancing, to prepare the heart of the barbarian for the burst of light, in the rising of Christianity upon his eyes.
The formation of a new route between India and Europe by the Red Seaa route, though well known to the ancient world, yet wholly incapable of adoption by any but an Arab horseman, from the perpetual tumults of the countrycompelled England to look for a resting-place and depot for her steam-ships at the mouth of the Red Sea. Aden, a desolated port, was the spot fixed on; and the steam-vessels touching there were enabled to prepare themselves for the continuance of their voyage. We shall subsequently see how strikingly British protection has changed the desolateness of this corner of the Arab wilderness, how extensively it has become a place of commerce, and how effectually it will yet furnish the means of increasing our knowledge of the interior of the great Arabian peninsula.
It is remarkable that Africa, one of the largest and most fertile portions of the globe, remains one of the least known. Furnishing materials of commerce which have been objects of universal desire since the delugegold, gems, ivory, fragrant gums, and spicesit has still remained almost untraversed by the European foot, except along its coast. It has been circumnavigated by the ships of every European nation, its slave-trade has divided its profits and its pollutions among the chief nations of the eastern and western worlds; and yet, to this hour, there are regions of Africa, probably amounting to half its bulk, and possessing kingdoms of the size of France and Spain, of which Europe has no more heard than of the kingdoms of the planet Jupiter. The extent of Africa is enormous:5000 miles in length, 4600 in breadth, it forms nearly a square of 13,430,000 square miles! the chief part solid ground; for we know of no Mediterranean to break its continuityno mighty reservoir for the waters of its hillsand scarcely more than the Niger and the Nile for the means of penetrating any large portion of this huge continent.
The population naturally divides itself into two portions, connected with the character of its surfacethe countries to the north and the south of the mountains of Kong and the Jebel-al-Komr. To the north of this line of demarcation, are the kingdoms of the foreign conquerors, who have driven the original natives to the mountains, or have subjected them as slaves. This is the Mahometan land. To the south of this line dwells the Negro, in a region a large portion of which is too fiery for European life. This is Central Africa; distinguished from all the earth by the unspeakable mixture of squalidness and magnificence, simplicity of life yet fury of passion, savage ignorance of its religious notions yet fearful worship of evil powers, its homage to magic, and desperate belief in spells, incantations and the fetish. The configuration of the country, so far as it can be conjectured, assists this primeval barbarism. Divided by natural barriers of hill, chasm, or river, into isolated states, they act under a general impulse of hostility and disunion. If they make peace, it is only for purposes of plunder; and, if they plunder, it is only to make slaves. The very fertility of the soil, at once rendering them indolent and luxurious, excites their passions, and the land is a scene alike of profligacy and profusion. To the south of this vast region lies a thirdthe land of the Caffre, occupying the eastern coast, and, with the Betjouana and the Hottentot, forming the population of the most promising portion of the continent. But here another and more enterprising race have fixed themselves; and the great English colony of the Cape, with its dependent settlements, has begun the first real conquest of African barbarism. Whether Aden may not act on the opposite coasts of the Red Sea, and Abyssinia become once more a Christian land; or whether even some impulse may not divinely come from Africa itself, are questions belonging to the future. But there can scarcely be a doubt, that the existence of a great English viceroyalty in the most prominent position of South Africa, the advantages of its government, the intelligence of its people, their advancement in the arts essential to comfort, and the interest of their protection, their industry, and their example, must, year by year, operate in awaking even the negro to a feeling of his own powers, of the enjoyment of his natural faculties, and of that rivalry which stimulates the skill of man to reach perfection.
The name of Africa, which, in the Punic tongue, signifies "ears of corn," was originally applied only to the northern portion, lying between the Great Desert and the shore, and now held by the pashalics of Tunis and Tripoli. They were then the granary of Rome. The name Lybia was derived from the Hebrew Leb, (heat,) and was sometimes partially extended to the continent, but was geographically limited to the provinces between the Great Syrtis and Egypt. The name Ethiopia is evidently Greek, (burning, or black, visage.)
There is strong reason to believe that the Portuguese boast of the sixteenth centurythe circumnavigation of Africawas anticipated by the Phoenician sailors two thousand years and more. We have the testimony of Herodotus, that Necho, king of Egypt, having failed in an attempt to connect the Nile with the Red Sea by a canal, determine to try whether another route might not be within his reach, and sent Phoenician vessels from the Red Sea, with orders to sail round Africa, and return by the Mediterranean. It is not improbable that, from being unacquainted with the depth to which it penetrates the south, he had expected the voyage to be a brief one. It seems evident that the navigators themselves did not conceive that it could extend beyond the equator, from their surprise at seeing the sun rise on their right hand. The narrative tells us"The Phoenicians, taking their course from the Red Sea, entered into the Southern Ocean on the approach of autumn; they landed in Lybia, planted corn, and remained till the harvest. They then sailed again. After having thus spent two years, they passed the Columns of Hercules in the third, and returned to Egypt." Herodotus doubted their story"Their relation," says the honest old Greek, "may obtain belief from others, but to me it seems incredible; for they affirmed, that, having sailed round Africa, they had the sun on their right hand. Thus was Africa for the first time known."
Thus the very circumstance which the old historian regarded as throwing doubt on the discovery, is now one of the strongest corroborations of its truth.2 There appear to have been several attempts to sail along the west coast, by ancient expeditions; but to the Portuguese is due the modern honour of having first sailed round the Cape. From 1412, the Portuguese, under a race of adventurous princes, had extended their discoveries; but it occupied them sixty years to reach the Line, and nearly thirty years more to reach the Cape, which they first called Cabo Tormentoso, (Stormy Cape.) But the king gave it the more lucky, though the less poetical, title which it now bears.
The triumph of Columbus, in his discovery of the New World in 1493, raised the emulation of the Portuguese, then regarded as the first navigators in the world; yet it was not until four years after, that their expedition was sent, to equalize the stupendous accession to the Spanish domains, by the possession of the East. In July 1497, Gama sailed, reached Calicut May 2, 1498, and returned to Portugal, covered with well-earned renown, after a voyage of upwards of two years.
Having given this brief outline of the divisions and character of the mighty continent, which seemed important to the better understanding of the immediate subject, we revert to the intelligent and animated volumes of Captain (now Major) Harris.
A letter from the Bombay government, 29th April 1841, gave him this distinguished credential:
"SIRI am directed to inform you that the Honourable the Governor in Council, having formed a very high estimate of your talents and acquirements, and of the spirit of enterprise and decision, united with prudence and discretion, exhibited in your recently published travels through the territories of the Maselakatze to the Tropic of Capricorn, has been pleased to select you to conduct the mission which the British Government has resolved to send to Sahela Selasse, the king of Shoa, in Southern Abyssinia, whose capital, Ankober, is supposed to be about four hundred miles inland from the port of Tajura, on the African coast."
[Then followed the mention of the vessels appointed to carry the mission.]
(Signed) "J.P. WILLOUGHBY,"
"Secretary to Government."
The persons comprising the mission were Major W.C. Harris, Bombay Engineers, Captain Douglas Graham, Bombay army, principal assistant, with others, naturalists, draftsmen, &c., and an escort of two sergeants and fifteen rank and file, volunteers from H.M. 6th foot and the Bombay Artillery.
On the afternoon of a sultry day in April, Major Harris, with his gallant and scientific associates, embarked on board the East India Company's steam ship Auckland, in the harbour of Bombay, on their voyage to the kingdom of Shoa in Southern Abyssinia, in the year 1841. The steam frigate pursued her way prosperously through the waters, and on the ninth day was within sight of Cape Aden, after a voyage of 1680 miles. The Cape, named by the natives, Jebel Shemshan, rises nearly 1800 feet above the ocean, is frequently capped with clouds, a wild and fissured mass of rock, and evidently intended by nature for one of those great beacons which announce the approach to an inland sea. On rounding the Cape, the British eye was delighted with the sight of the Red Sea squadron, riding at anchor within the noble bay. The arrival of the frigate also caused a sensation on the shore; and Major Harris happily describes the feelings with which a new arrival is hailed by the British garrison on that dreary spot, their only excitement being the periodical visits of the packets between Suez and Bombay. In the dead of the night a blue light shoots up in the offing. It is answered by the illumination of the block ship, then the thunder of her guns is heard, then, as she nears the shore, the flapping of her paddles is heard through the silence, then the spectral lantern appears at the mast-head, and then she rushes to her anchorage, leaving in her wake a long phosphoric train.
Wherever England drops an anchor a new scene of existence has begun. At Aden, the supply of coals for the steam-ships has introduced a new trade; gangs of brawny Seedies, negroes from the Zanzibar coast, but fortunately enfranchised, make a livelihood by transferring the coal from the depots on shore to the steamers. Though the most unmusical race in the world, they can do nothing without music, but it is music of their owna tambourine beaten with the thigh-bone of a calf; but their giant frames go through prodigious labour, carry immense sacks, and drink prodigious draughts to wash the coal-dust down. Such is the furious excitement with which they rush into this repulsive operation, that Major Harris thinks that for every hundred tons of coal thus embarked, at least one life is sacrificed; those strong savages, at once inflamed by drink, and overcome with toil, throwing themselves down on the dust or the sand, to rise no more. This shows the advantage of English philosophy: our coal-heavers in the Thames toil as much, are nearly as naked, nearly as black, and probably drink more; but we never hear of their dying in a fit of rapture in the embrace of a coal-sack. When the day is done, drunk or sober, washed or unwashed, they go home to their wives, sleep untroubled by the cares of kings, and return to fresh dust, drink, and dirt, next morning.
The coast of Arabia has no claims to the picturesque: all its charms, like those of the oyster, lie within the roughest of possible shells. Its first aspect resembles heaps of the cinders of a glass-housea building whose heat seems to be fully realized by the temperature of this fearful place. England has a resident there, Captain Haynes,named as political agent. That any human being, who could exist in any other place, would remain in Aden, is one of the wonders of human nature. An officer, of course, must go wherever he is sent; but such is the innate love for a post, that if this gallant and intelligent person were roasted to death, as might happen in one of the coolest days of the Ethiopian summer, there would be a thousand applications before a month was over, to the Foreign Office, for the honour of being carbonaded on the rocks of Aden.
The promontory has all the marks of volcanic eruption, and is actually recorded, by an Arab historian of the tenth century, to have been thrown up about that period. "Its sound, like the rumbling of thunder, might then be heard many miles, and from its entrails vomited forth redhot stones, with a flood of liquid fire." The crater of the extinguished volcano is still visible, though shattered and powdered down by the tread under which Alps and Appennines themselves crumble awaythat of Time. The only point on which we are sceptical is the late origin of the promontory. Nothing beyond a sandhill or a heap of ashes has been produced on the face of nature since the memory of man. That a rock, or rather a mountain chain, with a peak 1800 feet high, should have been produced at any time time within the last four thousand years, altogether tasks our credulity. The powers of nature are now otherwise employed than in rough-hewing the surface of the globe. She has been long since, like the sculptor, employed in polishing and finishingthe features were hewn out long ago. Her master-hand has ever since been employed in smoothing them.