The review was followed, at some interval of time, by a more substantial display. Thrice in the year the king summons his rude militia for an inroad into some of the neighbouring lands; and, as he was particularly anxious to have the presence of the embassy on this occasion, and as they conceived it to offer the best opportunity of seeing the country, they accordingly accepted the invitation. As it is to be presumed that they had no intention of taking any personal part in this marauding expedition, we are not disposed to criticise their acquiescence; otherwise there could be no doubt whatever, that they had no right to assist the king of Shoa in his foray on his neighbours, more than they would have had a right to assist his neighbours in their attacks upon the king of Shoa.
The march was peculiar, and even pompous, in its kind. It was extraordinary to see it preceded by a copy of the Holy Scriptures, under a canopy of scarlet cloth, and borne on a mule; but, it must be owned, accompanied by the "Ark of the cathedral of St Michael," which works miracles, and is regarded as a pledge of victory. Then came the king on a specially caparisoned mule, surrounded by his guard of shield-bearers, and flanked by matchlock-men; then came forty damsels, royal cooks, painted with ochre, and muffled in crimson-striped robes of cottona troop rigorously guarded by attendants with long white wands. Beyond these, as far as the eye could penetrate the clouds of dust, every hill and valley teemed with horsemen, camp-followers, sumpter-mules, and men carrying sheaves of spears, and leading caparisoned horses, all mixed in the most picturesque confusion. After a march of fifteen miles, the female cooks halted, like a flight of flamingoes, in a pretty, secluded valley. It was evident that the day's march was now at an end, and the army halted to bivouac for the night. In the centre of this straggling camp, which could not be less than five miles in diameter, was raised a suite of royal tents, consisting of a gay party-coloured marquee of Turkish manufacture, surrounded by twelve ample awnings of black serge, over which floated five crimson pennons, surmounted respectively by silver globes. There was something of African, or perhaps European, pomp in this proceeding. Until the royal tents were enclosed from the vulgar eye, the Negoos, ascending an adjacent eminence with his chiefs and an escort of picked warriors, remained seated on cushioned alga, and under the crimson canopy of the state umbrella.
When night fell, rockets were fired by the royal command, "to instil terror into the breasts of the Galla hordes;" and the peak which ran near the headquarters, was chosen as the most central spot for the display. The effect, brilliant every where, was here all that even Majesty could have desired. The "fire-rainers" (the picturesqe name which, we presune, Major Harris has adopted from the natives) produced delight, wonder, and terror, in all their degrees; and if the Galla nation were present, they must, to a man, have solicited chains, rather than be roasted alive by those flying monsters, which the people seem to have taken for the works of magic, if not magicians themselves. The display was followed by a repast in the old heroic style, and which will not be forgotten, should Abyssinia ever give the world a sable Homer.
"The chiefs and nobles sat down to their feast in the royal pavilion, where hydromel, beer, and raw flesh were in regal profusion!! After supper, speeches were made in the Homeric style, boasting of what the warriors had done, and intended to do. A fragment of one of the speeches; addressed to the English as the party broke up, gives a fair idea of Abyssinian table eloquence, 'You are the adorners,' (the orator had been decorated with a scarlet cloak;) 'you have given me scarlet broadcloth, and behold I have reserved the gift for this day. This garment will bring me success; for the Pagan who sees a crimson cloak on the shoulders of the Amhara,' (Abyssinian,) 'believing him to be a warrior of distinguished valour, will take, like an ass, to his heels, and be speared without the smallest danger.'"
The march, and the foray into the country of one of the Galla tribes, are admirably told, and perhaps are among the best descriptions in the volumesexact without being tedious, and deeply coloured without exaggeration. But we must hasten to other things. This was the monarch's eighty-fourth foray; and on this we may conceive something of the horrors of barbarian life, and of the tremendous evils which nations have escaped whose laws and principles tame down the original evil of man.
We are glad to find that the embassy refused to take any share in this horrible work, though they fell into some disrepute with the troops, and even with the monarch, for their remissness. The king had even reserved an unlucky Galla in a tree, to be shot by his guests. But this they declined, first, on the pretext of its being the Sabbath, and next, more distinctly on the ground, that"no public body was authorized by the law of nations, to draw a sword offensively in any country not at war with its own." They then offered the compromise, "that an elephant was esteemed equivalent to forty Gallas, and a wild buffalo to five, and that they were ready to shoot as many of both as his Majesty pleased." But the embassy did more effectual things; the sick and wounded received relief from them to the extent of their means, and they even prevailed on the king to liberate all his prisoners. The troops in the foray amounted to about 20,000.
On the return of this destroying expedition, which seems to have turned a very fine country into a desert, the king made a kind of triumphal entry into his capital. His costume was splendidly savage. A lion's skin over his shoulders, richly ornamented, and half concealing beneath its folds an embroidered green mantle of Indian manufacture; on his right shoulder were three chains of gold, as emblems 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 on his brow. His dappled war-horse, in housings of blue and yellow, was led beside him; and in front his "champion" rode a coal-black charger, bearing the royal shield of massive silver, with the cross upon it, and dressed in a panther's hide. The two chief officers of his army rode either side of the crimson umbrella; at the palace gates, a deputation of priests in white robes received the conqueror with a benediction and a volley of musketry announced his arrival. The leader of the royal matchlock-men performed a war dance before the Ark as it was borne along, and in the inner court the principal warriors, each carring some human fragment on his lance, flung then on the ground before the royal footstool, and shouted their war praise.
The embassy at length attained personal distinction by the death of an elephant, which one of the party brought to the ground by a two-ounce ball. The "warriors" were all in astonishment at this feat, to which all had predicted the most disastrous termiration; and "Boroo, the brave chief of the Soopa," exclaimed in his delight, "The world was made for you, and no one else has any business in it!"
The chief object of the embassy was still to be accomplishedthe formation of something that approached to a treaty of commerce. Beads, cutlery, and trinkets, had been received from the coast; but the beggary of the nobles for those things was perpetual and intolerable. They called those ornanents pleasing things, and the cry was constant, "show me pleasing things," "give me delighting things," "adorn me from head to foot." It is scarcely surprising that the natives should be enamoured of European conmodities; for, though an old commerce had subsisted with Arabia, the supplies brought by the English were of the most exciting kind. Detonating caps were in great request; treble strong canister powder was also much in demand. Yet there was some ingenuity amongst themselves; for a young fellow was taken up for making dollars of pewter. Every spot and letter had been closely represented with punch and file. "Tell me," said the king, on the case of this culprit being mentioned to him, "how is that machine made which in your country pours out the silver crowns like a shower of rain?" The hand corn-mills, presented by the British Government, had been erected within the palace walls, and slaves were turning the wheels with unceasing diligence. "Demetrius, the Armenian, made a machine to grind corn," exclaimed his majesty in a transport of delight, as the flour streamed upon the floor; "and though it cost the people a year of hard labour to construct, it was useless when finished, because the priest declared it to be the devil's work, and cursed the bread. But, may the Sahela Selasse diethese engines are the work of clever hands."
The monarch, elated with his knowledge, now determined to build a bridge, which in three days was completed; and, as was predicted by the quiet English spectators, in three hours fell down on the very first fresh produced by the annual rains.
Weaving excepted, the people manufactured nothing; but British commerce has long been known, though evidently of the coarsest kind. At length, on his majesty's being told that five thousand looms would bring him more wealth than ten thousand soldiers, he gradually consented to form a commercial treaty. The crown had hitherto appropriated the property of strangers dying in the country. The purchase or display of costly goods by the subject had been interdicted, and a maxim exhibiting the whole jealousy of savage life had been established, that the stranger who once entered was never to depart from Abyssinia. By the articles of the commercial treaty, all those barbarous prohibitions have been abolished.
As the monarch returned the deed, he made a short speech sufficiently able and appropriate: "You have loaded me with costly presents, the rainment that I wear, the throne on which I sit, the curiosities in my store-houses, and the muskets which hang round my great hallall are from your country. What have I to give in return for such wealth? My kingdom is as nothing."
The hereditary provinces at this day subject to the King of Shoa, are comprised in a rectangular domain of 150 by 90 miles; an area traversed by five systems of mountains, of which the culminating point divides the basin of the Nile from that of the Hawash. The Christian population of Shoa and Efat are estimated at a million; and the Moslem and Pagan population at a million and a half. The royal revenues are said to amount to 80,000 or 90,000 German crowns, arising chiefly from import duties in slaves, merchandise, and salt. As the annual expenses of the state do not exceed 10,000 dollars; it is presumed that the king, during his thirty years' reign, has amassed much treasure, which is regularly deposited under ground.
We recommend the enquirers into the truth of Herodotus, to examine the curious illustrations stated in these volumes; and, among the rest, the kingdom of pigmies. The geographer will find ample interest in tracing the course of the Gochob, a sort of central Nile; and the naturalist, botanist, and entomologist, will find abundant information in the very interesting and complete appendices on those subjects. The history of the Christian missions of early ages is an excellent chapter, and the general statistics of religion.
The practical religion of the Abyssinian Christian is of the very lowest degree of formality. Fasts, penances, and excommunications, form the chief discipline; but the penitent can always provide a substitute for the two former, and the latter is always to be averted by money. Spiritual offences, however, are rare; for murder and sacrilege alone give umbrage to the easy conscience of the natives of Shoa. Abstinence and largesses of money are equivalent to wiping away every sin. Their creed advises the invocation of saints, confession to the priest, and faith in charms and amulets. Prayers for the dead, and absolution, are indispensable; and, as a more summary mode of relieving the burdens of the flesh, it is pronounced, that all sins are forgiven from the moment that the kiss of the pilgrim is imprinted on the stones of Jerusalem, and that even kissing the hand of a priest purifies the body from all sin. A creed of this order, which makes spiritual safety dependent, not upon personal purification of mind and divine mercy, but upon forms which are unconnected with either, and which even can be executed by a substitute, of course excludes the necessity for morals of any kind. All is corruption"Born amid falsehood and deceit, cradled in bloodshed, and nursed in the arms of idleness and debauchery, the national character almost defies the missionary."
There are some strange remnants of Judaism still lingering amongst the tribes of these highland regions. The Galla have a tradition, that their whole nation will one day be called on to march, en masse, and reconquer Palestine for the return of the Jews. The king of Shoa regards himself as a direct descendant of the house of Solomon, calls himself king of Israel, and the national standard bears the motto, "The Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed." They believe the 45th Psalm to be a prophecy of Queen Magueda's visit to Jerusalem; whither she was attended by a daughter of Hiram, king of Tyre. The Jewish prohibitions against the flesh of unclean animals, are observed by the Abyssinians. The sinew which shrank, and the eating of which was prohibited to the Israelite, is also prohibited in Shoa. The Jewish Sabbath is strictly observed. The Abyssinians are said, by Ludolf, to be the greatest fasters in the world. The Wednesdays and Fridays are fasts; the forty days before Easter are rigidly observed as a fast; and from the Thursday preceding Easter till the Sunday, no morsel of meat is to enter the lips, and the prohibition against drink is equally rigorous. St Michael and the Virgin Mary are venerated in the highest degree; St Michael as the leader of the hosts of heaven, and the latter as the chief of all saints, and queen of heaven and earth, and both as the great intercessors of mankind.
Like the Jews of old, the Abyssinians weep and lament on all occasions of death; and the shriek ascends to the sky, as if the soul could be recalled from the world of spirits. As with the Jews, the most inferior garments are employed as the weeds of woe; and the skin torn from the temples, and scarified on the cheeks and breast, proclaims the last extremity of grief. As the Rabbins believe that angels were the governors of all sublunary things, the Abyssinians adopt this belief: carrying it even further, they confidently implore their assistance in all concerns, and invoke and adore them in a higher degree than the Creator. The clergy enjoy the price of deathbed confession; and the churchyard is sternly denied to all who die without the rite, or whose relations refuse the fee and the funeral feast. Eight pieces of salt are the price of wafting a poor man's soul to the place of rest, and the feast for the dead places him in a state of happiness, according to the cost of the entertainment. For the rich, money procures the attendance of priests, who absolve, and pray continually day and night. The anniversaries of the deaths of the six kings of Shoa are held with great ceremony in the capital; and once every twelvemonth, before a splendid feast, their souls are absolved from all sin.
Major Harris expresses himself ardently and eloquently on the hopes of commerce which might be maintained by Great Britain with this little-known but productive part of the world. It is notorious that gold and gold dust, ivory, ostrich feathers, peltries, spices, wax, and precious gums, form a part of the lading of every slave caravan; notwithstanding that the tediousness of the transport, and the penuriousness of the Indian and Arab merchant, offer but a small compensation for their labour. No quarter of the globe abounds to a greater extent in vegetable and mineral productions than tropical Africa; and in the populous, fertile, and salubrious portions lying immediately north of the equator, the very highest capabilities are presented for the employment of British capital. Coal has already been found; cotton, of a quality unrivaled in the whole world, is every where a weed, and might be cultivated to any extent. The coffee which is sold in Arabia as the produce of Mocha, is chiefly of wild African growth; and that species of the tea plant which is used by the lower orders of the Chinese, flourishes so widely, and with so little care, that the climate would doubtless be found well adapted for the higher-flavoured and more delicate species. If, at a very moderate calculation, a sum falling very little short of a hundred thousand pounds sterling, can be annually invested in European goods, to supply the wants of some of the poorer tribes adjacent to Abyssinia, what important results might not be anticipated from well-directed efforts, adopting the natural neans of communication in Africa?