First Footsteps in East Africa Part 20

On the 11th of January I was sent for by the Gerad and received the second mule. At noon we were visited by the Shaykh Jami, who, after a long discourse upon the subject of Sufiism [44], invited me to inspect his books. When midday prayer was concluded we walked to his house, which occupies the very centre of the city: in its courtyard is "Gay Humburti,"

the historic rock upon which Saint Nur held converse with the Prophet Khizr. The Shaykh, after seating us in a room about ten feet square, and lined with scholars and dusty tomes, began reading out a treatise upon the genealogies of the Grand Masters, and showed me in half a dozen tracts the tenets of the different schools. The only valuable MS. in the place was a fine old copy of the Koran; the Kamus and the Sihah were there [45], but by no means remarkable for beauty or correctness. Books at Harar are mostly antiques, copyists being exceedingly rare, and the square ma.s.sive character is more like Cufic with diacritical points, than the graceful modern Naskhi. I could not, however, but admire the bindings: no Eastern country save Persia surpa.s.ses them in strength and appearance. After some desultory conversation the Shaykh ushered us into an inner room, or rather a dark closet part.i.tioned off from the study, and ranged us around the usual dish of boiled beef, holcus bread, and red pepper. After returning to the study we sat for a few minutes,--Easterns rarely remain long after dinner,--and took leave, saying that we must call upon the Gerad Mohammed.

Nothing worthy of mention occurred during our final visit to the minister.

He begged me not to forget his remedies when we reached Aden: I told him that without further loss of time we would start on the morrow, Friday, after prayers, and he simply e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "It is well, if Allah please!"

Scarcely had we returned home, when the clouds, which had been gathering since noon, began to discharge heavy showers, and a few loud thunder-claps to reverberate amongst the hills. We pa.s.sed that evening surrounded by the Somal, who charged us with letters and many messages to Berberah. Our intention was to mount early on Friday morning. When we awoke, however, a mule had strayed and was not brought back for some hours. Before noon Shaykh Jami called upon us, informed us that he would travel on the most auspicious day--Monday--and exhorted us to patience, deprecating departure upon Friday, the Sabbath. Then he arose to take leave, blessed us at some length, prayed that we might be borne upon the wings of safety, again advised Monday, and promised at all events to meet us at Wilensi.

I fear that the Shaykh's counsel was on this occasion likely to be disregarded. We had been absent from our goods and chattels a whole fortnight: the people of Harar are famously fickle; we knew not what the morrow might bring forth from the Amir's mind--in fact, all these African cities are prisons on a large scale, into which you enter by your own will, and, as the significant proverb says, you leave by another's.

However, when the mosque prayers ended, a heavy shower and the stormy aspect of the sky preached patience more effectually than did the divine: we carefully tethered our mules, and unwillingly deferred our departure till next morning.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The Ashantees at customs' time run across the royal threshold to escape being seized and sacrificed; possibly the trace of the pagan rite is still preserved by Moslem Harar, where it is now held a mark of respect and always exacted from the citizens.

[2] I afterwards learned that when a man neglects a summons his door is removed to the royal court-yard on the first day; on the second, it is confiscated. The door is a valuable and venerable article in this part of Africa. According to Bruce, Ptolemy Euergetes engraved it upon the Axum Obelisk for the benefit of his newly conquered AEthiopian subjects, to whom it had been unknown.

[3] In Abyssinia, according to the Lord of Geesh, this is a mark of royal familiarity and confidence.

[4] About seven years ago the Hajj Sharmarkay of Zayla chose as his agent at Harar, one of the Amir's officers, a certain Hajj Jamitay. When this man died Sharmarkay demanded an account from his sons; at Berberah they promised to give it, but returning to Harar they were persuaded, it is believed, by the Gerad Mohammed, to forget their word. Upon this Sharmarkay's friends and relations, incited by one Husayn, a Somali who had lived many years at Harar in the Amir's favour, wrote an insulting letter to the Gerad, beginning with, "No peace be upon thee, and no blessings of Allah, thou butcher! son of a butcher &c. &c.!" and concluding with a threat to pinion him in the market-place as a warning to men. Husayn carried the letter, which at first excited general terror; when, however, the attack did not take place, the Amir Abubakr imprisoned the imprudent Somali till he died. Sharmarkay by way of reprisals persuaded Alu, son of Sahlah Salaseh, king of Shoa, to seize about three hundred Harari citizens living in his dominions and to keep them two years in durance.

The Amir Abubakr is said on his deathbed to have warned his son against the Gerad. When Ahmad reported his father's decease to Zayla, the Hajj Sharmarkay ordered a grand Maulid or Ma.s.s in honour of the departed. Since that time, however, there has been little intercourse and no cordiality between them.

[5] Thus M. Isenberg (Preface to Ambaric Grammar, p. iv.) calls the city Harrar or Ararge.

[6] "Harar," is not an uncommon name in this part of Eastern Africa: according to some, the city is so called from a kind of tree, according to others, from the valley below it.

[7] I say _about_: we were compelled to boil our thermometers at Wilensi, not venturing upon such operation within the city.

[8] The other six were Efat, Arabini, Duaro, Sharka, Bali and Darah.

[9] A circ.u.mstantial account of the Jihad or Moslem crusades is, I am told, given in the Fath el Habashah, unfortunately a rare work. The Amir of Harar had but one volume, and the other is to be found at Mocha or Hudaydah.

[10] This prince built "Debra Berhan," the "Hill of glory," a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary at Gondar.

[11] A prince of many t.i.tles: he is generally called Wanag Suggad, "feared amongst the lions," because he spent the latter years of his life in the wild.

[12] Yemen submitted to Sulayman Pasha in A.D. 1538.

[13] "Gragne," or in the Somali dialect "Guray," means a left-handed man; Father Lobo errs in translating it "the Lame."

[14] This exploit has been erroneously attributed to Nur, the successor of Mohammed.

[15] This reverend Jesuit was commissioned in A.D. 1622, by the Count de Vidigueira, Viceroy of the Indies, to discover where his relative Don Christopher was buried, and to procure some of the relics. a.s.sisted by the son in law of the Abyssinian Emperor, Lobo marched with an army through the Gallas, found the martyr's teeth and lower jaw, his arms and a picture of the Holy Virgin which he always carried about him. The precious remains were forwarded to Goa.

I love the style of this old father, so unjustly depreciated by our writers, and called ignorant peasant and liar by Bruce, because he claimed for his fellow countrymen the honor of having discovered the Coy Fountains. The Nemesis who never sleeps punished Bruce by the justest of retributions. His pompous and inflated style, his uncommon arrogance, and over-weening vanity, his affectation of pedantry, his many errors and misrepresentations, aroused against him a spirit which embittered the last years of his life. It is now the fas.h.i.+on to laud Bruce, and to pity his misfortunes. I cannot but think that he deserved them.

[16] Bruce, followed by most of our modern authors, relates a circ.u.mstantial and romantic story of the betrayal of Don Christopher by his mistress, a Turkish lady of uncommon beauty, who had been made prisoner.

The more truth-like pages of Father Lobo record no such silly scandal against the memory of the "brave and holy Portuguese." Those who are well read in the works of the earlier eastern travellers will remember their horror of "handling heathens after that fas.h.i.+on." And amongst those who fought for the faith an _affaire de coeur_ with a pretty pagan was held to be a sin as deadly as heresy or magic.

[17] Romantic writers relate that Mohammed decapitated the Christian with his left hand.

[18] Others a.s.sert, in direct contradiction to Father Lobo, that the body was sent to different parts of Arabia, and the head to Constantinople.

[19] Bruce, followed by later authorities, writes this name Del Wumbarea.

[20] Talwambara, according to the Christians, after her husband's death, and her army's defeat, threw herself into the wilds of Atbara, and recovered her son Ali Gerad by releasing Prince Menas, the brother of the Abyssinian emperor, who in David's reign had been carried prisoner to Adel.

The historian will admire these two widely different accounts of the left- handed hero's death. Upon the whole he will prefer the Moslem's tradition from the air of truth pervading it, and the various improbabilities which appear in the more detailed story of the Christians.

[21] Formerly the Waraba, creeping through the holes in the wall, rendered the streets dangerous at night. They are now destroyed by opening the gates in the evening, enticing in the animals by slaughtering cattle, and closing the doors upon them, when they are safely speared.

[22] The following are the names of the gates in Harari and Somali:

_Eastward._ Argob Bari (Bar in Amharic is a gate, _e.g._ Ankobar, the gate of Anko, a Galla Queen, and Argob is the name of a Galla clan living in this quarter), by the Somal called Erar.

_North._ Asum Bari (the gate of Axum), in Somali, Faldano or the Zayla entrance.

_West._ Asmadim Bari or Hamaraisa.

_South._ Badro Bari or Bab Bida.

_South East._ Sukutal Bari or Bisidimo.

At all times these gates are carefully guarded; in the evening the keys are taken to the Amir, after which no one can leave the city till dawn.

[23] Kabir in Arabic means great, and is usually applied to the Almighty; here it is a t.i.tle given to the princ.i.p.al professors of religious science.

[24] This is equivalent to saying that the language of the Basque provinces is French with an affinity to English.

[25] When ladies are bastinadoed in more modest Persia, their hands are pa.s.sed through a hole in a tent wall, and fastened for the infliction to a Falakah or pole outside.

[26] The hate dates from old times. Abd el Karim, uncle to the late Amir Abubakr, sent for sixty or seventy Arab mercenaries under Haydar a.s.sal the Auliki, to save him against the Gallas. The matchlockmen failing in ammunition, lost twenty of their number in battle and retired to the town, where the Gallas, after capturing Abd el Karim, and his brother Abd el Rahman, seized the throne, and, aided by the citizens, attempted to ma.s.sacre the strangers. These, however, defended themselves gallantly, and would have crowned the son of Abd el Rahman, had he not in fear declined the dignity; they then drew their pay, and marched with all the honors of war to Zayla.

Shortly before our arrival, the dozen of petty Arab pedlars at Harar, treacherous intriguers, like all their dangerous race, had been plotting against the Amir. One morning when they least expected it, their chief was thrown into a prison which proved his grave, and the rest were informed that any stranger found in the city should lose his head. After wandering some months among the neighbouring villages, they were allowed to return and live under surveillance. No one at Harar dared to speak of this event, and we were cautioned not to indulge our curiosity.

[27] This agrees with the Hon. R. Curzon's belief in Central African "diggings." The traveller once saw an individual descending the Nile with a store of nuggets, bracelets, and gold rings similar to those used as money by the ancient Egyptians.

[28] M. Krapf relates a tale current in Abyssinia; namely, that there is a remnant of the slave trade between Guineh (the Guinea coast) and Shoa.

Connexion between the east and west formerly existed: in the time of John the Second, the Portuguese on the river Zaire in Congo learned the existence of the Abyssinian church. Travellers in Western Africa a.s.sert that Fakihs or priests, when performing the pilgrimage pa.s.s from the Fellatah country through Abyssinia to the coast of the Red Sea. And it has lately been proved that a caravan line is open from the Zanzibar coast to Benguela.

[29] All male collaterals of the royal family, however, are not imprisoned by law, as was formerly the case at Shoa.

[30] This is a mere superst.i.tion; none but the most credulous can believe that a man ever lives after an Eastern dose.

[31] The name and coin are Abyssinian. According to Bruce,

20 Mahallaks are worth 1 Grush.

12 Grush " " 1 Miskal.