Horses and mules were now turned loose among the standing beans; and several thousand head of cattle, tired to death with the distance they had been driven from their wonted pastures, were, with infinite difficulty, collected in a hollow, girdled on three sides by a deep ravine. It was closed on the fourth by a steep acclivity, on the summit of which the king, surrounded by his chieftains, took up his position for the night. His Majesty, although fasting throughout the day, sent his only loaf to be eaten by "his children;" and looking forth upon the fruits of his masterly foray, seemed, in the contemplation of the ama.s.sed herds, to be insensible alike to the cold wintry blast, and to the long calls of hunger. 4 A wilder scene can scarcely be imagined than that presented by the nocturnal bivouac of the locust-like army of the Amhara, flushed by its recent success. Loud whoops and yells, arising from every quarter of the wide valley, mingled with the incessant lowing of kine, the bleating of sheep, the shrill neighing of the war-steed, and the occasional wailing of some captive maid. Groups of grim warriors, their hands embrued in the innocent blood of infancy, and their stern features lighted by the fitful flame, chuckling over the barbarous spoils they had won, vaunted their inhuman exploits, as they feasted greedily on raw and reeking carca.s.ses. Spears and bucklers gleamed brightly around hundreds of bale-fires, composed of rafters stripped from the surrounding houses; and the whole distant landscape, red from the lurid glare reflected by scores of crackling hamlets, completed a picture worthy the pencil of the artist who delights in the delineation of brutal revelry. No sentry paced the environs of the straggling encampment--no watchword challenged the tramp of the man-at-arms. The deep hum of thousands gradually waned and died away, and each composed himself to slumber on the spot where his carousal had been held. A pall constructed with spears supporting a cotton robe, screened the person of the Negoos; and so long as the biting cold would permit, we slept at broken intervals upon the bare ground, amid the gorged and weary warriors, the saddle of each serving for a pillow--
"The earth our bed, our canopy the sky."
Volume Two, Chapter XXIV.
THE ROYAL ACHIEVEMENT.
Welcome to all was the first grey light that illumined the eastern sky, and summoned the warrior from his uneasy slumbers. So uncomfortably had the night been pa.s.sed, that it was in truth rest to rise. The despot was among the first to abandon his cold couch; and a bulletin of success having been penned by the royal hand, for the information of Queen Besabesh, the main body of the division, convoying the interminable droves of cattle, was in motion across the Ekka valley. Escorted by five thousand cavalry. His Majesty then proceeded to a knoll at some distance within the scene of yesterday"s carnage, upon the summit of which he tarried, whilst parties went out in search of the body of his grand-nephew, the youthful son of Ayto Besuehnech, who, with several others of the Christian host, had fallen in the running conflict.
It was a cool and lovely morning, and the mountain breeze played freshly down each opening glade. The ascending sunbeam danced over the steep rugged sides and ruined stone edifices of the fastness of Entotto, anciently the proud seat of Ethiopic splendour, and still believed to conceal much of the wealth lost to the empire at the period of Graan"s invasion, when Nebla Dengel was driven into Tigre. The great volcanic cone of Sequala, rivalling the lowland Aiulloo, was again visible in the distance, its once active crater converted by the revolutions of ages into an extensive lagoon, on the banks of which stands the celebrated shrine of Guebra Manfas Kedoos, a saint renowned for the destruction, by his prayers, of live hundred genies. On the one hand frowned the dark wooded slave mart of Roque, in the Yerrur hill, where millions of Christians have been bought and sold; and on the other rose the mountain Dalacha, sacred to the Wato sorcerers, whose tempting demesnes have escaped pillage and conflagration, in consequence of their blessing having been followed by the birth of Sahela Sela.s.sie. Far in the distance a low belt of vegetation screened the sleepy Hawash, and over the intervening tract numerous tributaries to the Casam, absorbed eventually in the parched plain of the Adaiel, conveyed the eastern drainage of Garra Gorphoo through the ravaged valley of Germama.
Over this wide expanse not a living inhabitant was now to be seen. In every direction the bloodstained ground was strewed with the slaughtered foe, around whose disfigured corses groups of surfeited vultures flapped their foul wings, and screamed the death note. The embers of deserted villages smouldered over the scorched and blackened plain. Ripe crops, which the morning before had gladdened the heart of the cultivator--now no more--were level with the ground. Flocks of sheep, untended by the shepherd, strayed over the lone meadow; and bands of howling dogs wandered up and down in fruitless quest of their lost masters. A single day had reduced to a wilderness the rich and flourishing vale of Germama, including the dark forests of Finfinni, which for years had slept in peace; and their late numerous and unsuspecting population had in a few hours been swept from off the face of the earth by the devastating irruption of the barbarian Amhara hordes.
The remains of the fallen chief having, after much search, been recovered from the ashes of a still smoking village, were shrouded with a white cloth, and borne upon a bier from the scene of desolation.
Glutted with booty, the despot now left his locusts to pursue their own course up the Ekka valley, where flames and plunder again marked their straggling return towards the mountains of Garra Gorphoo. Each hamlet was ravaged in succession; and cats, the sole remaining tenants of the deserted huts, were dislodged by the torch of the Wobo.
For miles and miles the road was lined with dusty and wayworn warriors laden with spoil: flocks and herds, donkeys, mules, and horses, honeycombs, poultry, household utensils and farming gear, with captive women and children, indiscriminately mingled with the men-at-arms.
Whilst some of these latter, wounded and mutilated, were lashed upon the backs of their palfreys, others, dismounted, were dragging behind them their lame and exhausted steeds; sheep and goats, unable through fatigue to proceed, being cut limb from limb while still alive, and the bleeding trunks left quivering in the path by the wanton butchers.
Re-entering the mountains, across which the sun now cast the long dark shadows of evening, the camp was sought in vain; but the rear division, with tents and baggage, was at length descried pouring down the opposite height under a vast canopy of dust to the encamping ground at Boora Roofa. A long march the preceding day had brought it to Sululta near to Moolo Falada, where it met and destroyed those who had fled from the immediate scene of the king"s inroad, made numerous female captives, and, with the loss of the sumpter horses laden with horns of hydromel, acquired considerable booty; information casually received of the main division having thence led it back through the mountains to the present halting-ground, after all had made up their minds to another cold bivouac in the open air. During its more recent progress, this division had carried fire and sword through the country of the Sertie Galla, where it yet remained unplundered; and, as the day again closed, the vault of heaven was re-illumined by volumes of lurid smoke from the surrounding hamlets. Such is the appalling retribution with which Sahela Sela.s.sie is wont to visit those rebel tribes who withhold the moderate tribute imposed upon them. The relinquishment to the crown of three or four hundred of the many thousand head of cattle captured during this and the preceding day, would, with some twenty or thirty horses, have averted this awful chastis.e.m.e.nt, the fearful consequence of taxation refused. The revolt of tribes inhabiting remote portions of His Majesty"s dominions arises too frequently from the oppression of Galla governors, over whose proceedings he can exercise very inadequate control; but it is caused in a princ.i.p.al degree by the absence of outpost or fortification to hold his wild subjects in check. Could he be prevailed upon to abandon his present weak mode of securing the Galla dependencies, to strengthen them by those military arrangements for which the country is so peculiarly adapted, and to place a better limit upon the exactions of frontier governors, what bloodshed and misery might not be averted!
The army halted at Boora Roofa to enable straggling detachments to rejoin; and small parties went out in various directions to complete the work of demolition among the deserted hamlets of the Sertie tribe, some of which, embosomed deep among the mountain glens, had hitherto escaped attention: hives of ungathered honey, heaps of unwinnowed corn, and the half-flayed carca.s.s abandoned within the filthy habitation, bearing ample testimony to the precipitate flight of the hunted inmates, around many of whose bodies gaunt vultures already held their carnival.
Early during the forenoon, hors.e.m.e.n rode in to the royal pavilion with important intelligence, that Ayto Hierat, a favourite governor, had, at the distance of a few miles, surprised and surrounded a Galla in a tree, among the branches of which the caitiff awaited the arrival of the king.
Impatient to wreathe his brow with new laurels, the monarch lost not a moment in sallying forth to destroy the unfortunate wretch, taking a most formidable array of single and double-barrelled guns and rifles of every calibre, together with an escort of five thousand cavalry.
Receiving a long shot through the thigh at the royal hands, whilst imperfectly ensconced among the foliage, the victim, abandoning all hope of escape, wisely cast away his weapons, and cried loudly for quarter; being admitted to which, he kissed the feet of His Majesty, and thus escaped his otherwise inevitable fate. To take the life of a Galla, and to secure a prisoner of either s.e.x, are, in Amhara warfare, accounted one and the same thing; and although, where adult males are concerned, the more merciful alternative is rarely adopted, the despot, whose dreams often conjure up his past deeds of blood in judgment against him, has become more lenient than of yore. Yet the valuable presents to which the destruction of a helpless foe ent.i.tles him from every governor in the realm, the increased respect acquired in the eyes of his subjects and warriors, and the additional l.u.s.tre shed over his already chivalrous reputation by each new murder, however foul, induce him still to seek occasions such as this to embrue his hands in gore.
Messenger after messenger now galloped into camp at full speed, with the joyful tidings of the king"s achievement, each new announcement eliciting yet louder and louder songs and shouts from the _wotzbeitoch_, eunuchs, and parasites at the royal quarters. In another hour the cavalcade returned in triumph, the wounded captive riding on a mule behind the exulting monarch, who, by virtue of his bold exploit, wore in the hair a large green branch of wild asparagus, whilst the greasy garment of his bleeding prisoner graced the proud neck of his war-steed.
Repeated volleys of musketry, with the blasts of horns, and the din of kettle-drums, proclaimed the signal prowess of His Christian Majesty.
Priests and women flocked to receive him with a clamour of acclamation, and he alighted amid the most stunning uproar.
Through the Master of the Horse I presently received a message to the effect that the attendance of every member of the Emba.s.sy had been looked for, the Galla having been entrapped purposely that his destruction might be accomplished by the hand of the King"s British visitors, in view to the exaltation of the national name. "Why tarried ye in the tent? I desired that my children might slay the heathen in the tree; but, when they came not, I myself performed the deed."
I informed the puissant monarch in reply, "that, independently of its being the Sabbath, and none of the party possessing the smallest inclination to destroy a defenceless human being under any circ.u.mstances, no public body was authorised by the law of nations to draw a sword offensively in any country not in open hostility with its own. That in Shoa an elephant was esteemed equivalent to forty armed Galla, and a wild buffalo to five; and of these much-dreaded animals we were ready to destroy any number that he might think proper to permit."
Great was the triumph and the quaffing of mead, and the feasting on raw beef, during the residue of the day and the early hours of the night, for, lo! the king of kings in single combat had prevailed over his Galla foe. Essential a.s.sistance had been afforded by the medical officers of the Emba.s.sy to the sick and wounded; amongst the latter, to a brother of the Queen; yet many reproaches were now abroad, in that its members had eaten the royal bread, and destroyed none of the enemies of the state.
The example of other foreigners, who were represented to have shot Galla out of trees, was contrasted somewhat unfavourably to British courage; and a private of the artillery escort was roundly taxed with cowardice for permitting the escape of an unarmed peasant, who lay concealed in a bush by the way-side, and could have offered no resistance. The defenceless wretch was subsequently pursued by thirty Amhara hors.e.m.e.n, but escaped unscathed on foot into the forest, under a shower of their Christian lances.
In all countries where a martial spirit is fostered by continual forays, and where the exertions of a single day are sufficient to maintain the successful marauder for six months to come, the daily unceasing labour of the cultivator is forsaken for the shield and spear. But in Abyssinia, where the princ.i.p.al booty is monopolised by the monarch, the case is widely different, since, although military expeditions are of frequent occurrence, the sword of the plunderer is as often turned again into the ploughshare--whilst the despoiled husbandman, again tilling his devastated lands, and occupying the brief intervals of peace and repose in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, the fair provinces of the Galla, flowing with milk and honey, are speedily reclothed in one sheet of luxuriant cultivation.
The Abyssinians have been represented as a bold, martial, and chivalrous race--but in Shoa the "champions of the Cross" are impelled by none of that knightly valour which warmed the breast of the crusader of old.
The white feather, that emblem of cowardice in other lands, forms the boast of their murderous exploits; and the system of the n.o.ble art of war would seem to consist in the merciless destruction of the enemy by sudden inroad and surprise. Harrying the invaded country with overwhelming ma.s.ses of undisciplined cavalry, the only opposition to be encountered is an occasional skirmish during the night with an outlying detachment, or by day during the pa.s.sage of a weak body through mora.s.ses or intricate defiles. The appearance of a foe invariably proves the signal for increased disorder, all who are so disposed sallying forth to the a.s.sault, when those who harbour animosity against a comrade not unfrequently avail themselves of the opportunity to a.s.sa.s.sinate him in the _melee_.
Cruelties emanating from the hereditary detestation of the heathen, which, with the barbarous spoils earned during the foray, is handed down as an heir-loom from generation to generation, are unfortunately countenanced by the monarch, who has too often personally set the disgraceful example of mutilation; whilst the bigotry and superst.i.tion of the savage Amhara induces him to regard every pagan in the light of a dog, as doth the fanatic Moslem the Christian. The revolting barbarities practised in the hour of victory, which from time immemorial have had existence in Ethiopia, and unfortunately also over the greater portion of unhappy Africa to which discovery has yet extended, are perpetuated by the commission of similar enormities on the part of the Galla usurpers of the fairest portions of the land, who butcher children and old men without distinction, mutilate all who fall into their hands, and enslave females upon every opportunity.
The rapid muster of the Amhara under their respective chieftains, the disorderly march, the rude, but for the purpose sufficient tactics, with the slaughter and devastation consequent upon success, forcibly bring to mind the wars of feudal Europe. The stimulus afforded by individual interest in the murders committed during the foray stands at present in the place of discipline, since without one or the other no army could be brought into the field. Triumph attends the return of the Christian warrior from battle in proportion to the number of lives he bears upon his arm, and for each enemy slain he is ent.i.tled to some conspicuous personal badge, which forms his greatest pride. A ring, a gauntlet, or a bracelet, gained at the expense of acts the most dastardly, raises him accordingly in the estimation of relatives and companions in arms, and signal success almost invariably paves the way to royal preferment.
Discipline alone can check the prevailing barbarity, by superseding desultory hand to hand combat, and keeping every soldier in such comparative ignorance of the number that fall to his individual prowess, as to preclude the vaunting of exploits. To those especially who have been eye-witnesses of such a foray, it must afford matter for deep regret that feud and contest should hitherto so effectually have debarred access to the interior, and should have checked the advance of Christianity and civilisation, which, as in happier lands, must bring with them the means of providing for redundant population, and could not fail to ameliorate the horrors attendant upon the existing system of Abyssinian warfare.
Volume Two, Chapter XXV.
LIBERATION OF THE PRISONERS OF WAR.
During the more than usually successful campaign of the Amhara host, an opportunity was afforded us of laying down, as scientifically as very limited time would permit, an extensive and most interesting tract of country hitherto scarcely known--not to be explored by the adventurous but single traveller, and only to be visited under the peculiar advantages afforded to the British Emba.s.sy by the despotic Negoos. We were all much disappointed that this acquaintance should not have extended to the Lake Zooai, as antic.i.p.ated from the manifesto originally promulgated at Machal-wans; but Ayto Berri, many years Quarter-master-general of the royal troops, who, in his _quondam_ capacity of Mohammadan rover, had often visited that famous expanse of water, strongly discountenanced the contemplated measure of molesting the inoffensive inhabitants of its five islands--mixed Christians and pagans living in profound peace with each other, and with every surrounding neighbour. To his advice may in some measure be ascribed the alteration in the king"s intentions; but the argument which had probably more weight with His Majesty than the harmless attributes of the population, was based on the dense and difficult character of the extensive forests, swarming with Galla and with wild beasts, through which the army must pa.s.s, after crossing the pillaged valley of Germama.
The Christian camp at Boora Roofa was crowded with disconsolate groups of heathen captives, many with infants at their backs, and nearly all in a state of nudity, with long raven tresses streaming wildly over their shoulders. Hopeless slavery was theirs; but influenced by my earnest remonstrance, aided by the active and reverend missionary. Dr Krapf, whom philanthropic feelings had enabled to endure the uncongenial atmosphere of ignorance and unbelief--whom the purest and most praiseworthy motives had induced to obey the royal summons to the field, and who, from his long experience, knew when to touch the latent spark of mercy,--the king wiped out the foul stain of the preceding day by consenting to liberate the whole. Ere the _nugareet_ sounded the return of the troops, a proclamation went forth commanding the immediate release of every prisoner of war; and as the dissatisfied army turned its back upon the valley, long files of widowed dames and fatherless girls were to be seen hurrying in freedom across the hills towards their desolate hearths, overjoyed at the sudden and unexpected restoration of their liberty through the white man"s intercession--the ruthless soldiery, disappointed at the loss of their booty, having previously stripped the last covering from all, and sent them forth naked as they came into the world.
It would be superfluous to dwell upon the satisfaction which filled the breast of every member of the Emba.s.sy, at this signal victory over savage ferocity; and heartfelt were the congratulations on all sides, that Providence had permitted us to be thus instrumental in ameliorating the condition of so large a number of our fellow-creatures.
A long march brought us the same day to the river Alelta, a tributary to the Nile, and forming near the encampment Lake Sertie, a full mile in diameter, bounded by low hills of trachyte and porphyry. A web of deep miry ravines, shut in by high crumbling banks, presented a wet and slippery footing, and many were the disasters that befel the demure dames of the royal kitchen. Wicker parasols might be seen floating down the current as the luckless proprietors struggled in the black slimy mud among mules and war-steeds, or emerged in truly pitiable condition to be censured by the austere guardians, who, horror-stricken, had witnessed from above the absence of all order and decorum.
Each moment rendered the treacherous pa.s.sage more and more impracticable; and it was not difficult to understand how, in the month of June the preceding year, the spot should have proved the grave of eight hundred of the Amhara cavalry. At that season the country, flooded for many miles around, becomes one great quagmire, which is not to be crossed without extreme caution. Before the king had pa.s.sed with the main body of the victorious troops escorting immense plunder, the Sertie Galla, taking advantage of superior knowledge of the locality, completely cut off the van of the army, consisting of the Mentshar and Bulga detachments. They had become entangled in the mazy labyrinth, and were ma.s.sacred to a man ere a.s.sistance could be rendered by the matchlock-men of the bodyguard, who did not reach the ground until the enemy were in full retreat.
His Majesty"s object in now revisiting the scene of this catastrophe was sufficiently obvious. No sooner had the imperial cavalcade halted among the bleached skeletons of the fallen warriors, than champions, whose steeds were distinguished by greasy garments stripped from the bodies of Galla victims, caracoled proudly in front of the state umbrellas, brandishing their bright weapons aloft--exhibiting the human fragments that had been won during the recent b.l.o.o.d.y foray--and after a detail of their individual exploits, shouting defiance to the humbled Sertie. The wild triumphal exhibition concluding after half an hour, a band of music advanced, and continued to play until the pavilion had been prepared for the royal reception.
Early the ensuing morning the king sent confidentially to my tent, to inquire if none of his guests could divine whether the day were propitious to the advance of the army--a point upon which he felt somewhat dubious. Our confession of lamentable want of skill in augury was succeeded by a march of sixteen miles to Ellulee Jidda over a monotonous landscape of swelling downs and shallow valleys, intersected by streamlets that had scooped deep channels in the loose black soil.
The stately relict of a deceased Galla chieftain rode through the ranks with her tribute in horses and kine, and experienced a most gallant reception at the hands of the monarch. She might have sat for the portrait of La Belle Sauvage, but the grease wherein the person of the handsome dame was embedded, tended unfortunately to destroy the romance inseparable from her Amazonian appearance and feudal condition.
Various triumphant detachments also met the royal cortege _en route_, the chiefs and victorious warriors careering in succession before the van of the army, with green sprigs of asparagus waving above their dishevelled and newly-dressed locks. Prisoners were seated behind the cruppers of some of the more merciful, and the flank of each grey steed was dyed with clotted human gore. A short rambling recitative, expressive of loyalty and devotion in the field, was followed by savage yells and whoops, twice or thrice re-echoed by their marshalled band of followers, when they vaulted lightly from the saddle, prostrated themselves on the ground, and galloped off, each in his turn, to make way for some new squadron, whose war chorus came pealing over the hills--
"The combat"s past, the fight is won, Then triumph o"er the prostrate foe; The heathen blood has freely run, Raise high the chaunt, Woko, Woko.
"Let hill and dale return the note, Woko, Woko, ayah Woko; Loud ring from every Christian throat The shout of death, Woko, Woko."
Whilst the army was encamping, the legion of Ayto Shishigo, rejoining the royal division with three thousand head of oxen, in like manner reported their successful exploits to the king, who, as usual, occupied the summit of an adjacent eminence. Tribute was still in a course of diligent collection, and Galla chieftains, with their hair plaited after the model of the lotus-flower, were flocking with their dues from all directions. One refractory village only, of the Jidda tribe, withholding its impost of a single horse, paid the penalty of its folly.
The inhabitants fled, but their deserted houses were sacked and consigned to the flames, the stakes and palisades by which, in common with every hamlet in this direction, it was strongly fortified, affording fuel for the royal kitchen, and subsequently a scramble to one half of the army.
Volume Two, Chapter XXVI.
THE TRIUMPH.
A long march across the Sana Robi next brought the troops to Belat, 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 Amhara 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 Angollala, 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, pa.s.sed through the Ankober gate of the defences, the a.s.sembled 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 bra.s.s 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 n.o.ble 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 ma.s.sive 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. Abogaz Maretch and Ayto Berkie rode on either side of the crimson _debaboch_, and a marshalled line of shield-bearers, under the Master of the Horse, preserved a clear s.p.a.ce 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 Sahela Sela.s.sie 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 Angollala in consequence of the Negoos having, for the first time in his life, pa.s.sed 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 Amhara bloodshed and rapine.