Charles Johnston

“ From these forests, the stalwart frames of the Shankalli slaves bear long and heavy burdens of the rended fire-wood up the steep rugged ascent, to the right of the Hill of Grace; and then, for twenty-five miles, to the palaces of Debra Berhan and Angolahlah. Upon this painful and laborious duty, not less than three hundred 79 slaves are employed, who receive daily the most wretched fare, either a few handsful of parched wheat, or else, the sour and coarse refuse from the gunmen’s table. ”

“ A very short descent led us to an equally winding 229 road, but broader, and having more of the character of a public way, than the little lane from my house. Here we met market people hawking their wares, with loud cries; or loud-talking disputants, carrying on a strong argument, as they battered away, with heavy but harmless blows of their long sticks, upon the goat skin sacks of grain or cotton, with which numerous donkeys before them were laden, and which were being conveyed to the market-place. ”

“ To be feared by every prince around, and loved by every subject at home, is the boast of the first government of civilized Europe; and strangely enough this excellence of social condition is paralleled in the heart of Africa, where we find practically carried out the most advantageous policy of a social community that one of the wisest of sages could conceive—that of 190 arbitrary power placed in the hands of a really good man. ”

“ Immediately after crossing the Airahra we commenced a most villanous ascent. I believe that, to be in daily use, and traversed by hundreds of individuals, the Tchakkah road is unequalled in the world for steepness, roughness, and everything else that can contribute to make a road difficult and unsafe. Now a brawling stream, rushing down into the Airahra, covers with a slippery slime the bald face of the rock; here loose crumbling stones treacherously detach themselves from beneath the struggling hoofs of the mule ”

“ The Shoans are certainly not a virtuous people, according to our ideas, and if we are to judge them by the standard of our moral code; but I positively deny that they are an immodest people, except among those where the dehumanizing influence of Mahomedanism, by degrading woman to the condition of a slave, has engendered the disgusting sensuality which characterizes the professors of that religion, and even these in Abyssinia are as superior as possible in this respect to the Mahomedans of Arabia and Persia. ”

“ Steadily we descended the loose stony declivity of the hill of Farree, then clattered more briskly along a winding road that, taking us round the base of a much higher eminence, shut us out entirely from the sight of the white tobed townspeople, who sat 49 along the edges of their own cliffs to watch our progress so far on our journey. ”

“ The rope being run around the trunk of the mimosa, the unwilling goat was 368 dragged, like a victim of Spanish civil war, backwards to his doom, and a prayer of peace being muttered by the clerk, Walderheros, the high priest, the misselannee, cut the throat of their prey, the invocation of the Trinity, like the Islam “ul Allah,” sanctifying the bloody business of depriving an animal of life. ”

“ It is no fiction of the Shoan law, that everything in the country is the positive property of the monarch. He can, without assigning any reason, dispossess the present holder and confer his wealth upon another, or retain it for his own use. He can demand the services of all his people at all times, who must perform everything required of them, to build palaces, construct bridges, till the royal demesnes, or fight his enemies. ”

“ The white fleecy cotton, reposing like a wreath of snow upon the bronze red skin of the hand and wrist, is gradually carried to its farthest extent one way, whilst drawing from it the long slender thread, the other hand conducts, in an opposite direction, the short thin reed tipped with a piece of ivory or horn that forms the reel, which spinning as it hangs, its effect upon the thread depends upon the slowness or quickness with which the cotton is drawn out. ”

“ Here the bald face of a rock, across which not the trace of a road could be perceived, projected a smooth surface of compact stone, from beneath a super stratum of a loose schistose formation of several hundred feet high, whilst below us appeared an almost perpendicular wall, with just such a sliding inclination as suggested an idea of the bridge said to be situated by some Orientalists between heaven and earth, for there required scarcely the impetus of a wish, to have slipped from life to death during the walk across. ”

“ Walderheros having given the bottle containing the gunpowder to Goodaloo, returned to assist me, and I soon found that by a very indirect mode of progress, successively leaping in different directions, the opposite bank was being gained. The mule came clattering after me, jumping like a cat, her four feet occupying sometimes the summit of a stone not the size of a dinner-plate, and sometimes scratching up on to a high rock, as if she had strong claws rather than smooth horny hoofs. ”

“ During a reign of thirty years, save one or two transient rebellions of ambitious traitors, who have led, not the subjects of Sahale Selassee, but those of his enemies, nothing like internal dissension or civil war have by their ravages defaced his happy country; whilst gradually his character for justice and probity has spread far and wide, and the supremacy of political excellence is without hesitation given to the Negoos of Shoa throughout the length and breadth of the ancient empire of Ethiopia. ”

“ We proceeded along the narrow arid winding path, that leads down the steep western slope of the rock of Aliu Amba. Here the road is deeply worn in the hard stone, so as to form a kind of 279 hollow way, upon each bank of which thick bushes of a large strong-leaved plant, meeting above the head of the traveller, forms an umbrageous tunnel, nearly impervious to the sun’s rays. At the bottom of the descent we crossed a stream, yellow with suspended earth, for, like most other rivers of Shoa, during the wet season, its running water is an active agent of denudation. ”

“ Atheism is a sin peculiarly of civilization, for the nearer man approaches barbarism the more predisposed he becomes to a belief in a Providence; and this, in fact, distinguishes him, in his most abject state, from the beasts of the field who defile the inanimate idols he in his ignorance bows down to and worships. The Christianity of Abyssinia is a religion spoiled by human intervention; it appears to be a faith too pure for the nature of the inhabitants, and they have accordingly disfigured it to reduce it to their condition. ”

“ The inhabitants of Efat, much as they dislike the opprobrious position of living under a Christian monarch, never entertain an idea of revolting from the Negoos to place themselves under the power of that vindictive drunkard the Wallasmah Mahomed; whose only claim to their respect is his religion and his descent from the hero of modern Abyssinian history, Mahomed Grahnè, of whose extensive kingdom of Adal this little province of Efat, not so large as Middlesex, is all that has remained to his family, and even that is now a portion of the Christian state of Shoa. ”

“ From what I have observed myself, the Dankalli, the Shankalli, and the Bushmen, are the lowest grades of the three varieties of the human race, the Arian, or Circassian, the Amhara, or Negro, and the Gonga, or Mongolian, all of whom have a height of civilization, and a depth of barbarism distinct from each other; and that, however, the Bushman may be improved, he will only become a civilized Chinese, and that a Negro may by education be made an ancient Egyptian, but would never by that alone become the enlightened Circassian, that his neighbour, the Dankalli, could, certainly, be made. ”

“ The most laborious employment of the women of Abyssinia is grinding flour. Windmills to perform this duty would diminish considerably the demand for female slaves in that country, and less encouragement would be, therefore, given to the internal slave-trade of Africa, whilst the prohibition of the export of slaves by Mahomedans from the eastern coast, would extinguish the greater part of the infernal traffic at once. ”

“ Every one bearing in his hand, a deep drinking-horn, varying in length, from a long span to more than half a cubit, which, as he drains its contents, is handed to the servants in charge of the jars of tallah, who quickly replenish it, and return it to the thirsty soul. Each reveller keeps to his own rude flagon, and nothing could more strikingly typify agricultural wealth and rustic happiness, than the representation of one of these drinking horns ”

“ The large and fine cloth, valued in Shoa at thirty dollars, sent by Sahale Selassee, as a present to our Queen, is woven of thread spun in the palace of Debra Berhan; and the monarch, sole visitor to the apartments occupied by these royal cotton-spinners, has no doubt frequently stimulated his favourite slaves to more careful efforts, as they produced the finely long-drawn thread, by dwelling upon the munificence and wealth of his Egyptian sister, our own well-beloved Sovereign. ”

“ The Abyssinians, immoral as they appear to be, are much more simple than depraved. It is the virtuous confidence of people afflicted with the reputed complaint, conscious of having no improper cause to attribute it to, and still, in their ignorance, believing it to be syphilis, which has given support to the general opinion among them of its extremely contagious character, and which has occasioned that apparent shamelessness with which this disreputable and distressing disease is spoken of by all classes and conditions. ”

“ We then fell into the usual high road on the west of the town, which proceeds along the steep face of the valley, midway between its crest and the level of the stream below. We crossed, by gentle undulations of the road, several short projecting spurs, all of which seemed to be the productive farms of industrious individuals. Thatched residences of mud and sticks, with yellow stacks of grain, were perched upon their extremities, overlooking the sudden cliff-like termination of these subordinate ridges, cut by the action of the constantly running water of the Airahra. ”

“ After remaining nearly all day at Dubdubhee, where my ague paroxysm came on, and obliged me to stay, we again started, and arrived at Aliu Amba a few hours before sunset, where I was right glad to lay myself comfortably down upon my own bed, and under my own roof. A bright fire soon blazed upon the hearth, and my first essay in the art of brewing was tested, a large gambo of tallah being brought out of the store recess, a small concavity being first made in the earthen floor, to receive its round bottom. ”

“ All the portion of the inner wall of the house, in front of my chair and table, was knocked down, and being exactly opposite to the door, which was again opposite to the little wicket of my garden enclosure, not only was light admitted freely into my study, but I always had a good view, from my chair, of what was going on in the interior of my house, and also of the neighbours who might be passing down the lane, and who generally, whether they saw me or not, bawled out the morning or evening salutation. ”

“ Profound judges of human nature from their habits and occupation, no one speaks truth like a clever cheating slave-dealer when it will suit his purpose. One of them in particular, however, I chose to be my geographical instructor,—an old man named Ibrahim, a native of the city of Hurrah, who possessed every mental requisite to have been recognised as a first rate traveller, had he only possessed opportunities to record the observations he had made upon men and countries that he had visited. ”

“ Christian civilization, which points to a future union, is the antagonizing principle to the opinion disturbing one, which, I believe, alone separates and divides mankind; and I could wish to see, here, in intertropical Africa, a Mission of enlightened ministers of the Gospel, whose object should be simply to spread the easily understood doctrine of one God, and that love and truth are the redeeming principles in the character of man, to restore him to that state of excellence from which he has fallen. ”