Abyssinia

“ Having with me at this time an abridgment of Bruce’s travels in Abyssinia, I questioned the Abyssinian on all those passages in it which, as descriptive of the manners and usages of the country, admitted of affirmation or negation: and it is just to say that every allusion, or name, or description, was perfectly intelligible to him. He spoke of Mr. Salt as a person whom he had seen very frequently in Abyssinia. ”

“ Abyssinia, surrounded by enemies, expands or contracts its boundaries with every victory or defeat; but, in general terms, it may be said that it is about equal in extent to Great Britain. It is bounded on the north by Sennaar and the great woods of the Shangalla; on the south it is hemmed in by various tribes of the Galla nations, which also approach its borders on the west and partly on the east, while the rest of its eastern frontier is formed by the Red Sea. ”

“ On the morning of the 30th we arrived at Wochnee, and pitched our tents under some sycamores at a short distance from the village. This, our first stage in Abyssinia, led us through woods of mimosas, acacias, and incense-trees; the undulating ground, waving like the ocean after a storm, was covered with high and still green grass. As we advanced, the ground became more irregular and broken, and we crossed several ravines, having each its small running rivulet of crystal water. ”

“ From the various accounts which I received of the above provinces, there is just reason to suppose that Ethiopic literature might be found in a more flourishing condition there than in any other part of Abyssinia; and that the inhabitants retain more of the ancient customs and peculiar manners of their forefathers than either of the other two states, which, together with them, once constituted the empire of Abyssinia. ”

“ The history which treats of those ancient and polished nations has preserved few fragments of their manners entire from the ruins of time; while Abyssinia, at war with nobody, or at war with itself only, has preserved the ancient customs which it enjoyed in common with all the east, and which were only lost in other kingdoms by the invasion of strangers, a misfortune Abyssinia has never suffered since the introduction of letters. ”

“ The five churches of Ankóber have each their small quota of scholars, but the aggregate does not amount to eighty out of a population of from twelve to fifteen thousand!
Abyssinia, as she now is, presents the most singular compound of vanity, meekness, and ferocity—of devotion, superstition, and ignorance. But, compared with other nations of Africa, she unquestionably holds a high station. She is superior in arts and in agriculture, in laws, religion, and social condition, to all the benighted children of the sun. ”

“ Every great man in Abyssinia has one of these Gibbertis for his factor. The king has many, who are commonly the shrewdest and most intelligent of their profession. These were the first inhabitants of Abyssinia, whom commerce connected with the Arabians on the other side of the Straits of Babelmandeb, with whom they intermarry, or with one another, which preserves their colour and features, resembling both the Abyssinians and Arabians. ”

“ As a result, Italy withdrew her claim to a protectorate over Abyssinia. In 1902 the boundary between Abyssinia and the British Sudan was adjusted by treaty. The area of Abyssinia is over 400,000 square miles, with an estimated population of five and a half millions. There are many small towns, few with a population exceeding 5,000. But little land is cultivated, the chief pursuit of the people being the herding of cattle, sheep and goats. A railway line connects Diré Dawa in southeastern Abyssinia with the port of Jibuti, 186 miles distant. ”

“ Where this flat belt, or country, is broadest, the trees thickest, and the water in the largest pools, there the most powerful nations live, who have often defeated the royal army of Abyssinia, and constantly laid waste, and sometimes nearly conquered, the provinces of Tigré and Siré, the most warlike and most populous part in Abyssinia.
The most considerable settlement of this nation is at Amba Tzaada, between the Mareb and Tacazzé, but nearer by one-third to the Mareb, and almost N. W. from Dobarwa. ”

“ These invasions and mingling of races in all ages have resulted in such diversity of type that the neighboring Arab tribes never speak of the country but as Habech (from which the name Abyssinia is derived) , which means "a crowd" or "heap of sweepings". Abyssinia answers to the Upper, or Eastern, Ethiopia of the ancients, and comprises four provinces: Tigré, Amhara, Goggiam, and Shoa, four small kingdoms entrusted to as many Ras, or Negus, whence the title, negus-se-néghest, i.e., "King of Kings", assumed by the emperor of Abyssinia. The whole empire contains some 4,000,000 inhabitants. ”

“ Strange rumours reach the ears of travellers in Abyssinia, of human sacrifices being still practised by the Pagan inhabitants of Zingero, whilst even in the Christian kingdom of Enarea it is not unusual for slave Kafilahs, on crossing the Gibbee, to propitiate the god of that river by immolating the most beautiful of the virgin slaves in its waters. ”

“ I cannot conceive what advantage could be proposed by landing men going to Abyssinia so far to the southward, among a people such as this, who certainly, by their very manners, must be at war, and unconnected with all their neighbours. And many ages have passed without this reproach having fallen upon the inhabitants of the east coast of the peninsula of Africa from any authentic testimony ”

“ It may be presumed that there once existed a foreign but compact government in Abyssinia, which, becoming great and powerful, sent out armies on all sides of it, especially to the south, south-east, and west, slave-hunting and devastating wherever they went, and in process of time becoming too great for one ruler to control. ”

“ I have in addition to remark, that their buildings seem invariably to be put together without mortar, and that the better sort of houses are constructed in the characteristic form of ancient Egyptian temples. On the eastward side of the Tacazze, in this latitude, rises the lofty province of Samen, which may undoubtedly be considered as the highest point of land in Abyssinia; the whole range of its mountains extending in a northerly and southerly direction, about eighty miles. A fresh attempt has been made since I visited Abyssinia to dispossess the Ras of his influence over this province ”

“ The natural centre of Abyssinia, which has also at various epochs been the seat of empire, is the fertile basin whose central depression contains the waters of Lake Tana. The mean height of this favoured region exceeds 6,600 feet ; it forms the voïna-dega zone, which corresponds to the temperate zone of Europe, although enjoying a more equable climate and a richer vegetation. Thanks to these happy conditions, the land yields the most abundant and varied crops in Abyssinia, and here have been built the most populous towns, which in this feudal region are elsewhere extremely rare. ”

“ North of this region is Abyssinia on the Indian Ocean and Red Sea,—a mountainous country with deep valleys, rich and fertile, but very unhealthy. Three or four thousand feet above the level of the sea, is a healthier country, inhabited by a race of rugged mountaineers, whom it has been impossible to dispossess of their lands. North of Abyssinia, on the Red Sea, Italy has a small colony at Massaua, and England a camp at Suakin. The only parts of the coast not claimed by Europeans are inhospitable, without population or cultivation of any kind. ”

“ Thus much for this remarkable nation, whose language is perfectly different from any in Abyssinia, and is the same throughout all the tribes, with very little variation of dialect. This is a nation that has conquered some of the finest provinces of Abyssinia, and of whose inroads we shall hereafter have occasion to speak continually; and it is very difficult to say how far they might not have accomplished the conquest of the whole, had not providence interposed in a manner little expected, but more efficacious than a thousand armies, and all the inventions of man. ”

“ In this delineation of Abyssinia by Ibrahim I first observed the discrepancy between the present received opinions of our geographers, that that country is connected on the south with a supposed extensive table land in the interior of Africa, and that which is entertained by the natives themselves, of the well defined and distinctly marked isolated plateau they inhabit. ”

“ It is now time we should speak of this nation, which has contributed more to weakening and reducing the Abyssinian empire, than all their civil wars, and all the foreign enemies put together. When I spoke of the languages of the several nations in Abyssinia, I took occasion merely to mention the origin of these Galla, and their progress northward, till their first hostile appearance in Abyssinia. ”

“ In the interior of Abyssinia there is a very large and high mountain which can only be ascended by one very difficult path, and on its summit there is a large plain, having abundance of springs, with numerous cattle, and even some cultivation. The inhabitants of this mountain observe the law of Moses. Though I have carefully inquired, I could never learn how this people came into Abyssinia, and wherefore they have never descended from their mountain to mix with the other inhabitants of the country. ”

“ As I have lived a long time in this country, and borne a share in all that has passed, I will present the reader with a short account of what I have observed, and of the revolution which forced us to abandon Æthiopia, and destroyed all our hopes of reuniting this kingdom with the Roman Church.
The empire of Abyssinia hath been one of the largest which history gives us an account of: it extended formerly from the Red Sea to the kingdom of Congo, and from Egypt to the Indian Sea. ”

“ The most complete English account of the history of Abyssinia is to be found in Bruce's five fine quarto volumes on his travels in search of the sources of the Nile. From his own observation he is able to give us a detailed description of the country in the eighteenth century. "There is no country in the world," he says, "where there are so many churches as Abyssinia"; [11] and he adds that every great man who dies thinks to atone for his misdeeds by building a church. The king builds many. ”

“ At this period the power of the emperors of Abyssinia seems to have been very fully established, and their conquests to have extended over part of Arabia, and from Zeyla up to the junction of the Tacazze with the Nile. Such, at least, is the extent of the jurisdiction assumed by one of the Adulitic inscriptions, which, since I gave my suggestions to the public, has been allowed by several persons, eminently qualified to decide on the question, to commemorate the transactions of an Abyssinian sovereign, and in all probability of the same prince who erected the monument at Axum. ”

“ To this place caravans of Abyssinia are continually resorting, to carry salt into all parts of the empire, which they set a great value upon, and which in their country is of the same use as money. The superstitious Abyssins imagine that the cavities of the mountains are inhabited by evil spirits which appear in different shapes, calling those that pass by their names as in a familiar acquaintance, who, if they go to them, are never seen afterwards. ”

“ Amhara, which word is at present only used to designate the Christian population of Abyssinia, was, previous to the introduction of the Mahomedan religion, the descriptive appellation of an extensive red people, who principally occupied the eastern border of the Abyssinian table land, from the latitude of Massoah in the north to that of lake Zui in the south. To the west of these, and occupying the portion of the table land in that direction, lived a people decidedly different in their complexion, their features, their language, their religion, and their customs. ”

“ Throughout this period a regular communication appears to have been kept up between Abyssinia and Europe: and in 1445, Zara Jacob, then reigning, sent an ambassador to the council of Florence, and wrote some interesting letters to his priests at Jerusalem, which are still extant in the Church History of Abyssinia by Geddes, (vide p. 27.)
It affords an interesting subject for reflection, to trace occasionally the fortuitous course of events, by which the most important changes in the affairs of the world have been brought about. ”

“ There are several things very remarkable in this letter. The king of Abyssinia values himself, and his predecessors, upon never having molested or troubled any of his neighbours who were kings, nor borne any envy towards them. We are not then to believe what we see often in history, that there was frequent war between Sennaar and Abyssinia, or that Sennaar was tributary to Abyssinia. ”

“ It cannot, therefore, I think, be doubted that a people so designated do occupy the country to the south of Abyssinia, and that from among them are taken the greater number of slaves, that arrive at the markets of Enarea and Zingero, where the dealers dispose of them to the slave Kafilahs that are proceeding to Zanzibar, or to northern Abyssinia. ”

“ I should myself feel much more inclined to think, that it may have derived its origin from some ancient Ethiopic or Egyptian set of letters; for where can we expect to find the alphabet of either nation with so much probability as in Abyssinia, among a people not only calling itself Ethiopic, አትዮጰያ, but exhibiting the fairest claim to that descent, and which afterwards, as is clearly pointed out in history, became mixed with settlers from Egypt. ”