Even as we appeared the singing stopped and the Abba began to read from the Bible, but left off in some confusion when one of the deacons drew his attention to Uliba-Wark, who was listening attentively, hand on hip, nodding approval. Everyone goggled at her, as well they might, for she was posed like the Queen of Sheba, waving a graceful hand to them to continue, and then turning aside to seat herself on a bench by the gateway. The Abba, who’d been taken flat aback (it dawned on me that there wasn’t another female in the courtyard), steadied up and began reading again in a shaky falsetto, but shooting little disturbed glances in Uliba’s direction as she crossed her legs and sat back, finger on cheek, gently smiling as though she were watching a show performed for her benefit. The reading finished (cut short, I suspect), the Abba and his gang retired through an inner doorway, shooting more little glances, and presently a bald chap with a staff of office approached Uliba and invited her within. She rose with dignity, made a little gesture to me which I interpreted as an order to scatter a few dollars to the hoi-polloi, and swanned away. I distributed, smirking, bowed tactfully to the cross-bearer who was leading the peasantry in another psalm, and hastened after my mistress like a good little minion.
Even with my limited Amharic I could follow much that was said at the audience which followed in the monastery chapel. Uliba was conducted with great deference to a chair hurriedly placed between the front pews, while the Abba enthroned himself nervously on a stool before the altar, his attendants standing by with palms, crutches, and open mouths. I don’t know if Coptic priests are celibate, but these gaped at her like hayseeds at a burlesque show in the Chicago Loop; I don’t suppose their modest little God-hutch had ever seen her like, and she played it like the grandest of dames, surveying them coolly and turning that elegant profile as she swept off her fillet and veil and handed them carelessly to me, looking stern beside her chair. She charmed them with a gracious apology for interrupting their rehearsal, and the Abba near fell off his stool assuring her that it didn’t matter tuppence, honestly, and please how could they serve her excellency?
This before she’d said a word about being a great swell on her way to a queen’s court, or being despoiled; she did it simply by style and looks and those remarkable legs, and had them eating out of her dainty palm. Awe-stricken, she’d said they’d be, and awestruck they were.
The account of our adventures which she gave them was succinct and fairly offhand, but it had them agog, knuckles to teeth and gasping concern. The Abba didn’t know what Habesh was coming to, what with evil emperors and foreign invaders and plundering rebels and noble ladies molested and robbed by heathen brigands, God forgive them, but what protection and comfort the Church could offer, she should have, and her servant too, infidel though he was. This consisted of food, drink, attention, prayers, the best chamber in the monastery placed at her ladyship’s disposal (with a mattress in the passage for Vilkins the butler), and the promise of such clothing, equipment, and transport as could be drummed up overnight.
I was given my vittles in the monks’ refectory, watched by curious and none too friendly eyes, for they’ve no use for non-Christians, and as a “Hindee” I was right beyond the pale. Uliba dined in some state in the Abba’s private apartments, and if the news she got was confused and disturbing, it was definite at least on the main point.
“Masteeat has her camp on the Abai river, below the falls which the people of Metcha call the Great Silver Smoke.” She was jubilant. “Five days’ journey by horse or camel, even by the western shore of Tana – see!” The Abba had given her a map, a pretty coloured thing with Lake Tana all little blue waves with boats afloat, and an Ark at anchor with hippos and pythons and monkeys clambering aboard under the eye of a distinctly Ethiopian Noah, the whole lot being blessed by a dusky Jesus. “Here at Azez we are forty miles from Gorgora, at the head of the lake; another fifty at most to Zage, and perhaps fifty down the Abai –”
“Why not the straight way, by the east shore?” I could see it would cut the journey by as much as a third.
“Because Theodore had his camp at Kourata last year –” she tapped a finger on it “– and he will have troops there still, and who knows how many between the lake and his army which marches on Magdala? He has wasted all Begemder, and these churchmen say he is already at the Jedda ravine, but their news will be a week old; he may be close on Magdala by now.”
“And Masteeat’s army, by your reckoning, is about ninety miles from Magdala … where’s Napier, do they know?”
“They heard of him last at Antaloo, but that too will be old news. At best, he can hardly be more than a day’s march south of the Ashangi lake.” She traced a finger up from Magdala; Napier had a good hundred miles to go, by the look of it.
“Well, Theodore can win the race on a tight rein,” says I. “If he gets his guns into Magdala …” I didn’t care to think of that. The place was said to be impregnable, which was doubtless an exaggeration; British troops can take anywhere, given a commander who knows his business, but the Bughunter didn’t have time for a siege, not with his striking force at full stretch, with food and forage running low. If he came to a dead stop before Theodore’s defences … well, it would be a dead stop indeed, far from home and no way back. His army would starve where it stood, and Theodore’s highlanders could cut up the remains at leisure … no doubt with the rebel warlords joining in. My consolation was that I’d be better placed as a free agent with Uliba, rather than as a hapless lump of cannon-fodder in Napier’s Last Stand … I had a sudden horrid recollection of Gandamack, with the 44th trapped on the icy slope, Soutar with the colours round his middle, and the Ghazis closing in …
I asked about the rebels, and she spat. “Cattle! Cowards! They run in circles, frightened of Theodore, fearful of each other! That much is plain from this old fool of an Abba’s tale, but he knows little more to any purpose. That drunken fat sow Masteeat,” sneers she with satisfaction, “had the game won, had she used the wits she wastes in guzzling and coupling! Two months ago she stood before Magdala with her army, while its garrison of weaklings and traitors wrung their hands, willing to surrender but in dread of Theodore’s vengeance when he returned from plundering in Begemder. Oh, had I stood in her place they’d have surrendered fast enough!” She clenched her fists and shook them, and I believed her. “But she puts off, and idles away her opportunity, and is forced to retreat at last because the hyena Gobayzy and the jackal Menelek come prowling into Galla country, afraid to attack Magdala, but still outnumbering her, so she withdraws to the Abai. It is very well,” says she, pleased as Punch. “Things could not stand better!”
Blessed if I could see that, and I said so. “If she has cut and run, what’s the use in our going on? She and her army’ll be no help to Napier if they’re ninety miles away!”
She waved that aside. “Galla armies can move at speed. Besides, she’ll have left more warriors in the hills about Magdala, ready for action, than she’ll have taken to the Abai. Let the Queen of Wollo Galla but say the word and there will be a steel ring – was not that what your general called it? – round the amba of Magdala, with Theodore held fast within.”
The Queen of Wollo Galla … but which queen? We had been discussing her ambitions, and what part I might be called on to play in realising them, when the Soudanis had interrupted us, and the topic had not been resumed; well, it could be let lie for the moment. That she’d make a bid for her sister’s throne, I knew, if not when, where or how. In the meantime it was enough that we knew Masteeat’s whereabouts, and that these jovial monks would speed us on our way.
They didn’t stint us, either, with the loan of two camels, their saddle-bags filled with grub and flasks of tej, cloaks and blankets, and a couple of chicos to race ahead to make sure our coast was clear. Uliba made no offer of payment, simply fluttering a queenly hand at me, and I presented the chief deacon with a purse of fifty dollars, to which she added one of her bracelets which she presented in fine Lady Bountiful style to a small girl
in the crowd – for every soul in the place, priests, lay brethren, labourers and menials, was on hand to see us off. We mounted the camels, they lurched to their feet, the Abba blessed us, and off we went with a camel groom trotting in our wake; he would bring the beasts back from Lake Tana, where we would seek other transport. A chorus of farewells followed us, and before we were out of earshot they were making a joyful noise to the Lord, either in rehearsal for Palm Sunday or rejoicing for the dollars.
* * *
a For a description and illustration of the Palm Sunday ceremony, see Simpson, Diary.
Chapter 9
I’m no old Africa hand, and what I’d seen of Abyssinia so far had jaundiced rather than impressed, but I’m bound to say that the Lake Tana country is as close to earthly paradise as I’ve ever struck, for scenery at least. From Azez to Gorgora on the northern shore is nothing out of the ordinary, but the lake itself beats anything in Switzerland or Italy, a great blue shimmering inland sea fringed by tropical forest, hills, and meadows, for all the world like a glorious garden of exotic flowers and shrubs in groves of splendid trees and ferns. The woods are alive with birds of every colour and size, from tiny feathered mites hardly bigger than butterflies to the mighty hornbill, a black-and-white monster as big as a man, braying as it rushes overhead like some flying dragon. There’s an abundance of game, deer and antelopes and monkeys everywhere, buffalo ranging on the slopes, huge hippos surging and bellowing in the lake itself, and the biggest snakes in Africa, twenty-foot pythons in shining coats of many colours, gliding through the shallows.
Good camels can cover the ground as quickly as horses, and we made our first-night camp in a little palm grove only a few miles from the lake. Uliba said it would be safer to steer clear of Gorgora, so next morning we made a bee-line for the western shore and the cover of the jungly forest. It had not been determined precisely where on Tana the groom should turn back with the camels, and when Uliba said we’d like to take them as far as the Abai source he had severe conniptions; he was one of your tough, lean Abs who run like stags, and had kept up easily with his long loping stride, but he was shot if he was going to venture any nearer the dreaded “Negus Toowodros”a than he had to; everyone knew of the carnage that had been wreaked south of the lake, of the burning and blinding and hacking off of ears and noses; why, all Metcha was a smoking desert.
Uliba came the headmistress with him, but he wasn’t to be moved, and it was only when she’d offered him twenty dollars and he’d beaten her up to thirty that he reluctantly agreed to come as far as Adeena, near the foot of the lake.
“We could have killed him and kept the camels,” says Uliba as we rode on our way with the groom trotting moodily after, “but he might have fought, and what is thirty dollars?” I wondered if she’d have expected me to do the dirty deed; knowing her style, probably not.
It took us the best part of the day to reach Adeena, a little fishing village in a pretty clearing by the shore. They were almost the first folk we’d seen since leaving Azez, friendly enough peasants but, like our groom, apprehensive of what lay farther south, and thankful that Theodore’s campaign of terror had not touched them so far. Zage and Baheerdar had been razed to the ground and all the people killed or driven away; yes, Theodore’s soldiers were still at Kourata across the lake; but no, nothing would induce them to ferry us anywhere near the city – or indeed, even down the coast. Having seen their boats, crazy coracles of woven bulrushes that were permanently waterlogged, I was happy to continue our journey on foot.
To Uliba’s fury, our groom, gossiping at the evening meal which we shared with the village headman, mentioned that we were on our way to find Queen Masteeat. It seemed harmless to me, but she was spitting blood later when she explained that the nearer we got to our goal, the greater our danger, with Theodore’s lances on hand. “I knew we should have slit the chattering bastard’s throat! Well, he has our dollars, but we’ll not bid him goodbye. When all are asleep, do you take the saddle-bags from the camels, and we’ll be away before dawn!”
It seemed to me she was starting at shadows. “These folk hate Theodore more than you do! They ain’t going to give us away.”
“And is their hate greater than their fear? Will they be silent if Theodore’s riders chance this way? We are not safe this side of the Silver Smoke. The camels could carry us there in a day, but to steal away with them by night might bring a hue and cry down on us.”
So we took French leave of Adeena in the small hours, slipping through the shadows with such stealth that I doubt if more than half the population heard us go, but they paid us no mind, presumably turning over and thanking God to be rid of a pair of unwelcome guests. There was a good moon, and with Uliba surefooted as ever it was a pleasant promenade through the shadowy groves until the light went and the chilly mist came in off the water. Then we built a fire, had a welcome snack of the monastery’s bread and ham washed down with tej, and rolled up together in one blanket, keeping warm in the jolliest way I know.
Next morning we rounded the bay which is the south-western limit of Tana, both in high spirits in the sunshine, swinging along like Phyllis and Corydon in Arcady, with not the least foreboding of the horror ahead. There were a few fishers abroad on the lake, staying afloat for a wonder, and we passed a couple of villages where the peasantry seemed to be taking no harm as they loafed about in their plots. We nooned in a secluded cove where a few water-fowl were disporting themselves out beyond the shallows, and Uliba asked me if I fancied duck for tiffin. I said by all means, if she’d catch them, and she laughed and asked, if she killed ’em, would I fetch ’em ashore? Kill away, says I, wondering, and she picked up a handful of pebbles from the beach, juggled them from hand to hand, and all of a sudden whipped them away like a fast bowler, side-arm, one-two-three! And blessed if she didn’t crack the heads of two ducks and lay a third squawking and thrashing in the water!
She’d told me of the Gallas’ skill with missiles, but I’d not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. I plunged in and retrieved the poultry, full of congratulation, but she made light of it, saying they had been real sitting birds, and next time she would bring one down on the wing. Again, I believed her. An odd thing: none of the other ducks had so much as stirred, and she told me that the birds and beasts of Lake Tana were so tame that they never minded hunters, not stirring even when the critter beside them was hit.
It was such a glorious day that we swam in the lake, icy cold as it was, and I have a happy memory of Uliba sitting on a smooth black rock like the little mermaid, naked, wet and shining.
We made good time in the afternoon, leaving the forest for a more broken and rocky shoreline, and I noticed that we saw fewer folk along the way, and at last none at all. That was the moment when I caught a drift on the air of that same flat stale stench there had been at Gondar, and Uliba stopped, head raised, and said: “Zage.”
We had crossed a few streams running through the rocks into the lake, and now we came to another, a small river really, with steep banks, and as we prepared to descend the weather changed with that speed so typical of Abyssinia, and a storm of hail came down like grapeshot, great lumps the size of schoolboys’ marbles that drove us under cover and churned the river mouth and lake surface into foam. You could barely hear yourself speak above the rattle of the downpour, but Uliba was laughing as she pointed to the stream and shouted: “Little Abai! Only a few miles farther now!”
I couldn’t make this out: the stream was flowing into the lake, and I knew the Abai, which is the Blue Nile, should run out of Tana – and thereby hangs a tale, which I heard first from Uliba as we crouched under the broad leaves of a baobab to shelter from the hailstorm, and again years later from the Great Bore of the Nile himself, Daft Dick Burton, at the Travellers’ Club. He had a most tremendous bee in his bonnet about it, with which I’ll not weary you beyond saying that the Little Abai runs into Lake Tana west of the town of Zage, and out again east of the town, when it becomes the Great Abai and eventually
joins the White Nile which rises ’way up yonder in Lake Victoria – or so I gathered from Burton, who was full of bile against the chaps who’d discovered it. God knows why: he’d ha’ fought with his own shadow, that one.35
At all events, when the hail stopped we crossed and came to the promontory of Zage, the site of a once-populous town now ruined and deserted, thanks to Theodore, who had looted and burned it months before – hence that stale stink of charred wood and desolation. It was half-hidden by trees at the base of the promontory, through which we passed to open ground where there were signs of a disused camp-site, and so came to a swampy tangle of roots on the verge of the lake. Out on the water we could see a couple of fishing craft heading up in the direction of Adeena, and Uliba surveyed them frowning for a long moment before turning to follow the edge of the swamp away from the lake.
She paused again to point eastward to where, beyond the swampy ground, there was a small cluster of huts on the shore. “Baheerdar,” says she, smiling. “Remember? D’you think you could have found it?” I said I was glad I hadn’t had to try, and she led on again by the swamp, which was now flowing south, quite distinctly, and presently, when we’d pushed our way through marshy thickets buzzing with mosquitoes, and mounted a grassy rise, the swampy flow had become a stream between jungly banks. A mile or so farther on it was broadening into a river proper, shining ruddy in the sunset, and Uliba gave a great heaving sigh and stretched her arms high above her head.
“There it runs – the Great Abai! A few miles to the Silver Smoke, and not far beyond, the camp of my people.” She came to my side and put an arm about me, inviting an embrace. “Have we not travelled well together, effendi?”
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 386