The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  Eventually the road levelled out and its surface improved. There were less potholes and less mud. Best of all, the rain had stopped. When I exclaimed at our good fortune, Samson said it was because God was watching over us. No sooner had he spoken than Bahru jammed on the brakes and the Emperor’s Jeep skidded to a halt.

  “Is it a flat tire?”

  Bahru shook his head.

  “We can’t go on,” he said.

  “What’s wrong? The road’s fantastic.”

  Turning off the engine and pulling out the key, Bahru said his luck had run out. Samson and I looked at him.

  “Just like that?”

  He nodded meekly.

  “Just like that,” he said. “If we continue we will die.”

  A few miles before, when the road was indescribably bad, we would have taken his sudden alarm seriously. But things were looking up. Despite us offering to push-start the Jeep so we could drive the short distance to Nejo, Bahru was adamant. He wouldn’t drive another yard. So Samson had to drive while Bahru sat in the front passenger seat, hunched up, his knees pulled up against his chest.

  An hour later we were slipping down Nejo’s muddy main street, past buildings with corrugated iron roofs and cement walls. We pulled up at a bar. Kerosene and sawdust had been sprinkled on the floor to keep away the flies. I ordered Bahru a large glass of araki. He slugged it down and asked for another. Still a cloud of depression hung over him. Samson told him to pray: beseeching God was the only path to redemption. Bahru said he needed a third drink. Then he asked to be left alone.

  I had heard from several sources that Nejo was the site of ancient gold mines. Frank Hayter’s friend Captain Bartleet had written of ancient mines in the Wollega area, and the Swiss engineer and prospector Alfred Ilg (the same man who had proposed a railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa and made a shoe to prove his skill to Menelik) was certain that he’d found the remains of ancient gold mines a few miles from the town.

  After being granted a concession to mine gold near Nejo, Ilg returned to Europe to raise capital. Then, in 1901, he formed a company in Antwerp, naming it the “Mines d”Or du Wallaga”. Ilg’s concession, which was granted for fifty years, extended in a radius of eighteen miles around Nejo. The adventurer Herbert Weld Blundell visited the area in 1906. Commenting on the “lively and curious aspect” of the place, he reported that the mine produced about eighty thousand American dollars’ worth of gold a year and that the Emperor received half of this as his share.

  Samson and I went from one shop to another asking if anyone knew where the ancient gold mines were. Our questions were met with suspicion and no one would give us a straight answer. As I became increasingly frustrated, Samson begged me to stay calm. Foreigners searching for gold mines made people nervous, he said. At last we gave up and went to a small hotel which served European food. The place was empty because the owner refused to employ prostitutes. As far as most Ethiopians are concerned, a hotel or bar without whores is a bad joke.

  The owner was unusually light-skinned, and he tiptoed around the table as I harangued Samson on one of my pet themes — the gap between utter failure and absolute success is often as narrow as a hair’s breadth, and in our quest for King Solomon’s mines we had to leave no stone unturned. Samson couldn’t stand my sermons, but he put up with them all the same.

  When I had finished, the owner presented us with our macaroni and introduced himself. He said his name was Berehane and he’d heard we were looking for gold. He pointed to a faded sepia photograph hanging in a frame on the back wall. It was of a white man.

  “That was my grandfather,” he said, “Signor Antillio Zappa.”

  I couldn’t believe our luck. Zappa had been a gold miner and a friend of Frank Hayter in the 1920s, and he was mentioned in many of the books I’d read on pre-war Ethiopia. Berehane sat with us as we ate and said that most people made fun of his mixed ancestry. Half-castes are disliked, but those with Italian blood are especially despised.

  When we’d finished eating Berehane jumped up and returned a minute later holding a battered leather case. We opened it up and began to leaf through a jumble of papers that had belonged to Zappa. There were black and white photographs of men panning and others building sluices. There were diaries, too, written in a spidery hand, some in English, others in Italian. Samson unfolded a set of maps and typed geological reports. But Berehane wanted us to see something else. He handed me a sheaf of letters. They bore wax seals and an embossed lion standing beside a flag, printed on brittle, yellowed paper.

  “They are from the Emperor to my grandfather,” he said. “You see, they were friends.”

  Early next morning Berehane took us to where his grandfather Antillio Zappa had mined three-quarters of a century before. We soon left Nejo behind us. Ahead lay rolling hills surrounded by a patchwork of fields in which farmers whipped oxen pulling home-made ploughs. The sky was inky black, threatening rain, and a pair of crows flew overhead, calling “Werk, werk!”

  “Do you here that?” said Samson. “They are saying werk, which means gold. It’s a good omen.”

  After some time we came to an exposed hillside. Berehane pointed to a vast crater the size of a football field.

  “This the old mine,” he said.

  “How old is it?”

  “Gold was mined here thousands of years ago,” he said. “That’s why my grandfather came here. At one time there were hundreds of men digging and panning. But there isn’t much gold left now. Sometimes the farmers find small nuggets, but they sell them quietly. Everyone fears that the government will take their land away if they hear of gold being found.”

  It was very likely that Zappa had dug where ancient gold mines had once existed. But all trace of any ancient mines had long since disappeared. Even the crater excavated by Zappa was far less deep than it would once have been, for the soil was soft and erosion during the rains swift. Despite the lack of evidence, I liked to think that the Pharaohs and, later, Solomon, might once have obtained gold from the hills near Nejo, from Signor Zappa’s mines.

  THIRTEEN

  Used Mules

  “God has given us mules but no roads to ride on.”

  Ethiopian proverb

  Back at the bar, Bahru was lying in a heap in the corner. He was too drunk to stand. The gaggle of resident prostitutes said he had drunk a whole bottle of araki and had no money to pay. They asked why he was so dejected.

  “His luck has run out,” said Samson coldly.

  The women looked sympathetic and tutted to themselves while we helped Bahru to his feet, paid his bill and got him a room. Then we went off to buy some supplies.

  If we were going to make an attempt to find Hayter’s mine, we’d need some specialized gear. My big worry was being able to illuminate a large cavern, as torches only give an isolated beam of light. I wanted to buy a pressure lantern which would run on kerosene. We also needed blankets, waterproofs for Samson, nylon ropes, a portable stove, some polythene sheeting, marker posts, mallets, and a sack of old clothes that might be bartered for food along the way. Fortunately, most of these items were readily available across Ethiopia. Shops seemed to remain reasonably well stocked because no one had any money to buy anything. In fact goods would stay on the shelves for years before a customer with cash turned up.

  After a prolonged search we managed to buy almost everything except a waterproof coat for Samson. We’d found one high-quality waxed canvas coat and Samson’s face had lit up when he saw it hanging in a polythene wrapper at the back of the shop. He’d hinted that it was his size and that it was just the thing to keep him dry, but it was much too expensive. Instead, he had to make do with a black bin-liner with holes cut for his arms and head.

  Most of the garments on sale at Ethiopian used clothing stalls have come from Europe or America, but they are hopelessly unsuited to the harsh African conditions. Such flimsy clothing may be fine in the West where we rotate dozens of outfits, but in a place like Ethiopia clothing soon gets worn o
ut. It kept striking me that someone ought to supply the market stalls with durable army surplus gear. Military clothing lasts forever and is extremely cheap. I was surprised to find my idea wasn’t original. In the 1920s, the geologist and gold prospector L. M. Nesbitt said that a destitute European in Ethiopia had wanted to import army surplus clothing from Marseilles, though the plan had come to nothing.

  I asked the man who was selling the waxed coat if he had any pressure lanterns. He stuck a finger in his ear and jiggled it about. He had had one once, he said. It had been on the shelf for twenty years so he’d not reordered when eventually it was sold. For the rest of the day we searched through virtually every kiosk, shop and stall in Nejo looking for a pressure lantern. Towards the end of the evening we came to a shoe shop on the outskirts of town. I wasn’t going to bother going inside, but Samson hoped to talk me into buying him a new pair of boots. Amidst the clutter of worn-out shoes sat a frail-looking man in a peakless pink baseball cap. I said we were looking for pressure lanterns. The salesman rummaged under the counter and brought out a box covered in soot. We opened it up and there sat a pressure lantern in almost mint condition.

  “Two hundred birr” he said.

  It was a huge sum, almost twenty pounds, but I knew it was essential to have the right equipment. So I fished out the notes and slid them across the counter. Money spent on good-quality gear is always money well spent.

  We returned to the bar to find Bahru sitting on the end of his bed, his knees pressed up to his chin. He had run out of qat and he was suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I showed him all the gear we’d bought.

  “We’re going to need every bit of it to get to Tullu Wallel,” I said.

  Bahru stared at his feet.

  “I’m not going to Tullu Wallel,” he muttered.

  “You don’t have to come up the mountain, you can park nearby.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I couldn’t understand what had come over the man. He’d not shown signs of depression before. I offered to pay for his meals and to buy him a bale of the wicked green leaves. I even offered him more money. But he wouldn’t budge.

  So, the next morning, with great reluctance, Samson and I unloaded our belongings from the Emperor’s Jeep and stood by the side of the road. We waited there for eight hours, until late morning turned into evening, but not a single vehicle passed by.

  That night in the bar I treated Bahru to some more araki and gave him a gift, a bar of Greek-made chocolate. He cheered up a little and challenged a drunk in the bar to a game of cards. I winked at Samson.

  “That’s our old Bahru,” I said.

  Bahru slapped the marked deck on the table and told the drunk to cut it. They played a few hands, with Bahru inevitably winning. But then the drunk pulled a knife and accused him of cheating. He snatched the pile of cash on the table and said that if Bahru challenged him for it, he’d stab him. The whores intervened and broke them up, and Bahru crept to his room, his head low, his arms dragging down at his sides.

  “My God,” said Samson, as Bahru left, “maybe his luck really has run out.”

  Next day we hauled the baggage back to the roadside. Three hours later a brick-red Landcruiser skidded to a halt beside us. It was the only vehicle we had seen moving since morning. The driver said he could drop us at Begi, seventy-five miles west of Nejo. After that we were on our own. I peered into the back of the Landcruiser. All I could see were dozens of arms and legs and faces squirming in discomfort. Samson hugged Bahru and then I too embraced him. It was a sad moment, but we had no choice. We had to continue without him. The next minute our bags were thrown up top and we squeezed into the tangle of limbs.

  Anyone who has ever traveled in East Africa knows the joy of matatus, the ubiquitous communal vans that are the main form of local transport. They make even the worst overland bus journey seem luxurious. In a matatu the concept of personal space doesn’t exist. Passengers are pressed together so tightly that they become a single entity, with multiple heads, legs, hands and feet. If you sneeze, the entire organism shudders. You find yourself counting the minutes, wondering how you can stand another second. But time slips by, punctuated by flat tires and pee stops. It seems incredible to me now, but there were twenty-four people pressed inside that Landcruiser, not including the three men clinging to the roof.

  The hours passed and I grew used to having someone’s elbow in my back, and a cotton candy hairstyle pressed against my face. Samson had a long conversation about the Old Testament with the person squashed up beside him. I was sitting near him, but I didn’t feel like chatting. The fact that we had left Bahru behind, so far from his home, bothered me. The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together. If Stanley had been leading the party he’d have thrown Bahru in chains and had him horse-whipped. But then things have changed since Stanley’s day.

  Begi lies on a flat plain of grassland with hills to the south and east. It’s the sort of place at which, in more normal circumstances, you’d never stop, but there had been no time to check the maps before climbing aboard the Landcruiser. The driver appeared to think the small town was near Tullu Wallel, so we took his word for it. The few locals who watched us extricate ourselves from the back of the vehicle looked alarmed, and I half expected them to rush over and tell us we’d made a terrible mistake.

  Then our bags and equipment were tossed down on to the edge of the road and, before we could look up, the matatu had driven off towards the border with Sudan.

  I always try to get the best maps before going to a new country because generally, with the exception of India whose National Survey produces fantastically detailed maps, the last place you can get good maps is in the country itself. Michelin produces the most detailed series of civilian maps for the African continent, scaled at 1:4,000,000. I also had all the American tactical pilotage charts for Ethiopia. The one that covered the western region was segment K-5D, on a scale of 1:500,000. Although there weren’t many place names marked, it gave valuable relief information.

  We looked at the maps and it immediately became clear that we were twenty-five miles north of Tullu Wallel. It would have been much better to approach from the south, as the road there runs nearer the mountain, but it was too late to turn back.

  There was a single bar in Begi which served warm Pilsen lager and doubled as a brothel. The whores were sitting in the shade of the veranda, picking their teeth and plaiting each other’s hair. They looked over at us and then looked away. A foreigner and an Ethiopian with a Bible stuffed under his arm weren’t the kind of people who generally required their services. We dragged our belongings into the shade and asked the girls where we could hire mules. They screwed up their faces, and then one of them pointed silently across the street to a rickety wooden kiosk.

  Inside, a man was asleep on a chair with a kitten curled up on his chest. All around him were stacked empty gin bottles. He woke up, disturbed by the opening door knocking over part of his stock. His cheeks and chin were covered in gray stubble, his eyes sagged down, and most of his nose was missing. He greeted us. We greeted him.

  “Mules,” said Samson, “we’re looking for mules.”

  “How many do you want?”

  Samson asked me for a figure.

  “Lots,” I said, “we’ll need lots of mules.”

  The man seemed pleased. He brushed the kitten away, stood up and called out of the door. A young boy came running. The man barked orders and the boy ran off.

  “It’s hard to get good mules,” he said. “Why do you need them?”

  “To go to Tullu Wallel.”

  His face froze.

  “The mountain?”

  “Yes.”

  We stood there in uneasy silence. The man peered at me. I don’t know why but I feared blinking, as if by doing so I’d be revealing secret information.

  “The Devil lives on the mountain,” he said. “Oh.”

  “He’ll kill you and eat your brains.”

 
; “Ah.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Are you missionaries?” he asked at length.

  I looked at Samson, who was still holding his Bible.

  “Yes... yes, we’re missionaries,” I said devoutly, grasping at straws. “We have come to get the Devil off Tullu Wallel. We’re going to kick him all the way back to Hell.”

  The old man dipped his noseless head in appreciation.

  “That is good,” he said. “Then you will need fine mules.”

  “The very best,” I responded, “for we are doing God’s work.”

  The gin-bottle man told us to come back a little later. His contact in the mule business would need time to get there. We sought refuge from the late afternoon rain back at the bar. The girls sat about waiting for the evening’s clients. There’s something very strange about African drinking dens during the day. They’re like discos when the house lights have been turned on. There’s something not quite right about them.

  Samson opened his Bible at random and began to read the Psalms. I had expected my announcement that we were missionaries would infuriate him. But he was delighted and took the disguise very seriously.

  One of the girls was serving drinks. I asked for a cup of coffee. There’s nothing like village coffee in Ethiopia. The only problem is you have to wait for it. A good cup can take up to two hours because it is made from scratch. After an hour of sitting around, I went into the yard behind the bar to see how things were progressing. The girl told me to be patient. The water supply had been cut, she said, which meant she had had to trek to a well a mile away. Then firewood needed to be collected. Only after that could the slow process of roasting the coffee begin.

  When the beans had turned from pale green to dark brown, she held them up to my face for me to smell them. After that she tipped them into a mortar and ground them to powder. Only then could the cup of coffee be made. Almost two hours after placing the casual order, it finally arrived. It was the freshest, most delicious cup of coffee I can remember.