The Complete Collection of Travel Literature
Page 27
araki: an alcoholic drink, usually distileded from maize
asa wot: a spicy fish stew, made with freshwater fish
berbere: a highly spiced sauce common throughout Ethiopia in which meat dishes are served
Beta Israel: the tribe of Ethiopian Jews
birr: the national currency of Ethiopia: at the current rate of exchange, 12 birr equal £1
Buda: the religious hierarchy of the Ethiopian Jewish community believed to have the ability to transmit the Evil Eye
dejazmacth: a local nobleman
dink: the ancient Egyptian word for a dwarf, which is also found in various tribal languages in Ethiopia
doro wot: a spicy chicken stew, often served with hard-boiled eggs
enset: the “false banana” plant, cultivated in Ethiopia and prized for its edible stem
falasha: one of the community of Ethiopian Jews, most of whom now live in Israel: the term is now regarded as politically incorrect
faranji: colloquial term for a foreigner
Ge’ez: the ancient language of Ethiopia, still understood by the country’s priesthood
ghamelawallas: sweepers in Calcutta and other Indian cities who buy the dust from the floors of jewellery workshops
injera: Ethiopian bread made from teff flour, upon which a communal meat stew is served
kai wot: a spicy lamb stew served in a berbere sauce
Karo: a tribe from south-west Ethiopia whose warriors paint their bodies in elaborate patterns
Kebra Negast (The Glory of Kings): sacred text of Ethiopia, which contains a detailed account of Solomon’s meeting with Makeda
Makeda: the Ethiopian name for the Queen of Sheba
makwamya: ritualistic prayer sticks used by the Ethiopian clergy
matatu: a communal taxi or minivan, popular in East Africa
mensaf: a Bedu dish of meat cooked in milk and served with flavoured rice
Mursi: a tribe from south-west Ethiopia, famed for the curious clay lip-plates that they wear
Oromo: one of the main tribes in Ethiopia, or their language
qat: the mildly narcotic leaf chewed in the Horn of Africa and in southern Arabia, sometimes called chatt in Ethiopia
shamma: a cotton shawl, worn throughout Ethiopia, often with a delicately embroidered border
shiftas: bandits
sistra: an Ethiopian musical instrument, possibly of ancient Egyptian origin
tabot: a replica of the Ark of the Covenant
teff: a grain popular in Ethiopia, from which injera is made
thaler: a Maria Theresa dollar, once used in various African countries as currency, and still minted by the Austrian government
tukul: a wattle-and-daub or simple stone hut
werk: the Amharic word for gold
zill-zill tibs: shredded beef strips fried and served with sauce
Bibliography
All books were published in London unless otherwise stated.
Solomon and Sheba
Budge, E. A. Wallis, The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menylik (Medici Society, 1922)
Littman, Enno (ed.), The Legend of the Queen of Sheba in the Tradition of Axum (Bibliotheca Abessinica, 1904)
Philby, H. St. John, The Queen of Sheba (reprint, Quartet, 1981)
Phillips, Wendell, Sheba’s Buried City (Gollancz, 1955)
Raymond, Captain E., King Solomon’s Temple (Artisan, Thousand Oaks, Ca., 1992)
Toy, Barbara, In Search of Sheba (John Murray, 1961)
Biblical History
Feather, Robert, The Copper Scroll Decoded (HarperCollins, 1999)
Grierson, Roderick, and Munro-Hay, Stuart, The Ark of the Covenant (Phoenix Press, 2000)
Hancock, Graham, The Sign and the Seal (Heinemann, 1992)
Keller, Werner, The Bible as History (Hodder & Stoughton, 1956)
The Septuagint Bible (Falcon’s Wing Press, White Hills, 1954)
Vermes, Geza, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1962)
Ophir and Punt
Bent, J. Theodore, The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland (Longmans, Green, 1895)
Burton, Captain Richard F., The Gold-mines of Midian and the Ruined Midianite Cities, 2 vols. (Kegan Paul, 1878)
–– Land of Midian (Revisited), 2 vols. (Kegan Paul, 1879)
Craufurd, Commander C. Ε. V, Treasure of Ophir (Skeffington, 1929)
Hall, R. N., Great Zimbabwe (Methuen, 1905)
–– and Neal, W G., The Ancient Ruins of Rhodesia (Methuen, 1902)
Keane, A. H., The Gold of Ophir (Edward Stanford, 1901)
Kitchen, Κ. Α., Punt and How to Get There (Orientalia XL, 1971)
Peters, Carl, The Eldorado of the Ancients (Pearson, 1902)
–– Solomon’s Golden Ophir: A Research into the Most Ancient Gold Production in History (Leadenhall Press, 1899)
Rothenberg, Beno, Were these Solomon’s Mines? (Thames and Hudson, 1972)
Stuart, J. M., The Ancient Gold Fields of Africa (Effingham Wilson, 1891)
Wicker, F. D. P., “The Road to Punt”, Geographical Journal, Vol. CLXIV, July 1998
Gold
Angier, Bradford, Looking for Gold (Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pa., 1980)
Bernstein, Peter L., The Power of Gold (John Wiley, New York, 2000)
Butler, Gail, Recreational Gold Prospecting (Gem Guides, 1998)
Cornell, Fred C., The Glamour of Gold Prospecting (Fisher, Unwin, 1920)
Goble, G. F., Hints to Intended Gold Diggers and Buyers (n.p., 1853)
Marx, Jennifer, The Magic of Gold (Doubleday, New York, 1978)
Randle, Kevin D., Lost Gold and Buried Treasure (Evans, New York, 1995)
Ethiopia
Baker, Samuel White, The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia and the Sword Hunters of the Hamran Arabs (Macmillan, 1867)
Bartleet, Captain E. J., In the Land of Sheba (Cornish Brothers, Birmingham, 1934)
Briggs, Philip, Guide to Ethiopia (Bradt Books, Chalfont St Peter, 1998)
Blundell, H. Weld, “Exploration in the Abai Basin, Abyssinia”, Geographical Journal, Vol. XXVII, June 1906
Bruce, James, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 5 vols. (J. Ruthven, Edinburgh, 1790)
Budge, E. A. Wallis, A History of Ethiopia (Methuen, 1928)
–– Bandlet of Righteousness (Luzac, 1929)
Burton, Captain Richard F., First Footsteps in East Africa (reprint, Dent, 1910)
Demessie, Metasebia, Bibliography of the Geology of Ethiopia (Ethiopian Institute of Geological Surveys, Addis Ababa, 1996)
de Prorok, Byron, In Quest of Lost Worlds (Frederick Muller, 1935)
–– Dead Men Do Tell Tales (Harrap, 1943)
Farago, Ladislas, Abyssinia on the Eve (Putnam, 1935)
Gordon, Frances Linzee, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti (Lonely Planet, 2000)
Griaule, Marcel, Abyssinian Journey (John Miles, 1935)
Harris, Major W Cornwallis, Highland of Aethiopia, 2 vols. (Longman, 1844)
Hartlmaier, Paul, Golden Lion (Geoffrey Bles, 1956)
Hayter, Frank E., In Quest of Sheba’s Mines (Stanley Paul Ltd., 1935)
–– The Gold of Ethiopia (Stanley Paul, 1936)
–– African Adventurer (Stanley Paul, 1939)
–– The Garden of Eden (Stanley Paul, 1940)
Henze, Paul B., Ethiopian Journeys (Ernest Benn, 1977)
–– Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia (C. Hurst, 2000)
Jelenc, Danilo Α., Mineral Occurrences of Ethiopia (Ministry of Mines, Addis Ababa, 1966)
Jones, Α. Η. M., and Monroe, Elizabeth, A History of Abyssinia (Clarendon Press,
Oxford, 1935) Nesbitt, L. M., Desert and Forest (Jonathan Cape, 1937)
Nicholson, T. R., A Toy for the Lion (William Kimber, 1965)
Pankhurst, Richard, An Economic History of Ethiopia (Haile Selassie University Press, Addis Ababa, 1968)
–– The Ethiopians (Blackwell, Oxford, 1998)
Pankhurst, Sylvia, Ethiopia: A
Cultural History (Lalibela House, Woodford Green, 1959)
Phillipson, David W, Ancient Ethiopia (British Museum Press, 1999)
Rey, C. F., Unconquered Abyssinia As It Is Today (Seeley Service, 1923)
Salt, Henry, A Voyage to Abyssinia (Rivington, 1814)
Spectrum Guide to Ethiopia (Camerapix, Nairobi, 1995)
Thesiger, Wilfred, The Danakil Diary (HarperCollins, 1996)
Trimmingham, J. S., Islam in Ethiopia (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1952)
Ullendorff, Edward, The Ethiopians (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1961)
–– Ethiopia and the Bible (British Academy, 1967)
Weninger, Stefan, Ge’ez: Classical Ethiopia (Lincom Europa, 1993)
Miscellaneous
Álvares, Francisco, A True Relation of the Lands of Prester John (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1961)
Barradas, M., Tractus Tres Historico-Geographici (1634)
Boyes, John, King of the Wa Kikuyu (Methuen, 1912)
Cashmore, Ε. E., The Rastafarians (Minority Rights Group International, 1992)
Coan, Stephen (ed.), Diary of an African Journey : The Return of Henry Rider Haggard (Hurst, 2001)
Davidson, Basil, Old Africa Rediscovered (Gollancz, 1959)
de May, R., Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Henderick Portenger (Richard Phillips, 1819)
Haggard, Henry Rider, King Solomon’s Mines (Cassell, 1885)
Hall, Richard, Lovers on the Nile: The Life of Samuel White Baker (Collins, 1980)
Herodotus, The Histories (Everyman’s Library, 1910)
Kessler, David, The Falashas (Allen & Unwin, 1982)
Mandeville, Sir John, Travels and Voyages of Sir John Mandeville (c. 1356—7)
Shah, Sayed Idries, Destination Mecca (Rider, 1957)
BEYOND THE DEVIL’S TEETH
Journeys in Gondwanaland
TAHIR SHAH
SECRETUM MUNDI PUBLISHING
FOREWORD
Breaking in as a travel writer is virtually impossible these days.
No publisher worth their salt will take an unsolicited manuscript, and getting a commission is almost out of the question if you haven’t been published before. It’s the crème de la crème of viscous circles.
The standard way to get a foot in the door is by getting an agent and relying on them to sweet talk the publisher into taking you on.
But getting an agent is no easy task in itself.
I wrote Beyond the Devil’s Teeth when I was twenty-three. I had no agent, no publisher, but I did have a raging enthusiasm to produce a book from adventures in India, Africa and South America.
I had been obsessed by the theme of Gondwanaland and by the Indian tribe of the Gonds, and had written a book based loosely on these themes.
The problem was that once I’d finished the book, no publisher would take it. I sent the manuscript to dozens of publishing houses – great and small – and received the standard letters of refusal.
Undeterred, I tried getting an agent.
There was still no luck. I was turned down by absolutely everyone, and became very depressed. I thought the book would never get in print, and I put it on a shelf for three years.
Then, one morning, I had an idea.
I decided to get a letter-heading printed, a fabulous one, with many colors and expensive-looking type. It announced the services of a media agency, under the direction of a fictitious chief agent, Mr. William Watkins.
Then I sent the manuscript to as many famous people I could think of, including former US Presidents, heads of companies, illustrious explorers and corporate visionaries. A small percentage of them wrote back with very good quotes for use in publicity. I printed these on large sheets of brown wrapping paper, wrapped manuscripts of Beyond the Devil’s Teeth inside, and sent them out again from my own literary agency – Worldwide Media.
Then I waited.
Days passed.
Then a week or two.
I was about to give up hope when, one afternoon, I was sitting in my studio flat in north London eating Campbell’s soup from a can, wondering how I would ever make enough money to travel again, when the telephone rang.
I picked up the receiver.
It was a big publisher calling from the top floor of a tall steel and glass building in the West End. A publisher had never called me before. The woman at the other end asked to be put through William Watkins, the chief agent. She obviously took me for a receptionist.
Thinking as fast as I could, I asked the lady to hold on while I put her through. Realising that an important chief agent would never be instantly available, I laid the receiver on a chair and took the time to finish my cold soup.
After three or four minutes, I picked it up, cleared my throat, and replied in the silky smooth obsequious voice I assumed my fictitious Mr. Watkins would have.
Yes, I confirmed, I was the agent for the up and coming genius Tahir Shah and, yes, Beyond the Devil’s Teeth was still available, although I said, lying, the work had sparked considerable interest in the literary establishment – in Britain and abroad.
The woman, a commissioning editor, said she very much wanted to meet Tahir Shah. She asked if I could find out when he was available.
“He is always available,” I said quickly.
“Are you sure?” she replied.
“Quite certain.”
“Always?”
“Always!”
“But don’t you need to check with him?”
“I just have,” I said coldly.
We made an appointment for the next afternoon. Before hanging up, the editor said that, as the agent, I was quite free to come along to the meeting as well.
“Madam,” I retorted, “how very kind, but it may be rather difficult for me to attend as well as Mr. Shah.”
Tahir Shah
2013
CONTENTS
Title Page
Foreword
PART ONE: NORTH GONDWANALAND
India and Pakistan
ONE - The Sword of Shah Safi
TWO - Servants with Children
THREE - Too-Feee and Eunuchs
FOUR - Send the Fool Another Mile
FIVE - The Alchemist’s Assistant
SIX - Abdul the Warrior
SEVEN - Leaving the Nest
EIGHT - Here Comes the King
PART TWO: CENTRAL GONDWANALAND
West and East Africa
NINE - Rats Eating Cats
TEN - My Name is Zakaria
ELEVEN - In Search of the Source
TWELVE - Beowulf and Buckweed
PART THREE: WEST GONDWANALAND
South America
THIRTEEN - Beyond the Devil’s Teeth
FOURTEEN - Opera in the Jungle
FIFTEEN - For the Need of a Thneed
SIXTEEN - The Mountains of Blue Ice
Glossary
PART ONE: NORTH GONDWANALAND
India and Pakistan
ONE - The Sword of Shah Safi
TWO - Servants with Children
THREE - Too-Feee and Eunuchs
FOUR - Send the Fool Another Mile
FIVE - The Alchemist’s Assistant
SIX - Abdul the Warrior
SEVEN - Leaving the Nest
EIGHT - Here Comes the King
ONE
The Sword of Shah Safi
In the Glens of Seven Mountains,
Of the Twelve Hills in the Valleys,
Is the mountain Lingawangad,
Is the flowering tree Pahindi;
In that desert so far out-spreading
Twelve coss round arose no dwelling.
The Tale of Lingo, retold by J. Forsyth, The Highlands of Central India.
A maze of passageways stretched in all directions.
As I wandered from one cavern to the next, I could smell shish kebabs and coriander. Figures cloaked in desert dress murmured in Arabic from beneath their robes. Were they uneasy that I had discovered the so
urce of their fortune?
One chamber was filled with ancient artefacts, dulled with age and guarded by an old man. He observed me carefully as I examined his hoard.
Hidden deep under a stack of papers and a torn shawl of silk I discovered the object. Only on picking it out did I realize something of the true significance of the find.
It was a sword of what seemed to be seventeenth century Persian design. Certainly worth twenty times the asking price. Holding the hilt, I slowly slid back the scabbard, to reveal an immaculate blade of watered steel, damascened in gold. Mughal, Indo-Islamic... Engraved in Arabic letters was the inscription of the master swordsmith Shah Safi: his signature, along with a kind of poetic spell, which read:
Chastise all evil with this fair blade
And through its magic your glory shall never fade.
The guardian mumbled the price and, trembling slightly, I handed him a new note. Then, as I stood dazed before him, trying to come to terms with what I had bought, he said in a loud Cockney voice,
“’Ere d’you want a bag for that, mate?”
I had quite forgotten that this was London’s Bermondsey Market early on a Friday morning, and the treasure’s purveyor was a stallholder like any other.
He thrust my fifty-pound note under layers of wooly clothing and handed me a crumpled piece of wrapping paper.
As I was leaving, I looked back and nodded to my benefactor. He sat huddled against the cold under a sign, on which was scrawled in almost illegible lettering:
Thieves will be HURT.
* * *
Some weeks later I lounged at the back of a large London auction room. Against the low hum of conversation were the sounds of lot numbers being called, and a hammer clicking down at the end of each sale. My sword, labeled lot 732, waited to be sold.
As I sat there, thoroughly bored, I noticed a dagger, also numbered for the sale. The blade had been hammered from a coarse piece of iron: and its hilt reminded me of a weapon I had seen some time before. The design was typical of a people in Central India, a tribe for which I had an unusual fascination: the Gonds.
I thought back to a trip I had made to India some years before, and of a curious place in which I had found myself. One particular conversation had seemed important:
The waiter poured me a glass of straw-colored tea. He turned and went to lie in the shade, removing his artificial right leg, and using it as a pillow. Every few minutes the makeshift café under the railway bridge was swamped with steam and smoke from passing trains. I was in Gondia, Central India.