When the Going Was Good

by Evelyn Waugh

  With little disguised irritation they set to work making the best of their meagre material. Gorgis and its precincts were impenetrably closed; a huge tent could be discerned through the railings, built against one wall of the church. Some described the actual coronation as taking place there; others used it as the scene of a state reception and drew fanciful pictures of the ceremony in the interior of the cathedral, ‘murky, almost suffocating with incense and the thick, stifling smoke of tallow candles’ (Associated Press); authorities on Coptic ritual remarked that as the coronation proper must take place in the inner sanctuary, which no layman might glimpse, much less enter, there was small hope of anyone seeing anything at all. The cinema-men, whose companies had spent very large sums in importing them and their talking apparatus, began to show signs of restlessness, and some correspondents became almost menacing. Mr Hall, however, remained his own serene self. Everything, he assured us, was being arranged for their particular convenience; only, he admitted, the exact details were still unsettled.

  Eventually, about fourteen hours before the ceremony was due to start, numbered tickets were issued through the legations; there was plenty of room for all, except, as it happened, for the Abyssinians themselves. The rases and Court officials were provided with gilt chairs, but the local chiefs seemed to be wholly neglected; most of them remained outside, gazing wistfully at the ex-Kaiser’s coach and the tall hats of the European and American visitors; those that succeeded in pushing their way inside were kept far at the back, where they squatted together on their haunches, or, in all the magnificent trappings of their gala dress, dozed simply in distant corners of the great tent.

  For it was there, in the end, that the service took place. It was light and lofty, supported by two colonnades of draped scaffold-poles; the seat end was hung with silk curtains, behind which a sanctuary had been improvised to hold the tabor from the cathedral. A carpeted dais ran half the length of the floor. On it stood the silk-covered table that bore the regalia and the crown neatly concealed in a cardboard hat-box; on either side were double rows of gilt chairs for the Court and the diplomatic corps, and at the end, with their backs to the body of the hall, two canopied thrones.

  Their Majesties had spent the night in vigil, surrounded inside the cathedral by clergy, and outside by troops. One enterprising journalist headed his report ‘Meditation Behind Machine-Guns’, and had the gratifying experience, when he was at last admitted into the precincts, of finding his guess fully justified; a machinegun section was posted on the steps covering each approach.

  It was highly interesting to me, when the papers began to arrive from Europe and America, to compare my own experiences with those of the correspondents. It seemed to me that we had been witnesses of a quite different series of events.

  This is what I saw at the coronation:

  The Emperor and Empress were due to appear from their vigil at seven in the morning. We were warned to arrive at the tent about an hour before that time. Accordingly, having dressed by candlelight, Irene and I proceeded there at about six. For many hours before dawn the roads into the town had been filled with tribesmen coming in from the surrounding camps. We could see them passing the hotel (the street lamps were working that night) in dense white crowds, some riding mules, some walking, some moving at a slow trot beside their masters. All, as always, were armed. Our car moved slowly to Gorgis, hooting continuously. There were many other cars; some carrying Europeans; others, Abyssinian officials. Eventually we reached the church and were admitted after a narrow scrutiny of our tickets and ourselves. The square inside the gates was comparatively clear; from the top of the steps the machine-guns compromised with ecclesiastical calm. From inside the cathedral came the voices of the priests singing the last phase of the service that had lasted all night. Eluding the numerous soldiers, policemen, and officials who directed us towards the tent, we slipped into the outer ambulatory of the church, where the choir of bearded and vested deacons were dancing to the music of hand drums and little silver rattles. The drummers squatted round them; but they carried the rattles themselves and in their other hand waved praying-sticks. Some carried nothing, but merely clapped their empty palms. They shuffled in and out, singing and swaying; the dance was performed with body and arms rather than with the feet. Their faces expressed the keenest enjoyment – almost, in some cases, ecstasy. The brilliant morning sun streamed in on them from the windows, on their silver crosses, silver-headed rods, and on the large, illuminated manuscript from which one of them, undeterred by the music, was reciting the Gospels; the clouds of incense mounted and bellied in the shafts of light.

  Presently we went on to the tent. This was already well filled. The clothes of the congregation varied considerably. Most of the men were wearing morning coats, but some had appeared in evening dress and one or two in dinner-jackets. One lady had stuck an American flag in the top of her sun-helmet. The junior members of the legations were there already, in uniform, fussing among the seats to see that everything was in order. By seven o’clock the delegations arrived.

  It was long after the last delegate had taken his place that the Emperor and Empress appeared from the church. We could hear the singing going on behind the curtains. Photographers, amateur and professional, employed the time in taking furtive snapshots. Reporters despatched their boys to the telegraph office with supplementary accounts of the preliminaries. By some misunderstanding of the instructions of the responsible official, the office was closed for the day. After the manner of native servants, the messengers, instead of reporting the matter to their masters, sat, grateful for the rest, on the steps gossiping until it should open. It was late in the day that the truth became known, and then there was more trouble for Mr Hall.

  The ceremony was immensely long, even according to the original schedule, and the clergy succeeded in prolonging it by at least an hour and a half beyond the allotted time. The six succeeding days of celebration were to be predominantly military, but the coronation day itself was in the hands of the Church, and they were going to make the most of it. Psalms, canticles, and prayers succeeded each other, long passages of Scripture were read, all in the extinct ecclesiastical tongue, Ghiz. Candles were lit one by one; the coronation oaths were proposed and sworn; the diplomats shifted uncomfortably in their gilt chairs, noisy squabbles broke out round the entrance between the imperial guard and the retainers of the local chiefs. Professor W., who was an expert of high transatlantic reputation on Coptic ritual, occasionally remarked: ‘They are beginning the Mass now,’ ‘That was the offertory,’ ‘No, I was wrong; it was the consecration,’ ‘No, I was wrong; I think it is the secret Gospel,’ ‘No, I think it must be the Epistle,’ ‘How very curious; I don’t believe it was a Mass at all,’ ‘Now they are beginning the Mass …’ and so on. Presently the bishops began to fumble among the bandboxes, and investiture began. At long intervals the Emperor was presented with robe, orb, spurs, spear, and finally with the crown. A salute of guns was fired, and the crowds outside, scattered all over the surrounding waste spaces, began to cheer; the imperial horses reared up, plunged on top of each other, kicked the gilding off the front of the coach, and broke their traces. The coachman sprang from the box and whipped them from a safe distance. Inside the pavilion there was a general sense of relief; it had all been very fine and impressive, now for a cigarette, a drink, and a change into less formal costume. Not a bit of it. The next thing was to crown the Empress and the heir apparent; another salvo of guns followed, during which an Abyssinian groom had two ribs broken in an attempt to unharness a pair of the imperial horses. Again we felt for our hats and gloves. But the Coptic choir still sang; the bishops then proceeded to take back the regalia with proper prayers, lections, and canticles.

  ‘I have noticed some very curious variations in the Canon of the Mass,’ remarked the professor, ‘particularly with regard to the kiss of peace.’

  Then the Mass began.

  For the first time throughout the morning the Emperor and Empres
s left their thrones; they disappeared behind the curtains into the improvised sanctuary; most of the clergy went too. The stage was empty save for the diplomats; their faces were set and strained, their attitudes inelegant. I have seen just that look in crowded railway carriages, at dawn, between Avignon and Marseilles. Their clothes made them funnier still. Marshal d’Esperez alone preserved his dignity, his chest thrown out his baton poised on his knee, rigid as a war memorial, and, as far as one could judge, wide awake.

  It was now about eleven o’clock, the time at which the emperor was due to leave the pavilion. Punctually to plan, three Abyssinian aeroplanes rose to greet him. They circled round and round over the tent, eagerly demonstrating their newly acquired art by swooping and curvetting within a few feet of the canvas roof. The noise was appalling; the local chiefs stirred in their sleep and rolled on to their faces; only by the opening and closing of their lips and the turning of their music could we discern that the Coptic deacons were still singing.

  ‘A most unfortunate interruption. I missed many of the verses,’ said the professor.

  Eventually, at about half past twelve, the Mass came to an end, and the Emperor and Empress, crowned, shuffling along under a red and gold canopy and looking, as Irene remarked, exactly like the processional statues of Seville, crossed to a grand stand, from which the Emperor delivered a royal proclamation; an aeroplane scattered copies of the text and, through loud speakers, the Court heralds re-read it to the populace.

  There was a slightly ill-tempered scramble among the photographers and cinema-men – I received a heavy blow in the middle of the back from a large camera, and a hoarse rebuke, ‘Come along there now – let the eyes of the world see.’

  Dancing broke out once more among the clergy, and there is no knowing how long things might not have gone on, had not the photographers so embarrassed and jostled them, and outraged their sense of reverence, that they withdrew to finish their devotions alone in the cathedral.

  Then at last the Emperor and Empress were conducted to their coach and borne off to luncheon by its depleted but still demonstratively neurasthenic team of horses.

  My Indian chauffeur had got bored and gone home. Luncheon at the hotel was odious. All food supplies had been commandeered by the Government, M. Hallot told us; it was rather doubtful whether the market would open again until the end of the week. Meanwhile there were tinned chunks of pineapple and three courses of salt beef, one cut in small cubes with chopped onion, one left in a slab with tomato ketchup, one in slices with hot water and Worcestershire sauce; the waiters had gone out the night before to get drunk and had not yet woken up.

  We were all in a bad temper that night.

  Six days followed of intensive celebration. On Monday morning the delegations were required to leave wreaths at the mausoleum of Menelik and Zauditu. This is a circular, domed building of vaguely Byzantine affinities, standing in the Gebbi grounds. Its interior is furnished with oil-paintings and enlarged photographs of the royal family, a fumed oak grandfather clock, and a few occasional tables; their splay legs protruded from under embroidered linen tablecloths, laid diagonally; on them stood little conical silver vases of catkins boldly counterfeited in wire and magenta wool. Steps led down to the vault where lay the white marble sarcophagi of the two potentates. It is uncertain whether either contains the body attributed to it, or indeed any body at all. The date and place of Menelik’s death are a palace secret, but it is generally supposed to have taken place about two years before its formal announcement to the people; the Empress probably lies out under the hill at Debra Lebanos. At various hours that morning, however, the delegations of the Great Powers dutifully appeared, and, not to be outdone in reverence, Professor W. came tripping gravely in with a little bunch of white carnations.

  There was a cheerful, friendly tea-party that afternoon at the American Legation and a ball and firework display at the Italian, but the party which excited the keenest interest was the gebbur given by the Emperor to his tribesmen. These banquets are a regular feature of Ethiopian life, constituting, in fact, a vital bond between the people and their overlords, whose prestige in time of peace varies directly with their frequency and abundance. Until a few years ago attendance at a gebbur was part of the entertainment offered to every visitor in Abyssinia. Copious first-hand accounts can be found in almost every book about the country, describing the packed, squatting ranks of the diners; the slaves carrying the warm quarters of newly slaughtered, uncooked beef; the despatch with which each guest carves for himself; the upward slice of his dagger with which he severs each mouthful from the dripping lump; the flat, damp platters of local bread; the great draughts of tedj and talla from the horn drinking-pots; the butchers outside felling and dividing the oxen; the Emperor and notables at the high table, exchanging highly seasoned morsels of more elaborate fare. These are the traditional features of the gebbur and, no doubt, of this occasion also. It was thus that the journalists described their impressions in glowing paraphrases of Rhey and Kingsford. When the time came, however, we found that particular precautions had been taken to exclude all Europeans from the spectacle. Mr Hall loyally undertook to exercise his influence for each of us personally, but in the end no one gained admission except two resolute ladies and, by what was felt to be a very base exploitation of racial advantage, the coloured correspondent of a syndicate of Negro newspapers.

  All that I saw was the last relay of guests shambling out of the Gebbi gates late that afternoon. They were a very enviable company, quite stupefied with food and drink. Policemen attempted to herd them on, kicking their insensible backs and whacking them with canes, but nothing disturbed their serene good temper. The chiefs were hoisted on to mules by their retainers and remained there blinking and smiling; one very old man, mounted back to front, felt feebly about the crupper for his reins; some stood clasped together in silent, swaying groups; others, lacking support, rolled contentedly in the dust. I remembered them that evening as I sat in the supper-room at the Italian Legation gravely discussing the slight disturbance of diplomatic propriety caused by the Emperor’s capricious distribution of honours.

  There were several parties that week, of more or less identical composition. At three there were fireworks, resulting in at least one nasty accident; at one, a cinema which failed to work; at one, Galla dancers who seemed to dislocate their shoulders, and sweated so heartily that our host was able to plaster their foreheads with banknotes; at another, Somali dancers shivered with cold on a lawn illuminated with coloured flares. There was a race meeting; the royal enclosure was packed and the rest of the course empty of spectators; a totalisator paid out four dollars on every winning three-dollar ticket; both bands played; Prince Udine presented an enormous cup and the Emperor a magnificent kind of urn whose purpose no one could discover; it had several silver taps and little silver stands, and a great tray covered with silver cups of the kind from which grape-fruit is eaten in cinema-films. This fine trophy was won by a gentleman, in gilt riding-boots, attached to the French Legation, and was used later at their party for champagne. There was a certain amount of whispering against French sportsmanship, however, as they had sent back their books of sweepstake tickets with scarcely one sold. This showed a very bad club spirit, the other legations maintained.

  There was a procession of all the troops, uniformed and irregular, in the middle of which Irene appeared in a taxi-cab surprisingly surrounded by a band of mounted musicians playing six-foot pipes and banging on saddle drums of ox-hide and wood, The people all shrilled their applause, as the Emperor passed, in a high, wailing whistle.

  There was the opening of a museum of souvenirs, containing examples of native craftsmanship, the crown captured by General Napier at Magdala and returned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a huge, hollow stone which an Abyssinian saint had worn as a hat.

  There was a review of the troops on the plain outside the railway station.

  But no catalogue of events can convey any real idea of these astound
ing days, of an atmosphere utterly unique, elusive, unforgettable. If I have seemed to give emphasis to the irregularity of the proceedings, to their unpunctuality, and their occasional failure, it is because this was an essential part of their character and charm. In Addis Ababa everything was haphazard and incongruous; one learned always to expect the unusual and yet was always surprised.

  Every morning we awoke to a day of brilliant summer sunshine; every evening fell cool, limpid, charged with hidden vitality, fragrant with the thin smoke of the tukal fires, pulsing, like a live body, with the beat of the tom-toms that drummed incessantly somewhere out of sight among the eucalyptus-trees. In this rich African setting were jumbled together, for a few days, people of every race and temper, a company shot through with every degree of animosity and suspicion. There were continual rumours born of the general uncertainty; rumours about the date and place of every ceremony; rumours of dissension in high places; rumours that, in the absence at Addis Ababa of all the responsible officials, the interior was seething with brigandage; that the Ethiopian Minister to Paris had been refused admittance to Addis Ababa; that the royal coach-man had not had his wages for two months and had given in his notice; that one of the legations had refused to receive the Empress’s first lady-in-waiting.

  One morning Irene and I were sitting outside the hotel drinking apéritifs and waiting for luncheon; we were entertained by the way in which the various visitors treated a pedlar who diffidently approached them with a bundle of bootlaces in one hand and an enamelled pot de chambre in the other. Suddenly a taxi drove up, and a servant wearing the palace livery jumped out and emptied a large pile of envelopes into Irene’s lap. Two were addressed to us. We took them and handed back the rest, which the man presented, to be sorted in the same way, at the next table.

  The envelopes contained an invitation to lunch with the Emperor that day at one o’clock; as it was then after half past twelve we disregarded the request for an answer and hurried off to change.