Henty George Alfred
The March to Magdala
You will see that, although the mail only goes once a week, I am, as long as I am moving forwards, obliged to write every three days, as for every day I move further the mail takes another day to come down. It is, in addition, no easy matter to find time to write when upon the march. One rises at daybreak, which is little before seven, and, using the very greatest diligence, it is nearly two hours before the tent can be struck, and the mules loaded and upon their way. I generally give them a start of an hour, and then ride on, overtake them, and see that all is going on well. If so, I ride forward, and use some friend’s tent until my own arrives, which, if the distance is fourteen miles, will not be until nearly four in the afternoon; for my mules, with stoppages to readjust baggage, &c., do not make above two miles an hour. Then there is pitching the tent, drawing rations, and seeing the horses watered and fed; and by the time dinner is ready and our work done, it is past six o’clock. One generally puts one’s rations with those of friends; and by the time the meal is over, and the succeeding pipe and glass of arrack-and-water discussed, one is far more fit for bed than for sitting down to chronicle the events of the day. My next letter will be from Attegrat, where I expect to stay for a few days.
Attegrat, February 7th.
I have been so long looking forward to arriving at Attegrat, that, being here, I feel that I have made a long stage into the interior of Abyssinia. I confess, however, that I am disappointed in Attegrat. It is foolish, I own. I ought by this time to have learnt the utter hollowness and emptiness of all statements connected with the country; and everything we have been told, everything we have been led to expect, has alike turned out utterly incorrect. Sometimes we have been told pleasant things, sometimes we have been threatened with dire calamities; but in both cases the vaticinations have turned out equally incorrect. Guinea-worms and tape-worms, fever and cholera, small-pox and dysentery, tetse-fly and sunstroke – all these have been distinguished by their absence: but as a counterbalance, so have Colonel Phayre’s green fields and gushing springs at Zulla, his perennial water between Sooro and Rayray Guddy, and his emporium of commerce at Senafe, which turned out a village of six mud-huts. Still, in spite of previous disappointments, I confess I clung to the idea that I should find a town of considerable size at Attegrat. The place was marked in Roman capitals upon the maps. It had been spoken of as a town flowing with milk and honey; it was to be one of our main halting-places; and altogether one certainly did expect to find rather more than twenty hovels, a barn called a church, and another ruinous barn which was once a palace. But before I describe Attegrat, let me detail my journey here from Goun-Gonna. I sent my baggage off at seven o’clock in the morning, at the same time that the baggage of the head-quarters of the 33d and Colonel Penn’s battery of mountain guns started. I then explored the pretty valley I described in my last, and afterwards went into a friend’s tent and finished my letter to you. At twelve o’clock I started for what I was told was an eleven miles’ ride; but it turned out the longest sixteen I have ever ridden. Every officer and man to whom I have spoken – and among others I may quote Colonel Milward and Colonel Penn of the Artillery, and Major Cooper, and all the officers of the 33d – agreed with me that it was over sixteen miles. Colonel Phayre’s and the quartermaster’s departments’ gross miscalculation of distances is becoming a very serious nuisance. It is absolutely cruel upon the men. If soldiers are told that they have a sixteen miles’ march across a rough country, and beneath a hot sun, they will do the distance. It may be hard work; but they know when they start what is before them, and they make up their minds to it. But when they are told it is eleven miles, at the end of that distance they begin to look out anxiously for their camping-place. They become cross and impatient, and are infinitely more fatigued than they would have been had they been told the real distance that was before them.
I now resume my account of my day’s march. For the first two miles the road mounted very steeply, until we were at least a thousand feet above Goun-Gonna, and had gained the great plateau out of which the valley is cut. It must have been a very difficult ascent before the road was made by the Sappers and Miners and Punjaub Pioneers. I do not know which parts of the road between Senafe and Attegrat are to be assigned to each regiment; but I believe that the road between Senafe and Goun-Gonna was executed principally by the 33d, assisted by the 10th Native Infantry, and that beyond this point it has been entirely the work of the Sappers and Miners and the Pioneers. The road from Goun-Gonna to Attegrat has not been continuously formed, as it is from Zulla to Goun-Gonna. It is only made in very difficult places, where it would have been next to impossible for a mule to have passed without its burden getting over its ears or tail. In other places we have the mere track worn by the people of the country; but where we ascend or descend gulleys or ravines, or where the road winds along on the face of a hill, when a false step would have involved a roll of a thousand feet down, there a fair road has been cut, which, although frequently steep, is always safe and passable. The road, take it as a whole, from Goun-Gonna to this place, is about as good as a bridle-road among the Welsh or Scotch hills. There are some extremely-steep places, where one mule falling down would stop a whole force, and where the loads shift terribly; but there are no places which cannot with care be surmounted, even by a baggage-train of mules. But this has been the easy portion of the journey. From this place to Antalo the difficulties will be vastly greater; beyond Antalo still greater again. It is for this reason that I look forward to a time when my knapsack will contain my whole luggage, and when sleeping in the open air will be the rule for everyone. Upon getting fairly up to the top of the hill-side from Goun-Gonna, a flat of apparently almost illimitable extent stretched away before us. Two or three of the curious conical hills which abound in this country rose at a considerable distance, and in the horizon were the peaks of the most fantastically-jagged range of mountains I ever saw. Nothing in the Alps will give any idea of the varied outline of this range of peaks. They are serrated and jagged in every conceivable form. Single peaks and double peaks, peaks like a cavalry saddle, and great square-topped blocks with perpendicular sides. The plain itself was dotted with low bushes, and covered everywhere with a luxuriant growth of grass, or rather hay, which reached up to the horses’ girths. The ground was strewn with loose stones, which, with the numerous small holes, made any progress beyond a walking-pace difficult and even dangerous. The stones, and indeed the whole formation of this upper plateau, are composed of a very white sandstone. In the pass up to Senafe the formation was entirely schist, broken and cracked-up in a wonderful manner, with numerous veins of quartz, and occasional walls of very hard volcanic stone traversing it. On the plain of Senafe, and throughout the whole country this side of it, we have a superincumbent bed of sandstone, which has evidently been exposed for a very long time to the action of water. The great rocks of Senafe are everywhere water-worn, and were islets, which rose above the level of a great sea, and resisted the action of the water, which has cleared away the sandstone around them to the general regular level of the plateau. Traversing the plain, we found that the seemingly almost boundless level was apparent rather than real, for the road constantly wound to avoid great valleys, which everywhere penetrated far into it. The sensation of coming suddenly upon a valley of 1000 or 1500 feet deep when apparently travelling upon a level plain was very singular. It quite upset all our preconceived notions of scenery. One found that the mountains to our left, which had appeared to rise a thousand feet or so above the plain, were really double that height from the bottom of the before-invisible valley which intervened between ourselves and them, and that the plain we were traversing was not a plain at all, but a succession of flat mountain-tops. Sometimes these valleys ran so far into the plateau that the road would have to diverge too much from the straight line to pass round their heads, and in these cases we descended some hundred feet and mounted up the other side. The view down some of these valleys was extremely fine, the mountains beyond frequently rising for miles in an unbroken perpendicular wall of two or three thousand feet. The finest view, however, was about two miles from our halting-place; and this, although I have seen much splendid scenery in my varied wanderings, was certainly the finest and most striking scene I ever beheld. Our path was winding along the face of a high mountain, along which our pioneers had cut a path some ten or twelve feet wide. We were perhaps a hundred feet above the general level of the plateau, but were passing round the head of a valley which lay some fifteen hundred feet below us. This valley was only a short branch of a broader valley which ran at right-angles to it, and beyond and in the middle of which a number of isolated hills rose up like islands; these were all flat-topped, and rose to the exact level of the general plateau. Some had sloping sides, others were perfectly perpendicular; and it required no stretch of the imagination to picture the time when a mighty river was sweeping down this great valley, and when these island-mountains breasted and divided its waters. To our right this valley was ten or twelve miles wide, and the numerous islands presented an extraordinary vista of precipice and slope. On the opposite side of the valley the plateau extended for a mile or two, and then rose into lofty rounded mountains; more to the left it stretched away for many miles, and the view was bounded by the extraordinary fantastic range of peaks of which I have already spoken. It was a most glorious view, and, broken by the lights and shadows thrown by a sinking sun, will always remain in my recollection as the most extraordinary and magnificent landscape I ever saw.
We arrived at Fokado at half-past four, getting in half an hour before our baggage, which had been eight hours and a half upon the road, and quite determined that in future, whatever labour it involved, we would not again let it out of our sight. The break-down of a baggage-animal, if one is at hand oneself to see that one’s servants instantly and properly reload it, is an affair of ten minutes at most; but if the servants are left to their own devices, it will occupy over half-an-hour. First of all there are ten minutes wasted in deploring the calamity, another ten in undoing the cords, and at least twenty more in repacking and getting under way. Fokado, like all our camping-stations, lies in a slight basin; this basin is, like the rest of the plateau-land, covered with long grass. A dozen men with scythes could cut enough in a day to supply a cavalry regiment; but they would have to be very careful to choose such portions of the plain as are not covered with stones. As it is, the grass-cutters are supplied with very small sickles, which do very well to hack off a bunch of grass, but which are of little use towards getting in any large quantity. Fortunately the natives cut and bring it in in considerable amount, and I am able to purchase an abundance from them; for no forage is issued by the commissariat for our baggage-animals, and it would be out of the question to expect our syces to go out and cut grass after a long and fatiguing day’s march. There is a well at Fokado from which plenty of cool and moderately-pure water is obtained. After having seen my tent erected and my rations drawn and on the fire, I walked on with two or three officers of the 33d to see the church. It stood, as most of the churches here do, upon slightly-rising ground, and was surrounded by a high wall, with the gateway entering beneath a sort of tower. Having paid my dollar – the modest tariff here demanded for admission – I entered the enclosure. It was in a state of the utmost disorder; loose boulders and stones were strewn everywhere, and I saw no signs whatever of graves. This was the case in the other three churches I have since visited, and is the more singular as the graveyards I saw and described coming up the pass, and which were those of the Mahometan tribes who inhabit that part of the country, were so carefully constructed and so religiously preserved. I have not seen a single grave since I entered the Christian part of Abyssinia. Near the church-door was a framework of three cross-poles, and from this were suspended, by straw ropes, two large stones of sonorous qualities. These were the church-bells. The church itself was a low edifice, built of rough stones, with large blocks forming the door-frame. Entering, I found myself in a low chamber, the roof being supported by four rough stone columns. The floor was littered down with rushes, and had exactly the appearance of a stable. On the wall was a rude half-length fresco of the Virgin, squinting terribly; and on the door leading to the next chamber was a skin or parchment with a somewhat similar painting. Having bowed deeply before each of these portraits at the request of the officiating priest, I was admitted into the next chamber, which was precisely similar to the first, but, having no windows, it only received such light as came in through the crevices of the doors. There was some demur as to my entering the next chamber, which indeed had been refused to all the officers who had been previously there; but I pointed to my white solar hat; and this and the fact of my not being in uniform convinced them, I believe, that I was a priest; for I should mention that the Abyssinian priests are distinguished by wearing white turbans, all the rest of the population going bare-headed. I was therefore admitted into the holy of holies. This was a more lofty chamber than the others, and was lighted by a window high up on the side wall. Across the room, at a distance of about a yard from the door, hung a screen about six feet high; this screen was made of roughly-embroidered canvas, and was apparently intended to prevent the eyes of the worshippers in the second chamber catching a glimpse of the penetralia when the door was opened. Looking round the end of this curtain, I saw an erection resembling a painter’s easel. A parchment or skin was stretched across the upper portion, and on this probably was a painting of some sort; but as it was wrapped up in a cloth, I was unable to examine it, as I was not allowed to go beyond the line of the screen. Returning, I noticed in one corner of the first chamber some long sticks, with a double bend at the top; that is, resembling in form a cross, with the top piece broken off. These are used in the service. Near them, in a niche in the wall, were some pieces of iron fastened together so as to make a jingling noise when shaken. These, no doubt, supply the place of the bell at the raising of the host. I have omitted to say that in the churchyard were two rough fonts; they were round blocks of stone, about two feet and a half high and eighteen inches in diameter; the hollow at the top for water was about eight inches deep. I have seen no fonts in the other churches I have entered.
The following morning I started for Attegrat, a march of about eleven miles. For some distance the road kept along the top of the plateau, which was here undulating, and the road in many places was very rough. At last we came to the brink of a valley, into the bottom of which we had to descend. How anything like a laden animal ever got down before the road was made it is next to impossible to imagine. We came along a beaten track to the top of the valley, and we could see the path again going straight along below us from the bottom; but there was no trace of any track or path down the tremendously-steep descent; and I suppose the little bullocks, which are as sure-footed as goats, and the donkeys, were allowed to pick their way down as they liked best. Fortunately, we were not reduced to this alternative, which would certainly have ended in three out of our four baggage-animals breaking their necks, even if the fourth – a sturdy little Massowah mule, with the zebra-marks upon his back and legs – had managed to get in safety to the bottom. A road has been cut along the face of the hill by the Sappers and Pioneers; and this road, although exceedingly steep in some places, is yet perfectly practicable. It is, however, only six feet wide, and in two or three places even less, and consequently a train of mules are a long time getting down; for if the load of one shifts and gets over his ears, all the rest must wait until it is readjusted-no easy matter upon a steep incline. If one fall from weakness or disease, there would be no resource but to roll him at once over the edge of the path into the valley below. Fortunately, none of these contingencies happened to us. The loads all got on to the animals’ necks, but our men and ourselves were able to keep them balanced there until we reached the foot of the hill, when all the loads had to be taken off and entirely repacked. Just at the foot of the incline was a village. During our journey across the plateau from Goun-Gonna to this point we had only passed Fokado and one other village. We saw many down in the deep valleys around whose heads we had skirted, but upon the flat level of the plateau we did not see a single habitation. There were numerous herds of cattle, but these probably come up to graze upon the thick grass during the day, and descend into the valleys for water at night. We also passed some curious piles of stones upon the plateau-land, which I omitted to mention in my description of that part of my journey. These piles were thirty or forty feet in diameter, and five or six feet high; they were of stones roughly thrown together, and had I met with them in England I should have supposed that they had been merely cleared off the fields; but here there were no signs of cultivation, and the stones were too thickly strewn everywhere to render it probable that any Abyssinian cultivator would have undertaken the labour of clearing piles of stones of this size off his land – a work which, without wheeled vehicles, would be very great. These heaps always occurred near the track, and were generally surrounded by bushes. I passed at least twenty of them. It is possible that these cairns may be burying-places; but the deserted position, the fact that they were far from villages, and the labour which they must have taken to make, all seem to negative this supposition. Besides which, there was hardly the regularity about their shape which one meets with in the burying-cairns of even the most savage nations. I confess that they are to me a perfect mystery. In the village at the foot of the descent was a church which was exactly similar to the one at Fokado. It had no fonts that I could observe, but boasted of a gong in addition to the sonorous stones for summoning the faithful to prayers. In the enclosure, lying among the stones, was a large volcanic bomb, the first of the sort I have seen in the country; it had apparently been brought there as something strange, and perhaps supernatural, and had therefore been put on holy ground; for the enclosure within the walls is holy in Abyssinian eyes, and we are always required to take off our hats on entering the outside gates.
From this village to Attegrat the road keeps in the bottom of a broad valley, the great part of which is ploughed up and ready for the seed, which is, I suppose, sown before the June rains. The soil is light and good, in many places a rich light loam, which would delight an English gardener’s heart. The ploughs are drawn by oxen, and are exactly similar to those I have seen in parts of Italy, except that the share of this is broader and does certainly more work. Indeed, it is by no means badly adapted for shallow ploughing on a light ground. A ride of about five miles down the valley brought us to a slight rise in the ground, and on surmounting this, Attegrat lay before us. My first impression was that of disappointment, for, with the exception of its containing two or three larger buildings, it differed in nothing from the other villages we have seen. The valley, at the point where Attegrat lies, is about two miles wide, and the twenty or thirty flat-roofed huts, which, with the church and a ruined palace, constitute the city, stand on rising ground nearly in its centre. On the left of this valley, near the slope, is the British camp. Behind it the ground rises gradually, affording camping-ground, if necessary, for a considerable force. Indeed, with the exception of some ploughed fields round the town, the whole valley is well suited for a camp. The force at present here are the five companies of the 33d regiment, whose camp, with that of Penn’s mountain battery of steel guns and the Royal Engineers, is the first we arrive at. Next to the 33d lines are the commissariat stores. A few hundred yards farther down in the valley is the camp of the six companies of the 10th Native Infantry. Their tents, like those of the European troops, are upon the slope. Beyond them this slope becomes much steeper, and accordingly the 3d Native Cavalry are camped in the bottom. Next to them come the Mule Train. The divisions here are the Lahore Mule Train and the A Division under Captain Griffiths. It was this division which first landed, and brought up the pioneer force. It has been ever since in the front, and is now in admirable condition. The Egyptian, Arab, Italian, and, in fact, all the drivers, except only the Hindoostanee drivers, have been during the last few days sent down to the coast to be returned to their own countries, and their places have been filled with the Hindoo dhoolie bearers, and others whose services will be no longer required, now that the regiments have all to march without followers. It need hardly be said that this will very greatly improve the efficiency of the division, for the Hindoo, if he has less strength than the Arab, Egyptian, or Persian, is yet amenable to discipline, and will, to the best of his power, carry out the orders he receives; whereas the other men were utterly reckless and disobedient, and could not be trusted out of reach of the eye of their officers. The camp of the Scinde Horse is still farther down the valley, beyond the transport lines. Sir Robert Napier arrived yesterday afternoon. His camp had been pitched for him on some slightly-rising ground in front of the 33d lines, and distant three or four hundred yards. To-day, however, the tents are being struck, and will be pitched in a line with the 33d tents, and forming a connection between them and the artillery. His tent, therefore, is in the exact centre of the European line, with the artillery on his right, the 33d on his left flank.
I now proceed to describe Attegrat. The most conspicuous building, as seen from our camp, is a detached sort of fortress, which looks like nothing so much as the castle of Bluebeard in a pantomime. It stands on a rising knoll, and consists of a square building of two stories high. Upon the top, and greatly overhanging each side, are four extraordinary-looking erections, like great dog-kennels or pigeon-cots, but which must be six or seven feet square. Almost the whole of these constructions project over the walls. What may be the use of these curious appendages to the tower, it is impossible to say. Next to this square tower stands a building as incongruous with it in its construction as it is possible to conceive. It is round, and has a high thatched roof, like a beehive. In addition to these main structures are several low sheds. The whole are enclosed in a high wall with a tower in it, underneath which is the gateway. The buildings are, no doubt, of stone, but they are all plastered over with mud, and look as if made of that material. As I have said, it is exactly one’s idea of Bluebeard’s castle, and one expects to see sister Anne waving her handkerchief out of one of the pigeon-cots at its summit. Certainly, if the gate were to open, and a stout figure in an immense pasteboard head, with a blue beard trailing upon the ground, and surrounded by a host of retainers also with big heads – which their chief would, of course, belabour occasionally with his staff – were to issue out, it would be in such admirable keeping with the place, that one would feel no astonishment. And yet this fortress has its history, and has stood its siege. It seems that the king or chief of this part of the country used seldom to live in his palace in the town itself, and his brother had his abode there. The brother took too much upon himself, and the jealousy and ire of the chief were aroused, and he ordered his brother to move out of the palace. This he did, but constructed at half-a-mile from the town this formidable castle. A disagreement arose, and the king attacked the castle, which he took after twenty hours’ siege. The castle is at present inhabited by the wife of a chief – I cannot say whether it is the same chief, for dates in Abyssinia are somewhat confused – who is a prisoner of Gobayze, King of Lasta. She has, I hear, taken a vow never to go out of doors while her husband is in captivity. Passing Bluebeard’s castle, it is a good half-mile to the town. At the right-hand on a rising rock is the church, which at a distance exactly resembles a Swiss châlet. It is, of course, surrounded by its wall, and within the enclosure grow some of the gigantic candelabra cactus. The church itself is more lofty than any I have yet seen. It is square, and is covered with a high thatched roof, the eaves of which project all round a considerable distance, and are supported by poles. Upon paying the usual fee, I was admitted in the enclosure, and saw at once that this church was of far greater pretensions than any I had yet seen. The entrance was by a doorway of squared beams, with two arches, each cut out of one piece, and each ornamented with five rolls of wood underneath. Entering this, we were in a sort of lobby or hall. The walls of this were covered with frescoes representing the feats of the founder of the church, who was either the father or grandfather of the present chief. Here that redoubted warrior is represented spearing an elephant; again he is kneeling and taking aim at a lion, whose claws are of truly-formidable dimensions. Here there are two or three battle-scenes, in which he is defeating his enemies with immense slaughter. To judge by his portraits, the founder of the church was a fair, round-faced man, with short hair and a slight moustache. I passed from this vestibule into the church itself. Its construction differs entirely from the others I have seen, inasmuch as instead of the sacred chamber being placed beyond two others, it was in the centre of the building, and was surrounded by a passage, the walls of which were covered with frescoes representing events in Old and New Testament writing, and in the lives of the saints. Here we have St. George nobly spearing the dragon, while the King of Egypt’s daughter and her maidens stand by with clasped hands and admiring eyes. Here we have St. Peter suffering martyrdom by being crucified head downwards; with a vast number of other martyrdoms. The biblical events all strictly follow the scriptural description; the only remarkable difference being that at the Last Supper thirteen apostles are represented as being present. In all these, as in the first frescoes, the faces of the actors are represented as white; while in the Temptation the tempter has his traditional sable hue. These frescoes are all in the early Byzantine style, and were they but really ancient, would be extremely curious and valuable; but as the church is not, at most, more than sixty or seventy years old, it is evident that they are the work of some Egyptian or Greek artist brought down for the purpose. I was not allowed to see what was in the central chamber. Leaving the church, I crossed the town, sixty or seventy yards, to where, at its other extremity, stands the ruined palace. It is surrounded by a wall, which encloses a considerable extent of ground. The principal portion of the palace far more resembles a church than do any of the actual churches of the country. It consists of a hall fifty feet long by twenty-five feet wide, with a small round room at the end opposite to the door. The entrance is underneath a porch; and along this, at about eight feet from the ground, there are built into it a line of bullocks’ horns, with their points projecting outwards. The hall was thirty feet high to the springing of the roof, and must have been really a fine hall, country and place being taken into consideration. The greater part of one side-wall has, however, fallen; and the roof is entirely gone. Some of the great beams which crossed it lie on the ground, and it would be a matter of considerable interest to inquire whence, in a treeless country like this, these massive beams were obtained. The most interesting portion of the ruin is the room beyond the great hall, and which was probably the king’s own room. It is entered by a double-arched door, of workmanship and design similar to that I have described at the church; the two buildings being coeval, and the woodwork unquestionably worked by some foreign artificer brought here for the purpose. The chamber itself is about fifteen feet across, with three deep recesses, each lighted by a small double-arched window of the same pattern as the door. The room was about twelve feet high, and was ceiled by a circular arched roof, which still remains. It is made of reeds or rushes sewn side by side, like the basketwork of the country, and dyed with a pattern in reel and blue. This was all worth describing in the palace; there were several other buildings attached to it, but none worthy of any special notice.
