# Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 3/Book 5/Chapter 6

CHAP. VI.
Journey from Siré to Addergey, and Transactions there.
The province of Siré, properly so called, reaches from Axum to the Tacazzé. The town of Sirè is situated on the brink of a very steep, narrow valley, and through this the road lies which is almost impassable. In the midst of this valley runs a brook bordered with palm-trees, some of which are grown to a considerable size, but bear no fruit; they were the first we had seen in Abyssinia.
The town of Sirè is larger than that of Axum; it is in form of a half-moon fronting the plain, but its greatest breadth is at the west end; all the houses are of clay, and thatched; the roofs are in form of cones, as, indeed, are all in Abyssinia. Sirè is famous for a manufacture of coarse cotton cloths, which pass for current money through all the province of Tigré, and are valued at a drachm, the tenth-part of a wakea of gold, or near the value of an imperial dollar each; their breadth is a yard and quarter. Besides ​these, beads, needles, cohol, and incense at times only, are considered as money. The articles depend greatly on chance, which or whether any are current for the time or not; but the latter is often not demanded; and, for the first, there are modes and fashions among these barbarians, and all, except those of a certain colour and form, are useless. We have already spoken of the fashions, such as we have found them, at Kella, and we heard they were the same here at Siré. But these people were not of a humour to buy and sell with us. They were not perfectly satisfied that Michael was alive, and waited only a confirmation of the news of his defeat, to make their own terms with all strangers unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. On the other hand, we were in possession of superior force, and, knowing their inclinations, we treated them pretty much in the manner they would have done us.
On the 22d of January, at night, I observed the passage of many stars over the meridian, and, after that, of the sun on the 23d at noon; taking a medium of all observations, I determined the latitude of Siré to be 14° 4′ 35″ north. The same evening, I observed an immersion of the first satellite of Jupiter, by which I concluded its longitude to be 38° 0′ 15″ east of the meridian of Greenwich.
Although Sirè is situated in one of the finest countries in the world, like other places it has its inconveniencies. Putrid fevers, of the very worst kind, are almost constant here; and there did then actually reign a species of these that swept away a number of people daily. I did not think the behaviour of the inhabitants of this province to me was such as required my exposing myself to the infection for ​the sake of relieving them; I, therefore, left the fever and them to settle accounts together, without anywise interfering.
At Siré we heard the good news that Ras Michael, on the 10th of this month, had come up with Fasil at Fagitta, and entirely dispersed his army, after killing 10,000 men. This account, though not confirmed by any authority, struck all the mutinous of this province with awe; and every man returned to his duty for fear of incurring the displeasure of this severe governor, which they well knew would instantly be followed by more than an adequate portion of vengeance, especially against those that had not accompanied him to the field.
On the 24th, at seven o'clock in the morning, we struck our tent at Siré, and passed through a vast plain. All this day we could discern no mountains, as far as eye could reach, but only some few detached hills, standing separate on the plain, covered with high grass, which they were then burning, to produce new with the first rains. The country to the north is altogether flat, and perfectly open; and though we could not discover one village this day, yet it seemed to be well-inhabited, from the many people we saw on different parts of the plain, some at harvest, and some herding their cattle. The villages were probably concealed from us on the other side of the hills.
At four o'clock, we alighted at Maisbinni at the bottom of a high, steep, bare cliff of red marble, bordering on purple, and very hard. Behind this is the small village of Maisbinni; and, on the south, another still higher hill, ​whose top runs in an even ridge like a wall. At the bottom of this cliff, where our tent was pitched, the small rivulet Maisbinni rises, which, gentle and quiet as it then was, runs very violently in winter, first north from its source, and then winding to S.W. it falls in several cataracts, near a hundred feet high, into a narrow valley, through which it makes its way into the Tacazzé. Maisbinni, for wild and rude beauties, may compare with any place we had ever seen.
This day was the first cloudy one we had met with, or observed this year. The sun was covered for several hours, which announced our being near the large river Tacazzè.
On the 25th, at seven in the morning, leaving Maisbinni, we continued on our road, shaded with trees of many different kinds. At half an hour after eight we passed the river, which at this place runs west; our road this day was thro' the same plain as yesterday, but broken and full of holes. At ten o'clock we rested in a large plain called Dagashaha; a hill in form of a cone stood single about two miles north from us; a thin straggling wood was to the S.E; and the water, rising in spungy, boggy, and dirty ground, was very indifferent; it lay to the west of us.
Dagashaha is a bleak and disagreeable quarter; but the mountain itself, being seen far off, was of great use to us in adjusting our bearings; the rather that, taking our departure from Dagashaha, we came immediately in sight of the high mountain of Samen, where Lamalmon, one of that ridge, is by much the most conspicuous; and over this lies the passage, or high road, to Gondar. We likewise see the rugged, hilly country of Salent, adjoining to the foot of the ​mountains of Samen. We observed no villages this day from Maisbinni to Dagashaha; nor did we discern, in the face of the country, any signs of culture or marks of great population. We were, indeed, upon the frontiers of two provinces which had for many years been at war.
On the 26th, at six o'clock in the morning, we left Dagashaha. Our road was through a plain and level country, but, to appearance, desolated and uninhabited, being overgrown with high bent grass and bushes, as also destitute of water. We passed the solitary village Adega, three miles on our left, the only one we had seen. At eight o'clock we came to the brink of a prodigious valley, in the bottom of which runs the Tacazzè, next to the Nile the largest river in Upper Abyssinia. It rises in Angot (at least its principal branch) in a plain champain country, about 200 miles S.E. of Gondar, near a spot called Souami Midre. It has three spring heads, or sources, like the Nile; near it is the small village Gourri.
Angot is now in possession of the Galla, whose chief, Guangoul, is the head of the western Galla, once the most formidable invader of Abyssinia. The other branch of the Tacazzé rises in the frontiers of Begemder, near Dabuco; whence, running between Gouliou, Lasta, and Belessen, it joins with the Angot branch, and becomes the boundary between Tigré and the other great division of the country called Amhara. This division arises from language only, for the Tacazzé passes nowhere near the province of Amhara; only all to the east of the Tacazzè is, in this general way of dividing the country, called Tigrè, and all to the ​westward, from the Tacazzé to the Nile, Gojam, and the Agows, is called Amhara, because the language of that province is there spoken, and not that of Tigré or Geez. But I would have my reader on his guard against the belief that no languages but these two are spoken in these divisions; many different dialects are spoken in little districts in both, and, in some of them, neither the language of Tigrè nor that of Amhara is understood.
I have already sufficiently dwelt upon the ancient history, the names, manners, and people that inhabit the banks of this river. It was the Siris (or river of the dog-star) whilst that negro, uncivilized people, the Cushites of the island of Meroë, resided upon its banks. It was then called the Tannush Abay, or the lesser of two rivers that swelled with the tropical rains, which was the name the peasants, or unlearned, gave it, from comparison with the Nile. It was the Tacazzè in Derkin or the dwelling of the Taka, before it joined the Nile in Beja, and it was the Astaboras of those of the ancients that took the Nile for the Siris. It is now the Atbara, giving its name to that peninsula, which it incloses on the east as the Nile does on the west, and which was formerly the island of Meroë; but it never was the Tekesel, as authors have called it, deriving the name from the Ethiopic word Taka, which undoubtedly signifies, fear, terror, distress, or sadness; I mean, this was never the derivation of its name. Far from this idea, our Tacazzé is one of the pleasantest rivers in the world, shaded with fine lofty trees, its banks covered with bushes inferior in fragrance to no garden in the universe; its stream is the most limpid, its water excellent, and full of good fish of great variety, as its coverts are of all sorts of game.
At half an hour past eight we began a gradual descent, at first easily enough, till we crossed the small brook called Maitemquet, or, the water of baptism. We then began to descend very rapidly in a narrow path, winding along the side of the mountain, all shaded with lofty timber-trees of great beauty. About three miles further we came to the edge of the stream at the principal ford of the Tacazzé, which is very firm and good; the bottom consists of small pebbles, without either sand or large stones. The river here at this time was fully 200 yards broad, the water perfectly clear, and running very swiftly; it was about three feet deep. This was the dry ​season of the year, when most rivers in Abyssinia ran now no more.
In the middle of the stream we met a deserter from Ras Michael's army, with his firelock upon his shoulder, driving before him two miserable girls about ten years old, stark-naked, and almost famished to death, the part of the booty which had fallen to his share in laying waste the country of Maitsha, after the battle. We asked him of the truth of this news, but he would give us no satisfaction; sometimes he said there had been a battle, sometimes none. He apparently had some distrust, that one or other of the facts, being allowed to be true, might determine us as to some design we might have upon him and his booty. He had not, in my eyes, the air of a conqueror, but rather of a coward that had sneaked away, and stolen these two miserable wretches he had with him. I asked where Michael was? If at Buré? where, upon defeat of Fasil, he naturally would be. He said, No; he was at Ibaba, the capital of Maitsha; and this gave us no light, it being the place he would go to before, while detachments of his army might be employed in burning and laying waste the country of the enemy he had determined to ruin, rather than return to it some time after a battle. At last we were obliged to leave him. I gave him some flour and tobacco, both which he took very thankfully; but further intelligence he would not give.
The banks of the Tacazzé are all covered, at the water's edge, with tamarisks; behind which grow high and straight trees, that seem to have gained additional strength from having often resisted the violence of the river. Few of these ​ever lose their leaves, but are either covered with fruit, flower, or foliage the whole year; indeed, abundantly with all three during the six months fair weather. The Bohabab, indeed, called, in the Amharic language, Dooma, loses ts leaf; it is the largest tree in Abyssinia; the trunk is never high; it diminishes very regularly from the top to the bottom, but not beautifully; it has the appearance of a large cannon, and puts out a multitude of strong branches, which do not fall low, or nearly horizontal, but follow a direction, making all of them smaller angles than that of 45°. The fruit is of the shape of a melon, rather longer for its thickness; within are black seeds in each of the cells, into which it is divided, and round them a white substance, very like fine sugar, which is sweet, with a small degree of very pleasant acid. I never saw it either in leaf or flower; the fruit hang dry upon the branches when they are deprived of both. The wood of this tree is soft and spungy, and of no use. The wild bees perforate the trunk, and lodge their honey in the holes made in it; and this honey is preferred to any other in Abyssinia.
Beautiful and pleasant, however, as this river is, like every thing created, it has its disadvantages. From the falling of the first rains in March till November it is death to sleep in the country adjoining to it, both within and without its banks; the whole inhabitants retire and live in villages on the top of the neighbouring mountains; and these are all robbers and assassins, who descend from their habitations on the heights to lie in wait for, and plunder the travellers that pass. Notwithstanding great pains have been taken by Michael, his son, and grandson, governors of ​Tigré and Siré, this passage had never been so far cleared but, every month, people are cut off.
The plenty of fish in this river occasions more than an ordinary number of crocodiles to resort hither. These are so daring and fearless, that when the river swells, so as to be passable only by people upon rafts, or skins blown up with wind, they are frequently carried off by these voracious and vigilant animals. There are also many hippopotami, which, in this country, are called Gomari. I never saw any of these in the Tacazzè; but at night we heard them snort, or groan, in many parts of the river near us. There are also vast multitudes of lions and hyænas in all these thickets. We were very much disturbed by them all night. The smell of our mules and horses had drawn them in numbers about our tent, but they did us no further harm, except obliging us to watch. I found the latitude of the ford, by many observations, the night of the 26th, taking a medium of them all, to be 13° 42′ 45″ north.
The river Tacazzè is, as I have already said, the boundary of the province of Sirè. We now entered that of Samen, which was hostile to us, being commanded by Ayto Tesfos, who, since the murder of Joas, had never laid down his arms, nor acknowledged his neighbour, Michael, as Ras, nor Hannes the king, last made, as sovereign. He had remained on the top of a high rock called the Jews Rock, about eight miles from the ford. For these reasons, as well as that it was the most agreeable spot we had ever yet seen, we left our station on the Tacazzè with great regret.
We saw many people feeding cattle on the plain, and we again opened a market for flour and other provisions, which we procured in barter for cohol, incense, and beads. None but the young women appeared. They were of a lighter colour, taller, and in general more beautiful than those at Kella. Their noses seemed flatter than those of the Abyssinians we had yet feen. Perhaps the climate here was beginning that feature so conspicuous in the negroes in general, and particularly of those in this country called Shangalla, from whose country these people are not distant above two days journey. They seemed inclined to be very hard in all bargains but those of one kind, in which they were most reasonable and liberal. They all agreed, that these favours ought to be given and not sold, and that all coyness ​and courtship was but loss of time, which always might be employed better to the satisfaction of both. These people are less gay than those at Kella, and their conversation more rough and peremptory. They understood both the Tigrè language and Amharic, although we supposed it was in compliance to us that they conversed chiefly in the former.
Our tent was pitched at the head of Ingerohha, on the north of the plain of Tabulaqué. This river rises among the rocks at the bottom of a little eminence, in a small stream, which, from its source, runs very swiftly, and the water is warm. The peasants told us, that, in winter, in time of the rains, it became hot, and smoked. It was in taste, however, good; nor did we perceive any kind of mineral in it. Tabulaqué, Anderassa, and Mentesegla belong to the Shum of Addergey, and the viceroy of Samen, Ayto Tesfos. The large town of Hauza is about eight miles south-and-by-east of this.
On the 28th, at forty minutes past six o'clock in the morning, we continued our journey; and, at half past seven, saw the small village Motecha on the top of the mountain, half a mile south from us. At eight, we crossed the river Aira; and, at half past eight, the river Tabul, the boundary of the district of Tabulaqué thick covered with wood, and especially a sort of cane, or bamboo, solid within, called there Shemale, which is used in making shafts for javelins, or light darts thrown from the hand, either on foot or on horseback, at hunting or in war.
We alighted on the side of Anderassa, rather a small stream, and which had now ceased running, but which ​gives the name to the district through which we were passing. Its water is muddy and ill-tasted, and falls into the Tacazzè, as do all the rivers we had yet passed. Dagashaha bears N.N.E. from this station. A great dew fell this night; the first we had yet observed.
The 29th, at six o'clock in the morning, we continued our journey from Anderassa, through thick woods of small trees, quite overgrown, and covered with wild oats, reeds, and long grass, so that it was very difficult to find a path through them. We were not without considerable apprehension, from our nearness to the Shangalla, who were but two days journey distant from us to the W.N.W. and had frequently made excursions to the wild country where we now were. Hauza was upon a mountain south from us; after travelling along the edge of a hill, with the river on our left hand, we crossed it: it is called the Bowiha, and is the largest we had lately seen.
At nine o'clock we encamped upon the small river Angari, that gives its name to a district which begins at the Bowiha where Anderassa ends. The river Angari is much smaller than the Bowiha: it rises to the westward in a plain near Montesegla; after running half a mile, it falls down a steep precipice into a valley, then turns to the N.E. and, after a course of two miles and a half farther, joins the Bowiha a little above the ford.
The small village Angari lies about two miles S.S.W. on the top of a hill. Hauza (which seems a large town formed by a collection of many villages) is six miles south, pleasantly situated among a variety of mountains, all of dif​ferent and extraordinary shapes; some are straight like columns, and some sharp in the point, and broad in the base, like pyramids and obelisks, and some like cones. All these, for the most part inaccessible, unless with pain and danger to those that know the paths, are places of refuge and safety in time of war, and are agreeably separated from each other by small plains producing grain. Some of these, however, have at the top water and small flats that can be sown, sufficient to maintain a number of men, independent of what is doing below them. Hauza signifies delight, or pleasure, and, probably, such a situation of the country has given the name to it. It is chiefly inhabited by Mahometan merchants, is the entre-pot between Masuah and Gondar, and there are here people of very considerable substance.
The 30th, at seven in the morning, we left Angari, keeping along the side of the river. We then ascended a high hill covered with grass and trees, through a very difficult and steep road; which ending, we came to a small and agreeable plain, with pleasant hills on each side; this is called Mentesegla. At half past seven we were in the middle of three villages of the same name, two to the right and one on the left, about half a mile distance. At half past nine we passed a small river called Daracoy, which serves as the boundary between Addergey and this small district Mentesegla. At a quarter past ten, we incamped at Addergey, near a small rivulet called Mai-Lumi, the river of limes, or lemons, in a plain scarce a mile square, surrounded on each side with very thick wood in form of an amphitheatre. Above this wood, are bare, rugged, and barren mountains. Midway in the cliff is a miserable village, that seems rather to hang than to stand there, scarce ​a yard of level ground being before it to hinder its inhabitants from falling down the precipice. The wood is full of lemons and wild citrons, from which it acquires its name. Before the tent, to the westward, was a very deep valley, which terminated this little plain in a tremendous precipice.
The river Mai-Lumi, rising above the village, falls into the wood, and there it divides itself in two; one branch surrounds the north of the plain, the other the south, and falls down a rock on each side of the valley, where they unite, and, after having run about a quarter of a mile further, are precipitated into a cataract of 150 feet high, and run in a direction south-west into the Tacazzé. The river Mai-Lumi was, at this time, but small, although it is violent in winter; beyond this valley are five hills, and on the top of each is a village. The Shum resides in the one that is in the middle. He bade us a seeming hearty welcome, but had malice in his heart against us, and only waited to know for certainty if it was a proper time to gratify his avarice. A report was spread about with great confidence, that Ras Michael had been defeated by Fasil; that Gondar had rebelled, and Woggora was all in arms; so that it was certain loss of life to attempt the passage of Lamalmon.
For our part, we conceived this story to be without foundation, and that, on the contrary, the news were true which we had heard at Siré and Adowa, viz. That Michael was victorious, and Fasil beaten; and we were, therefore, resolved to abide by this, as well knowing, that, if the contrary had happened, every place between the Tacazzè and Gondar was as fatal to us as any thing we were to meet with on Lamal​mon could be; the change of place made no difference; the dispositions of the people towards Michael and his friends we knew to be the same throughout the kingdom, and that our only safety remained on certain and good news coming from the army, or in the finishing our journey with expedition, before any thing bad happened, or was certainly known.
The hyænas this night devoured one of the best of our mules. They are here in great plenty, and so are lions; the roaring and grumbling of the latter, in the part of the wood nearest our tent, greatly disturbed our beasts, and prevented them from eating their provender. I lengthened the strings of my tent, and placed the beasts between them. The white ropes, and the tremulous motion made by the impression of the wind, frightened the lions from coming near us. I had procured from Janni two small brass bells, such as the mules carry. I had tied these to the storm-strings of the tent, where their noise, no doubt, greatly contributed to our beasts safety from these ravenous, yet cautious animals, so that we never saw them; but the noise they made, and, perhaps, their smell, so terrified the mules, that, in the morning, they were drenched in sweat as if they had been a long journey.
The brutish hyæna was not so to be deterred. I shot one of them dead on the night of the 31st of January, and, on the 2d of February, I fired at another so near, that I was confident of killing him. Whether the balls had fallen out, or that I had really missed him with the first barrel, I know not, but he gave a snarl and a kind of bark upon the first shot, advancing directly upon me as if unhurt. The second
. ​shot, however, took place, and laid him without motion on the ground. Yasine and his men killed another with a pike; and such was their determined coolness, that they stalked round about us with the familiarity of a dog, or any other domestic animal brought up with man.
But we were still more incommoded by a lesser animal, a large, black ant, little less than an inch long, which, coming out from under the ground, demolished our carpets, which they cut all into shreds, and part of the lining of our tent likewise, and every bag or sack they could find. We had first seen them in great numbers at Angari, but here they were intolerable. Their bite causes a considerable inflammation, and the pain is greater than that which arises from the bite of a scorpion; they are called gundan.
On the 1st of February the Shum sent his people to value, as he said, our merchandise, that we might pay custom. Many of the Moors, in our caravan, had left us to go a near way to Hauza. We had at most five or six asses, including those belonging to Yasine. I humoured them so far as to open the cases where were the telescopes and quadrant, or, indeed, rather shewed them open, as they were not shut from the observation I had been making. They could only wonder at things they had never before seen.
On the 2d of February the Shum came himself, and a violent altercation ensued. He insisted upon Michael's defeat: I told him the contrary news were true, and begged him to beware lest it should be told to the Ras upon his return that he had propagated such a falsehood. I told him also we had advice that the Ras's servants were now waiting for us ​at Lamalmon, and insisted upon his suffering us to depart. On the other hand, he threatened to send us to Ayto Tesfos. I answered, "Ayto Tesfos was a friend to Ayto Aylo, under whose protection I was, and a servant to the Iteghé, and was likelier to punish him for using me ill, than to approve of it, but that I would not suffer him to send me either to Ayto Tesfos, or an inch out of the road in which I was going." He said, "That I was mad;" and held a consultation with his people for about half an hour, after which he came in again, seemingly quite another man, and said, he would dispatch us on the morrow, which was the 3d, and would send us that evening some provisions. And, indeed, we now began to be in need, having only flour barely sufficient to make bread for one meal next day. The miserable village on the cliff had nothing to barter with us; and none from the five villages about the Shum had come near us, probably by his order. As he had softened his tone, so did I mine. I gave him a small present, and he went away repeating his promises. But all that evening passed without provision, and all next day without his coming, so we got every thing ready for our departure. Our supper did not prevent our sleeping, as all our provision was gone, and we had tasted nothing all that day since our breakfast.
The country of the Shangalla lies forty miles N.N.W. of this, or rather more westerly. All this district from the Tacazzé is called, in the language of Tigré, Salent, and Talent in Amharic. This probably arises from the name being originally spelled with (Tz), which has occasioned the difference, the one language omitting the first letter, the other the second.
On the 4th of February, at half past nine in the morning, we left Addergey: hunger pressing us, we were prepared to do it earlier, and for this we had been up since five in the morning; but our loss of a mule obliged us, when we packed up our tent, to arrange our baggage differently. While employed at making ready for our departure, which was just in the dawn of day, a hyæna, unseen by any of us, fastened upon one of Yasine's asses, and had almost pulled his tail away. I was busied at gathering the tent-pins into a sack, and had placed my musket and bayonet ready against a tree, as it is at that hour, and the close of the evening, you are always to be on guard against banditti. A boy, who was servant to Yasine, saw the hyæna first, and flew to my musket. Yasine was disjoining the poles of the tent, and, having one half of the largest in his hand, he ran to the assistance of his ass, and in that moment the musket went off, luckily charged with only one ball, which gave Yasine a flesh wound between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. The boy instantly threw down the musket, which had terrified the hyæna and made him let go the ass; but he stood ready to fight Yasine, who, not amusing himself with the choice of weapons, gave him so ​rude a blow with the tent-pole upon his head, that it felled him to the ground; others, with pikes, put an end to his life.
We were then obliged to turn our cares towards the wounded. Yasine's wound was soon seen to be a trifle; besides, he was a man not easily alarmed on such occasions. But the poor ass was not so easily comforted. The stump remained, the tail hanging by a piece of it, which we were obliged to cut off. The next operation was actual cautery; but, as we had made no bread for breakfast, our fire had been early out. We, therefore, were obliged to tie the stump round with whipcord, till we could get fire enough to heat an iron.
What sufficiently marked the voracity of these beasts, the hyænas, was, that the bodies of their dead companions, which we hauled a long way from us, and left there, were almost entirely eaten by the survivors the next morning; and I then observed, for the first time, that the hyæna of this country was a different species from those I had seen in Europe, which had been brought from Asia or America.