# Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile/Volume 4/Book 8/Chapter 2

CHAP. II.
Reception at Tcherkin by Ozoro Esther, &c. — Hunting of the Elephant, Rhinoceros, and Buffalo.
THE impatient Welleta Yasous would only give me time to see my quadrant and other instruments safely stowed, but hurried me through a very narrow and crooked path up the side of the mountain, at every turn of which was placed a great rock or stone, the station for musquets to enfilade the different stages of the road below, where it was strait for any distance. We at last reached the outer court, where we found the chamberlain Ammonios, whom Welleta Yasous had spoken of as being still at Gondar; but this did not surprise me, as he told me at the tent that Ayto Confu was arrived. I saw here a great many of my old acquaintance whom I had known at Ozoro Esther's house at ​Gondar, and who all welcomed me with the greatest demonstrations of joy, as if I had come from a long journey.
I was then taken to an inner apartment, where, to my great surprise, instead of Ayto Confu, I saw his mother, Ozoro Esther, sitting on a couch, and at her feet the secretary's daughter, the beautiful Tecla Mariam; and, soon after, the secretary himself, and several others belonging to the court. After having made a profound obeisance, "Ozoro Esther, said I, I cannot speak for surprise. What is the meaning of your having left Gondar to come into this wilderness? As for Tecla Mariam, I am not surprised at seeing her; I know she at any time would rather die than leave you; but that you have both come hither without Ayto Confu, and in so short a time, is what I cannot comprehend" — "There is nothing so strange in this, replied Ozoro Esther; the troops of Begemder have taken away my husband, Ras Michael, God knows where; and, therefore, being now a single woman, I am resolved to go to Jerusalem to pray for my husband, and to die there, and be buried in the Holy Sepulchre. You would not stay with us, so we are going with you. Is there any thing surprising in all this ?"
"But tell me truly, says Tecla Mariam, you that know every thing, while peeping and poring through these long glasses, did not you learn by the stars that we were to meet you here ?"---"Madam, answered I, if there was one liar in the firmament that had announced to me such agreeable news, I should have relapsed into the old idolatry of this country, and worshipped that star for the rest of my life." Breakfast now came in; the conversation took a very lively turn, and from the secretary I learned that the matter flood ​thus: The king, restoring the villages to the Iteghe, according to the stipulation of his last treaty with Powussen, thought that he might so far infringe upon it, from gratitude to Ras Michael, as to give part of the number to Ozoro Esther, the Iteghe's daughter; and Ayto Confu, going to Tcherkin to hunt, he took his mother along with him to put her in possession; for the Iteghe's people were not lambs, nor did they pay much regard to the orders of the king, nor to that of the Iteghe their mistress, at all times, farther than suited their own convenience.
We now wanted only the presence of Ayto Confu to make our happiness complete; he came about four, and with him Ayto Engedan, and a great company. There was nothing but rejoicing on all sides. Seven ladies, relations and companions of Ozoro Esther, came with Ayto Confu; and I confess this to have been one of the happiest moments of my life. I quite forgot the disastrous journey I had before me, and all the dangers that awaited me, I began even to regret being so far in my way to leave Abyssinia for ever. We learned from Ayto Confu, that it had been reported at Gondar that we had been murdered by the peasants of Sennaar, but the contrary was soon known. However, Engedan and he had set the lesser village on fire in their passage, and laid a contribution of eleven ounces of gold upon the two larger.
Ayto Confu's house at Tcherkin is built on the edge of a precipice which takes its name from the mountain Amba Tcherkin. It is built all with cane very artificially, the outer wall being composed of fascines of canes, so neatly joined together as not to be penetrated by rain or wind. ​The entry is from the south side of it, very crooked and difficult, half way up the rock. On the east, is a very plentiful spring, which furnishes the house with excellent water. Yet, after all, this house, though inaccessible, is not defensible, and affords very little safety to its master; for the Shangalla, with flax, or any thing combustible, tied to the point of their arrows, would easily set it on fire if they once approached it; and the Abyssinians with guns could as easily destroy it, as, on such occasions, they wrap their balls in cotton wads. The in side of the state-rooms were hung with long stripes of carpeting, and the floors covered with the same.
There is great plenty of game of every sort about Tcherkin; elephants, rhinoceroses, and a great number of buffaloes, which differ nothing in form from the buffaloes of Europe or of Egypt, but very much in temper and disposition. They are fierce, rash, and fearless of danger; and contrary to the practice of any other creature not carnivorous, they attack the traveller and the hunter equally, and it requires address to escape from them. They seem to be, of all others, the creature the most given to ease and indulgence. They lie under the most shady trees, near large pools of water, of which they make constant use, and sleep soundly all the day long. The flesh of the female is very good when fat, but that of the male, hard, lean, and disagreeable. Their horns are used in various manners by the turners, in which craft the Abyssinians are very expert. In the woods there are many civet cats, but they know not the use of them, nor how to extract the civet. The Mahometans only are possessed of this art. ​Though we were all happy to our wish in this enchanted mountain, the active spirit of Ayto Confu could not rest; he was come to hunt the elephant, and hunt him he would. All those that understood any thing of this exercise had assembled from a great distance to meet Ayto Confu at Tcherkin. He and Engedan, from the moment they arrived, had been overlooking, from the precipice, their servants training and managing their horses in the market-place below. Great bunches of the finest canes had been brought from Kuara for javelins; and the whole house was employed in fitting heads to them in the most advantageous manner. For my part, tho' I should have been very well contented to have remained where I was, yet the preparations for sport of so noble a kind roused my spirits, and made me desirous to join in it. On the other hand, the ladies all declared, that they thought, by leaving them, we were devoting them to death or slavery, as they did not doubt, if the Shangalla missed us, they would come forward to the mountain and slay them all. But a sufficient garrison was left under Azage Kyrillos, and Billetana Gueta Ammonios; and we were well assured that the Shangalla, being informed we were out, and armed, and knowing our numbers, would take care to keep close in their thickets far out of our way.
On the 6th, an hour before day, after a hearty breakfast, we mounted on horseback, to the number of about thirty belonging to Ayto Confu. But there was another body, both of horse and foot, which made hunting the elephant their particular business. These men dwell constantly in the woods, and know very little the use of bread, living entirely upon the flesh of the beasts they kill, chiefly that of the elephant or rhinoceros. They are exceedingly thin, ​light, and agile, both on horseback and foot; are very swarthy, though few of them black; none of them woolly-headed, and all of them have European features. They are called Agageer, a name of their profession, not of their nation, which comes from the word Agar, and signifies to hough or ham-string with a sharp weapon. More properly it means, indeed, the cutting the tendon of the heel, and is a characteristic of the manner in which they kill the elephant, which is shortly as follows:—Two men, absolutely naked, without any rag or covering at all about them, get on horseback; this precaution is from fear of being laid hold of by the trees or bushes, in making their escape from a very watchful enemy. One of these riders sits upon the back of the horse, sometimes with a saddle, and sometimes without one, with only a switch or short stick in one hand, carefully managing the bridle with the other; behind him sits his companion, who has no other arms but a broad-sword, such as is used by the Sclavonians, and which is brought from Trieste. His left hand is employed grasping the sword by the handle, and about fourteen inches of the blade is covered with whip-cord. This part he takes in his right hand, without any danger of being hurt by it; and, though the edges of the lower part of the sword are as sharp as a razor, he carries it without a scabbard.
As soon as the elephant is found feeding, the horseman rides before him as near his face as possible; or, if he flies, crosses him in all directions, crying out, "I am such a man and such a man; this is my horse, that has such a name; I killed your father in such a place, and your grandfather in such another place, and I am now come to kill you; you are but an ass in comparison of them."
who, chafed and angry at hearing the noise immediately before him, seeks to seize him with his trunk or proboscis, and, intent upon this, follows the horse everywhere, turning and turning round with him, neglectful of making his escape by running straight forward, in which consists his only safety. After having made him turn once or twice in pursuit of the horse, the horseman rides close up along-side of him, and drops his companion just behind on the off side; and while he engages the elephant's attention upon the horse, the footman behind gives him a drawn stroke just above the heel, or what in man is called the tendon of Achilles. This is the critical moment; the horseman immediately wheels round, and takes his companion up behind him, and rides off full speed after the rest of the herd, if they have started more than one; and sometimes an expert Agageer will kill three out of one herd. If the sword is good, and the man not afraid, the tendon is commonly entirely separated; and if it is not cut through, it is generally so far divided, that the animal, with the stress he puts upon it, breaks the remaining part asunder. In either case, he remains incapable of advancing a step, till the horseman returning, or his companions coming up, pierce him through with javelins and lances; he then falls to the ground, and expires with the loss of blood.
The Agageer nearest me prefently lamed his elephant, and left him standing. Ayto Engedan, Ayto Confu, Guebra Mariam, and several others, fixed their spears in the other, before the Agageer had cut his tendons. My Agageer, however, having wounded the first elephant, failed in the pursuit of the second, and, being close upon him at ​entering the wood, he received a violent blow from a branch of a tree which the elephant had bent by his weight, and, after passing, allowed it to replace itself, when it knocked down both the riders, and very much hurt the horse. This, indeed, is the great danger in elephant-hunting; for some of the trees, that are dry and short, break, by the violent pressure of so immense a body moving so rapidly, and fall upon the pursuers, or across the roads. But the greatest number of these trees, being of a succulent quality, they bend without breaking, and return quickly to their former position, when they strike both horse and man so violently, that they often beat them to pieces, and scatter them upon the plain. Dextrous, too, as the riders are, the elephant sometimes reaches them with his trunk, with which he dashes the horse against the ground, and then sets his feet upon him, till he tears him limb from limb with his proboscis; a great many hunters die this way. Besides this, the soil, at this time of the year, is split into deep chasms, or cavities, by the heat of the sun, so that nothing can be more dangerous than the riding.
The elephant once slain, they cut the whole flesh off his bones into thongs, like the reins of a bridle, and hang these, like festoons, upon the branches of trees, till they become perfectly dry, without salt, and they then lay them by for their provision in the season of the rains.
I need say nothing of the figure of the elephant, his form is known, and anecdotes of his life and character are to be found everywhere. But his description, at length, is given, with his usual accuracy and elegance, by that great master of natural history the Count de Buffon, my most venerable, ​learned, and amiable friend, the Pliny of Europe, and the true portrait of what a man of learning and fashion should be.
I shall only take upon me to resolve a difficulty which he seems to have had,—for what use the teeth of the elephant, and the horns of the rhinoceros, were intended. He, with reason, explodes the vulgar prejudice, that these arms were given them by Nature to fight with each other. He asks very properly, What can be the ground of that animosity? neither of them are carnivorous; they do not couple together, therefore are not rivals in love; and, as for food, the vast forests they inhabit furnish them with an abundant and everlasting store.
But neither the elephant nor rhinoceros eat grass. The sheep, goats, horses, cattle, and all the beasts of the country, live upon branches of trees. There are, in every part of these immense forests, trees of a soft, succulent substance, full of pith. These are the principal food of the elephant and rhinoceros. They first eat the tops of these leaves and branches; they then, with their horns or teeth, begin as near to the root as they can, and rip, or cut the more woody part, or trunks of these, up to where they were eaten before, till they fall in so many pliable pieces of the size of laths. After this, they take all these in their monstrous mouths, and twist them round as we could do the leaves of a lettuce. The vestiges of this process, in its different stages, we saw every day throughout the forest; and the horns of the rhinoceros, and teeth of the elephant, are often found broken, when their gluttony leads them to attempt too large or firm a tree.
What I relate of the young elephant contains difficulties of another kind; though I am very well persuaded some will swallow it easily, who cannot digest the raw flesh. In both instances I adhere strictly to the truth; and I beg leave to assure those scrupulous readers, that if they knew their
The Agageers having procured as much meat as would maintain them a long time, could not be persuaded to continue the hunting any longer. Part of them remained with the she-elephant, which seemed to be the fattest; tho' the one they killed first was by much the most valuable, on account of its long teeth. It was still alive, nor did it seem an easy operation to kill it, without the assistance of our Agageers, even though it was totally helpless, except with its trunk.
We sought about for the buffaloes and rhinoceroses; but though there was plenty of both in the neighbourhood, we could not find them; our noise and shooting in the morning having probably scared them away. One rhinoceros only was seen by a servant. We returned in the evening to a great fire, and lay all night under the shade of trees. Here we saw them separate the great teeth of the elephant from the head, by roasting the jaw-bones on the fire, till the lower, thin, and hollow part of the teeth
The next morning we were on horseback by the dawn of day in search of the rhinoceros, many of which we had heard make a very deep groan and cry as the morning approached; several of the Agageers then joined us, and after we had searched about an hour in the very thickest part of the wood, one of them rushed out with great violence, crossing the plain towards a wood of canes that was about two miles distance. But though he ran, or rather trotted, with surprising speed, considering his bulk, he was, in a very little time, transfixed with thirty or forty javelins; which so confounded him, that he left his purpose of going to the wood, and ran into a deep hole, ditch, or ravine, a cul de sac, without outlet, breaking above a dozen of the javelins as he entered. Here we thought he was caught as in a trap, for he had scarce room to turn; when a servant, who had a gun, standing directly over him, fired at his head, and the animal fell immediately, to all appearance dead. All those on foot now jumped in with their knives to cut him up, and they had scarce begun, when the animal recovered so far as to rise upon his knees; happy then was the man that escaped first; and had not one of the Agageers, who was himself engaged in the ravine, cut the sinew of the hind-leg as he was retreating, there would have been a very sorrowful account of the foot-hunters that day.
After having dispatched him, I was curious to see what wound the shot had given, which had operated so violently upon so huge an animal; and I doubted not it was in the brain. But it had struck him nowhere but upon the point of ​the foremost horn, of which it had carried off above an inch; and this occasioned a concussion that had stunned him for a minute, till the bleeding had recovered him. I preserved the horn from curiosity, and have it now by me. I saw evidently the ball had touched no other part of the beast.
While we were busy with the rhinoceros, Ammonios joined us. A message from the king had carried away Azage Kyrillos the secretary. Two other messengers had arrived from the queen, one to Ayto Confu, and another to Ozoro Esther; and it was Ozoro Esther's commands to her son, to leave the hunting and return. There was no remedy but to obey; Ammonios, however, wanted to have his part of the hunting; and the country people told us, that multitudes of buffaloes were to be found a little to the westward, where there were large trees and standing pools of water. We agreed then to hunt homeward, without being over-solicitous about returning early.
We had not gone far before a wild boar arose between me and Ayto Engedan, which I immediately killed with my javelin. Before he, on his horse, came up to it, another of its companions shared the same fate about a quarter of an hour after. This was the sport I had been many years used to in Barbary, and was infinitely more dextrous at it than any of the present company; this put me more upon a par with my companions, who had not failed to laugh at me, upon my horse's refusal to carry me near either to the ele​phant or rhinoceros. Nobody would touch the carcase of the boar after it was dead, being an animal which is considered as unclean.
Ammonios was a man of approved courage and conduct, and had been in all the wars of Ras Michael, and was placed about Ayto Confu, to lead the troops, curb the presumption, and check the impetuosity of that youthful warrior. He was tall, and aukwardly made; slow in speech and motion, so much as even to excite ridicule; about sixty years of age, and more corpulent than the Abyssinians generally are; in a word, as pedantic and grave in his manner as it is possible to express. He spent his whole leisure time in reading the scripture, nor did he willingly discourse of any thing else. He had been bred a foot-soldier; and, though he rode as well as many of the Abyssinians, yet, having long stirrup-leathers, with iron rings at the end of them, into which he put his naked toe only, instead of stirrups, he had no strength or agility on horseback, nor was his bridle such as could command his horse to stop, or wind and turn sharply among trees, though he might make a tolerable figure on a plain.
A Boar, roused on our right, had wounded a horse and a footman of Ayto Confu, and then escaped. Two buffaloes were found by those on the right, one of which wounded a horse likewise. Ayto Confu, Engedan, Guebra Mariam, and myself, killed the other with equal share of merit, without being in any sort of danger. All this was in little more than an hour, when our sport seemed to be at the best; our horses were considerably blown, not tired, and though we were beating homewards, still we were looking very ​keenly for more game. Ammonios was on the left among the bushes, and some large, beautiful, tall spreading-trees, close on the banks of the river Bedowi, which stands there in pools. Whether the buffalo found Ammonios, or Ammonios the buffalo, is what we could never get him to explain to us; but he had wounded the beast slightly in the buttock, which, in return, had gored his horse, and thrown both him and it to the ground. Luckily, however, his cloak had fallen off, which the buffalo tore in pieces, and employed himself for a minute with that and with the horse, but then left them, and followed the man as soon as he saw him rise and run. Ammonios got behind one large tree, and from that to another still larger. The buffalo turned very aukwardly, but kept close in pursuit; and there was no doubt he would have worn our friend out, who was not used to such quick motion. Ayto Engedan, who was near him, and might have assisted him, was laughing, ready to die at the droll figure a man of Ammonios's grave carriage made, running and skipping about naked, with a swiftness he had never practised all his life before; and Engedan continued calling to Confu to partake of the diversion.
The moment I heard his repeated cries, I galloped out of the bushes to the place where he was, and could not help laughing at the ridiculous figure of our friend, very attentive to the beast's motions, which seemed to dodge with great address, and keep to his adversary with the utmost obstinacy. As soon as Engedan saw me, he cried, "Yagoube! for the love of Christ! for the love of the blessed Virgin! don't interfere till Confu comes up." Confu immediately arrived, and laughed more than Engedan, but did not of
In the mean time, the buffalo, mortally wounded, seeing his enemy had escaped, kept his eyes intent upon us, who were about forty yards from him, walking backwards towards us, with intent to turn suddenly upon the nearest horse; when Ayto Confu ordered two men with guns to shoot him through the head, and he instantly fell. The two we first killed were females; this last was a bull, and one of the largest, confessedly, that had ever been seen. Though not fat, I guess he weighed nearer fifty than forty stone. His horns from the root, following the line of their curve, were about fifty-two inches, and nearly nine where thickest in the circumference. They were flat, not round. Ayto Confu ordered the head to be cut off, and cleared of its flesh, so that the horns and skeleton of the head only remained; this he hung up in his great hall among the probosces of elephants, and horns of rhinoceroses, with this inscription in his own language, "Yogoube the Kipt killed this upon the Bedowi."
We were now within sight of home, to which we went straight without further hunting. Neither the ridicule nor the condolence of the young men could force one word from Ammonios; only when I asked him whether or not he was hurt, he answered from the scripture, "He that loveth danger shall perish in it." But at night Ozoro Esther, either really or feignedly, expressing herself as displeased with her son Ayto Confu, Ammonios, who loved the young man sincerely, could not bear to be the occasion of this; so
The evening of the day whereon we set out to hunt, some men arrived from Ras el Feel, sent by Yasine, with camels for our baggage, nothing but mules being used at Tcherkin. They brought word, that the Shangalla were down near the Tacazzé, so that now was the time to pass without fear; that Abd el Jeleel, the former Shum of Ras el Feel, Yasine's mortal enemy, had been seen lurking in the country near Sancaho; but as he had only four men, and was himself a known coward, it was not probable he would attempt any thing against us, though it would be always better that we keep on our guard.
Tcherkin has a market on Saturdays, in which raw cotton, cattle, honey, and coarse cotton cloths are sold. The Shangalla formerly molested Tcherkin greatly, but for thirty years past they had done little damage. The small-pox raged so violently for a number of years among them, that it has greatly diminished their numbers, and consequently their power of troubling their neighbours. At Tcherkin we saw a prodigious quantity of black scorpions, of a very small kind, seldom in the houses, but chiefly hid under stones; several of our people were stung by them, but no other mischief followed, but a small swelling, and a complaint of cold in the part, which went away in a few hours.
From the descent of Moura, after leaving Debra Tzai, and Koscam, all was thick woods till we arrived at Tcherkin; the roads very rugged and broken, but the weather was exceedingly pleasant; for though the thermometer was sometimes at 115°, it was always cool in the shade; and by the fide of every river there was a fresh gentle breeze from N. E. especially at mid-day. The mornings were always calm, or with little wind at N. E. It regularly changed about nine to N. W. and then fell calm. About four in the afternoon it generally was at well or near it; but two currents were constantly distinguished at night; the lower N. E. veering easterly towards morning; while the white small clouds very thin and high, coming very rapidly from the S. W. shewed the direction and strength of the higher current. The mornings and nights were cloudy from the the first of January, but the days perfectly serene.
On Wednesday the eighth of January, having rectified my quadrant with great attention, I found the latitude of Tcherkin, by a meridian altitude of the fun, to be 13° 7' 30" N.; and taking a mean between that and the meridian altitude of eleven different stars, the following night, I found the true latitude of Tcherkin Aniba to be 13° 7' 35" north. But though from that time I was ready to depart, I could not possibly get disengaged from my friends, but by a composition, which was, that I should stay till the 15th, the day before Ozoro Esther and her company were to fet out on their return to Gondar; and that they, on their part, should suffer me to depart on that day, without further persuasion, or throwing any obstacle whatever in my way. The king had recommended to them this fort of agreement, if I was obstinate, and this being settled, we abandoned ourselves to mirth and festivity.