Abyssinia — The Country and People 



93 



a great deal of friction between the two 

 tribes. On several occasions, when I 

 was lucky enough to shoot a deer, a 

 Somali and an Abyssinian would enter 

 a good-natured foot race, each with 

 drawn knife, the winner being able to 

 give the finishing cut-throat blow to the 

 animal and thus obtain for his compan- 

 ions fresh meat which the others would 

 not deign to touch. 



The mule caravan was used to carry 

 me through all the known and unknown 

 country from Addis Abeba northwest- 

 erly to Famaka, on the Blue Nile, where 

 at last a white face was seen again — 

 that of one of those solitary young En- 

 glish officers who may be found in so 

 many farawa}' spots doing the empire's 

 hardest work. At Famaka the caravan 

 was dismissed, the men returned to Abys- 

 sinia, and the rest of the journey to 

 Khartum performed in a native boat, 

 which was rowed and pushed down the 

 river 450 miles in thirteen da5's. 



The country which I traversed may 

 be divided, so far as ph3'sical character- 

 istics are concerned, into three parts : 



First, the Somali desert lands, ex- 

 tending from the coast to the neighbor- 

 hood of Gildessa. In this region- water 

 is to be had only by digging holes in 

 the sand, some of which remain in a tol- 

 erably permanent condition, so that it 

 may not be necessary for each caravan 

 to freshly scoop the day's supph\ In 

 other places the natives have learned 

 from experience that in the dr}' river 

 beds water can be found from one to six 

 feet below the surface, and the position 

 of the camp is determined accordingl3^ 

 The men refused to use the spade and 

 shovel which I had carefully provided, 

 and scooped a hole with their hands, 

 and in the course of five or ten minutes 

 the bottom of tlie hole would fill with 

 trickling water, quite brown with sand 

 but otherwise good. 



In this region a hot night follows a 

 hotter day; yet there is a sort of clean- 

 liness due to the lack of moisture, and 



one feels less than might be supposed 

 the absence of water for bathing pur- 

 poses. Indeed, on several occasions I 

 learned by experience that Mohammed 

 was speaking merely the ordinary prac- 

 tice of his desert-dwelling people when 

 he prescribed the use of sand as a sub- 

 stitute for water in the execution of 

 those ablutions which his creed orders 

 as a part of religious duty. The desert 

 is not entirel}' of sand. Sometimes it 

 is rather sandy than sand, and in such 

 cases it is generally widely covered with 

 large and small volcanic stones. It is 

 a land of desolation, but a land of peace, 

 and few who have seen it but would 

 gladly go there again for rest. 



The next region, the great Abyssinian 

 plateau, shows rather barrenly in spots, 

 but for the most part is a tolerably well- 

 watered and pleasing country. There 

 are wide, rolling prairies, which show 

 brown toward the end of the drj^ season, 

 but are green during the rainy season 

 and the earlier part of the dry. Splen- 

 did trees are found on some of the moun- 

 tain sides and elsewhere in isolated 

 groups, but, generally speaking, there 

 is a sad dearth of forest growth. 



After the exceedingly arduous work 

 of climbing up the sides of this great 

 escarpment, one may travel for many 

 days over easy country. It is this 

 great plateau which the Abyssinian 

 have held against all comers for so many 

 centuries, and now that they have the 

 rifle it will be a bloody task for men 

 who would dislodge their power over it: 



This great region is cut deeply in two 

 by the Blue Nile, whose waters run in 

 a chasm five thousand feet below the 

 plains, where I first crossed it, and 

 about the same level at the two other 

 points where I was able to descend to 

 it. It was this upper Nile region and 

 the region lying at the foot of the west- 

 ernmost escarpment along the Blue Nile 

 which had not heretofore been visited 

 by white men. The descents were made 

 chiefly on foot and were very difficult. 



