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The National Geographic Magazine 



a black-silk burnous. He wore stock- 

 ings, but no shoes. A tightly drawn 

 turban covered what is said to be a well- 

 developed baldness. Menelek is a hard- 

 working ruler, rising at three or four 

 o'clock in the morning to receive reports 

 that have come in by mule courier from 

 various sections of his empire and to 

 dictate responses. 



He is said to be unable to write, and 

 perhaps would consider it undignified to 

 use the art if he possessed it. Till nine 

 o'clock in the morning he is busy with 

 his dispatches, and, it ma}^ surprise 

 Americans to know, conducts business 

 with Harar, his most important town, 

 about 200 miles away, by a telephone. 



There is nothing more bizarre than to 

 find a long-distance telephone line in 

 this kingdom, which is, so far as me- 

 chanical arts are concerned, very be- 

 nighted ; yet as one follows the main 

 highwa}^ of the kingdom by toiling over 

 mountain trails, which almost defy even 

 the patient mule, one scarcely loses 

 sight for a distance of nearly 200 miles 

 of the familiar telephone pole. This is 

 the work of a few enterprising French- 

 men, the same who are at the head of 

 the Jibuti Railway enterprise, aided by a 

 Swiss, M. Ihlg, who has been the right 

 hand of Menelek for .something like 

 twenty years. 



How much there is of the commercial, 

 how much of the political element in this 

 extraordinary work of these Frenchmen, 

 I do not venture to say. They undoubt- 

 edly appear to Menelek as the chief in- 

 terpreters of all the glories of our me- 

 chanical civilization. His army is 

 supplied with their rifles and cartridges, 

 and may the day be long distant when 

 these French-made bullets shall be di- 

 rected against European troops of what- 

 ever nationality. 



After nine o'clock Menelek is ready 

 to receive those of his subjects, great or 

 small, who claim access to him, and also 

 the occasional European who travels to 

 this strange mud-hut capital. He has 



learned that there are some costumes 

 appropriate to ceremonial occasions, and 

 out of respect to this knowledge I had 

 been advised by Sir Rennell Rodd to 

 take a dress suit for presentation to the 

 court, and this I donned at nine in the 

 morning and in it rode the mile and a 

 half or two miles separating the British 

 compound from the Gebi. 



When these visits have been com- 

 pleted Menelek gives much detailed at- 

 tention to the buildings and the meager 

 workshops which his East Indian em- 

 ployes have set up for him. 



His capital city contains huts, large 

 and small, which may lodge a population 

 of about ten thousand. A considerable 

 part of this city is still of canvas. 



The extremely cold nights, with a 

 temperature sometimes as low as forty 

 degrees Fahrenheit, after a day of one 

 hundred degrees in the shade, have 

 caused the Abyssinian on this high 

 plateau to want some shelter. 



My Somali servants, who suffered far 

 more than the plateau people, were with 

 difficulty forced to put up tents which I 

 had provided for them, their life-long 

 habit of sleeping in the open air being 

 hard to break. 



The difficulty of obtaining firewood 

 will probably necessitate the moving of 

 the capital within the next fifteen or 

 twenty years. As there are no roads, a 

 wheeled vehicle being unknown, fire- 

 wood must be brought in by hand from 

 the surrounding forests; and as the 

 nearby timber is destroyed, this diffi- 

 cult}' will soon become one of great 

 moment. 



Several deep ravines cut the town into 

 three or four sections, and in the rainy 

 season these sections are permanently 

 separated from each other, bridges not 

 being attempted. 



In the whole kingdom I think there 

 are three permanent bridges. One of 

 the.se is over the Ha wash, which must 

 be crossed in order to reach Harar and 

 the coast. This bridge was built undfer 



