loo The National Geographic Magazine 



fact, each village — and there were two — 

 seemed to stand entirely alone. The 

 people hid awa}' from before my small 

 caravan, and I had very great difficulty 

 in obtaining guides. While in Abys- 

 sinian territory these guides had been 

 impressed by force or blows when nec- 

 essary and at the command of the Abys- 

 sinian dignitary who accompanied me. 



When I wanted to descend to the 

 gorge of the Nile, the fine old gentle- 

 man, who was chief of the region, or- 

 dered some of the local natives, Agaa 

 by name, armed only with spears, to go 

 down with me, his own soldiers some- 

 how not wanting to make the venture. 



The river bottoms were said to be 

 filled with warlike Shankali, armed 

 with spears and poisoned arrows, and 

 who had been forced to these narrow 

 confines b}^ lack of food, as along the 

 river they could get an occasional hip- 

 popotamus and live upon that for a long 

 time. M}^ native escort was absolutely 

 cowardly and got into a blue funk over 

 the few footprints that appeared near 

 the river, and I had to promise to pro- 

 tect them with four of my own men, 

 but insisted that the}'- should show us 

 the way. The Shankali appeared only 

 on the far side of the river, just a few 

 black, naked fellows, who made a great 

 pow-wow, and were evidently whoU}'' 

 unequal to the task of attacking four or 

 five rifles and six or eight spears. More- 

 over, they were paralyzed, as in every 

 other case in which I met such low 

 people, by the sight of white men. 



One village chief, after getting his 

 people around my camp in such num- 

 bers as to worry my followers somewhat, 

 but in wholly insufficient numbers to 

 have made any successful trouble with 

 my whole body, which consisted of 

 eighteen well-armed men, finally came 

 down in utmost submission and declared, 

 as nearly as I could make out from the 

 five interpreters arranged in tandem, 

 that I was a god and could eat him up 

 if I chose. 



This middle territory will soon be as- 

 signed in part to Abyssinia and in part 

 to the Sudan. That part assigned to 

 the Sudanese authority, which means 

 the British, will soon have some new 

 life built out of the remains of a devasta- 

 tion as complete as''anything imaginable. 

 The Ab3'Ssinian portion will live along 

 its barbaric fashion with some small 

 development. 



The status of the black and naked 

 Shankali will be slightly raised, and at 

 least the country will be so well ordered 

 by the power of Abyssinian soldiers that 

 further investigation by white men may 

 in the future be easily carried on there. 



But the Abyssinian himself is not, in 

 my judgment, ready for civilization as 

 we measure civilization, though the 

 upper classes already have much of the 

 manner of the polished eastern people 

 without having the material richness that 

 Asiatic civilizations have produced. 



The Abyssinian is individually rather 

 an independent, eas3^-living, battle-lov- 

 ing, raw-meat-eating, sensual, devil- 

 may-care chap; but one must guard 

 against giving any definition or descrip- 

 tion which shall be taken as universal in 

 its application. This is rendered par- 

 ticularl}^ inappropriate when one recalls 

 the varying types from the well-chis- 

 eled Arab'c and Jewish down to the 

 coarse negroid caused by all degrees of 

 miscegenation. 



Their laziness, their fondness for back- 

 shee'^h, their inaccuracy, and their pride, 

 puffed up by the defeat of the Italians ; 

 their ignorance of what we know to be 

 our immense superiority — -all this for a 

 time irritates the traveler, but in the end 

 there is left rather a pleasant impression 

 of kindness. 



As is generally the ca.se, the Abys- 

 siniaiis who have seen most of Europeans 

 are not those whom Europeans would 

 like most to see. 



I should be quite willing to trade with 

 bars of salt, which constitute the chief 

 currenc}^ from Addis Abeba westward" 



