NEW EMPIRE OF ABYSSINIA. 147 



Nubia in 1820, have profited by the isolated position of these tribes, nearer the 

 Egyptian garrisons than to Gondar, to bring them under their yoke. Said Pacha, 

 in 1856, promulgated in their favour a series of rude and protective regulations 

 ■which the rapacity of the Egyptian agent made a dead letter of, and the people> 

 whom the enlightened and truly civilized administration of Arakel-Nubar (1) and 

 of his successor Hanan-Bey had given cause to hope for better days, fell into the 

 hands of venal satraps, and saw their imports and levies yearly increasing. 

 Thenceforward there sprung up a daily increasing sympathy for the govei'nment 

 of Theodore the Second ; but the Abyssinian governors of the frontier, in place of 

 encouraging, with a view to the future, these amicable feelings, protested fruit- 

 lessly enough against the Mussulman conquest by inflicting upon the unfortunate 

 inhabitants of a country as large as Portugal frequent sudden and murderous 

 raids. To add to the difficulty, in the midst of these colonies, and about seven 

 stages from Gondar, there is established a camp of Egyptian refugees commanded 

 by a man well known in Eastern Africa, Oued-Wimr, the son of the panther-king 

 whose dramatic history we narrated three years ago. The faithful inheritor of 

 Lis father's hate, Oued-Nimr has drawn around him in his town of Mai-Gowa, the 

 many Bedorims who find the Egyptian yoke too heavy to bear : he makes incess- 

 ant raids against the Arab tribes in subjection to the viceroy, and when he finds 

 himself too closely hemmed in, he ascends the Abyssinian plateau where the 

 ISTegus has given him the important fief of Kablita (Cafta.) In May 1850, upon 

 my arrival in Africa, Oued-Nimr, calling himself a general in the service of the 

 Negus, had made a brilliant stroke against the tribe of the Choubrie, the most 

 powerful of the Arab tribes of the Nile, and in the name of Theodore the Second 

 had demanded tribute from all Upper Nubia. The governor of Khartown had 

 replied to this bravado by a bold dash upon Mai-Gowa, which had been burned, 

 and Oued-Nimr, defeated in an unimportant skirmish, put off hia vengeance to a 

 more favourable opportunity. In fine, the attitude of the two states, Egypt and 

 Abyssinia was in 1861 that of two neighbours very aggravated against one 

 another, but hesitating to open serious hostilities, and fighting only with harmless 

 proclamations. 



The great care of the Negus warto settle with the Gallas. I have spoken 

 elsewhere of this mysterious people, who closely resemble the Abyssiniafl in the 

 features of the face and in their moral character, and whom the latest travellers 

 have found living even at the equator, on the banks of the great lakes of the 

 Nile. Having left three centuries ago the plains through which the Nebi flows 

 (an immense river half fabulous and still waiting for its discoverer), they invaded 

 like a rising tide the too vast and decaying empire of the jVegus, and reduced to 

 fourteen the forty-two kingdoms which rendered the monarchy so proud. They 

 founded, in their turn, numerous states, monarchies as Gonderon, republics as 

 Djimma, but they were feeble through their isolation and the want of every 

 federative bond. In the midst of this barbarous- invasion five or six Abyssinian 

 kingdoms have survived, for whom a confused tradition preserves the name of 

 Christians, but whom their separation from tie great Abyssinian trunk has thrown 



(1) Brother of that Nubjr. Pacha whom th^ Isthmus of Suez question recently brought to 

 Paris. Arakel-Nubar died six years ago wlile governor of Khartown, 



