The March to Magdala. Henty George Alfred
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hawk was very numerous, but these were the only birds we saw. At about six miles from the sea the ground rises abruptly for about ten feet in height, and this rise ran north and south as far as the eye could reach. It marked unquestionably the level of the sea at some not very remote period. From this point the plain continued flat, sandy, and bushy as before for two miles; but after that a rocky crag rose, rather to our right, and the sand became interspersed with stones and boulders. Our path lay round behind the hill, and then we could see, at about four miles’ distance, a white tent or two, at the mouth of an opening in the mountain before us. These white tents were the camp at Koomaylo. About three miles from Koomaylo we came upon a very curious burial-place. It was in a low flat, close to a gully, and covered a space of perhaps fifty yards square. The graves were placed very close together, and consisted of square piles of stones, not thrown together, but built up, about three feet square and as much high. They were crowned by a rough pyramid of stones, the top one being generally white. Underneath these stone piles was a sort of vault. From this point the ground rose more steeply than it had yet done.
Koomaylo is situated at the mouth of the pass which takes its name from it. The valley here is about half-a-mile wide. It is rather over thirteen miles from the sea, and is said to be 415 feet above the sea-level; but it does not appear to be nearly so high. At any rate, its height does not make it any cooler; for, hot as it is at Annesley Bay, it is at least as hot here. The greatest nuisance I have at present met with in Abyssinia are the flies, which are as numerous and irritating as they are in Egypt. Fortunately they go to sleep when the sun goes down; and as there are no mosquitoes to take their place, one is able to sleep in tranquillity. We found on arriving at Koomaylo that the troops had not been in very long. They had got scattered in the night, owing to some of the camels breaking down; had lost their guides, lost each other, and lost the way. Finally, however, all the troops came in in a body under their officers at about eight o’clock. The animals were not quite so unanimous in their movements; for a number of them took quite the wrong road, and went to Hadoda, a place about six miles from here, to the north, and twelve miles from Zulla. There are wells there, so they got a drink, and came on in the course of the day. A few, however, have not yet turned up, and one of these missing animals bore a portion of my own luggage and stores. The others will perhaps arrive; but I have a moral conviction that that animal will never again make his appearance. As the men were too tired upon their arrival to pitch their tents, many of which indeed had not yet arrived, they were allowed to take possession of a number of tents which had been pitched for head-quarters. When we arrived they were all shaken down; the men were asleep in the tents, and the camels had gone down to water. The first step was to go down to water our horses and mules, the next to draw rations for ourselves, our followers, and beasts. The watering-place is a quarter of a mile from this camp, which is on rather rising ground. The wells are, of course, in the bed of what in the rainy season must be a mighty torrent fifty yards wide.
I have seen many singular scenes, but I do not know that I ever saw a stranger one than these wells presented. They are six in number, are twelve or fourteen feet across, and about twelve feet deep. They are dug through the mass of stones and boulders which forms the bed of the stream, and three of the six have a sort of wooden platform, upon which men stand to lower the buckets to the water by ropes. The other wells have sloping sides, and upon them stand sets of natives, who pass buckets from hand to hand, and empty them into earth troughs, or rather mud basins, from which the animals drink. The natives while so engaged keep up the perpetual chant without which they seem to be unable to do any work. The words of this chant vary infinitely, and they consist almost always of two words of four or five syllables in all; which are repeated by the next set of men, with the variation of one of the syllables, and in a tone two notes lower than that used by the first set. Round these wells are congregated a vast crowd of animals – flocks of goats and small sheep, hundreds in number, strings of draught-bullocks, mules, ponies, horses, and camels, hundreds of natives, with their scanty attire, their spears, their swords exactly resembling reaping-hooks, and their heavy clubs. Here are their wives and sisters, some of them in the ordinary draped calico, others very picturesquely attired in leathern petticoats, and a body-dress of a sort of sheet of leather, going over one shoulder and under the other arm, covering the bust, and very prettily ornamented with stars and other devices, formed of white shells. Round their necks they wear necklaces of red seeds and shells. Some of them are really very good-looking, with remarkably intelligent faces. The scene round the wells is very exciting, for the animals press forward most eagerly, and their attendants have the greatest difficulty in preserving order, especially among the mules and camels. The supply, however, is equal to the demand, and by the end of the day the wells are nearly deserted, except by the soldiers, who like to go down and draw their water fresh from the wells. The upper wells, where buckets with ropes only are used, are really very fair water; those for the animals are not clear, but are still drinkable. All have a taste somewhat resembling the water from peat-bogs. Natives are employed digging more wells, which can be done, for the quantity which is drawn appears to make little or no difference in the level of the water in the present wells. Some of the camels occasionally get quite furious; to-day I saw one, whose saddle had slipped round under its belly, begin to jump and plunge most wildly, with its head in the air, and uttering the most uncouth cries. There was a general stampede, especially among the mules, many of whom have, I fancy, never seen a camel before. It was some minutes before the animal could be caught and forced down upon its knees by its driver, and by that time he had quite cleared the ground in his neighbourhood. The camels are kept as much as possible kneeling, and there were a hundred or two near him at the time he commenced his evolutions. When one camel rises, all in his neighbourhood always endeavour to do the same; and the efforts of these beasts to rise, the shouts of their drivers, and the stampede of the mules, made up a most laughable scene. Near the wells is another large graveyard; the tombs here are rather more ornate than those I have already described, some of them being round, and almost all having courses of white quartz stones. Upon the top of many of these tombs are two or three flat stones, placed on end, and somewhat resembling small head- and foot-stones. As there is no inscription upon them it would be curious to find out the object with which the natives erect them.
Having finished watering our horses, we proceeded to the commissariat tent. Here an immense quantity of work is got through, all the animals and men drawing their rations daily; and I have heard no complaint of any sort, except that some Parsees, while I was getting my rations, came up and complained bitterly because there was no mutton, and it was contrary to their religion to eat beef. The commissariat officer regretted the circumstance, but pointed out that at present no sheep had been landed, and that the little things of the country are mere skin and bone, and quite unfitted for the troops. The Parsees, who were, I believe, clerks to one of the departments, went off highly discontented. The moral of this evidently is that Parsees should not go to war in a country where mutton is scarce. As for the Hindoos, I cannot even guess how they will preserve their caste intact. It is a pity that their priests could not give them a dispensation to put aside all their caste observances for the time they may be out of India. As it is, I foresee we shall have very great difficulty with them.
When I wrote two days ago I hardly expected to have dated another letter from Koomaylo. I had prepared to start for Senafe, leaving my baggage behind me, and returning in ten days or so. The great objection to this plan was that neither at Zulla nor here are there any huts or stores where things can be left. The only thing to be done, therefore, was to leave them in the tent of some friend; but as he, too, might get the route at any moment, it would have been, to say the least of it, a very hazardous proceeding. The night before last, however, I received the joyful and long-expected news that the ship which had left Bombay with my horses six days before I started myself was at last in harbour. My course was now clear; I should go down, get my horses, and then go up to Senafe, carrying my whole baggage with me. Vessels and troops are arriving every day, and the accumulations of arrears of work are increasing in even more rapid proportion. Major Baigrie, the quartermaster-general, is indefatigable, but he cannot unload thirty large vessels at one little jetty, at whose extremity there is only a depth of five feet of water. Unless something is done, and that rapidly, and upon an extensive scale, we shall break down altogether. It is evident that a jetty, at which at most three of these country boats can lie alongside to unload, is only sufficient to afford accommodation for one large ship, and that it would take several days to