I Paid All My Tokrooris Their Wages, And I Gave Them An
Entertainment After Their Own Taste, By Purchasing Several
Enormous Bowls Of Honey Wine.
The Abyssinians are celebrated for
this drink, which is known as "tetch." It is made of various
strengths; that of good quality should contain, in ten parts, two
of honey and eight of water; but, for a light wine, one of honey
and nine of water is very agreeable.
There is a plant of an
intoxicating quality known by the Abyssinians as "jershooa," the
leaves of which are added to the tetch while in a state of
fermentation; a strong infusion of these leaves will render the
tetch exceedingly heady, but without this admixture the honey
wine is by no means powerful. In our subsequent journey in
Central Africa, I frequently made the tetch by a mixture of honey
and water, flavoured with wild thyme and powdered ginger;
fermentation was quickly produced by the addition of yeast from
the native beer, and the wine, after six or eight days, became
excellent, but never very strong, as we could not procure the
leaves of the jershooa.
My Arabs and Tokrooris enjoyed themselves amazingly, and until
late at night they were playing rababas (guitars) and howling in
thorough happiness; but on the following morning at sunrise I was
disturbed by Wat Gamma, who complained that during the night some
person had stolen three dollars, that had for some months been
carefully sewn up in his clothes; he exhibited the garment that
bore the unmistakeable impression of the dollars, and the
freshly-cut ends of the thread proved that it had been ripped
open very recently.
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