FOOTNOTES [1] The Ashantees At Customs' Time Run Across The Royal Threshold To Escape Being Seized And Sacrificed; Possibly The Trace Of The Pagan Rite Is Still Preserved By Moslem Harar, Where It Is Now Held A Mark Of Respect And Always Exacted From The Citizens.

[2] I afterwards learned that when a man neglects a summons his door is removed to the royal court-yard on the first day; on the second, it is confiscated.

The door is a valuable and venerable article in this part of Africa. According to Bruce, Ptolemy Euergetes engraved it upon the Axum Obelisk for the benefit of his newly conquered AEthiopian subjects, to whom it had been unknown.

[3] In Abyssinia, according to the Lord of Geesh, this is a mark of royal familiarity and confidence.

[4] About seven years ago the Hajj Sharmarkay of Zayla chose as his agent at Harar, one of the Amir's officers, a certain Hajj Jamitay. When this man died Sharmarkay demanded an account from his sons; at Berberah they promised to give it, but returning to Harar they were persuaded, it is believed, by the Gerad Mohammed, to forget their word. Upon this Sharmarkay's friends and relations, incited by one Husayn, a Somali who had lived many years at Harar in the Amir's favour, wrote an insulting letter to the Gerad, beginning with, "No peace be upon thee, and no blessings of Allah, thou butcher! son of a butcher &c. &c.!" and concluding with a threat to pinion him in the market-place as a warning to men. Husayn carried the letter, which at first excited general terror; when, however, the attack did not take place, the Amir Abubakr imprisoned the imprudent Somali till he died. Sharmarkay by way of reprisals persuaded Alu, son of Sahlah Salaseh, king of Shoa, to seize about three hundred Harari citizens living in his dominions and to keep them two years in durance.

The Amir Abubakr is said on his deathbed to have warned his son against the Gerad. When Ahmad reported his father's decease to Zayla, the Hajj Sharmarkay ordered a grand Maulid or Mass in honour of the departed. Since that time, however, there has been little intercourse and no cordiality between them.

[5] Thus M. Isenberg (Preface to Ambaric Grammar, p. iv.) calls the city Harrar or Ararge.

[6] "Harar," is not an uncommon name in this part of Eastern Africa: according to some, the city is so called from a kind of tree, according to others, from the valley below it.

[7] I say _about_: we were compelled to boil our thermometers at Wilensi, not venturing upon such operation within the city.

[8] The other six were Efat, Arabini, Duaro, Sharka, Bali and Darah.

[9] A circumstantial account of the Jihad or Moslem crusades is, I am told, given in the Fath el Habashah, unfortunately a rare work. The Amir of Harar had but one volume, and the other is to be found at Mocha or Hudaydah.

[10] This prince built "Debra Berhan," the "Hill of glory," a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary at Gondar.

[11] A prince of many titles: he is generally called Wanag Suggad, "feared amongst the lions," because he spent the latter years of his life in the wild.

[12] Yemen submitted to Sulayman Pasha in A.D. 1538.

[13] "Gragne," or in the Somali dialect "Guray," means a left-handed man; Father Lobo errs in translating it "the Lame."

[14] This exploit has been erroneously attributed to Nur, the successor of Mohammed.

[15] This reverend Jesuit was commissioned in A.D. 1622, by the Count de Vidigueira, Viceroy of the Indies, to discover where his relative Don Christopher was buried, and to procure some of the relics. Assisted by the son in law of the Abyssinian Emperor, Lobo marched with an army through the Gallas, found the martyr's teeth and lower jaw, his arms and a picture of the Holy Virgin which he always carried about him. The precious remains were forwarded to Goa.

I love the style of this old father, so unjustly depreciated by our writers, and called ignorant peasant and liar by Bruce, because he claimed for his fellow countrymen the honor of having discovered the Coy Fountains. The Nemesis who never sleeps punished Bruce by the justest of retributions. His pompous and inflated style, his uncommon arrogance, and over-weening vanity, his affectation of pedantry, his many errors and misrepresentations, aroused against him a spirit which embittered the last years of his life. It is now the fashion to laud Bruce, and to pity his misfortunes. I cannot but think that he deserved them.

[16] Bruce, followed by most of our modern authors, relates a circumstantial and romantic story of the betrayal of Don Christopher by his mistress, a Turkish lady of uncommon beauty, who had been made prisoner.

The more truth-like pages of Father Lobo record no such silly scandal against the memory of the "brave and holy Portuguese." Those who are well read in the works of the earlier eastern travellers will remember their horror of "handling heathens after that fashion." And amongst those who fought for the faith an _affaire de coeur_ with a pretty pagan was held to be a sin as deadly as heresy or magic.

[17] Romantic writers relate that Mohammed decapitated the Christian with his left hand.

[18] Others assert, in direct contradiction to Father Lobo, that the body was sent to different parts of Arabia, and the head to Constantinople.

[19] Bruce, followed by later authorities, writes this name Del Wumbarea.

[20] Talwambara, according to the Christians, after her husband's death, and her army's defeat, threw herself into the wilds of Atbara, and recovered her son Ali Gerad by releasing Prince Menas, the brother of the Abyssinian emperor, who in David's reign had been carried prisoner to Adel.

The historian will admire these two widely different accounts of the left- handed hero's death. Upon the whole he will prefer the Moslem's tradition from the air of truth pervading it, and the various improbabilities which appear in the more detailed story of the Christians.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 85 of 127
Words from 85556 to 86580 of 128411