Honorary Distinctions.
The court had meanwhile removed to Angollála; but a paternal letter from the royal pen awaited the return of the Embassy to the capital. “Are my children well?—have they entered in safety? I have heard with joy of your success. Horsemen were dispatched, and they brought me the glad tidings that you had killed. Hasten hither, that I may confer upon you the reward due unto those who have slain forty Galla in the battle.”
No time was lost in accepting this invitation, and a guard of honour met us on the road. Together with sheep and oxen from the king, and barilles of hydromel from the queen, visits of congratulation were received from all the principal courtiers present. Amongst others, came Ayto Egázoo, whose hospitality had been extended to us on our way to Giddem; and Ayto Zowdoo (i.e. My crown) formerly governor of the important province of Geshe on the northern frontier, who was dismissed for bravely fighting against the Worra Káloo, on the occasion when the son of Birroo Lubo fell—an event which, although highly gratifying to His Majesty, policy had induced him to punish by the imprisonment and disgrace of all the principal Amhára engaged. Both of these visitors had, with sorrowful hearts, taken leave of us on our departure; and they now repeated the inward conviction entertained, that the animals against which rash war was to be waged, would have “consumed the assailants”—a persuasion which had led them to cherish not the smallest hope of seeing any one of us again. But greater than all was the delight of the chief smith, when he gave his assurance, after a careful admeasurement, that the circumference of the ivory trophies then lying in the tent for presentation to his royal master, yielded two full spans in excess of any tusk in the royal magazines. A band of fusiliers were at dawn the ensuing morning directed to escort us to the presence; and whilst ascending the hill through the various courtyards, they chanted the war chorus of death before the spoils of the vanquished elephant. A successful expedition against the Loomi Galla having recently returned, the walls of the reception-hall were decorated with numerous trophies hanging above scrolls of parchment closely written with blessings from the priesthood. But the whole court was in deep mourning, in consequence of the demise of Ayto Baimoot, the chief eunuch, who was nurse to the king in infancy, and had been through after-life his principal adviser. Heads were close shaven, temples scarified; and those immediately about the royal person were clothed in sackcloth and ashes.
“Your joy is my joy,” exclaimed His Majesty, so soon as the usual salutations had been concluded, “and I am delighted when my children are happy. I feared that the elephants would destroy you; but you have achieved a triumph which none other have accomplished during the reign of Sáhela Selássie.”
The ivory was now laid at the feet of the king, who listened with great interest and seeming astonishment to the detail of our proceedings, and to the assurance that the monarch of the forest might always be vanquished by a single bullet, if properly directed. A long confession of the personal dread entertained of the elephant by His Majesty was followed by an anecdote formerly touched upon at Machal-wans, of his own discomfiture, and that of his entire host, by a herd encountered during a foray against the Metcha Galla, when, being firmly convinced that the army would be destroyed, he had deemed it prudent to retreat with all expedition. “I ran,” he repeated several times with emphasis—“I ran, and every one of my followers did the same. You evidently understand the mode of dealing with these monsters; but if ten thousand of my people ventured to oppose a troop, the elephants would consume them all.”
After this candid avowal on the part of the despot, I took the opportunity of intimating that a strong desire had been entertained to bring from Giddem the spoils also of a wild buffalo, but that Ayto Tsánna declared to me that His Majesty, during an expedition made some years previously, had fairly exterminated the species.
“Oonut now,” “that is true,” he replied, “and you must not attempt to kill the ‘Gosh,’ for it is a most ferocious and dangerous beast. What answer should I give if my children were to be demolished by buffaloes in the kingdom of Shoa? They consume men and horses. When I slew a buffalo in Giddem, there were ten men and ten horses destroyed. They reside in the thickets where they cannot be seen; and putting their heads to the ground, annihilate all who approach their lair. As soon as they have killed a horse, we close round them in vast numbers, and overwhelm them with spears and guns; but you are few, and cannot attempt this.”
As this paternal remonstrance might be traced to a desire on the part of the monarch to place his own exploit in a superior point of view, I changed the subject by an assurance of the uniform kindness and hospitality that we had experienced on the road, at the hands of Ayto Tsánna, and at those of the Emabiet in Mahhfood more especially; and each pause was followed by an ejaculation from the royal lips: “Did I not command him? Is not Birkenich my daughter?”
Certain rewards and immunities are in Shoa attached to the destruction of enemies of the state, and of formidable wild beasts, which are regulated according to a fixed scale, and never withheld. These His Majesty now signified his intention of confer............