The Highlands of EthiopiaHarris, William Cornwallis, Sir
History
The Highlands of Ethiopia
Harris, William Cornwallis, Sir
Ethiopia -- Description and travel
The acacia still throws her scanty shade over the bones that whiten on
the scene of this conflict. Although of the same persuasion as the
invaders, the men of Aussa could neither forgive their most unprovoked
attack, nor consign to a quiet resting-place the remains of the true
believers. The severe loss they too had sustained, still keeps the
wound festering, for well indeed in that fatal night had been upheld the
character of the sturdy children of Yemen. Taken by surprise and at
every disadvantage, each had fought on fiercely to the last; and
although broken matchlocks and rent shields dangle in the mosques as
trophies of their defeat, many a Mudaito mother long bewailed the loss
of a beloved son, and many a bereaved widow mourned the absence of her
liege lord, who returned not from the valley of the deep waters of
Aussa.
Volume One, Chapter XXV.
FIALU, A DEN OF THIEVES IN THE WOEMA TERRITORIES. BARURUDDA AND
KILLULLOO.
After a march of three miles on the 22nd, over a stony table-land
thickly strewed with the never-ending basaltic boulders, the caravan
entered the territory of the Danakil tribe Woema, under the uncle and
father of Mohammad Ali. A desolate hollow passed on the way, which
appeared in the rainy season to form an extensive pond, was enlivened by
four bee-hive-shaped wigwams, placed as usual on the site where large
hot stones were most abundant, and tenanted by goat-herds, whose
numerous flocks were being driven forth to graze by the Bedouin females.
Their supply of water is derived from a sequestered pool, occupying a
deep narrow precipitous ravine, which abounds in the Hyrax, and boasts
of a few trees not dissimilar from the Casuarina. Bearing the euphonous
title of Korandudda, this gully wound at the foot of the high terrace
selected for the encampment--another right dreary plain, covered with
volcanic pebbles, among which the dry yellow grass peeped out in scanty
tufts.
No traveller through the bleak barren country of the Adaiel can fail to
appreciate the simile of "the shadow of a rock in a weary land;" for a
tree is indeed a rare phenomenon--and when a few leafless branches do
greet the eye, they are studiously shunned, upon the same principle that
induces the savage to eschew the immediate vicinity of water. A few
straggling acacias occupied the valley of Fialoo, half a mile to the
southward, which is the usual encamping ground, and here were large
herds of cattle, eccentrically marked and brindled, and glorying in
superb horns raking gracefully from the brow. A fat ox was purchased
without difficulty, together with a supply of fresh milk, which, if not
improved by confinement in a greasy skin bag, proved nevertheless an
extraordinary luxury.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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