TRAVELS

TO DISCOVER

THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

BOOK V.

ACCOUNT OF MY JOURNEY FROM MASUAH TO GONDAR TRANSACTIONS THERE-MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF

THE ABYSSINIANS.

CHAP. I.

Transactions at Masuah and Arkeeko.

MASUAH*, which means the port or harbour of the Shepherds, is a small island immediately on the Abys

There is much reason to doubt the accuracy of this interpretation. Masuah is written by the Arabs and Abyssinians Matzua, which signifies the landing place or harbour: The author derives the word from Ma, 66 a place," and Suah or So, " a Shepherd," both of Egyptian origin. The Portuguese write it Maçua.-E.

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sinian shore, having an excellent harbour, and water deep enough for ships of any size to the very edge of the island. Here they may ride in the utmost security, from whatever point, or with whatever degree of strength, the wind blows. As it takes its modern, so it received its ancient name from its harbour. It was called by the Greeks Sebasticum Os, from the capacity of the port, which is distributed into three divisions. The island itself is very small, scarcely three quarters of a mile in length, and about half that in breadth, one-third occupied by houses, one by cisterns to receive the rain-water, and the last is reserved for burying the dead.

Masuah, as we have already observed, was one of those towns on the west of the Red Sea, that fell after the conquest of Arabia Felix by Sinan Basha, under Selim, emperor of Constantinople. At that time it was a place of great commerce, possessing a share of the Indian trade in common with the other ports of the Red Sea near the mouth of the Indian Ocean. It had a considerable quantity of exports brought to it from a great tract of mountainous country behind it, in all ages very inhospitable, and almost inaccessible to strangers. Gold and ivory, elephants, and buffaloes' hides, and, above all, slaves, of much greater value, as being more sought after for their personal qualities than any other sort, who had the misfortune to be reduced to that condition, made the principal articles of exportation. Pearls, considerable for size, water, or colour, were found all along its coast. The great convenience of commodious riding for vessels, joined to these valuable articles of trade, had overcome the inconvenience of want of water, the principal necessary of life, to which it had been subjected from its creation.

Masuah continued a place of much resort as long as commerce flourished; but it fell into obscurity very suddenly under the oppression of the Turks, who put the finishing-hand to the ruin of the India trade in the Red Sea, begun some years before by the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, and the settlements made by the Portuguese on the continent of India.

The first government of Masuah under the Turks was by a basha sent from Constantinople, and thence, for a time, the conquest of Abyssinia was attempted, always with great confidence, though never with any degree of success; so that, losing its value as a gar rison, and, at the same time, as a place of trade, it was thought no longer worth while to keep up so expensive an establishment as that of a bashalik.

Their principal auxiliary, when the Turks conquered the place, was a tribe of Mahometans called Belowee, shepherds inhabiting the coast of the Red Sea. under the mountains of the Habab, about lat. 14°. In reward for this assistance, the Turks gave their chief the civil government of Masuah and its territory, under the title of Naybe of Masuah; and, upon the basha's being withdrawn, this officer remained in fact sovereign of the place, though, to save appearances, he held it of the grand signior for an annual tribute, upon receiving a firman from the Ottoman Porte.

The body of Janizaries, once established there in garrison, were left in the island, and their pay continued from Constantinople. These marrying the women of the country, their children succeeded them in their place and pay as Janizaries; but being now, by their intermarriages, Moors, and natives of Masuah, they became, of course, relations to each other, and always subject to the influence of the Naybe.

The Naybe finding the great distance he was at from his protectors, the Turks in Arabia, on the other

side of the Red Sea, whose garrisons were every day decaying in strength, and for the most part reduced ; sensible, too, how much he was in the power of the Abyssinians, his enemies and nearest neighbours, began to think that it was better to secure himself at home, by making some advances to those in whose power he was. Accordingly, it was agreed between them, that one-half of the customs should be paid by him to the king of Abyssinia, who was to suffer him to enjoy his government unmolested; for Masuah, as I have before said, is absolutely destitute of water; neither can it be supplied with any sort of provisions but from the mountainous country of Abyssinia.

The same may be said of Arkeeko, a large town on the bottom of the bay of Masuah, which has indeed water, but labours under the same scarcity of provisions; for the tract of flat land behind both, called Samhar, is a perfect desert, and perfect desert, and only inhabited from the month of November to April, by a variety of wandering tribes, called Tora, Hazorta, Shiho, and Doba; and these carry all their cattle to the Abyssinian side of the mountains when the rains fall there, which is during the opposite six months. When the season is thus reversed, they, and their cattle, are no longer in Samhar, or the dominions of the Naybe, but in the hands of the Abyssinians, especially the governor of Tigre and the Baharnagash, who thereby, without being at the expence and trouble of marching against Masuah with an army, can make a line round it, and starve all at Arkeeko and Masuah, by prohibiting any sort of provisions to be carried thither from their side. In the course of this history we have seen this practised with great success more than once, especially against the Naybe Musa in the reign of Yasous I.

The friendship of Abyssinia once secured, and the power of the Turks declining daily in Arabia, the

Naybe began to withdraw himself by degrees from paying tribute at all to the basha of Jidda, to whose government his had been annexed by the Porte. He therefore received the firman as a mere form, and returned trifling presents, but no tribute; and in troublesome times, or when a weak government happened in Tigre, he withdrew himself equally from paying any consideration, either to the basha, in name of tribute, or to the king of Abyssinia, as a share of the customs. This was precisely his situation when I arrived in Abyssinia. A great revolution, as we have already seen, had happened in that kingdom, of which Michael had been the principal author. When he was called to Gondar and made minister there, Tigre remained drained of troops, and without a governor.

Nor was the new king, Hatze Hannes, whom Michael had placed upon the throne after the murder of Joas his predecessor, a man likely to infuse vigour into the government. Hannes was past seventy at his accession, and Michael, his minister, lame, so as scarcely to be able to stand, and within a few years of eighty. The Naybe, a man of about forty-eight, judged of the debility of the Abyssinian government by those circumstances; but in this he was mistaken.

Already Michael had intimated to him, that, the next campaign, he would lay waste Arkeeko and Masuah, till they should be as desert as the wilds of Samhar; and as he had been all his life very remarkable for keeping his promises of this kind, the stranger merchants had many of them fled to Arabia, and others to Dobarwa * a large town in the territories of the Baharnagash. Notwithstanding this, the Naybe had not shewn any public mark of fear, nor sent one

* Supposed, from its name, to have been formerly the capital of the Dobas.