In Ethiopia with a Mule (16 page)

Fifteen minutes later I was astounded to hear myself being hailed in English by an Ethiopian on the far bank of a nearby stream; and I was even more astounded to see a tall young white man crossing the stream and to hear him greeting me with a strong Welsh accent. I stared at him as though he were a spectre – and indeed the poor boy looked alarmingly like one, for he had spent the night lost on the slopes of Buahit. When we were joined by a haggard young Englishman, I learned from the boys’ guide-cum-interpreter, Afeworq, that I had come upon the last scene of a painful drama, which mercifully was having a happy ending. Yesterday Ian and Richard had left their camp, near Ras Dashan, to explore the Buahit area, and during the afternoon they somehow got separated and
thoroughly
lost, so both had spent the night wandering around alone without light, food or adequate clothing. Early this morning Afeworq left the camp to search for them, and just before I appeared the three had been reunited.

Ian, the Welshman, explained that two other Englishmen were at the camp and that all four are Addis schoolteachers on a ten-day Semien trek. He added that tomorrow he hoped to climb Ras Dashan (15,158 feet), Ethiopia’s highest mountain, and at this a certain fanatic gleam must have shown in my eye, for he asked if I would care to accompany him. Inevitably I said, ‘Yes,
please!
’ – forgetting both Derasghie and my dilapidation at the thought of a ‘highest mountain’.

It took us five hours to walk the next eight miles. Richard was suffering from mountain-sickness and no one had much spring in their step as we climbed the long slope to the top of Buahit. From the summit we could see a tremendous chasm to the north, half-full of colossal wedges of broken rock – but my attention was soon diverted to the practical aspects of this landscape. Here we were on the verge of a 300-foot cliff which I wouldn’t have dared to attempt with
a pack-animal had I been alone, but as Afeworq knew a possible zig-zag route he led Jock down.

At the foot of this escarpment the load came off, having been loosened by Jock’s gallant jumping. Afeworq tried to cope – but he is a Gondar-born youth, who knows no more than I do about mule-loading. He then nobly offered to carry one sack on his head, and I carried the other over my shoulder, and thus encumbered we struggled on down steep paths of loose soil on which I frequently fell, being unable to keep my balance beneath the weight of the swaying sack. Richard was now almost collapsing and seemed unaware of our crisis, but Ian soon began to suffer from frustrated gentlemanly instincts – which had to remain frustrated, as he was clearly in no condition to assume the White Woman’s Burden.

We must have looked a pathetic sight as we staggered towards the camp, where Alan and Mike welcomed us with hot tinned soup and Ryvita.

This is a high-powered expedition, equipped with an enormous tent, a Primus stove, cooking utensils, crockery and cutlery, boxes of
faranj
food, a riding-mule, a muleteer and three pack-horses. Here we are down to 12,400 feet, in a wide, turf-lined hollow with running water nearby and a neighbouring
settlement
from which men come to exchange fresh eggs for empty tins.

Now early to bed, in preparation for Ras Dashan.

A long sleep in a warm tent is good medicine. At seven o’clock this morning everyone looked ten years younger and half-an-hour later we set off – leaving behind Alan, Afeworq and the pack-animals.

Descending to river-level we followed the stream for about a mile, before climbing for two hours through stubble-fields and ploughland, where the boys took it in turn to ride their mule. This region seems to be thickly populated and we passed several groups of surly-looking locals.

At 10.30 a short, steep climb brought us to a wide pass from which Ras Dashan was visible. It is a most unassuming mountain – merely a long ridge of rock on which one point is slightly higher than the rest – and without a guide one could never pick it out from amongst the many other mountains that here sprawl gloriously against the sky.

Now Richard’s mountain-sickness reasserted itself, so he reluctantly decided to return to camp. Mike was also looking ill, but he doggedly tackled the next lap – a long walk around spur after spur, across sunny slopes of golden turf dotted with two-foot lobelias. (The higher the altitude the lower the lobelia.)
Between these level stretches there were a few muscle and lung-straining climbs and by midday thirst was tormenting me, though the boys seemed immune to altitude dehydration. Foolishly, I had left my water-bottle in camp, not realising that above river-level all streams would be frozen. (They were a very beautiful sight – gleaming tongues of ice hanging from the mouths of dark caverns near the summit of every mountain.)

By one o’clock an exhausting climb had taken us on to the Ras Dashan plateau, where the path skirts the western flank of the summit ridge and swings around to run parallel with the ridge on its southern side, across a wide, bleak plain littered with chunks of rough volcanic rocks.

Half-an-hour later the mule was tethered to a stone and we were led off the track towards the established route to the summit. The incline was easy, yet at this height our clamberings over rock-slabs and massive boulders felt strenuous enough, and we spent twenty minutes covering that last half-mile. Then a real climb of some fifty feet took us to the highest point in Ethiopia – and five minutes after Ian and the muleteer I crawled on to the summit, feeling very like a fly that has just been sprayed with DDT.

Our moment of triumph was somewhat marred by Mike’s disappearance. I had assumed that he was just behind me, but in fact he had vanished, and our shouts and whistles brought no reply. Then, concluding that he had simply stopped to rest, and would soon catch us up, we settled down to eat
dabo
, dates, nuts and raisins, while surveying the magnificence that lay below us.

Twenty minutes later, when we had decided that Mike must have turned back, Ian suddenly glimpsed him in the distance, wandering away both from us and the mule. No one in a normal state could possibly go astray on that plain, with Ras Dashan to guide them, and as we scrambled down from the summit Mike’s gait changed to a wavering stumble – so while Ian went straight to him the muleteer hurried to his animal and was soon riding recklessly towards the ‘patient’. I continued south-west to the pass – unable to repress a selfish joy at being briefly alone with Ras Dashan – and half-an-hour later Mike appeared over the horizon, looking like a highland chieftain with his two attendants trotting beside him.

As we lost height Mike recovered rapidly, and told us that while wandering on the plain he had ‘seen things’ and heard voices calling from the wrong direction. I hadn’t known that these classic symptoms of mountain-sickness could develop at such a comparatively low altitude.

We got back here soon after dark, fell upon the lavish stew which Alan had ready for us and then sat around the fire talking books. One appreciates the
occasional
contact with one’s own civilisation, and this particular contact is to be maintained for another day, because tomorrow my route to Derasghie will also be the boys’ route to Debarak.

The business of camping makes life very complicated. If I get up at 6.30 I can be on the track half-an-hour later, but though we all got up at 6.30 this morning it was 9.45 by the time the boys had cooked a hot breakfast, packed their equipment, dismantled their tent, washed themselves in the river and supervised the loading of their pack-animals. I should have thought that one treks in the Semiens partly to get away from complications, and it seems rather peculiar deliberately to bring them with one. But then my way of travelling seems something worse than peculiar to the boys, so no doubt it’s all a matter of taste, as the lion said to the antelope.

We climbed for three hours, to cross Buahit again at a point slightly lower than our route of two days ago. This track is a ‘main road’ and our fellow-
travellers
warned us about the presence of
shifta
on the route to Derasghie.
Consequently
Afeworq has been trying to persuade me to by-pass Derasghie and come to Debarak instead.

From the pass we descended gradually for seven miles, across springy turf, between frequent outcrops of rock and low hills covered with stunted shrubs – and always the lobelia were standing rigid against the sky.

Before finding this site, in a stubble-field near a settlement, we were walking through flat brown ploughland that stretched away to the horizon on every side. Above 12,000 feet barley is the only crop that does well and the locals bring their surplus grain to the markets at Debarak and Derasghie, to exchange it for teff, rye and wheat.

The Semien shepherd boys wear brown and white sheepskin capes and round, high sheepskin or woollen caps – the first variation in dress I’ve seen in the highlands.

Fuel is scarce here. On arrival we bartered empty tins for lobelia trunks, which burn badly, and for dried dung, which cooks food slowly. This site is without any shelter and at dusk the icy wind rose to gale-force; but nearby is a circular, stone-walled cattle enclosure and the kindly locals have said that our animals may use it too.

From here we are overlooking a deep valley, beyond which another long ‘twin’ ridge slopes gradually down from the heights, and Afeworq has indicated
that my path to Derasghie runs west for a few miles along the flank of this ridge, before turning south-east.

During supper the boys and I argued amiably about travel. They said that they couldn’t understand anyone voluntarily living a
tukul
-life – and I said that I couldn’t understand anyone trekking through a country in splendid isolation from the humans who inhabit it. One has no opportunity to establish normal relations with the locals when living in a strange little tent-world of portable mod cons, where the
faranjs
converse in their own language while the ‘natives’ stare from a distance, being ‘observed’ with detachment and resented if they come too close. Travelling in a group has been an interesting experience, but it is not one that I would wish to extend or repeat, grateful as I am for the boys’ very generous hospitality.

T
HE PIERCING COLD kept us all in our flea-bags until 7.30 this morning, and it was 8.30 before Jock and I left the camp, led by a local who was also going to Derasghie. Last evening, as an anti-
shifta
precaution, Afeworq had contacted this taciturn little man – whose fair skin went curiously with Negroid features.

Remarkably, there were no steep climbs in today’s twenty-two miles and there was only one steep descent, from the campsite to river-level. Then our path ascended the ploughed ridge diagonally, passing many giant thistles – twenty feet tall, with enormous balls hanging from their upper stalks like toys on a Christmas tree – and sometimes crossing uncultivated stretches where clumps of thyme and heather grew between outcrops of rock, or the now familiar Semien shrubs shed their small green leaves into Jock’s bucket. From the crest of this ridge we walked for hours down a slightly broken, sloping plateau, seeing occasional conspicuous groups of twisted pines. Here I got a close-up view of two magnificent Lanner Falcons, with red-brown heads, dark-grey backs and black wings; both had perched on boulders and neither moved until we were almost beside them. Apart from these the only birds I’ve noticed in the Semiens are Thick-billed Ravens – natives of Ethiopia – but the Lammergeyer (Bearded Vulture), which has a wing-span of eight to nine feet, is also quite common here.

At about 10,000 feet the vegetation became more colourful and many
yellow-flowered
shrubs and enormous pinkish-purple cacti lined the path. Over the last five miles several settlements were visible in the distance and we passed one church, where my companion paused to perform the usual ritual of kissing
the enclosure wall. This enclosure contained some fine trees – junipers higher than the church itself, wild fig-trees and oleasters. The practice of preserving trees only within church compounds is probably a relic of pre-Christian feeling, for trees are sacred to many of Ethiopia’s other ethnic groups – as they were in pagan Ireland.

Foreigners seem popular in this region and everyone we met was
exceptionally
friendly. The normal greeting is an unsmiling bow, and should a man’s
shamma
be covering his head he will lower it while bowing; but here the men also shook hands and smiled warmly, including three mule-riders who
respectfully
dismounted to salute me in proper fashion. Today, too, I saw for the first time a highland woman on a mule – riding astride, wearing tight, ankle-length, velvet trousers beneath her skirt, and carrying a white silk umbrella. She herself didn’t greet me, but ordered her servant to do so, whereupon he prostrated himself before the bedraggled
faranj
and touched my battered boots with his fingertips, which he then kissed. Here umbrellas are more common than rifles and presumably they too are status symbols, since at this season there is neither rain nor heat to justify them.

A month ago I would have laughed at my map for calling Derasghie a ‘town’, but now it seems just that to me. Amidst the straggle of
tukuls
and oblong mud huts there are two Muslim traders’ stalls, in which one can buy Chinese torches and batteries, Indian cotton, Polish soap, Czechoslovakian pocket-combs, kerosene and salt. There are also a primary school, a Governor’s office, a Health Centre and a Police Post – all these institutions being housed in extremely primitive buildings.

Hordes of children greeted us by shouting
‘Faranj! Faranj! Faranj!’
– a reception which brought the law on me, so that within moments I was being marched off to the Governor’s office. When we appeared in his compound the Big Man was about to leave for Debarak, but he postponed his departure to cope with this disconcerting problem, for which convention provided no set answer. Immediately a twenty-year-old ‘Dresser’ from the Health Centre was summoned as interpreter; but unfortunately Asmare speaks minimal English and his Amharic pride led him to confuse various issues by pretending to understand much more than he did.

The Governor demanded my non-existent travel permit and when I produced my visa instead he scrutinised it suspiciously, complained that he couldn’t read the signature and asked who had signed it. I replied ‘The Ethiopian Consul in London’, but I had to admit to not knowing the Consul’s
name and my ignorance of this elementary fact seemed to confirm whatever his worst suspicions were. Yet he was not being at all unpleasant and I sensed that he was merely making a formal show of his power, as much to impress his subordinates as to awe me. However, we were now at an impasse, for, having expressed such strong disapproval of my ‘papers’, and reacted so sceptically to my improbable tale about walking from Tigre through the Semiens, he could hardly relent with dignity. I therefore decided that the moment had come for me to claim unblushingly that Leilt Aida was one of my closest friends – and at once the atmosphere changed completely and
talla
was brought forth.

Inevitably, the Governor wanted to provide me with an escort, but I
successfully
argued that the walk to Debarak would be an Old Ladies’ Outing compared with trekking in the High Semiens. Then, as both Jock and I are in need of rest, I asked if we might have lodgings for three nights – which will give me an opportunity to see the Timkat ceremonies here on the nineteenth – and the Governor immediately told Asmare to show me to the ‘guest-room’ beside his office.

This guest-room is more weather-proof than the average hut, as the inner walls have been well plastered with cow-dung. The builders evidently felt a feeble impulse to be ‘Western’, because two spaces have been left unplastered, to serve as windows – though these admit little light, since the roof-stakes project far out and down to form a verandah. (This common device can be a danger to the unwary, especially after dark, as the sharp stakes are often at eye-level.) There is no furniture, the tin door won’t shut and when I arrived the uneven mud floor was thinly covered with straw: but before his departure the Governor ordered a ‘carpet’ of freshly-cut blue-gum branches.

I slept well last night. We are still in the Semiens, at 10,200 feet, but the
penetrating
frosts of the High Semiens have been left behind.

At 7.30 Asmare guided me to Derasghie Mariam, the most important of the local churches. It is, of course, famous – by now I’ve realised that to the locals every highland parish church is famous – and Asmare proudly informed me that the Emperor Theodore was crowned within its sanctuary. Its murals are the finest I’ve yet seen, but circumstances were against any leisurely enjoyment of them. Protective sheets of dirty cotton hang from ceiling to floor and these had to be lifted aside, with difficulty, by Asmare – using a long pole – while a
group of priests and
debtaras
lurked in the background, looking predatory. The light was poor, too, though
debtaras
opened various twenty-foot-high doors; but for all that I greatly appreciated what I could see of these gay or bloodthirsty saints. It is clear that at some period Derasghie produced – or attracted – artists whose imagination and sense of humour could not be repressed by ecclesiastical conventions.

The clergy here are not very amiable. At the enclosure gate-house, where a score of blind and maimed were patiently awaiting alms, three priests objected to my entering (though I was decently attired) and they only relented on hearing Asmare mention the magic name of Leilt Aida. Then, when we were leaving, I gave the chief priest a dollar – but he looked at it with angry disdain and
aggressively
demanded five dollars. So I snatched the note off his open palm and gave it to the beggars instead. Later this morning a Muslim trader invited me into his stall for a glass of tea, and as I was enjoying this rare luxury another Muslim politely asked if I would sell him a cigarette for twopence. It was difficult to persuade him to accept one as a gift, and I couldn’t help contrasting his attitude with that of the local priests.

Here one gets a most exhilarating sense of space, for Derasghie is on a plateau so vast that mountains are visible only in the far distance to east and west – where their crests appear just above the edges of the plain.

I spent the afternoon wandering through nearby fields, tenaciously attended by children. Everywhere barley was being harvested and I noticed that wild oats were also being threshed and then winnowed from the barley for storage in separate containers.
*

This evening the Timkat ceremonies began at sunset. Timkat
commemorates
the baptism of Christ – the word Timkat means baptism – and it is one of the three most important Ethiopian church festivals. (The other two are Easter and Maskal, which is held in September to commemorate the finding of the true Cross by Empress Helena.) At this time are baptised the children of syphilitic mothers, and when the priests have blessed a pool convenient to the church the devout bathe in this sanctified water. The ceremonies begin on the eve of the festival, when the Tabot, representing the Ark of the Covenant, is carried
to a tent – preferably near a stream – where Mass will be celebrated early next morning.
*

Perhaps because of my disagreement with the clergy at Derasghie Mariam, Asmare brought me this evening to a smaller church nearer the town. We were accompanied on our way by scores of men, women and children – most of the children in new clothes and all the adults in clean
shammas
. Soon after our arrival within the enclosure a procession left the church, preceded by a gun-man and led by an elderly priest draped in tattered, gaily-coloured silken robes and bearing on his head the Tabot, hidden beneath a grubby, gold-embroidered, waist-length cloak. Beside him walked another priest, holding over the Tabot a variously-coloured, silver-spangled silk umbrella, and close behind walked two more priests, also draped in gay silken rags. The procession was completed by two drummer
debtaras
, dressed in lay clothes, and as it wound its dishevelled way down a steep slope it was followed by scores of chanting men, ululating women and silent children – who were more interested in the
faranj
than in the Tabot.

At first the men had been chanting slowly, but soon their rhythm quickened and they broke up into three groups, forming circles of wild dancers who leaped high in the air every other moment while brandishing their
dulas
as though they were spears. Frequent whoopings and hand-clappings accompanied the leapings and
dula
-wavings and clearly everyone was having a wonderful time. Meanwhile the ululating women remained close to the Tabot, and when the procession reached the tent everyone was quiet for a moment, and all
dulas
were thrown to the ground as the Chief Priest prayed and the men bent forward, eyes cast down, while chanting their responses.

After the Tabot had disappeared a strip of matting was laid on the ploughed earth for the local VIPs and a
debtara
invited me to take a seat. Then a priest came from the tent, carrying a basket of hot, blessed
dabo
, and having given the
first piece to the
faranj
he distributed the rest amongst the general public – who each reverently kissed their hunk before eating it.

By now the air was cold and as we hurried home the trees on the church hill were standing out blackly against a blood-orange western sky, and the distant mountain crests to the east were a delicate pink-mauve-blue, and all around us the last of the sunset lay on the crackling barley stubble in a strange, faint,
red-gold
haze.

I spent the early morning at the scene of yesterday’s ceremonies, watching the faithful being sprinkled with blessed water as the sun rose. Then Asmare
reappeared
to accompany me to today’s main festivities, in a long, level field some two miles from Derasghie Mariam. As we arrived white-clad crowds were
converging
on the Tabot tent and scores of shouting horsemen could be seen galloping to and fro across the wide grasslands – including many little boys riding bareback at top speed with great skill. Today the women looked particularly animated, for Timkat frees them of all domestic responsibilities. Many young wives were eyeing the horsemen boldly, and by now both they and their husbands are probably enjoying temporary changes of partners.

Timkat is also one of the occasions when unmarried girls dress in their finest clothes and groom their hair meticulously, for unmarried youths often avail themselves of this appearance of virgins in public to choose an attractive mate. The youth will then ask his father to begin negotiations with the girl’s father – though he can never be sure either of his father’s cooperation or of the
negotiations
proceeding satisfactorily. There can be no question of marrying without paternal consent. To do so would invite a solemn cursing and permanent
disinheritance
, since marriages are arranged to link families rather than individuals. However, if a young couple find each other incompatible discreet unfaithfulness is overlooked and divorce is easy. Yet an unmarried girl is constantly
chaperoned
, and in some homes she is even forbidden to do strenuous jobs lest her hymen should be accidentally ruptured. On the other hand, a boy who is still virgin at eighteen or nineteen will be jeered at by his contemporaries and called ‘
silb
’ (‘castrated one’); so dissatisfied young wives have a wide choice of lovers.

At eleven o’clock a tiny boy in a spotless white tunic left the tent ringing a large bronze bell and followed by the inevitable gun-man. Then appeared a handsome young priest, robed in black and scarlet silk and wearing a golden crown surmounted by a silver cross. He was followed by the Tabot itself, invisible
beneath red velvet on the head of an elderly priest clad in gold, purple and crimson vestments and walking beneath the shade of a silver-spangled blue, yellow, red and green silk umbrella – borne by a young priest. Next came a second crowned priest, two
debtaras
beating enormous gold and silver drums and an old priest swinging an empty silver censer and holding aloft a large, crudely-worked silver and gold cross. The procession was completed by seventeen priests from other churches, carrying prayer-sticks and
sistra
and wearing heavy black, white or navy-blue woollen cloaks.