ARRIVAL AT METEMMA, OR GALLABAT.
WE left the village of Toganai at 5 A.M. and, after a rapid march of sixteen miles, we came in view of Metemma, or Gallabat, in the bottom of a valley surrounded by hills, and backed on the east by the range of mountains of which Nahoot Guddabi formed the extremity of a spur. As we descended the valley, we perceived great crowds of people in and about the town, which, in appearance, was merely a repetition of Katariff. It was market-day, and as we descended the hill and arrived in the scene below, with our nine camels heavily laden with the heads and horns of a multitude of different beasts, from the gaping jaws of hippopotami to the vicious-looking heads of rhinoceros and buffalo, while the skins of lions and various antelopes were piled above masses of the much-prized hide of the rhinoceros, we were beset by crowds of people who were curious to know whence so strange a party had appeared. We formed a regular procession through the market, our Tokrooris feeling quite at home among so many of their brethren. Upon our arrival at the extremity of the valley, we were horribly disgusted at the appearance of the water. A trifling stream of about two inches in depth trickled over a bed of sand, shaded by a grove of trees. The putrefying bodies of about half a dozen donkeys, three or four camels, and the remains of a number of horses, lay in and about the margin of the water. Nevertheless, the natives had scraped small holes in the sand, as filters, and thus they were satisfied with this poisonous fluid; in some of these holes, the women were washing their filthy clothes. I immediately determined to follow up stream, until I should arrive at some clear spot above these horrible impurities, that were sufficient to create a pestilence.
Ascending the rising ground, I found on the summit, at about half a mile distant, an immense sycamore (Ficus sycamorus), whose green and wide-spreading branches afforded a tempting shade. Not far from this spot, I found the bed of a dry torrent that flowed into the poisoned stream of Gallabat. I ordered my men to dig a deep hole in the sand, which fortunately discovered clear and good-flavoured water. We immediately pitched tents close to the sycamore. From this elevation, about a hundred and fifty feet above Gallabat, we had a beautiful view of the amphitheatre of hills and mountains, while the crowded town lay below, as in the bottom of a basin. The Atbara was not far distant in the ravine between the hill ranges, as it had made a sharp angle at Toganai, and altered its direction to the north.
Our arrival had made some stir in Gallabat, and many people had followed us, and stared with much curiosity at the collection of hunting trophies. Among our visitors was an Abyssinian merchant, Jusef, whose acquaintance I had formerly made at Cassala; he was an agreeable and well-informed man, who had been in Paris and London and spoke French and English tolerably. I accompanied him for a stroll through the market, and was introduced by him to a number of the principal Abyssinian merchants. The principal trade of Gallabat, which is the market-place for all commerce between Abyssinia and the Egyptian provinces, is in cotton, coffee, bees'-wax, and hides. Coffee is brought in large quantities by the Abyssinian merchants, who buy cotton in exchange, for the manufacture of clothes according to their own fashion. I bought a quantity of excellent coffee at the rate of two dollars for thirty-five pounds, equal to about two and three-quarters pence a pound. Sheds were arranged in lines; these were occupied by the coffee merchants with their stores, while a great stock of cotton in bales, to the number of some thousand, were piled in rows in an open space. Not far from the mass of goods was a confusion of camels, asses, and mules that had formed the means of transport.
I now met an Italian merchant, with whom I subsequently became intimately acquainted, Signor Angelo Bolognesi--he had arrived from Khartoum to purchase coffee and bees'-wax. We were delighted to meet a civilized European after so long an absence. For some months we had had little intercourse with any human beings beyond the hunters that had composed our party, in countries that were so wild and savage, that the print of a naked foot upon the sand had instinctively brought the rifle upon full cock. Our European society was quickly increased: two German missionaries had arrived, en ronte for an establishment that had been set on foot in the heart of Abyssinia, under the very nose of the King Theodore, who regarded missionaries as an unsavoury odour. Both were suffering from fever, having foolishly located themselves in a hut close to the foul stench of dead animals on the margin of the polluted stream, the water of which they drank. One of these preachers was a blacksmith, whose iron constitution had entirely given way, and the little strength that remained, he exhausted in endless quotations of texts from the Bible, which he considered applicable to every trifling event or expression. I regretted that I could not agree with him in the propriety of invading Abyssinia with Bible extracts, as the natives attached as great importance to their own particular form of Christianity, as any other of the numerous sects that unhappily divide that beautiful religion into schisms; any fresh dogma introduced by strangers might destroy the union of the Abyssinian Church, and would be not only a source of annoyance to the priesthood, but would most probably influence them and the king against all Europeans.
