Volume One—Chapter Twelve.
Dullool—The Ras Unpleasantly Reminded of his Pledge—Sagállo and Warelissán.
Izhák’s absent camels, which had been kept close at hand pending the issue of this stormy debate, being now brought in, the ground was speedily cleared of the remaining baggage; and satisfied with the specious assurance of the Ras el Káfilah, that he would on no account tarry beyond nightfall of the following day, the party, relieved from their anxiety, mounted after five o’clock, and galloped seven miles along the sea-beach to the camp at Dullool,—the loose sand being so perforated and undermined in every part by the hermit crab, as to render the sieve-like road truly treacherous and unpleasant.
The grassy nook occupied by the tent was situated at the abutment of a spur from the wooded Jebel Goodah, evidently of volcanic origin, which gradually diminishes in height, until it terminates, one hundred yards from the shore, in a thick jungle of tamarisk and acacia, the former covered with salt crystals. Hornblende, in blocks, was scattered along the beach, and, wherever decomposed, it yielded fine glittering black sand, so heated under the noontide sun as to burn the naked foot. The movable camp of a horde of roving Bedouin shepherds, who, with very slender habitations, possess no fixed abode, was erected near the wells; and a quarrel with the followers, respecting the precious element, having already led to the drawing of creeses, silver was again in requisition to allay the impending storm.
The heat on the 2nd of June was almost insupportable; but the sultry day proved one of greater quiet than had fallen to the lot of the Embassy since its first landing. Late in the evening, when a cool sea-breeze had set in, Ali Shermárki rode into camp, and delivered a letter which had been slipped into his hand by the Sultán, appealing against the hardship of being left without remuneration for his diligent services, praying that his old heart might be made glad, and hoping that all might meet again ere death should call them—a wish responded to by no single individual of the British party.
Neither Izhák nor any of his followers made their appearance, notwithstanding that the redemption of the solemn promise passed was anxiously watched until midnight. At gun-fire the next morning, however, the arrival of the whole being reported, orders were issued to strike the tent, a measure which was doggedly opposed by the Ras el Káfilah, whose brow again darkened as he declared his resolution not to stir from Dullool until three of his camels, which were said to have strayed, should be recovered; and deaf alike to remonstrance or entreaty, he finally withdrew to a distance, taking his seat in sullen mood beneath a tree.
The schooner had meanwhile fished her anchor, and was now getting under weigh for the purpose of standing up within range of the next halting ground. The mules were harnessed to the gun, and the tent and baggage packed. Ali Shermárki was deputed to acquaint Izhák with these facts, and to intimate firmly, that unless the order to load were given without another moment’s delay, minute guns would be fired as a signal to bring up the brig from Tajúra, when the promise made yesterday by the English would be found more binding than those of the Danákil had hitherto proved. This menace had the desired effect, and after three hours of needless detention, the party commenced its third hot march along the sea-beach, whence the hills gradually recede. Bedouin goat-herds occupied many wells of fresh water, which were denoted by clumps of date trees entwined by flowering convolvuli, whose matted tendrils fix the movable sands of the shore; and late in the forenoon the camp was formed at the pool of Sagállo, only three miles from the former ground, but affording the last supply of water to be obtained for thirty more.
An extensive and beautiful prospect of the western portion of the Bay of Tajúra had now opened, bound in on all sides by a zone of precipitous mountains, in which the gate leading into Goobut el Kharáb was distinctly marked by a low black point, extending from the northern shore. The schooner’s services were volunteered to admit of a nearer inspection of the “basin of foulness;” but no sooner had she stood out to sea than signal guns fired from the camp announced the arrival of another packet from Shoa. The courier had been forty-four days on the journey, and the tidings he brought respecting the road, although highly satisfactory, added yet another instance to the many, of the small reliance that can be placed on information derived from the Danákil, who, even when disinterested, can rarely indeed be induced to utter a word of truth.
The strong party feeling entertained towards Mohammad Ali by the magnates of Tajúra, now vented itself in divers evil-minded and malicious hints, insinuating the defection of the absentee, who had been unavoidably detained by business, some hours after the last of the sea-port heroes had joined. “Where now is your friend Ali Mohammad?” “Where is the man who was to supply water on the road?” were the taunting interrogatories from the mouths of many; but come the son of Ali Abi did, to the confusion of his slanderers, long ere the sun had set, bringing secret intelligence that he had sent to engage an escort from his own tribe; and the whole party being now at last assembled, it was resolved in full conclave, that as not a drop of water could be procured for three stages in advance, the entire of the next day should be devoted to filling up the skins, which done, the caravan should resume its march by night—a manoeuvre that savoured strongly of a design to favour the clandestine return to Tajúra of certain of the escort, who had still domestic affairs to settle.
Thus far the conduct of the son of the Rookhba chief had formed a notable contrast to the proceedings of his backbiters. Whilst Izhák and his stubborn partisans had positively declined to move according to their agreement, unless a further most extravagant and unconscionable sum were paid in advance for their anticipated services, and had altogether assumed a bullying tone, coupled with a most impertinent and overbearing demeanour, this scion of a savage house that holds in its hands the avenues betwixt Shoa and Tajúra, and could at pleasure cut off communication with the coast, had never applied for aught save a trifling sum for the present maintenance of his family, and since the first éclaircissement, had, to the best of his ability, striven to render himself useful and agreeable to the party about to pass through his country.
A most unprofitable discussion, which was prolonged until eleven the following night, had for its object to persuade the transmission of baggage in advance to the Salt Lake, in consequence of the carried supply of water being, after all, considered insufficient for three days’ consumption. But the proposal was negatived upon prudent grounds, the honesty of the intentions by which it had been dictated, seeming at best, extremely questionable, and no one feeling disposed to trust the faithless guides further than they could be seen, with property of value.
Scarcely were the weary eyes of the party closed in sleep, than the long 32-pounder of the “Constance,” proclaiming the midnight hour, sounded to boot and saddle. The Babel-like clamour of loading was at length succeeded by a lull of voices, and the rumbling of the galloper wheels over the loose shingle, was alone heard in the still calm of the night, above the almost noiseless tread of the cushion-footed camels, which formed an interminable line. The road, lit by the full moon, shining brightly overhead, lay for the first two or three miles along the beach, and then, crossing numerous water-courses, struck over the southern shoulder of Jebel Goodah, the distance from whose lofty peak each march had reduced.
Blocks and boulders varying in size from an 18 pound shot, to that of Ossa piled upon Pelion, aided by deep chasms, gullies, and waterways, rendering the ascent one of equal toil and peril, cost the life of a camel, which fell over a precipice and dislocated the spine; whereupon the conscientious proprietor, disdaining to take further heed of the load, abandoned it unscrupulously by the wayside. Gáleylaféo, a singular and fearful chasm which was navigated in the first twilight, did not exceed sixty feet in width; its gloomy, perpendicular walls of columnar lava, towering one hundred and fifty feet overhead, and casting a deep deceitful shadow over the broken channel, half a mile in extent. Déeni, in his customary strain of amplification, had represented this frightful pass to be entered through a trap-door, in order to clear which it was necessary for a loaded camel to forget its staid demeanour, and bound from rock to rock like a mountain kid. The devil and all his angels were represented to hold midnight orgies in one of the most dismal of the many dark recesses; and the belief was fully confirmed by the whooping of a colony of baboons, disturbed by the wheels of the first piece of ordnance that had ever attempted the bumping passage.
Dawn disclosed the artillery mules in such wretched plight from their fatiguing night’s labour, that it was found necessary to unlimber the gun, and place it with its carriage on the back of an Eesah camel of Herculean strength, provided for the contingency by the foresight of Mohammad Ali; and although little pleased during the imposition of its novel burthen, the animal, rising without difficulty, moved freely along at a stately gait. The same uninteresting volcanic appearance characterised the entire country to the table-land of Warelissán, a distance of twelve miles. Dreary and desolate, without a trace of vegetation saving a few leafless acacias, there was no object to relieve the gaze over the whole forbidding expanse. In this barren unsightly spot the radiation was early felt from the masses of black cindery rock, which could not be touched with impunity. The sand soil of the desert reflecting the powerful beams of the sun, lent a fearful intensity to the heat, whilst on every side the dust rose in clouds that at one moment veiled the caravan from sight, and at the next left heads of camels tossing in the inflamed atmosphere among the bright spear-blades of the escort. But on gaining the highest point, a redeeming prospect was afforded in an unexpected and most extensive bird’s eye view of the estuary of Tajúra, now visible in all its shining glory, from this, its western boundary. Stretching away for miles in placid beauty, its figure was that of a gigantic hour-glass; and far below on its glassy bosom were displayed the white sails of the friendly little schooner, as, after safely navigating the dangerous and much-dreaded portals of Scylla and Charybdis, never previously braved by any craft larger than a jolly boat—bellying to the breeze, she beat gallantly up to the head of Goobut el Kharáb.
Volume One—Chapter Thirteen.
Gloomy Passage of Rah Eesah, the Descensus ad Inferos.
Although Warelissán proved nearly seventeen hundred feet above the level of the blue water, a suffocating south-westerly wind, which blew throughout the tedious day, rendered the heat more awfully oppressive than at any preceding station. The camp, unsheltered, occupied a naked tract of table-land, some six miles in circumference, on the shoulder of Jebel Goodah—its barren surface strewed with shining lava, and bleached animal bones; sickly acacias of most puny growth, sparingly invested with sun-burnt leaves, here and there struggling through the fissures, as if to prove the utter sterility of the soil; whilst total absence of water, and towering whirlwinds of dust, sand, and pebbles, raised by the furnace-like puffs that came stealing over the desert landscape, completed the discomfiture both of man and beast.
During the dead of night, when restless unrefreshing slumbers on the heated ground had hushed the camp in all its quarters, the elders, in great consternation, brought a report that the Bedouin war-hawks, who nestle in the lap of the adjacent wild mountains, were collecting in the neighbourhood with the design of making a sudden swoop upon the káfilah, for which reason the European escort must be prepared for battle, and muskets be discharged forthwith, to intimidate the lurking foe. They were informed, in reply, that all slept upon their arms, and were in readiness; but Mohammad Ali came shortly afterwards to announce that matters had been amicably adjusted with the aid of a few ells of blue cloth; and under the care of a double sentry, the party slept on without further disturbance until two in the morning, prior to which hour, the moon, now on her wane, had not attained sufficient altitude to render advance practicable.
The aid of her pale beams was indispensable, in consequence of the existence of the yawning pass of Rah Eesah, not one hundred yards distant from the encampment just abandoned, but till now unperceived. It derives its appellation, as “the road of the Eesahs,” from the fact of this being the path usually chosen by that hostile portion of the Somauli nation, on the occasions of their frequent forays into the country of the Danákil, with whom, singularly enough, an outward understanding subsists. Its depths have proved the arena of many a sanguinary contest, and are said, after each downpouring of the heavens, to become totally impassable, until again cleared of the huge blocks of stone, the detritus from the scarped cliffs, which so choke the bed of the chasm, as to impede all progress. The labour of removing these, secures certain immunities to the wild pioneers, who levy a toll upon every passing caravan, and who in this instance were propitiated, on application, by the division of a bale of blue cotton calico, a manufacture here esteemed beyond all price.
A deep zig-zagged rent in the plateaux, produced originally by some grand convulsion of nature, and for ages the channel of escape to the sea of the gathered waters from Jebel Goodah, winds like a mythological dragon through the bowels of the earth, upwards of three miles to the southward. Masses of basalt of a dark burnt brown colour, are piled perpendicularly on either side, like the solid walls of the impregnable fortresses reared by the Cyclops of old; and rising from a very narrow channel, strewed with blocks of stone, and huge fallen fragments of rock, tower overhead to the height of five or six hundred feet. One perilous path affords barely sufficient width for a camel’s tread, and with a descensus of one foot and a half in every three, leads twisting away into the gloomy depths below, dedicated to the son of Chaos and Darkness, and now plunged in total obscurity.
It was a bright and cloudless night, and the scenery, as viewed by the uncertain moonlight, cast at intervals in the windings of the road upon the glittering spear-blades of the warriors, was wild and terrific. The frowning basaltic cliffs, not three hundred yards from summit to summit, flung an impenetrable gloom over the greater portion of the frightful chasm, until, as the moon rose higher in the clear vault of heaven, she shone full upon huge shadowy masses, and gradually revealed the now dry bed, which in the rainy season must often-times become a brief but impetuous torrent.
No sound was heard save the voice of the camel-driver, coaxing his stumbling beasts to proceed by the most endearing expressions. In parts where the passage seemed completely choked, the stepping from stone to stone, accomplished with infinite difficulty, was followed by a drop leap, which must have shaken every bone. The gun was twice shifted to the back of a spare camel, provided for the purpose; and how the heavily-laden, the fall of one of which would have obstructed the way to those that followed, kept their feet, is indeed subject of profound astonishment. All did come safely through, however, notwithstanding the appearance of sundry wild Bedouins, whose weapons and matted locks gleamed in the moonbeam, as their stealthy figures flitted in thin tracery from crag to crag. A dozen resolute spirits might have successfully opposed the united party; but these hornets of the mountains, offering no molestation, contented themselves with reconnoitring the van and rear-guards from heights inaccessible through their natural asperity, until the twilight warned them to retire to their dens and hiding places; and ere the sun shone against the summits of the broken cliffs, the straggling caravan had emerged in safety from this dark descent to Eblis.
Goobut el Kharáb, with the singular sugar-loaf islet of Good Ali, shortly opened to view for the last time, across black sheets of lava, hardened in their course to the sea, and already rotten near the water’s edge. Many years have not elapsed since the Eesah made their latest foray to the north of the pass, which has since borne their name; and sweeping off immense booty in cattle, halted on their return at Eyroladába, above the head of the bay. Under cover of the pitchy darkness, five hundred Danákil warriors, passing silently through the gloomy defile, fell suddenly in the dead of night upon the marauders, when, in addition to the multitude slain by the spear and creese, numbers in the panic created by the surprise, leapt in their flight over the steep lava cliffs, and perished in the deep waters of the briny basin.
The schooner, although riding safely at anchor near the western extremity, was altogether concealed by precipitous walls that towered above her raking masts, and kept the party in uncertainty of her arrival. Crossing the lone valley of Marmoríso, a remnant of volcanic action, rent and seamed with gaping fissures, the road turned over a large basaltic cone, which had brought fearful devastation upon the whole surrounding country, and here one solitary gazelle browsed on stubble-like vegetation scorched to a uniform brown. Skirting the base of a barren range, covered with heaps of lava blocks, and its foot ornamented with many artificial piles, marking deeds of blood, the lofty conical peak of Jebel Seeáro rose presently to sight, and not long afterwards the far-famed Lake Assál, surrounded by dancing mirage, was seen sparkling at its base.
The first glimpse of the strange phenomenon, although curious, was far from pleasing. An elliptical basin, seven miles in its transverse axis, half filled with smooth water of the deepest caerulean blue, and half with a solid sheet of glittering snow-white salt, the offspring of evaporation—girded on three sides by huge hot-looking mountains, which dip their bases into the very bowl, and on the fourth by crude half-formed rocks of lava, broken and divided by the most unintelligible chasms,—it presented the appearance of a spoiled, or at least of a very unfinished piece of work. Bereft alike of vegetation and of animal life, the appearance of the wilderness of land and stagnant water, over which a gloomy silence prevailed, and which seemed a temple for ages consecrated to drought, desolation, and sterility, is calculated to depress the spirit of every beholder. No sound broke on the ear; not a ripple played upon the water; the molten surface of the lake, like burnished steel, lay unruffled by a breeze; the fierce sky was without a cloud, and the angry sun, like a ball of metal at a white heat, rode triumphant in a full blaze of noontide refulgence, which in sickening glare was darted back on the straining vision of the fainting wayfarer, by the hot sulphury mountains that encircled the still, hollow, basin. A white foam on the shelving shore of the dense water, did contrive for a brief moment to deceive the eye with an appearance of motion and fluidity; but the spot, on more attentive observation, ever remained unchanged—a crystallised efflorescence.
As the tedious road wound on over basalt, basaltic lava, and amygdaloid, the sun, waxing momentarily more intensely powerful, was reflected with destructive and stifling fervour from slates of snow-white sea-limestone borne on their tops. Still elevated far above the level of the ocean, a number of fossil shells, of species now extinct, were discovered; a deep cleft by the wayside, presenting the unequivocal appearance of the lower crater of a volcano, situated on the high basaltic range above, whence the lava stream had been disgorged through apertures burst in the rocks, but which had re-closed after the violence of the eruption had subsided.
Dafári, a wild broken chasm at some distance from the road, usually contains abundance of rain-water in its rocky pool, but having already been long drained to the dregs, it offered no temptation to halt. Another most severe and trying declivity had therefore to be overcome, ere the long and sultry march was at an end. It descended by craggy precipices many hundred feet below the level of the sea, to the small close sandy plain of Mooya, on the borders of the Lake—a positive Jehannam, where the gallant captain of the “Constance” (Lieutenant Wilmot Christopher, I N) had already been some hours ensconced under the leafless branches of one poor scrubby thorn, which afforded the only screen against the stifling blast of the sirocco, and the merciless rays of the refulgent orb overhead.
Adyli, a deep mysterious cavern at the further extremity of the plain, is believed by the credulous to be the shaft leading to a subterranean gallery which extends to the head of Goobut el Kharáb. Déeni, most expert and systematic of liars, even went so far as to assert that he had seen through it the waters of the bay, although he admitted it to be the abode of “gins and efreets,” whose voices are heard throughout the night, and who carry off the unwary traveller to devour him without remorse. The latest instance on record was of one Shehém, who was compelled by the weariness of his camel to fall behind the caravan, and, when sought by his comrades, was nowhere to be found, notwithstanding that his spear and shield had remained untouched. No tidings of the missing man having been obtained to the present hour, he is believed by his disconsolate friends to have furnished a meal to the gins in Adyli; but it seems not improbable that some better clue to his fate might be afforded by the Adrúsi, an outcast clan of the Débeni, acknowledging no chief, though recognising in some respects the authority of the Sultán of Tajúra, and who wander over the country for evil, from Sagállo to the Great Salt Lake.
Foul-mouthed vampires and ghouls were alone wanting to complete the horrors of this accursed spot, which, from its desolate position, might have been believed the last stage in the habitable world. A close mephitic stench, impeding respiration, arose from the saline exhalations of the stagnant lake. A frightful glare from the white salt and limestone hillocks threatened destruction to the vision; and a sickening heaviness in the loaded atmosphere, was enhanced rather than alleviated by the fiery breath of the parching north-westerly wind, which blew without any intermission during the entire day. The air was inflamed, the sky sparkled, and columns of burning sand, which at quick intervals towered high into the dazzling atmosphere, became so illumined as to appear like tall pillars of fire. Crowds of horses, mules, and fetid camels, tormented to madness by the dire persecutions of the poisonous gad-fly, flocked recklessly with an instinctive dread of the climate, to share the only bush; and obstinately disputing with their heels the slender shelter it afforded, compelled several of the party to seek refuge in noisome caves formed along the foot of the range by fallen masses of volcanic rock, which had become heated to a temperature seven times in excess of a potter’s kiln, and fairly baked up the marrow in the bones. Verily! it was “an evil place,” that lake of salt: it was “no place of seed, nor of figs, nor yet of vines; no, nor even of pomegranates; neither was there any water to drink.”
Volume One—Chapter Fourteen.
Fearful Sufferings in the Pandemonium of Bahr Assál.
In this unventilated and diabolical hollow, dreadful indeed were the sufferings in store both for man and beast. Not a drop of fresh water existed within many miles; and, notwithstanding that every human precaution had been taken to secure a supply, by means of skins carried upon camels, the very great extent of most impracticable country to be traversed, which had unavoidably led to the detention of nearly all, added to the difficulty of restraining a multitude maddened by the tortures of burning thirst, rendered the provision quite insufficient; and during the whole of this appalling day, with the mercury in the thermometer standing at 126 degrees under the shade of cloaks and umbrellas—in a suffocating Pandemonium, depressed five hundred and seventy feet below the ocean, where no zephyr fanned the fevered skin, and where the glare arising from the sea of white salt was most painful to the eyes; where the furnace-like vapour exhaled, almost choking respiration, created an indomitable thirst, and not the smallest shade or shelter existed, save such as was afforded, in cruel mockery, by the stunted boughs of the solitary leafless acacia, or, worse still, by black blocks of heated lava, it was only practicable, during twelve tedious hours, to supply to each of the party two quarts of the most mephitic brick-dust-coloured fluid, which the direst necessity could alone have forced down the parched throat, and which, after all, far from alleviating thirst, served materially to augment its insupportable horrors.
It is true that since leaving the shores of India, the party had gradually been in training towards a disregard of dirty water—a circumstance of rather fortunate occurrence. On board a ship of any description the fluid is seldom very clean, or very plentiful. At Cape Aden there was little perceptible difference betwixt the sea-water and the land water. At Tajúra the beverage obtainable was far from being improved in quality by the taint of the new skins in which it was transferred from the only well; and now, in the very heart of the scorching Teháma, when a copious draught of aqua pura seemed absolutely indispensable every five minutes, to secure further existence upon earth, the detestable mixture that was at long intervals most parsimoniously produced, was the very acmé of abomination. Fresh hides stripped from the rank he-goat, besmeared inside as well as out with old tallow and strong bark tan, filled from an impure well at Sagállo, tossed, tumbled, and shaken during two entire nights on a camel’s back, and brewed during the same number of intervening days under a strong distilling heat—poured out an amalgamation of pottage of which the individual ingredients of goat’s hair, rancid mutton fat, astringent bark, and putrid water, were not to be distinguished. It might be smelt at the distance of twenty yards, yet all, native and European, were struggling and quarrelling for a taste of the recipe. The crest-fallen mules, who had not moistened their cracked lips during two entire days, crowding around the bush, thrust their hot noses into the faces of their masters, in reproachful intimation of their desire to participate in the filthy but tantalising decoction; and deterred with difficulty from draining the last dregs, they ran frantically with open mouths to seek mitigation of their sufferings at the deceptive waters of the briny lake, which, like those of Goobut el Kharáb, were so intensely salt, as to create smarting of the lips if tasted.
Slowly flapped the leaden wings of Time on that dismal day. Each weary hour brought a grievous accession, but no alleviation, to the fearful torments endured. The stagnation of the atmosphere continued undiminished; the pangs of thirst increased, but no water arrived; and the sun’s despotic dominion on the meridian, appeared to know no termination. At four o’clock, when the heat was nothing abated, distressing intelligence was received that one of the seamen, who during the preceding night had accompanied the captain of the schooner-of-war from Goobut el Kharáb, and had unfortunately lost his way, could nowhere be found—the gunner, with six men, having long painfully searched the country side for their lost messmate, but to no purpose; Abroo, the son of whom old Aboo Bekr was justly proud, and who was indeed the flower of his tribe, immediately volunteered to go in quest of the missing sailor, and he subsequently returned with the cheering intelligence that his efforts had been crowned with success. Overwhelmed by heat and thirst, the poor fellow, unable to drag his exhausted limbs further, had crept for shelter into a fissure of the heated lava, where he had soon sunk into a state of insensibility. Water, and the use of a lancet, with which the young midshipman who heroically accompanied the exploring party had been provided, restored suspended animation sufficiently to admit of his patient being conveyed on board the “Constance” alive; but, alas! he never reached Tajúra; neither did one of the brave tars who sought their lost comrade under the fierce rays of the sun, nor indeed did any of the adventurous expedition, escape without feeling, in after severe illness, the unwholesome influence upon the human constitution of that waste and howling wilderness.
But the longest day must close at last, and the great luminary had at length run his fiery and tyrannical course. String after string of loaded camels, wearied with the passage of the rugged defile of Rah Eesah, were with infinite difficulty urged down the last steep declivity, and at long intervals, as the shadows lengthened, made their tardy appearance upon the desert plain; those carrying water, tents, and the greater portion of the provisions most required, being nevertheless still in the rear when the implacable orb went down, shorn of his last fierce ray. The drooping spirits of all now rose with the prospect of speedy departure from so fearful a spot. The commander of the friendly schooner, which had proved of such inestimable service, but whose protecting guns were at length to be withdrawn, shortly set out on his return to the vessel with the last despatches from the Embassy, after bidding its members a final farewell; and in order to obtain water, any further deprivation of which must have involved the dissolution of the whole party, no less than to escape from the pestilential exhalations of the desolate lake, which, as well during the night as during the day, yielded up a blast like that curling from a smith’s forge—withering to the human frame—it was resolved as an unavoidable alternative, to leave the baggage to its fate, and to the tender mercies of guides and camel-drivers, pushing forward as expeditiously as possible to Goongoonteh, a cleft in the mountains that bound the opposite shore, wherein water was known to be abundant. Pursuant to this determination, the European escort, with the servants, followers, horses, and mules, were held in readiness to march so soon as the moon should rise above the gloomy lava hills, sufficiently to admit of the path being traced which leads beyond the accursed precincts of a spot, fitly likened by the Danákil to the infernal regions.
Dismal, deadly, and forbidding, but deeply interesting in a geological point of view, its overwhelming and paralysing heat precluded all possibility of minute examination, and thus researches were of necessity confined to the general character of the place. Latitude, longitude, and level were however accurately determined (These will be found in the Appendix, Number One), and many were the theories ventured, to account for so unusual a phenomenon. Obviously the result of earthquake and volcanic eruption—a chaos vomited into existence by
“Th’ infuriate hill that shoots the pillar’d flame,”
Dame Nature must indeed have been in a most afflicting throe to have given birth to a progeny so monstrous; and there being no locality to which the most vivid fancy could assign aught that ever bore the name of wealth or human population, little doubt can exist that the sea must have been repelled far from its former boundaries. The oviform figure of the bowl, hemmed in on three sides by volcanic mountains, and on the fourth by sheets of lava, would at the first glance indicate the site of an extensive crater, whose cone having fallen into a subterranean abyss, had given rise to the singular appearance witnessed. But it is a far more probable hypothesis that the Bahr Assál, now a dead sea, formed at some very remote period a continuation of the Gulf of Tajúra, and was separated from Goobut el Kharáb by a stream of lava six miles in breadth, subsequently upheaved by subterranean action, and now forming a barrier, which, from its point of greatest elevation, where the traces of many craters still exist, gradually slopes eastward towards the deep waters of the bay, and westward into the basin of the Salt Lake. Whilst no soundings are found in the estuary of Tajúra, Goobut el Kharáb gives one hundred and fifteen fathoms, or six hundred and ninety feet; and premising the depression of the lake to have been formerly correspondent therewith, one hundred and twenty feet may be assumed as its present depth. To this it has been reduced by the great annual evaporation that must take place—an evaporation decreasing every year as the salt solution becomes more intensely concentrated, and evinced by the saline incrustation on the surface no less than by a horizontal efflorescence, in strata, at a considerable height on the face of the circumjacent rocks.
In the lapse of years, should the present order of things continue undisturbed from below, the water win probably disappear altogether, leaving a field of rock salt, which, when covered in by the débris washed down from the adjacent mountains, will form an extensive depôt for the supply of Danákil generations yet unborn; and the shocks of earthquakes being still occasionally felt in the neighbourhood, it seems not improbable—to carry the speculation still further—that Goobut el Kharáb, divided only by a narrow channel from the Bay of Tajúra, will, under subterranean influence, be, in due process of time, converted into a salt lake, in no material respect dissimilar from the Bahr Assál—another worthy type of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Volume One—Chapter Fifteen.
Dismal Night-March along the Inhospitable Shores of the Great Salt Lake.
Scarcely had the moon dipped her first flickering beam into the unruffled surface of the oval lake, and lighted the bluff cliffs for some hours previously shrouded in gloomy obscurity, than a loud war-cry from the adjacent heights echoed the assembly to arms, and the shrill blast of the Adaïel conch summoned all to the rescue. Abandoning his occupation, each stalwart warrior seized spear and buckler, which had been laid aside whilst he aided in the task of reloading the camels for the approaching night-march, and with respondent yells rushed towards the spot whence the alarm proceeded. The Europeans, springing from their broken slumbers on the parched sands, stood to their arms. A long interval of silence and suspense succeeded, which was at last relieved by the return of Mohammad Ali, one of whose beasts had unfortunately slidden with its burden over a steep precipice, when the water-skins bursting incontinently, had scattered the filthy but precious contents over the thirsty soil—an irreparable catastrophe which had occasioned the call for assistance, believed by all to indicate a hostile gathering of the wild Bedouin clans.
Of two roads which lead to Goongoonteh from the shores of the dreary Bahr Assál, one skirts the margin of the lake by a route utterly destitute of fresh water; whilst the other, although somewhat more circuitous, conducts over high lava banks stretching some distance inland to Haliksitan, and past the small well of Hanlefánta, where the drained pitcher of the fainting wayfarer may be refilled. On finally quitting the bivouac under the scraggy boughs of the dwarf acacia, where the tedious and most trying day had been endured—which each of the half-stifled party did with an inward prayer that it might never fall to his lot to seek their treacherous shelter more—a fierce dispute arose amongst the leaders of the caravan as to which path should be adopted. “What matters it,” urged the intolerant Mohammadan from Shoa, who had accidentally been found starving at Ambábo, and been since duly fed by the embassy—“what matters it if all these Christian dogs should happen to expire of thirst? Lead the Kafirs by the lower road, or, Allahu akbar, God is most powerful, if the waters of the well prove low, what is to become of the mules of the Faithful?”
But the breast of the son of Ali Abi fortunately warmed to a more humane and charitable feeling than the stony heart of the “red man.” With his hand upon the hilt of his creese, he swore aloud upon the sacred Korán to take the upper path, and stoutly led the way, in defiance of all, after Izhák and the ruthless bigots in his train had actually entered upon a route, which the event proved must have involved the destruction of all less inured than the savage to the hardships of the waste wilderness.
’Twas midnight when the thirsty party commenced the steep ascent of the ridge of volcanic hills which frown above the south-eastern boundary of the fiery lake. The searching north-east wind had scarcely diminished in its parching fierceness, and in hot suffocating gusts swept fitfully over the broad glittering expanse of water and salt whereon the moon shone brightly—each deadly puff succeeded by the stillness that foretells a tropical hurricane—an absolute absence even of the smallest ruffling of the close atmosphere. Around, the prospect was wild, gloomy, and unearthly, beetling basaltic cones and jagged slabs of shattered larva—the children of some mighty trouble—forming scenery the most shadowy and extravagant. A chaos of ruined churches and cathedrals, eedgahs, towers, monuments, and minarets, like the ruins of a demolished world, appeared to have been confusedly tossed together by the same volcanic throes, that when the earth was in labour, had produced the phenomenon below; and they shot their dilapidated spires into the molten vault of heaven, in a fantastic medley, which, under so uncertain a light, bewildered and perplexed the heated brain. The path, winding along the crest of the ridge, over sheets of broken lava, was rarely of more than sufficient width to admit of progress in single file; and the livelong hours, each seeming in itself a century, were spent in scrambling up the face of steep rugged precipices, where the moon gleamed upon the bleaching skeleton of some camel that had proved unequal to the task—thence again to descend at the imminent peril of life and limb, into yawning chasms and dark abysses, the forbidding vestiges of bygone volcanic agency.
The horrors of that dismal night set the efforts of description at defiance. An unlimited supply of water in prospect, at the distance of only sixteen miles, had for the brief moment buoyed up the drooping spirit which tenanted each way-worn frame; and when an exhausted mule was unable to totter further, his rider contrived manfully to breast the steep hill on foot. But owing to the long fasting and privation endured by all, the limbs of the weaker soon refused the task, and after the first two miles, they dropped fast in the rear.
Fanned by the fiery blast of the midnight sirocco, the cry for water, uttered feebly and with difficulty by numbers of parched throats, now became incessant; and the supply of that precious element brought for the whole party falling short of one gallon and a half, it was not long to be answered. A tiny sip of diluted vinegar for a moment assuaging the burning thirst which raged in the vitals, and consumed some of the more down-hearted, again raised their drooping souls; but its effects were transient, and after struggling a few steps, overwhelmed, they sunk again, with husky voice declaring their days to be numbered, and their resolution to rise up no more. Dogs incontinently expired upon the road; horses and mules that once lay down, being unable from exhaustion to rally, were reluctantly abandoned to their fate; whilst the lion-hearted soldier, who had braved death at the cannon’s mouth, subdued and unmanned by thirst, finally abandoning his resolution, lay gasping by the wayside, and heedless of the exhortation of his officers, hailed approaching dissolution with delight, as bringing the termination of tortures which were not to be endured.
Whilst many of the escort and followers were thus unavoidably left stretched with open mouths along the road, in a state of utter insensibility, and apparently yielding up the ghost, others, pressing on to arrive at water, became bewildered in the intricate mazes of the wide wilderness, and recovered it with the utmost difficulty. As another day dawned, and the round red sun again rose in wrath over the Lake of Salt, towards the hateful shores of which the tortuous path was fast tending, the courage of all who had hitherto home up against fatigue and anxiety began to flag. A dimness came before the drowsy eyes, giddiness seized the brain, and the prospect ever held out by the guides, of quenching thirst immediately in advance, seeming like the tantalising delusions of a dream, had well nigh lost its magical effect; when, as the spirits of the most sanguine fainted within them, a wild Bedouin was perceived, like a delivering angel from above, hurrying forward with a large skin filled with muddy water. This most well-timed supply, obtained by Mohammad Ali from the small pool at Hanlefánta, of which, with the promised guard of his own tribe, by whom he had been met, he had taken forcible possession in defiance of the impotent threats of the ruthless “red man,” was sent to the rear. It admitted of a sufficient quantity being poured over the face and down the parched throat, to revive every prostrate and perishing sufferer; and at a late hour, ghastly, haggard, and exhausted, like men who had escaped from the jaws of death, the whole had contrived to straggle into a camp, which, but for the foresight and firmness of the son of Ali Abi, few individuals indeed of the whole party would have reached alive.
A low range of limestone hillocks, interspersed with strange masses of coral, and marked by a pillar like that of Lot, encloses the well of Hanlefánta, where each mule obtained a shield full of water. From the glittering shores of the broad lake, the road crosses the saline incrustation, which extends about two miles to the opposite brink. Soiled and mossy near the margin, the dull crystallised salt appears to rest upon an earthy bottom; but it soon becomes lustrous and of a purer colour, and floating on the surface of the dense water, like a rough coarse sheet of ice, irregularly cracked, is crusted with a white yielding efflorescence, resembling snow which has been thawed and refrozen, but which still, as here, with a crisp sound, receives the impress of the foot. A well trodden path extends through the prismatic colours of the rainbow, by the longitudinal axis of the ellipse, to the northeastern extremity of the gigantic bowl, whence the purest salt is obtainable in the vicinity of several cold springs, said to cast up large pebbles on their jet, through the ethereal blue water.
At some distance from the beach was a caravan of Bedouin salt-diggers, busily loading their camels for the markets of Aussa and Abyssinia, where it forms on article of extensive traffic and barter. Two other basins of a similar stamp, but inferior extent, which exist at no great distance to the northward, are styled “Ullool” and “Dus.” The first of these producing salt of most exquisite lustre, is preferred by the Mudaïto tribes, from whose capital Aussa, it is not more remote than Doba, as they term the Bahr Assál, the right to frequent which is asserted as an exclusive privilege by the Danákil, who for centuries have actually held the monopoly undisputed. Transferred in bulk in long narrow mat bags, wrought of the date-leaf, it is exchanged for slaves and grain, and not only forms, as in other climes, one of the chief necessaries of life, but possesses a specific value for the rock salt of the north, which, cut into rectangular blocks, passes as a circulating medium.
A second low belt of hills, gypsum and anhydrite, succeeded by limestone overstrewed with basaltic boulders, forms the western bank of the molten sea, and opens into a mountain ravine. Taking its source at Allooli, the highest point of the Gollo range, this torrent strives to disembogue into the extremity of the lake, although its waters seldom arrive so far, save during the rainy season. The high basaltic cliffs that hem in the pebbly channel, approximating in the upper course as they increase rapidly in altitude, form a narrow waist, where the first running stream that had greeted the eye of the pilgrims since leaving the shores of Asia, trickled onwards, leaving bright limpid pools, surrounded by brilliant sward.
Bowers, for ever green, enlivened by the melodious warbling of the feathered creation, and the serene and temperate air of the verdant meadows of Elysium, were absent from this blessed spot, but it was entered with feelings allied for the moment to escape from the horrors of purgatory to the gates of Paradise; and under the shade cast by the overhanging cliffs, which still warded off the ardent rays of the ascending sun, it was with thankful hearts that the exhausted party, after the terrors of such a night, turned their backs upon the deadly waters of the stagnant lake, to quaff at the delicious rivulet of Goongoonteh an unlimited quantity of cool though brackish fluid.
Here terminated the dreary passage of the dire Teháma—an iron-bound waste, which, at this inauspicious season of the year, opposes difficulties almost overwhelming in the path of the traveller. Setting aside the total absence of water and forage throughout a burning tract of fifty miles—its manifold intricate mountain passes, barely wide enough to admit the transit of a loaded camel, the bitter animosity of the wild bloodthirsty tribes by which they are infested, and the uniform badness of the road, if road it may be termed, everywhere beset with the huge jagged blocks of lava, and intersected by perilous acclivities and descents—it is no exaggeration to state, that the stifling sirocco which sweeps across the unwholesome salt flat during the hotter months of the year, could not fail, within eight and forty hours, to destroy the hardiest European adventurer. Some idea of the temperature of this terrible region may be derived from the fact of fifty pounds of well packed spermaceti candles, having, during the short journey from Tajúra, been so completely melted out of the box as to be reduced to a mere bundle of wicks. Even the Danákil, who from early boyhood have been accustomed to traverse the burning lava of the Teháma, never speak of it but in conjunction with the devouring element, of whose properties it partakes so liberally, and when alluding to the Lake of Salt, invariably designate it “Fire.”
Volume One—Chapter Sixteen.
Afflicting Catastrophe at Goongoonteh.
Goongoonteh, a deep gloomy zig-zagged fissure, of very straitened dimensions, is hemmed in by craggy lava and basaltic walls, intersected by dykes of porphyry, augitic greenstone and pistacite, with decomposed sulphate of iron, all combining to impart a strangely variegated appearance. Scattered and inclined in various directions, although towering almost perpendicularly, they terminate abruptly in a rude pile of rocks and lulls, through a narrow aperture in which the path to the next halting ground at Allooli, where the torrent takes its source, strikes off at an angle of 90 degrees.
Huge prostrate blocks of porphyry and basalt, which have been launched from the impending scarps, and now reduce the channel to this narrow passage, are in places so heaped and jammed together by some mighty agency, as to form spacious and commodious caverns. In the rainy season especially, these doubtless prove of wonderful convenience to the wayfarer; and no tent arriving until late the following day, the re-assembled party were fain to have recourse to them for shelter against the fierce hot blast from the Salt Lake, which, unremitting in its dire persecutions, now blew directly up the ravine. But the rocks soon became too hot to be touched with impunity, and the oblique rays of the sun, after he had passed the meridian, darting through every aperture, the caves were shortly converted into positive ovens, in which the heat, if possible, was even more intolerable than ever. Unlike former stations, however, there was, in this close unventilated chasm, a luxurious supply of water to be obtained from the living rill which murmured past the entrance, and although raised to the temperature of a thermal spring by the direct influence of the solar rays, and withal somewhat brackish to the taste, it was far from being pronounced unpalatable.
Notwithstanding that the neighbourhood afforded neither the smallest particle of forage nor of fuel, it became necessary, in consequence of the non-arrival of one half of the camels, no less than from the exhaustion of many of the party, to halt a day in the hot unhealthy gully; and this delay afforded to the treacherous creese of the lurking Bedouin an opportunity of accomplishing that which had only been threatened by drought and famine. The guides objecting strongly to the occupation of the caves after nightfall, on account of the many marauding parties of Eesah and Mudaïto, by whom the wady is infested, every one, as a measure of precaution, slept in the open air among the baggage, half a mile lower down the ravine, where the caravan had halted. The dry sandy bed of the stream was here narrow, and the cliffs—broken for a short distance on either side into hillocks of large distinct boulders—again resumed their consistency after an interval of one hundred yards, and enclosed the camp in a deep gloom.
The straitened figure of the bivouac rendered it impossible to make arrangements with much regularity in view to defence. The horses were picketted in the centre of the ravine. The European escort occupied a position betwixt them and the northern side, and the scanty beds of the officers of the party were spread close to the southern bank. A strong picket of the Danákil was placed a little distance in advance; and, in addition to the numerous other native guards in various quarters, the usual precaution was observed of mounting a European sentry, whose beat extended the length of the front of the encampment. Old Izhák slept close to the beds of the embassy, and, evidently in a state of considerable trepidation, solaced himself until a late hour by recounting bloody tales of murder and assassination, perpetrated, within his knowledge, by the mountain Buddoos haunting the ravine of Goongoonteh, which, being the high road to the Salt Lake, forms the resort of numerous evil disposed ruffians, who are ever on the prowl to cut throats, and to do mischief.
The first night, although awfully oppressive from the heat exhaled from the baked ground, and the absence of even the smallest zephyr, passed quietly enough; and after another grilling day, which seemed to have no termination, spent within the caverns, the same nocturnal arrangement as before was observed with undiminished precaution. An hour before midnight a sudden and violent sirocco scoured the wady, the shower of dust and pebbles raised by its hot blast, being followed by a few heavy drops of rain, with a calm, still as the sleep of death. The moon rose shortly afterwards, and about two o’clock a wild Irish yell, which startled the whole party from their fitful slumbers, was followed by a rush of men, and a clatter of hoofs, towards the beds of the Embassy. Every man sprang instinctively on his feet, seized a gun, of which two or three lay loaded beside each, and standing on his pillow with weapon cocked, prepared for the reception of the unseen assailants. Fortunate was it that no luckless savage, whether friend or foe, followed in the disorderly retreat, or consequences the most appalling must inevitably have ensued; but the white legs of half-naked and unarmed artillerymen having passed at speed, were followed only by a crush of horses and mules that had burst from their pickets. So complete was the panic caused by a sudden start from deep sleep to witness the realisation of the murderous tales of midnight assassination which had been poured into their ears, that the flying soldiery, who in the battle field had seen comrades fell thick around them, and witnessed death in a thousand terrific forms, were rallied with difficulty. But a panic is of short duration if officers perform their duty, and the word “Halt!” acted like magic upon the bewildered senses of the survivors, who, falling in, formed line behind the rifles.
Hurrying to the spot which they had occupied, a melancholy and distressing sight presented itself. A sergeant and a corporal lay weltering in the blood with which their scanty beds were deeply stained, and both were in the last agonies of death. One had been struck with a creese in the carotid artery immediately below the ear, and the other stabbed through the heart; whilst speechless beside their mangled bodies was stretched a Portuguese follower, with a frightful gash across the abdomen, whence the intestines were protruding. Aroused in all probability during this act of cold-blooded murder, and attempting to give the alarm, he had received a fatal slash as the dastards retreated; but almost instantaneous death had followed each previous blow of the creese, which, whilst the back of the sentinel was turned, had been dealt with mortal and unerring precision.
Two human figures being perceived at the moment the alarm was first raised, crossing the lower gorge of the ravine, and absconding towards the hills which bounded the further extremity of the camp, were promptly pursued by Mohammad Ali and his band of followers, who had seized spear and shield with the utmost alacrity; but although the moon shone bright, and the stars twinkled in the clear firmament, the broken and stony nature of the ground facilitated the escape of the miscreants under the deep shadow cast by the overhanging mountains, where objects could not be distinguished.
This afflicting catastrophe gave birth in the breast of all to a by no means unnatural feeling of distrust towards the escort engaged on the sea-coast, not only as to their ability, but also as to their intention to afford protection. The European party had lain down in full and entire confidence, only to be aroused by the perpetration of this most diabolical and fiendish deed; and although those who had been so fortunate as to escape might, now that they had become aware of the existing peril, defend their own lives, yet such an alternative, involving the abandonment of all the government property in charge, was far from being enviable. Upon after investigation, however, it appeared probable, as well from the evil character borne by the gloomy ravine, as from the numberless murders known to be annually committed under similar circumstances of wanton atrocity amongst the native káfilahs en route, that a party of the Eesah Somauli, inhabitants of the opposite coast of Goobut el Kharáb, but who, to gratify an insatiate thirst for human blood, are in the habit of making frequent incursions into the country of the Danákil, had seized the opportunity afforded by the absence of the sentry at the further extremity of his beat, to steal unperceived down the inumbrated bank of the hollow, and perpetrate the dastardly and cold-blooded outrage.
No attempt to plunder appeared as an excuse for the Satanic crime, and the only object doubtless was the acquisition of that barbarous estimation and distinction which is only to be arrived at through deeds of assassination and blood. For every victim, sleeping or waking, that falls under the murderous knife of one of these fiends in human form, he is entitled to display a white ostrich plume in the woolly hair, to wear on the arm an additional bracelet of copper, and to adorn the hilt of his reeking creese with yet another stud of silver or pewter—his reputation for prowess and for bravery rising amongst his clansmen in proportion to the atrocity of the attendant circumstances. At perpetual strife with the Danákil, although the chiefs of the tribes are on outward terms of friendship, and even of alliance, no opportunity is lost of retaliating upon the mountain Bedouin—every fresh hostility creating a new blood feud, and each life taken on either side, being revenged two-fold, ad infinitum.
Ere the day dawned the mangled bodies of the dead, now stiff and stark, were consigned by their sorrowing comrades to rude but compact receptacles of boulder stones—untimely tombs constructed by the native escort, who had voluntarily addressed themselves to the task. And a short prayer, suited to the melancholy occasion, having been repeated as the mortal remains of each gallant fellow, enveloped in a blood-stained winding sheet, were lowered to their wild resting-place, three volleys of musketry, paying the soldier’s last tribute, rang among the dark recesses of the ravine, when the hurried obsequies were concluded by scaling the entrance to the cemeteries, in which, however, it is not probable that the dastardly sons of Satan—still doubtless watching with savage satisfaction from some inaccessible cranny—long suffered their victims to sleep.
In the grave-like calm of the night, under the pale light of the wan moon, which only partially illumined the funereal crags that hemmed in the dreary chasm, and rose in gloomy sadness over the vaults of the departed, the scene was mournful and impressive. Mohammad Ali, Izhák, and Hajji Kásim, with all their retainers, appeared deeply touched by the fatal occurrences that had so thinned the ranks of a party for whose lives they had made themselves responsible; but they referred the event to fate and to the Almighty fiat, adding that, although they were unable to restore the dead to life, or undo that which by the will of Heaven had been done, their own eyes should never close in sleep so long as danger was to be apprehended from the dreaded Eesah, whose only honour and wealth consists in the number of foul butcheries with which their consciences are stained, and whom even savages concur in representing as sanguinary and ferocious monsters, “fearing neither God nor Devil.”