The two chief ports on the African coast of the Red Sea are Port Sudan and Suakim. They were nothing until the completion of the Red Sea road. The original plan was to use Suakim as the terminus of the Sudan railway. The English surveyors, however, finding a much better harbour at Port Sudan, extended the railroad to that point. The town which was a mere village a few years ago has now several thousand people, and grows like one of the mushroom settlements of the Canadian west.
Going on southward we passed the Italian possessions on the west coast of the Red Sea, where they have a colony known as Eritrea. This colony begins about one hundred and fifty miles south of Suakim and runs down almost to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. It is not wide, extending back from the coast only to where the Abyssinian hills begin. The Italians tried to add to Eritrea a large part of Abyssinia but failed, owing to the resistance of King Menelik. The land they have now is of small value. There are only a few tracts that can be irrigated, and the exports are unimportant. The strip is inhabited by nomads, who raise camels, oxen, sheep, and goats. As the pasturage is scanty, the shepherds have to move about from place to place with their stock. Some of the tribes live in tents. Their wants are simple to an extreme.
The chief Italian port is Massawa, a little town situated on a coral island joined to the mainland by a causeway. Its two short railways, which connect it with the Abyssinian hills, comprise about forty-eight miles of track. One road is to be continued to the town of Asmara, near which some gold mines have been opened.
The Italians have built a telegraph line from their port to Addis Abbaba, the capital of Abyssinia, and they are trying to increase their trade with that country. They are shipping considerable salt, which, strange to say, is so relished by the Abyssinians that it brings more than sugar and takes much the same place among them as candy and tobacco with us. The average Abyssinian carries a stick of rock salt with him and takes a suck of it between whiles. If he meets a friend, he asks him to have a taste of his salt stick and his friend brings out his individual stick and they take lick about. It is just as it was with snuff in the days of our forefathers, when everyone offered his friends a pinch of his choice macaboy.
Besides Eritrea Italy owns another and larger strip of East Africa. This is Italian Somaliland, which begins at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden and runs down to the border of the British coast possessions. We shall pass it on our way to Mombasa. Italian Somaliland, though about three times as large as Ohio, has a population only two thirds that of the city of Cleveland, and is of little value. The people, who are largely nomadic, are engaged in cattle raising and agriculture.
If you will look on the map, you will see that the Gulf of Aden seems to rest on a shelf-like projection jutting out from the African continent. This projection reaches into the Indian Ocean for a distance of seven hundred and eighty miles, and is sometimes called the “Great Horn of Africa.” It ends in Cape Guardafui, of which we shall have a good view from our steamer as it leaves the gulf and starts south.
The cape is a mighty bluff rising almost straight up from the blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Its sides are of black rock, ragged and rugged, and its top is covered with sand. There is sand at its foot and lodged in the crevices, making yellow streaks against the black background. Beyond the cape extend sandy hills which swell over one another until they are lost in the distance. The country all about is desert. Neither trees, bushes, habitations, nor animals are to be seen. The clouds hang low over the cape, and out at sea the air is as moist as that of Virginia in April. Seen from the ocean, the bluff assumes the outlines of a sleeping lion with its tail in the sand. Still farther out it looks like a fortification towering over the sea. One hundred and thirty miles to the eastward, on the direct route to India, is Sokotra Island, owned by the British.
We went on southward, passing British Somaliland, a country a little larger than the State of Missouri, with a population of several thousand Mohammedan nomads who roam about from pasture to pasture with their cattle and camels. The colony came into the hands of the British after the war with the Mahdi, having belonged before that to Egypt. It was first administered by the government of India, but it is now managed directly from London.
Fifty years ago Suez, where canal and Red Sea meet and “East of Suez” begins, was a miserable Arab village. Now it is a city where several thousand Europeans share the general dreariness of this hot and desolate spot.
When two ships meet, one usually stops close to the bank and lets the other pass. In places the sides are lined with stones to prevent slides, and dredges are at work all the time keeping the channel clear.
Back of the European colonies that fringe the coast lies Abyssinia, one of the most interesting countries of the Black Continent. With the exception of Liberia, it is the only one that is independent of Europe. Recognized by the Powers as a self-governing state, it has been able to preserve its native monarchy. Everyone in America has heard of the famous King Menelik II, founder of the present government, and the name is still one to conjure with in that country. It is said that an Abyssinian can stop another from whatever he happens to be doing by calling out to him: “Ba Menelik,” or “In the name of Menelik.” There are penalties for using this formula frivolously, and the one so doing may be called upon to justify his action before a judge.
The empire of Abyssinia consists of a mighty plateau ten times as large as the State of Ohio, from which rise many high mountains. The country might be called the roof of the continent, and has so much beautiful scenery that it has been dubbed the African Switzerland. The plateau consists of great tablelands rising one above the other and cut up by great gorges and mighty canyons somewhat like those of the Rockies. In the centre of the plateau is Lake Tsana, and down its sides flow great rivers, some of which are lost in the sands while others, such as the Atbara and the Blue Nile, give food and water to Egypt. The Blue Nile has its source in Lake Tsana.
Abyssinia has some of the best soil of Africa. It is, in fact, a fertile island in the midst of a sea of deserts and swamps. It will grow almost anything, including sugar and cotton in the lowlands, coffee higher up, and still higher the hardy grains of the temperate zone.
This country is said to be the first home of the coffee plant. It has a province called Kaffa, whence the first coffee beans were carried to Arabia. The word “coffee” comes from the name of that province. In Kaffa, coffee trees grow so large that they are used for timber. In some places they grow wild. In others the coffee is cultivated.
At present Abyssinia is almost unexplored, but its opening and development are assured, and it may become one of the tourist and hunting resorts of the future. The land is especially interesting to us in that most of the Abyssinians are Christians, their religion being about the same as that of the Copts of Egypt.