In Ethiopia with a Mule (30 page)

When Father had recovered from the shock he pointed to a boulder and told me to wait for guidance out of the gorge. It was now 9.30 and I was glad to rest, while the younger children left their work to study me with awe and Jock grazed enthusiastically off the few green plants that grew by the water. This family was unusual in having some affection for their dog, who was smaller than the average highland cur.

After half-an-hour the wet clothes were ready to be carried home in bundles on their owners’ backs. As mother was shouldering an immense load of firewood, Father tied her bundle and his to the top of Jock’s load before leading him up a path so faint that
faranj
eyes would never have detected it. On the clifftop we joined a clearer path which climbed through arid scrubland to another high plateau.

Our progress was funereal. Mother walked very slowly and Father kept pace with her, making encouraging noises and calling the children back whenever they scampered disrespectfully far ahead. It would have been unspeakably infra dig for him to carry the firewood, yet he was certainly not indifferent to his wife’s struggle as she toiled, panting, up one long slope after another. Many
faranjs
condemn the treatment which highland women receive from their husbands, but my own impression is that most couples show a normal degree of mutual affection and consideration. Highland tradition undoubtedly gives women a lowly status in some respects, as is symbolised by their carrying of loads in a country where I have never yet seen a man carrying anything but his
dula
or rifle – and perhaps an
injara
-basket, if he is not accompanied by his wife. However, it is unfair to deduce from this that most men always treat their wives callously or that there is no such thing as a henpecked highland husband. In at least two
tukuls
on my route I have noticed that the unfortunate head of the household lived in constant dread of his overbearing wife and became almost as subdued as a highland child when she was present.

My rescuers’ large settlement seemed wretchedly poor. No
talla
was available because of the crop failure, so I was given a gourd of curds. As I sat on a boulder, eating, the whole population – friendly though timid – came to stare
wonderingly
. At first there was much speculation about my sex, but already the cotton shorts I bought in Gondar have reached a stage which renders lengthy speculation unnecessary – and this caused great and charmingly unshocked amusement.

At 11.30 Father led me to the edge of the settlement, with scores of people following, and pointed out the path to the Takazze Gorge. He and several other men had argued strenuously against our continuing towards Lalibela, for they said that beyond the Takazze I would find no tracks, no
tukuls
and many wild animals. So after much hand-shaking and bowing everyone stood in gloomy silence watching us leave.

For the next hour we were descending steeply through a harsh,
drought-stricken
world of sharp rocks, grey-brown, crumbling earth and dying scrub. I had been able to get no information about this stretch of the Takazze Gorge and my heart lurched with fear when suddenly we were overlooking a ravine that was deeper than any other ravine I have ever encountered. The descent looked tolerably safe for a cautiously-moving human being with a reasonable immunity to heights, but for a loaded mule it looked murderous. I hesitated, then decided to reconnoitre on my own and tethered Jock to a stunted tree lest his
superlative
loyalty should prompt him to follow me, even here. About one-third of the way down the vertical, ill-defined stone stairway I saw donkey-droppings. These reassured me – though it is certain that no animal burdened with an Italian pack-saddle has ever before used this route – so I returned to Jock, said my prayers and directed him over the edge.

The next twenty minutes were the most nerve-wracking of my life. Even Jock’s unflappability came undone and in his pardonable panic he tended to leap towards level ledges of rock from which he could never have escaped had he once reached them. And my repeated efforts to check his foolhardiness were perilous, for this was no precipice on which to frisk baboonishly.

At one point the load got jammed between shelves of rock and Jock was wedged head down, his hind legs feebly scrabbling. By then I had been reduced to such a state of numb desperation that I no longer feared the sheer drop on to the boulders of the river-bed, hundreds of feet below. Recklessly I pulled myself on to the inner shelf, said a few would-be-steadying words in an unsteady voice and bent down to untie one sack. As Jock unwedged himself I seized the halter. Had he continued with an ill-balanced load he would have been in more acute danger than ever and for a hideous instant I thought that he was going to plunge ahead; but by one of those telepathic miracles which distinguish our relationship he stood still below the rock-pincers while I – braced against the cliff-face and sweating with tension – roped the sack back into position.

When at last we reached the river-bed Jock’s sides were heaving and his coat shone ebony with sweat. He was so far gone that he didn’t even want to
drink; and I was so far gone that I vomited before drinking. I considered filling my water-bottle here, but as one could think of no more lethal liquid than the Takazze in March a last flicker of what seemed to be common sense inspired me to keep bacteria to the minimum by leaving my bottle empty.

To my relief Jock now moved towards the water and while he was drinking I lit a cigarette. Here the river-bed curved, limiting my view to about eighty yards in both directions, and the dark rock walls of the gorge had been eroded to soaring, fluted pillars of an eerie symmetry. Only opposite our point of descent was the cliff not quite sheer and the rock mixed with soil. There, presumably, lay our ascent route.

As the gorge felt oven-like beneath the midday sun I soon led poor Jock onwards, over a jumble of burning boulders. While we climbed sweat streamed off me, clouds of powdery dust irritated my lungs and often it was one step up, two steps back. However, neither of us was in mortal danger, so what would normally have seemed an ordeal now seemed a Sunday afternoon stroll.

At the top I realised what a mistake I had made by not filling my
water-bottle
; already thirst was tormenting me and my dusty throat felt raw. A faint path led us over a desolation of burnt-up grassland, but an hour later Abuna Josef reappeared through a gap in the nearer mountains and showed me that we were straying wildly. Turning towards him, we descended a long, pathless slope between bare ridges that converged at the foot of the slope. Since leaving the settlement I had seen no trace of humanity, but near the meeting of the ridges four girls were gathered round a water-hole, their pots on the ground beside them. Thirstily, I hurried forward – and then they saw me, shrieked piercingly, abandoned their pots and fled up the northern slope. As I reached the edge of the hole a fifth girl pulled herself out of it, glanced at me like a hunted animal, shrieked too and followed the rest. It amuses me to remember all that I have heard about
faranjs
being afraid to travel among highlanders – when so many highlanders are afraid to be travelled among!

At this water-hole I drew the line. Probably it was less contaminated than the Takazze but my thirst was not extreme enough for me to drink the liquid brown mud that lay in a pool two inches deep, eight feet below ground level. It must take half a day to fill one pot here.

From the crest of the northern ridge we descended to a wide, dusty
stubble-field
. The girls’ settlement, where I hoped to find some drinkable liquid, lay a hundred yards ahead – isolated on its parched plateau, surrounded by silent
ravines and rough blue mountains. The scene was a beautiful one, and tranquil in golden sunshine. Yet death hovered over it.

The settlement was unusually well fortified; its thick, six-foot thorn stockade seemed to have only one ‘gateway’ and each compound had a high, strong fence. Obviously the girls had warned everyone that something very peculiar was in the vicinity and the place looked deserted. Nor did anyone appear, or make the slightest sound, as we walked along the narrow paths between the compound stockades: but all the time I was aware of being watched from every side.

Eventually I entered one of the compounds. As we approached a
tukul
two men came to the door, tense with suspicion, and behind them women were
exclaiming
in alarm as they peered out. When I asked for water the men turned and muttered with their womenfolk, then tentatively beckoned me inside.

As usual, a thaw followed rapidly. I was given two small gourds of foul water, faintly flavoured with honey (a diluted form of the non-alcoholic drink called
birz
) and, as I gulped it most of the population – now reassured – came to stare silently, packing the
tukul
and crowding outside the door. The general
atmosphere
seemed neither friendly nor hostile and it was depressingly evident that the lethargy of malnutrition explained this neutrality.

At first I had been bewildered by the number of men wearing turbans,
especially
as there appeared to be no church anywhere near. Then I realised that this was a Jabarti
*
settlement, hence the strong stockades and
birz
instead of
talla
.

The woman of the house offered me half a round of
injara
– something that has never happened before since scraps are considered fit only for servants or children. As I declined it I wondered why these people remain in this accursed region, where some 5,000 people have recently tied of typhoid, malaria and
starvation
, while most of the few survivors have migrated. Perhaps Jabartis would find it difficult to obtain land elsewhere.

When we left this sad settlement it was impossible to continue towards Abuna Josef. Turning west, we crossed a slope of impoverished ploughland on a thread-like path that soon vanished, and for three hours were in a hot wasteland of thinly-forested hills. I saw two hyenas, a leopard lying under a bush happily playing with his tail and one abandoned settlement, roofless and overgrown. There were no traces of cultivation or paths, for already the bush had reclaimed every slope.

By six o’clock the terrain had become rougher and the forest thicker. Hundreds of baboons delighted me as they hurried along the crest of a low ridge, silhouetted against the sky and pausing often to swear discordantly at the intruders. I was no longer hoping to find water, so when we came to this dry river-bed it seemed as good a camping site as one could expect. It is about thirty yards wide and the ground rises on both sides, giving the place a cosy feeling. Many flat slabs of rock lie amidst the fine silver sand and on one of these I’ve built my fire, thus avoiding the possibility of sending the whole mountainside up in flames.

While collecting wood I moved some way down the gully – and suddenly the sweet music of running water rippled through the stillness. My thirst was now an ache dominating both body and mind and when I saw a shallow river, some 400 feet below this ledge, I rushed back for my bottle and made three attempts to reach the ravine. Thirst is so compulsive that sufferers within sight of water tend to disregard safety; but it was no use – everywhere the last hundred and fifty feet were sheer, smooth rock. The baboons now reappeared, far below me at the water’s edge, and I realised that when last seen they had been on their way to the local, as it were. For a few moments I stared at them gloomily, contemplating the disadvantages of having evolved. Then I precariously climbed back to camp and ate a tin of tuna fish, which considerably increased my thirst.

Earlier a sprinkling of rain had fallen and as I ate ghostly, starlit cloudlets went drifting by overhead. Jock was munching above me, on the
jungle-grassed
eastern slope, and while unpacking my writing things I glanced up at his comforting black bulk, moving slowly between the bushes. Then my heart jerked. Close to him was a brilliant, malevolent yellow eye, glinting near ground level. It looked no more than a leopard’s spring away and seizing a heavy length of firewood I charged the slope, marvelling at his placid stupidity. It took me some moments to discover that my One-Eyed Savage Beast was in fact the planet Venus, just risen above a mountain crest and glittering through the scrub.

During these past few hours my self-esteem has been restored by two large pairs of genuine eyes reflecting the firelight from various points on the upper slopes. Neither pair was near Jock, who gave no sign of being alarmed, so I took my cue from him and remained seated in a dignified way. I’m glad that I have an open space on which to sleep; it would not be relaxing to spend a night entangled in this forest.

Soon after sunset a strong wind rose and the fire has been burning quickly. Its leaping, twisting, crimson-orange flames are lighting up an
extraordinarily
wide area, which in an odd way seems to belong to me, as I sit at its centre – while beyond are the black walls of the night, shutting out a country that belongs now to no man. At this comparatively low altitude (about 6,000 feet) being beside such heat makes one sweat continuously, so my thirst is steadily increasing.

Already it is eleven o’clock. I have been writing for four hours, by the light of candles sheltered from the wind between boxes in the lee of a boulder – but with many pauses to enjoy a flawless tranquillity which here seems to have absorbed me into itself. Despite thirst and glinting eyes I know that this evening will forever remain among my finest memories. Here the solitude has a quality such as I have not experienced since crossing that plateau between the Ataba and Buahit. Almost certainly there is no other human being within a radius of ten miles; and the spirits of the local plague-victims must feel friendly towards me, for my peace is complete.

Now the sky is cloudless again, and alive with the golden vigour of its stars. A moment ago a jet passed on its way from Asmara to Addis, and I thought of the passengers – briefly my nearest neighbours – sitting back after their five-course dinner, reading magazines and sipping iced drinks. But