In Ethiopia with a Mule (14 page)

Having given everyone time to appreciate my harmlessness I invited myself to stay the night, feeling relieved that here were Jock-loaders. After a moment’s hesitation the men welcomed me, by pointing to a stone near the fire, and then came the already familiar process of investigation and
acceptance
– which here is being more protracted than usual, for in this
confrontation
with the unknown these shepherds are without the reassuring support of their community.

As I unloaded Jock and rubbed him down the herds were being rounded up – scores of goats, eighteen cattle, four donkeys and twenty-six kids. The kids give most trouble, for they have to be caught – much against their will – and then secured in quartets by means of leather thongs knotted around their kicking forelegs. The other stock, who have sense enough not to wander after dark, are simply driven on to the open space between the high-blazing fire and the cliff above the river. When the two cows had been milked into gourds the milk was shared with me and I was offered
dabo
and roasted barley, but as both were in short supply I feasted instead on tinned mackerel and raisins.

At present I’m not well-informed about world events, but I do know that some spacecraft is in orbit. I saw it rise above the northern mountains at 7.15 and
it disappeared below the southern mountains ten minutes later. The shepherds saw it too, as it slowly traversed the sky – looking just like a small golden star, apart from its weirdly purposeful movement. Then they glanced at me uneasily, perhaps imagining some sinister link between the appearance of a
faranj
and this derangement in the heavens. I had wondered, as I watched it, if it were manned; and I also felt uneasy, thinking of the ominous contrast between the life of an astronaut and the life of my companions – which is now as it was when ‘there were … shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them …’

Last night my sleep was disturbed by armies of small black ants who seemed to relish insecticide. Also I was lying on an incline, with my feet braced against a boulder, and I tended to unbrace them every time I dozed off in defiance of the ants – which meant wakening abruptly to find myself sliding towards the fire.

However, I enjoyed being awake in that camp. The shepherds kept watch in pairs, a man and a boy always sitting by the fire, and as they sat they chanted an interminable monotone duet. Judging by the names mentioned this must have been a saga of all the bravest warriors of highland history; and the singers put such feeling into their voices that often I could guess which were the words of the victorious Emperor, or the conquered chieftain, or the scheming traitor. It was splendid to hear the ring of these proud, sharp phrases against the dark silence of the valley. For highlanders history is not of the past, seen down an orderly vista of dates and events: it lives within them, as inspiring memories of courageous or cunning individuals who may have lived – for all they know – a hundred or a thousand years ago.

As I lay listening smoke streamed past me, in a grey-blue horizontal column, laden with rosy sparks; and this movement of insubstantial loveliness was
background
to a motionless tangle of tall grasses – growing between me and the fire – which formed a design of such intricate delicacy that for hours I gazed up at it in endless delight. I felt grateful then for having been born in time to know this world of simplicity and peace, which may soon be annihilated by the Age of the Astronauts.

This morning Jock seemed quite recovered. Good grazing had been available all night and his performance today has proved that he took full advantage of it.
At 6.15 we left the shepherds, who had been singularly unhelpful when questioned about our route. Whichever direction I pointed in, saying ‘Semien?’, they nodded vaguely and replied ‘
Mado
’ (Yonder). So I decided simply to follow the Ataba. But when we came to the head of the valley following the Ataba was no longer simple; at the junction of the three massifs lay a confusion of rocky, rushing rivers, sheer precipices and ancient forests of giant, creeper-hung trees. However, somewhere amidst this wilderness there had to be an upward path, and after struggling around in circles for some twenty minutes I noticed a narrow tunnel through the forest, on the far bank of one river. And that was it. From there a track climbed south up a cleft in that mountain-wall which for two days had been unbroken.

At first we were amidst the chill gloom of the forest, where many rotten trees have been caught as they fell by networks of tough creepers which now support the dead giants at strange angles. Then the path was overhung by green and gold shrubs, between which the emerald flashings of the river could be glimpsed far below. An unexpected descent took us down to river level, and having crossed to the eastern wall of the ravine we were again climbing steeply on an open, grassy slope where the path was of slithery earth. (On the west wall it had been rocky, and therefore easy to climb.)

By nine o’clock the sun was reaching into the ravine, yet the air was getting colder every moment – though this didn’t prevent Jock and me from lathering sweat. Half-an-hour later we at last reached level ground, and fifty yards ahead three men were threshing barley. They seemed mesmerised by our appearance, but when I had unloaded Jock and collapsed on a pile of straw they quickly recovered and shared their
talla
with me.

An uneven shoulder of the mountain formed this ledge (some three miles by two), where a few settlements – perched on hillsides amidst stubble fields – were overhung by rough grey crags rising from green forests. Now I really was in the Semiens, at 10,300 feet, and for the next hour I rested here, being revived by timid but generous locals who filled me with
talla
while I gazed joyfully at the heights and the depths all around me.

When Jock was being reloaded I had the ropes tied extra-tight – a regrettable but necessary precaution. Earlier the load had been slipping slightly and on the isolated heights ahead I dared not risk it falling off.

From this ledge the path climbed steeply for half-an-hour before levelling out in a cool green world of tall, aromatic shrubs. Then it curved around the mountain, overhanging an apparently bottomless abyss, and soon was climbing again to the 11,500-foot crest of a ridge of black soil. Here only a few clumps
of heather grew between smooth boulders and it was so cold that I stopped sweating.

A short stretch of flat, bleak moorland brought us abruptly into a new world, where on every side the immense slopes, sweeping above and below the path for thousands of feet, were so thickly covered with golden grass that the very air seemed golden too. From here we climbed gradually, rounding one grassy spur after another, while to the east, south and west jagged rock summits rose far above us, severe against an intense blue sky. As we penetrated deeper and deeper into the mountains I realised that our track would have to go
over
one of those summits, improbable as that might seem, for there could be no other exit from this colossal amphitheatre.

I was scanning the various peaks, wondering which escarpment we were fated to tackle, when my eye was caught by a violent disturbance in the long grass on the next spur. At first I thought it must be a herd of alarmed goats – though this seemed unlikely – but an instant later shrieks and screams of an uncanny stridency shockingly ravaged the stillness. We were then rounding the spur – and I stopped, accusing myself of having an hallucination, for the slope ahead was apparently swarming with misshapen lions. It took me half a minute to realise my privilege. This was a herd of some two hundred Gelada (Bleeding Heart) baboons – one of the rarest of animals, which is found only in Ethiopia, and in Ethiopia only on the highest mountains. So my hallucination was
understandable
, for the magnificent male Gelada has a thick lionesque mane – a waist-length cape of dark fur – and to strengthen the illusion his tail is
handsomely
tufted.

Our presence was provoking hysterically raucous protests. The Geladas swarmed across the whole slope – above, below and on the path – and the nearest were hardly ten yards away, giving me a clear view of the heart-sized patch of crimson skin on each chest and of their long, powerful fangs gleaming in the sun at every shriek. In the circumstances, I could have done with a less clear view of these fangs. All baboons are reputed to be cowards but
apparently
Jock and I look unusually innocuous, for this troop was showing not the slightest inclination to move off the path. Then my memory perversely produced what is doubtless an old wives’ tale about human bones having been found among others in the Geladas’ boneyards. At which point I decided to take action – and a few stones immediately cleared the path, though none of the males moved far away and their hideous peals of rage almost deafened me as we slowly passed through the herd. Luckily Jock had maintained his
customary stoicism during this encounter, merely looking relieved at having a chance to stand still.

On the next spur I paused to watch the Geladas’ antics. Their many human gestures have the chastening fascination of all monkey-behaviour and in their social life they seem to be aggressive and irritable and to expend a great deal of energy on squabbling, male with male and female with female. But this does nothing to distinguish them from their more advanced cousins – and anyway our intrusion may have upset everyone’s nervous system.

Soon after, we were on the western mountain, where our struggle began. Green forest covered the shadowed precipice, icy streams formed miniature waterfalls and whenever I stopped, to quieten my pounding heart, I began to shiver. From here it was impossible to see the summit – or indeed to see any distance ahead, through this dark tangle of trees – and poor Jock had to be urged on with vehement shouts, for which I had little breath to spare, and with occasional whacks across the hindquarters that almost reduced me to tears of remorse. Again the track had become elusive and sometimes we didn’t know which way to turn – though at least I realised that our general principle must be to move
upwards
, whereas Jock felt that whenever possible it would be much more rational to move
across
.

As the air thinned each step became a pain. Now Jock’s jumps from ledge to ledge would have taxed a steeplechaser, and often he had to clamber up long slabs of table-smooth rock that lay at dreadful angles, or to leap across deep, narrow gullies, or to keep his balance on inclines where every boulder shifted beneath his hoofs. But, oddly enough, he went ahead willingly at this stage, as though aware that I had become too exhausted either to shout or to whack, and that our climb was now a crisis in which he must not fail me. He was
magnificent
, yet here I found suspense on his account a far worse agony than aching muscles or lungs. To my inexperienced eye it seemed that at any moment he might break a leg, which would have been much more serious than my doing so; at an extremity he could carry me, but with the best will in the world I could not carry him. I was beginning to wonder which of us would collapse first when suddenly we were out of the trees, on a narrow ledge of yellowed turf – and looking up I saw the summit two hundred feet above. Inspired by this sight, I was about to take the lead – but apparently Jock had been inspired too, for he made an heroic final effort and got there first, to stand with head hanging and sides heaving. Poor fellow! – as I pulled myself on to the top I longed to be able to unload him.

However, on seeing what we had conquered I forgot everything else. We were now at 13,800 feet, and directly beneath the northern verge of this plateau lay a fierce, sombre scene of geological anarchy. One fancied that at the time of creation some basic law had here been forgotten – and nothing grew or moved amidst the grotesque desolation of these riven mountains. Then, looking north-east, I saw beneath me the countless strangely-eroded peaks and ridges that from the Ataba valley had looked so high; and beyond them I could recognise the mountains of Adua and Aksum, amongst scores of other ranges. In three directions I was gazing over hundreds of miles though crystal air – away and away to far, far horizons, where deserts and the sea are ‘as a moat defensive …’ No wonder I felt like a mini-Hillary, with all Northern Ethiopia lying at my feet.

While devouring a pound of dried apricots I sat on a sweep of burnt-gold, springy turf, where low bushes covered with daisy flowers grew between sheets of pale grey rock, and scores of two-foot giant lobelias looked incongruously like dwarf palms. Their long, shiny, pale green leaves glinted in the sun, making sparks of silver light all over the summit, and through the enormous silence came the faint, fairy-like chiming of the wind in those leaves. There is an
overwhelming
integrity about the silence of such places; in its purity and power it differs utterly from the noiselessness of even the remotest inhabited regions. This afternoon’s silence seemed no less tangible than the crags around us.

My proudly-conquered ‘summit’ is in fact the extreme edge of that immense Semien plateau which tilts gradually southward to the ridges above Gondar; so now we were able to walk effortlessly down an almost imperceptible incline. New crags rose nearby to the east, but ahead and to the west golden turf stretched illimitably, its flatness emphasised by a scattering of six-foot lobelias – like so many sentinels posted on the plain – and its only boundary the infinite arc of a cloudless sky. In the simplicity of its colours and contours this was a landscape of liberation; here one could indeed be ‘forgetful of the world’, since now nothing had meaning but the spaciousness, radiance and silence that briefly set one free from everything.

Half-an-hour later we were on broken moorland where bushes of giant heath had graceful streamers of wispy moss floating from their branches. Many of these bushes were dead, and here the instinct of self-preservation prompted me to remember the world and to consider the less romantic aspects of being on an uninhabited 13,000-foot plateau at 4 p.m. So I paused to collect firewood, fixing one bundle on top of Jock’s sacks and tying my own bundle with a spare length
of rope. However, this tiring precaution proved unnecessary, as the next five miles were thinly wooded with heath, juniper and lobelia.