I took a ride with the Italians to Jebel Hákim and round Harar; and in the evening I dined with M. Guigniony, who proved a charming host.
On the 19th I called on Count Salimbeni, and in the afternoon had another interview with the Rás. Having come to the city only as a private visitor, I was careful to steer clear of politics in our conversations. But the Rás insisted on looking on my visit as partly political, and seized the opportunity of stating his ideas, through Gobau Desta, to an English traveller. After the interview I took down notes, from Gobau Desta’s dictation, concerning Abyssinian ideas, which were read to the Rás and approved of. He particularly wished me to get them published in England.
The notes referred chiefly to Abyssinian dealings with foreigners.
It appears that during the last few years Abyssinia has imported immense quantities of breech-loading firearms, and has become, so far as the Abyssinian feudal organisation goes, a military Power; and Abyssinians are beginning to remember that once their country included parts of Yemen and the Soudán. Since Theodore’s time they have been trying to gain possession of a seaport, and now they dream of absorbing the Somáli tribes till they reach the coast, either of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, or the Indian Ocean. They declare that they will not be content till they have full control of one of the seaports to which their merchandise goes, preferably Massáwa, Jibúti, or Zeila. They hint that now the African coast-line is being divided among the Europeans the Africans are entitled to their share. The Abyssinians say that the expeditions which annually advance farther into Ogádén are undertaken for the purpose of exacting tribute, thus establishing the Abyssinian claim to suzerainty over the Somáli tribes; and that, if possessed of one of the northern ports, their Ogádén expeditions would naturally cease.
However impracticable these ideas may sound to Europeans, they seem to me interesting as showing what are Abyssinian ambitions, and what may be the mainspring of the eastern movement which began with the absorption of Harar, formerly a buffer state between Abyssinia and the Somális.
The Abyssinians regard the European Powers with mixed feelings. They say that they are wishing for the internal improvement of their country according to European methods, and promise commercial privileges to the Power which can bring about such improvement. They are, on the other hand, shy of the word “Protectorate,” and naturally wish to be recognised for ever as an independent State. Abyssinians claim to have authority as far as the confines of the Equatorial Province, and even claim lately to have done something against the Central African slave trade.
