Seven Years in Southern Abyssinia by Sir Arnold Wienholt Hodson

Author:Sir Arnold Wienholt Hodson [Hodson, Sir Arnold Wienholt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Africa, General, North, Middle East, South, Republic of South Africa
ISBN: 9781789124088
Google: UombDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2018-12-01T22:30:56+00:00

CHAPTER IX—THIRD JOURNEY SOUTH

Permission granted to build Consulate at Gardula—third journey south through Jimma, Shambare, and Zala—crossing the Omo River.

PUBLIC business was completely held up until everybody had recovered from the coronation festivities, but I had to stay on in Addis Ababa waiting for a definite decision about my house down in the south. Long before Christmas, when the British Minister asked Fitaurari Hapta Georgis for the letter authorizing me to erect buildings at Mega, he replied ‘Wait; we will think it over’. He evidently felt that he must discuss the question with the Council of Ministers, which, in the chaotic condition of State affairs then prevailing, meant that nothing had been settled by the time I reached the capital. After the coronation festivities, the British Minister reopened the matter, and Hapta Georgis again referred it to the Council. The question was discussed and postponed and discussed again. Opposition, however, was eventually overborne, and by the middle of March, 1917, I obtained the necessary written orders allowing me to establish my headquarters at Gardula, the capital of Gamo and the place where the Governor of Boran usually resided. It was a disappointment that I was unable to get permission to stay at Mega, but Gardula was a tolerably satisfactory compromise. In the meantime, we had to remember that Rome was not built in a day, and we still hoped to move to Mega eventually. The local officers at Gardula were ordered to build me a house on a site chosen by me and according to my own plans, and I undertook to pay a fixed rent for it. In addition, I succeeded in obtaining a passport to travel freely about the country. It really seemed that I should get my house this time, and I began the preparations for my return to the south with a light heart.

In order to visit the one part of Southern Abyssinia with which I was still unacquainted, I decided this time to travel to Gardula through the province of Jimma, which is situated to the south-west of Addis Ababa. I set out on my journey on 24th March, 1917. The road to Jiran, the capital of Jimma, is one of the important highways of the south and is well known to many European travellers, but I think I am right in saying that the route between Jiran and Gardula has not been described before. For the first part of my journey, I shall content myself with quoting some passages from an interesting paper by Major L. F. I. Athill, who followed the same route two years later in 1919.

‘The mongrel civilisation of Addis Ababa soon fell behind, and a few hours’ march took us to the col from which we obtained our last view of the town. Before us lay the wide valley of the Awash, and beyond it the hilly mass of the Gurage country. The Awash valley or plain is rich in cultivation. The deep black soil bears good crops of maize, millet, linseed, tef grass, and a kind of pea called shumburra.

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