LAKE TANA AND THE BLUE NILE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 9 (Supplement)

LAKE TANA AND THE BLUE NILE

British Exploration And Survey.

GREAT RIVER'S SOURCE IN SACRED SPRING,

(By G.A.P.)

SIX years of laborious exploration and equally.. laborious research and writing were required before' the MSS. for "Lake Tana and the Nile," by Major R. E. Cheeseimin, C.8.E., author of "In Unknown Arabia," was ready for the publisher. On the day before it was to be' delivered, a motor car, packed with suitcases, was stolen by highwaymen in broad daylight in a London street. The car was ultimately discovered abandoned, but the suitcases were never found, and the contents, was the MSS. The author was faced with the heavy task of rewriting the book from notes, and the volume recently published (MacMillan and Co., Etd.), is the more interesting in that it appears at a time when Ethiopia, with which it deals, is playing such a vital part in international affairs. The author was British Consul for North-west Ethiopia, with headquarters at Dangilo, and being also an efficient surveyor and a keen geologist, the opportunity afforded of exploration was readily accepted. He found, for instance, that in the most recent maps the Blue Nile was marked by a series of dotted lines, which are "eo<*raphieal signs to denote that the exact location of the course of a, river is unknown.

can take unto himself a wife, he must have successfully hunted and slain a hippopotamus. The author points out that nowadays hippo, hunting is a tame affair; the rifle and cartridge have killed adventure and also threaten to kill romance, for hippos, are rapidly becoming exterminated, and unless some substitute, test for manhood is devised there would appear to be dwindling hopes for the young ladies of the tribe in the marriage sphere. ' * Progress under Haile Silassie. The author describes North-West Ethiopia as having had a feudal form of government on his' arrival in 1925, but adds that when he left in 1934 Haile Silassie was making radical changes in the direction of centralising authority and strengthening the power of central government. Several chapters are devoted by the author to the various voyages of discovery made on Lake

This seemed almost unbelievable in the case of a famous river such as the Nile, on which Egypt has depended for its prosperity throughout the ages. In the following six years of his residence in Ethiopia, the author® succeeded, in a series of journeys not devoid of hardship, difficulty and adventure, in definitely "placing on the map" the course of the great waterway which at Khartoum joins the White Nile and continues its flow for hundreds of miles to the sea, irrigating millions of acres of land on its way.

Source in Sacred Spring. From its source in a spring, the waters of which are regarded locally as sacred and are not allowed to be contaminated with any unblessed article, the Blue Nile along its course presents many remarkablo°featureß. At one portion hhe river flows in two opposite directions. From its rising point, known locally as the Small Abbai, it flows into Lake Tana, emerging from the lake as the Abbai, and following a course in exactly the opposite direction, the waterways being divided by a considerable watershed, from which, in the rainy season, a tremendous volume flows into each. Probably the greatest phenomenon is the fact that the Small Abbai flows into Lake Tana, which is at places 40 miles broad and nearly 40 feet in depth, and from another point in the same lake, nearly 30 miles distant, a considerable stream of water emerges and is regarded as a continuation of the same river. The local theory is that water from the Small Abbai does not mix with that of the lake, but flows by a semicircular course through Tana to Bahidar Gigorgis, in the south-east corner of the lake. ° "It certainly appears to do so," says the author. "I saw a dark circular streak dividing the lake in two; brown water was lying towards the land, and beyond the "line was blue water of the lake. There was not a thin ribboii ot brown muddy water running through the blue. The division would only be visible during the flood season and for a few months afterwards, as the silt drops quicklv and the v'ater of both laKe anc. river would then be clear and blue.

The Ark of the Covenant. The customs and mode of life of the peoples of this remote portion of Ethiopia, its flora and fauna, and its history, buried in antiquity, make a most interesting and edifying r.arrative. A predominant influence is religion. The Emperors claim direct descent from King Solomon through Menelik 1., who became tho first Emperor of Abyssinia. The Queen of Slieba is claimed as an Abyssinian sovereign and the Ethiopian Chronicles say that after her return from her visit to Solomon a son called Menelik was born. When he grew up he was sent to Jerusalem to visit Solomon, and when the youth returned to Aksum it is sard 41iat by a subterfuge he took the Ark of the Covenant from the temple and carried it to Aksum. In every Ethiopian church the Holy of Holies contains a replica of the Ark, called a "tabot."

Religious conquest was by no means unknown in early Ethiopia and there is tho suggestion that in the invasions of Mohammedans and later of Portuguese, during which many bloody battle; were fought, some of tho most valuable data on early Christian history was destroyed. To-day many of the islands on Lake Tana have monasteries dating far back into misty legend, but tho reverence of the people appears to live through succeeding generations. The religious tolerance of the Ethiopian today has ameliorated community life and while there are distant tribes, each with its own peculiar customs and rites, and in some cases intermarriage, there is little feud between the different sects. One tribe, the Waitos, whose members never marry a member of another tribe, have a custom that before a young man

Tana, a great inland sea, the potentialities of which are set out. Incidentally it is explained that the difficulty of transliteration of the Amliaric language has led to some confusion in regard to the spelling of the name of the lake. The findings of a special committee on the spelling of geographical names, however, gives its verdict as Tana, rather than the often used Tsana.

The lake is literally stocked with fish, i 6 characterised by treacherous and dangerous winds, and has in addition to many islets, Dek and Daga, two islands of considerable size, closely settled and cultivated, and repositories of ecclesiastical history. Dek is about three miles in diameter and in shape an irregular circle. The land is rich and 75 per cent of it is under cultivation. It produces more grain than required by the inhabitants of the several villages on the island and the surplus is traded with the mainland for coffee. Coffee, hides and wax are the staple industries of the locality, while Abyssinian civet, from the scent glands of the civet cat, is exported. This forms the basis of the most expensive scents made in Europe^

The course of the Abbai or Blue Nile from Tana to Khartoum is traced _in detail and is a river of fascinating appeal to the surveyor or adventurer. The author shows that there are no falls save Tisisat, which is 150 feet in height, and the river drops from 5403 feet there to 1442 feet at Roseirs in the Sudan, by a series of small descents that are no bigger than rapids or cascades interspersed with level reaches formed by rocky bars. There is no level area of land in the valley of the Blue Nile in Abyssinia, or in that of its tributaries, suitable for irrigation purposes, and there are only two possible sites suitable for building of reservoirs.