LIKE A FORTRESS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 105, 30 October 1935, Page 18

LIKE A FORTRESS

ABYSSINIAN LAND

LONG CLIMB TO THE CAPITAL

ALONG THE RAILWAY

It was when we boarded the little train to go from the French port of Jibuti to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, 500 miles away, that we really felt the desert for the first time (writes R. N. Markham to the "Christian Science Monitor"). Already at 6.30 in the morning a consuming heat had settled over the place. And there, in one of the three passenger cars of our "express," which was to make the run in two days instead of the usual three, were the sons and daughters of the flaming sands and sun. They were our first wild men. Their black hair was bushy, dishevelled, and. dripping with butter. The sun was reflected from their well-greased faces as from a mirror. They carried long spears in their hands and daggers at their belts. Their only clothes were small jackets and wide strips of coloured cloth wrapped about their hips and legs, serving as skirts. So lithe and graceful were the men that this feminine attire seemed becoming and at first glance one took them for girls. But their hard, rebellious faces betrayed their masculinity.l In the railroad car they were like squirrels in a cage. They were wild Somali men, who for centuries had been masters of the burning sands. They are. fleet as deer and agile as tigers. They send spears as straight and hard as William Tell shot his arrows. If a Somali boy throws a little ring of rope or twisted grass into the air his comrade can hurl his spear unerringly through it. Their bare feet defy sharp stones, ford whole lakes of jagged boulders poured, out by volcanoes, and fairly wade in scorching desert sands. NO FRONTIERS. These men know no borders, give homage to no ruler, and drive their flocks from oasis to oasis to escape the tax collectors. They are the hungry children of an arid land, in which nothing abounds but a hostile sun and where Nature is lavish only with its wastes. Every drop of water is a treasure, and every plot of grass a kingdom. To live amid such desolation is an achievement, and every settlement of shepherds is a band of conquerors who make their own laws and are their own sovereigns. Of course they are wild. And of course they are rebels. For them civilisation means only restraint, the confiscation of their flocks for taxes. They'crave no schools, they seek no books, they use no roads, they want no light, plants or traffic cops. What is a State for them? They ask only for. freedom to roam the wastes and hunt the water sources. Their women run beside them with babies on their backs. Sometimes beautiful women, always beautiful babies. The girls have fine and dainty features, with smiles like those of fairies, and soft brown eyes .like princesses. The lithe and slender women dress as fashion models. A meagre fold of coloured cloth draped over one shoulder and gathered about the waist in such a way, as to leave back and arms bare combines modesty with grace. Long ample skirts swish about bare ankles adorned with brass bracelets. And those humble adornments have caused the French Railroad Company no end of trouble, because they are made of pieces of telegraph wire. " For more of these Somali men and their still wilder cousin, the Dankali, a railroad is only a collection of ironon^ jects to be turned into spear heads or of copper wire to be wrought into arm and ankle bands. Scores of times these fleet nomads have rushed from desert haunts, torn up rails, cut down long stretches'of wire, dug up iron telegraph poles, and carried them on camels' backs to crude, secret forges. The railroad officials, aided by French and Ethiopian police, have- almost succeeded in put--ting an end to'such raiding, but still the company, considers it unwise to run the trains at night. When darkness falls they'put the locomotives into car barns' and the' passengers into hotels beside the track. LITTLE TRAFFIC.. ( There is but little railroad traffic. For a land much larger than Germany two trains weekly suffice, and they consist of three freight cars and three passenger cars each. They take care of 80 per cent, of Ethiopia's foreign trade and carry' 96 per cent, of her visitors to the capital and back. For a stranger: the journey is fascinating. All the way from the coast to the capital the train climbs. The almost unbroken .ascent is usually gentle but sometimes it is. so steep that two engines are required. This journey vividly shows what a natural fortress Ethiopia- is. Most of it consists of a great lofty plateau, surrounded by high mountains and sitting behind a girdle of sands. The desert zone, which one enters as soon as he leaves Jibuti, is hostile and forbidding. All is barren and dry. Burning sands cry back 'to a naming sun. Arid streaks of huge brown rocks have been poured here and there across the wastes and whenever our valiant locomotive, called "Elephant," forded one of these streams of torrid boulders, it brought us again to vast sandy wildernesses. There was no verdure and no life. ■No ..blade of grass or a struggling bush relieved the endless sweep of aridity. After fifty-five' miles of climbing through the rocks and over the wastes we reach the border. We have passed from the French colony into Ethiopia. A yellow, green, and red flag flies from a ■ high pole. There is a water tank, barefooted guards, soldiers' barracks, and a few native huts. Somali venders sell drinks and meat and native bread to the third-class passengers as a timid official looks over our passports. The "Elephant" takes a long drink, gives a (toot, and starts on again. We are (penetrating into Ethiopia. \ We look back at the desert strip by means of which France cuts this country from the sea. To the north is a similar long and narrow area whjch Italy has interposed between Ethiopia and the sea, while to the south are - vastly • longer strips of sandy shores held by England and Italy. The outer edge of the girdle of sand about the Ethiopians ramparts is securely held by foreigners—by the three Powers that for sixty years have aspired to dominate this land. ' " . Not one sack-of coffee or ivory tusk or cake of beeswax can Ethiopia send abroad without consent from one of the Powers that, has control of the ports : and not one roll of cotton goods from Japan or tin of gasoline from Irak, or automobile from Detroit can come to Ethiopia without the approval of foreign Governments. AMID THE SANDS. For a long time after we cross that line which colonising Powers have drawn between Ethiopia and the sea, we remain amid the sands. We are still far from "the plateau where fruit abounds, the soil yields three crops annually, and forests mount up almost overnight. By noon we reach ravines with bushes growing in them, whose meagre leaves sustain goats and camels, so .we see occasional flocks and pass a fewtiny, villages each containing a. piinia.

ture station and a tank filled with water brought from afar. When we stop to quench the engine's thirst, little children gather round the first-class car to ask for gifts, while their parents visit the inmates of the thirdclass wagon. Every village is dull, meagre, and squalid. The fragile straw-thatched huts are utterly bare. Each settlement is largely self-sustaining, living on the scantiest physical necessities and caring little for traffic with the outside world. The shepherds seem to have no curiosity for the whites. Only the children gather about us to wangle coins by strange antics and weird noises. These people drink their goats' milk, which they carry in bags from goats' hides, exchange a few goats' skins for calico cloth, dried peas, and millet, dress their bushy or braided hair with goats' butter, make pancakes over camel-dung fires, and build their huts from twigs plastered with mud. Here and there they add a tiny tower to a hut, thus converting it into a mosque, at whose call they often prostrate themselves for prayer and sometimes fast. Those few activities represent their domestic economy and their culture. As the train proceeds the sands become covered with grass from which rise myriads of ant hills as high as a man. There are more and more flocks. Wild animals are frequently seen and villages are often seen. By evening we reach hills and trees. The ascent becomes'so steep that "Hippopotamus" joins "Elephant" to pull us up the grade. And just at dusk we enter the very pleasing little town of Diredawa with many trees, with an abundance of gorgeous flowers, lemons, and bananas It is like an oasis. The day has ended and with it the desert. We are at the threshold of the rich Ethiopian plateau.