ANCIENT TRADITIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22106, 13 August 1935, Page 12

ANCIENT TRADITIONS

EXPLORER'S LITERARY FINDS An illustrated book of New Testament and other miracles, one of which claims that Jesus as a child climbed up a sunbeam while his playmates fell off it, was one of many litery treasures found by Major R. E. Cheesman while exploring the archives in th& ponasteries of Lake Tana in Ethiopia during his latest trip to that little-known rG He 11 also discovered a church named after, a legendary and hitherto little known Syrian martyr called Jigar, who is said to have defended Jesus when Herod was searching for him after the visit of the Magi. Since his appointment as British Consul to northwest Ethiopia in 1925, Major Cheesman has made three journeys to Lake Tana and can now claim to be the only European who has explored the whole of the upper reaches of the Blue Nile, or Abbal, as it is called in Ethiopia. He has travelled along the river from its source at the Sacred Spring at Gish Abbai down to Lake Tana, made a complete circuit of Lake Taiia by water and thence journeyed along the course of the river down to Roseires in the Sudan. The whole distance is about 600 miles.

Describing bis third trip—made last summer—to the Royal Geographical Society here, Major Cheesman told of visits to a number of monasteries, some of which were evidently built by the Portugese adventurers (or their descendants), who were expelled from Ethiopia in the seventeenth century. One monastry had two bells, each made of two long stone slabs and struck by a round stone. A third bell was made of three wooden clappers of timber boards.

Major Cheesman visited a church on Tana Kirkos Island which claims, according to ‘‘ tradition so strong that it cannot bo ignored,” to have been the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant during several hundred _ years. The Ark was brought to Ethiopia from Jerusalem by Menelik 1., son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The original church building on this island is claimed to have been about 333 a.d., during the joint reign of Abreha and Asbeha, in which Frumentius brought Christianity to Ethiopia. One of the treasures of this church is a staff with a cross on top presented by Emperor Gabra Maskal, who reigned about 550 a.d. Vestments dating from the same reign are still in use in the church services. Another treasure is an ancient bowl of iron or bronze, dating from the second or third century A.D. On the geographical side of his explorations, Major Cheesman found that the level of Lake Tana has been gradually falling, and is now some four to six feet lower that it was 300 years ago. The reason appears to be the gradual wearing down of the lava ledge over which the water flows out of the lake.

On the banks of a small tributary of the Abbai, Major Cheesman saw a tumarole ” or volcanic vent, interesting as “ the only sign of volcanic activity, except hot springs, that 1 have seen or heard of on the Abyssinian highlands, although the plateau is composed of extinct volcanoes and lava rocks.”

The local tribesfolk have given the name of Isat Gamorra to this vont, out of which steam and sulphur fumes were continually issuing. It is about three feet long and six inches wide. Close by is a seam of lignite. Major Choesraan’s explorations on Lake Tana were carried out in tankwas, native rafts, made of reeds, and costing about 8s each. After about two weeks' use they become waterlogged. A tankwa, Major Cheesman said, is supple and conforms to the shape of the waves so that in a gale the motion resembles “ riding on the back of a snake.” Until one gets used to it, “ it seems as if the bundles of reeds must be torn apart.” Although there are plenty of crocodiles in the lower reaches of the Abbai, Major Cheesman found no trace of these creatures on Lake Tana. He concluded that the climate is too cold for them. There w’ere, however, a few hippopotami. The great papyrus beds contain a large number of pythons. Sometimes these are “ found exhausted in the water and have been known to land on tankwas as unwelcome passengers.”