Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia | Page 9

she did not answer
him, she calmly replied, without lifting up her eyes from the book,
"Because I am conversing with a greater and better man than you--the
pious King David."
Theodore sent her to Magdala, together with her new-born son,
Alamayou ("I have seen the world"), and took as his favourite a
widowed lady from Yedjow, named Waizero Tamagno, a rather coarse,
lascivious-looking person, the mother of five children by her former
husband; she soon obtained such an ascendancy over his mind that he
publicly proclaimed "that he had divorced and discarded Terunish, and
that Tamagno should in future be considered by all as the queen." Soon
Waizero Tamagno had numerous rivals; but she was a woman of tact;

and far from complaining, she rather encouraged Theodore in his
debauchery, and always received him with a smile. One day she said to
her fickle lord, who felt rather astonished at her forbearance, "Why
should I be jealous? I know you love but me; what is it if you stoop
now and then to pick up some flowers, to beautify them by your
breath?"
Although Theodore had several children, Alamayou is the only
legitimate one. The eldest, a lad of about twenty-two, called Prince
Meshisha, is a big, idle, lazy fellow. Though at Zagé, Theodore
introduced him to us, and desired us to make him a friend with the
English, he did not love him: the young man was, indeed, so unlike the
Emperor that I can well understand Theodore having had serious
doubts of his being really his son. The other children, five or six in
number, the illegitimate offspring of some of his numerous concubines,
resided at Magdala, and were brought up in the harem. He seems to
have taken but very little notice of them: but every time he passed
through Magdala he would send for Alamayou, and play with the boy
for hours. A few days before his death he introduced him to Mr.
Rassam, saying, "Alamayou, why do you not bow to your father?" and
after the audience he sent him to accompany us back to our quarters.
Waizero Terunish, Almayou's mother, never made any complaint;
though forsaken by her husband, she remained always faithful to him.
She spent usually the long days of her seclusion reading the books she
delighted in--the psalms, the lives of the saints and of the Virgin
Mary--and bringing up by her side her only son, for whom she had a
deep affection. Although she had never loved her husband, in difficult
times she bravely stood by his side. When Menilek, the King of Shoa,
made his demonstration before the amba, and treachery was feared, she
sent out her son and made all the chiefs and soldiers swear fidelity to
the throne. Two days before his death, Theodore sent for the wife he
had not seen for years, and spent part of the afternoon with her and his
son.
After the storming of Magdala, Waizero Terunish and her rival,
Waizero Tamagno, were told to come to our former prison, where they

would meet with protection and sympathy. It fell to my lot to receive
them on their arrival; and I did my utmost to inspire them with
confidence, to assuage their fears, and to assure them that under the
British flag they would be treated with scrupulous honour and respect.
It was on the 13th of April, 1866, that Theodore, still powerful, had
treacherously seized us in his own house; and strange to say, on the
13th of April, two years afterwards, his dead body lay in one of our
huts, while his wife and favourite had to seek shelter under the roof of
those whom he had so long maltreated.
Both his queens and Alamayou accompanied the English army on its
march back, Waizero Tamagno left, with feelings of gratitude for the
kindness and attention she had received at the hands of the English
commander-in-chief, as soon as she could with safety return to her
native land, Yedjow; but poor Terunish died at Aikullet. Her child,
Alamayou, the son of Theodore, and grandchild of Oubié, has now
reached the English shore, an orphan, an exile, but well cared for.

CHAPTER II.
Europeans in Abyssinia--Bell and Plowden--Their Career and Deaths
--Consul Cameron--M. Lejean--M. Bardel and Napoleon's Answer to
Theodore--The Gaffat People--Mr. Stern and the Djenda Mission--State
of Affairs at the end of 1863.
Abyssinia seems to have had a strange fascination for Europeans. The
two first who were connected with the late Abyssinian affairs are
Messrs. Bell and Plowden, who both entered Abyssinia in 1842. Mr.
John Bell, better known in that country under the name of Johannes,
first attached himself to the fortunes of Ras Ali. He took service with
that prince, and was elevated to the rank of basha