Cyber Ethiopia

After the dramatic suicide of Emperor Tewodros, or Theodore, II, at Maqdala on Easter Monday, 13 April 1868, the British commander, Robert Napier, decided, as we all know, to take the Ethiopian ruler's young son, Alamayahu, to England. Captain Speedy The youngster, then aged about eight, was accordingly placed in the custody of Captain J.C. Speedy, a member of his staff, who had previously travelled to Ethiopia: he had met Tewodros before the war, and spoke some Amharic, but probably less than he later claimed. Speedy and Alamayahu embarked on HMS Feroze, a British vessel bound for England, on 11 June. According to a contemporary British report, quoting Speedy, they were accompanied by the boy's tutor, who is referred to as "Alaca Zarat", and a eunuch called Gabra

Medhen. "An Agonised Scream" The British report goes on to state that while they were on board ship at about 10 o'clock on the evening of 15 June, Speedy: "heard an agonised scream, which was accompanied by a cry for me in Amharic, and which I recognised as proceeding from Alamayou. While running to the boy I was met by a messenger from Lord Napier requesting me to come as quickly as possible. I found Alamayou in the arms of Lord Napier suffering from the greatest agitation - after quietening with some difficulty his distress, the only solution the boy would give as to the cause of his distress was that Alaca Zarat had the evil eye!" Alamayahu, according to the above British report, i.e. the evidence of Speedy, refused to return to his tutor. On reaching Suez, Napier dismissed both the tutor and Gabra Medhen. What the latter had done to incur his dismissal is not revealed. Both Ethiopians were accordingly put in a boat bound for Mombassa. One of the consequences of these dismissals was of course that Alamayahu, apparently cut off from all Ethiopian contacts, came more fully under the control of Speedy. The latter, who had thus replaced "Alaca Zarat", was thereafter considered the young Ethiopian's tutor. "Distressing Alarm" Speedy, referring to the situation after the incident on 15 June, continues: "The distressing alarm that then seized him rendered him so timid that for the following three months no persuasion could induce him to sleep out of my arms, and so great was his terror that if he happened to wake and find me asleep although still in my arms, he would awake me and earnestly beg me to remain awake until he should fall asleep; and it is only by continued care and tenderness that he is gradually losing his timidity". Hormuzd Rassam: "Alaca Zarat" = Alaqa Zanab Speedy' story of Alamayahu, "Alaca Zarat", and the "agonised scream" deserves further comment. "Zarat" was Speedy's faulty transliteration of Zanab, a learned man attached to Tewodros's court. He was well known to at least two of the Emperor's missionary captives, J.M. Flad and T. Waldmeir. Both considered him their friend and mention him favourably in their memoirs. Even more interesting about him comes from Queen Victoria's special envoy Hormuzd Rassam, another former captive of Tewodros, and is to be found in his "Narrative of the British Mission to Theodore". He makes it quite clear that Alamayahu's tutor was without any doubt the renowned Ethiopian historian Alaqa Zanab. The latter is now best known to historians of Ethiopia as the author of a subsequent Chronicle of Tewodros. Of this distinguished figure, Rassam writes: "Alaka Zannab, the keeper of the royal archives... was an excellent scribe and perfectly trustworthy, so that I never hesitated to confide my secrets to him". Rassam goes on to report how Alaqa Zanab came to be chosen, by the British, as Alamayahu's tutor. He writes: "The late Itege [i.e. Tewodros's consort Etege Teru Warq] having expressed a wish that her son should continue his Amharic studies, Lord Napier was kind enough, at my recommendation through General Merewether, to allow Alaka Zannab, the late Keeper of the Royal Archives, and a pious Christian, to be attached as tutor to Dajjaj 'Alamyo". Rassam, it is interesting to note, makes no mention of Alamayahu's fit, and the "agonised scream", reported by Speedy. Instead, he merely writes: "For some reason or other, the Alaka was subsequently discharged". Had he not heard of Alamayahu's reported fit, and supposed "agonised scream", or did he consider these insignificant, and not worth mentioning? We do not know. "Usefulness... Regretted" Rassam, looking to the future, added, however, one interesting comment, a wise one. He observes that Zanab's dismissal, "if regard be had to the Prince's usefulness to his own country", was "much to be regretted". Despite his mother's reported wish that he "continue his Amharic studies" Alamayahu was thus deprived, at one blow, of any contact with the eunuch Gabra Medhen, for what reason we do not know, and of the assistance of his Ethiopian tutor, the scholarly Zanab, for reasons which, in the light of Rassam's Narrative, must at least remain obscure. The Question This raises the question: Did Alamayahu, when in Britain (and later in India) continue to speak Amharic, and, if so, with whom? This brings us to the title of this week's essay: "Who was Shalaqa Kassa?" There is no mention, as far as we are aware, of Alamayahu (or Speedy) being accompanied to Britain by any other Ethiopian: for the presence of Zanab and Gabra Medhen had both been disposed of, allegedly on account of the incident of the "agonised scream". This brings us to the question of Shalaqa Kassa. Alamayahu, shortly after his arrival in Britain, was photographed by the famous British woman photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879). At the age of forty-eight she had been given a camera, and went on, in the 1860s, to become an outstanding amateur photographer. Married to Charles Hay Cameron, a British jurist who had spent a number of years in India, she found Alamayahu an interesting photographic subject, and took a number of photographs of him. One of these photographs of Alamayahu, the one with which we are interested today, can be seen in several works devoted to Mrs Cameron's photographs, most recently Tristram Powell's "Victorian Photographs of Famous Men and Fair Women", London, 1973, Plate 34 (and reproduced in this issue). This photograph depicts Alamayahu, wearing a large necklace, reclining in Speedy's arms, and, beside him, an Ethiopian holding a shield. The latter is variously referred to as Kassa "the servant" and Shalaqa Kassa. Who, we would ask was this Kassa, and how (and for how long) did he impinge on Alamayahu and Speedy? I will offer a small prize to the first reader satisfactorily to solve these questions! But to return to Alamayahu! Wayzaro Lakiye Though he had been taken from Ethiopia in 1868, Alamayahu was not forgotten in Ethiopia. Four years later his grandmother, Wayzaro Lakiye (the mother of his mother Teru Warq, addressed a pathetic letter about him to Queen Victoria. Written in Amharic, it reads in English translation, as follows: "Four dajazmaches and fifthly the Etege having died to my grief, it is only Dajazmach Alamayahu who is left to me. May you protect your charge for me; when God took up his father and his mother, He gave him to you; I will be among the number who will die if I do not see him. You he calls 'my mother', but me he does not call 'my mother', since I have not brought him up. May you bring him up, doing it for God's sake!" Queen Victoria and the British Government, so far as we can tell, never made any attempt to answer these sad words. "My Child, My Dear" Wayzaro Lakiye also wrote, at about the same time, directly to Alamayahu, saying: "My child, my dear, how are you, indeed? "Ever since we parted until today, why do you not send me a letter?" "While I die in grief and mourning, I have no other son, no other hope but you. "Now, quickly, send me a letter, providing your likeness in a picture, so that I may always see it. "May Christ enable us to meet. Amen". And she continued: "Be friendly towards the English Queen, the Russian King, the French King, towards all the kings. Send letters. "All the people of Abyssinia are awaiting you, are desirous of you. "Be wise, open the eyes of the people of Abyssinia, for they have become blind. Open up science for them, let them not remain thus, blind as they are". Not long after this Alamayahu told the British Government that he wanted to return to his native country. Sir Stafford Northcote, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was financially responsible for his upkeep, replied that the idea of his "going to Abyssinia was out of the question". Was Rassam right in suggesting that Napier's dismissal of Alamayahu's tutor Zanab had been a mistake?