Read In Ethiopia with a Mule for Free Online Page B

greater consequence than the Princess’ foreign friend. I was glad to observe so much today, before setting out on my trek. It is always a help to know one’s place from the start. 
    * Throughout Ethiopian history Massawah has been important in a negative sense, for it was the highlanders’ inability to hold their natural port that isolated them so momentously. At the beginning of the fifteenth century King Yeshaq took Massawah from the Muslims, who had been in possession for seven centuries, but within eighty years it had been lost again to the coastal tribes then warring against the highlanders. From 1520 to 1526 it was occupied by the Portuguese, from 1527 to 1865 by the Turks, and from 1865 to 1882 by the Egyptians. The British next took over, promising the Emperor John IV that on leaving Massawah they would return it to the highlanders. They left three years later, but their anxiety to counter French influence along the Red Sea coast led them to hand Massawah over to the Italians – for whom it was the capital of their new colony until 1897, when Asmara was built. After World War II the British again took possession and not until 1952 did Massawah, with the rest of Eritrea, become part of the Ethiopian Empire. Today this province is a troublesome part, for many Eritreans resent being ruled from Addis Ababa, and foreign Muslim powers are busy transforming this resentment into a modern nationalistic ambition to have Eritrea declared an independent state. 

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Tamely through the Tembien
29 December. A Hovel on a Hilltop
    T HIS MORNING’S ASSEMBLY in the palace farmyard was comical – one long-suffering mule, one clueless faranj , one anxious-to-help but (in this context) equally clueless princess and five bewildered farm-hands. (All these men are expert mule-loaders, but none had ever before encountered such an intractable miscellany of baggage.) The pack-saddle is a simple square of well-padded, soft sacking and we began by roping on my rucksack, flea-bag, box of emergency rations and water-bottle, topping them with Jock’s natty plastic bucket (bought in Asmara) and Leilt Aida’s bulky contribution of imported foods.
    After a forty-minute struggle everything seemed secure, so all goodbyes were said and everyone industriously waved to every-else as Christopher and I left the farmyard behind Jock and Gabre Maskal – the servant who had been deputed to guide us on to the Adua track. Then, on the verge of the road, a hooting Red Cross jeep caused Jock to buck frantically, and everything slowly slid under his belly and thence to the ground.
    As we retreated to the yard I decided that two evenly weighted sacks would have to replace my awkwardly-shaped rucksack. In due course these were produced and I impatiently tumbled into them a conglomeration of books, clothes, matches, medicines, candles, pens, soup-cubes, cigarettes, toothpaste, torch batteries, notebooks, maps and insecticides. Then, after much testing and balancing of sacks, and tying and retying of ropes and leather thongs, reasonable security was assured. Undoubtedly Jock is a patient animal: there he stood, the picture of bored resignation, while the men crowded around him yelling argumentatively and heaving on the ropes like sailors in a storm. Their loading method is impossibly complex and I am singularly inept at acquiring such skills– so we will be dependent on hypothetical passers-by if we have to camp out at night.
    Much of the route from Makalle to Adua follows a makeshift motor-track constructed during the Italian occupation but neglected for the past quarter of a century. Our guide evidently disapproved of Leilt Aida allowing faranjs to travel unescorted and he asked several peasants who were walking in our direction if they would take charge of us; but all were soon turning off this main track towards their settlements and eventually Gabre Maskal was persuaded to turn back.
    For the next four miles our track ran direct over a light-brown, stony