Not all scholarship is worth the name, as this week’s Pankhurst’s Corner explains. Bigotry, racial prejudice and sheer ignorance are reflected in the writing on Ethiopia by an otherwise accomplished artist. Enjoy this rather unique fourth installment of Professor Pankhurst’s running series of chronicles and other literature on Ethiopia.
There is no doubt about it. In my opinion, dear reader, Captain William Harris, the first British envoy to Shawa – in the early 1840’s was a poor author – and may also have been a poor diplomat.
King Sahle Sellase
The story begins, I suppose, on 28 June 1840, when King Sahle Sellase entrusted the Rev. J.L. Krapf of the London-based Church Missionary Society with a letter to Queen Victoria. This letter exists only in an English translation, which declares, in part:
“About your happiness I am informed from your countrymen who come into my country and spoke with me about your welfare and greatness when I was informed about your kindness towards all men. I was much rejoiced and determined to make friendship with you. As to myself if my person is good or bad you will have been informed about by your countrymen, having been in my country. Well then, I wish very much that you may please to make friendship with me”.
Coming to the guts of the matter, he continues:
“God has given me a good and large Kingdom but Arts and Sciences are not yet come into my country as they are in yours. Therefore you may please to assist me in this request. The thing you may assist me is in sending Guns, cannons and other things which are not to be got in my counry. I do not venture to fix how much you may send me of these things; you may act according to your kindness which is known everywhere…”
No ambiguity, you will see, as to what the King has on his mind.
Captain Harris
In response to this letter the British Government dispatched a large diplomatic mission, led by Captain W.C.Harris, which brought many fine presents, and negotiated a Treaty of Amity and Commerce on 18 November 1841.
The British Mission was however far from a success. This is evident from a today little known Amharic letter which Sahle Sellase dispatched to Harris a year or so after the latter’s arrival.
Written with ambiguity – and some delicacy, it declares, in English translation:
“Having resided in my country a whole year, you have observed my behaviour and I have observed your behaivour. I have found nothing in you other than love, though I do not know whether I have been unfair to you. Having seen your good disposition, I have not till today ordered you to depart. But since you have today informed me concerning the departure of Garim Sahim [apparently a trader connected with the British Mission], there is enmity in love and love in enmity, and I have told you to leave lest you should hate me or I should hate you, do not hate me for this, my brother” – see David Appleyard and others, Letters from Ethiopian Rulers, p. 149
Subtly written as it was the gist of the letter was quite clear: Ferenge, Go home!
Scarcely a successful outcome of the Mission, you must admit.
The Highlands of Aethiopia
Harris, on duly returning to London, wrote his famous three-volume account of his Mission: The Highlands of Aethiopia, which appeared in 1844. Its author thought most highly of this work: Regarding it as something of a literary masterpiece, he dedicated it to “The Queen’s most Excellent Majesty”, i.e. Queen Victoria. Perhaps significantly he did not however trouble to include in his book the text of the Treaty he signed on her behalf.
Harris, who was highly ethnocentric as well as something of a racist, had little admiration for the king who had signed his Treaty, or his people. Writing of Sahle Sellase, whom he terms “the Reigning Despot”, he observes:
“A most singular contrast of good and evil was perhaps never presented in the person and administration of the Christian despot. Avarice, suspicion, caprice, duplicity, and superstition, appear to form the basis of his chequered character, and every act exhibits a proportion of meanness and selfishness, linked with a desire to appear munificent”.
Harris went on to state that the king’s tent at Angolalah was “infested” with “dirty pages troublesome idlers”. His account of the great market town of Harar is no less critical. He writes of the “swaggering” soldier, the “wild Galla”, the local peasant, “greasy and offensive in person and in habits”, the Muslim followers of the “false prophet”, the “surly” Adal, with his “murderous” knife, and the “wily huckster” of Harar, whose trading was based on “the exercise of knavery”.
The “Abyssinian fiddle”, or local violin, Harris tells us, had a “squeaking voice”, and its “unharmonious sounds” produced no less than “harsh screams and moans”, as well as other “tortures”.
The Ethiopian woman does not escape the author’s pen. We’re told that she too often lacks “even the smallest portion of those feminine attractions which in other climes form the charm of her sex”.
Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but such derogatory remarks fail to convey a meaningful picture of the people, institutions or instruments criticised.
To see the weakness in Harris’s approach we should turn to the two-volume work of his compatriot and contemporary, Charles Johnston, whose Travels in Southern Abyssinia was published in the same year 1844. Look for example at Johnston’s very informative descriptions of traditional Ethiopian handicrafts, traditional dress, and jewellery, as well as medicine and surgery.
Harris as Artist
Captain Harris was also an interesting artist. He had received his artistic training at the British East India Company’s Military Seminary at Addiscombe House at Croydon, South London. There he studied military and civil drawing, as well as mathematics, Latin, French, Hindustani, and other subjects.
He drew many drawings during his stay in Ethiopia. Some were duly reproduced as engravings in his Highlands of Aethiopia; others in his much rarer Illustrations to the Highlands of Aethiopia, which appeared in the following year 1845.
What is exciting today is that Harris’s original drawings have recently come to light. They were in the possession of Quintin Keynes (1921-2003), a dedicated British bibliophile and member of the Royal Asiatic Society, whom I had the pleasure to meet on several occasions.
These pictures are currently on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum, in Cambridge, England – and will be on view there until 20 January 2008: go there if you can! These drawings are the subject also of a magnificent illustrated catalogue, prepared by Quintin Keynes’s nephew Professor Simon Keynes.
Harris’s paintings, which are ethnologically far from unconvincing, are invaluable in that they cover a wide range of subjects. They include remarkable views of Ethiopian scenery, and its forests and other vegetation; portraits of King Sahle Selasse, and pictures of his court; battle-scenes, and scenes of the army on review; pictures of the offensive and defensive weapons then in use; military decorations: and male and female clothing, and hair styles, etc, etc.
All this seems to bring old-time Ethiopia alive!
Our appeal to the British Embassy and the British Council, both in Addis Ababa, as well as to all concerned authorities, is to bring this fascinating Exhibition to Ethiopia,
There is a lot to be learnt from it.
(Originally published in Capital newspaper)
Richard Pankhurst 
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