The Ethiop Painted Black
Waugh in Abyssinia. By Evelyn Waugh. (Longmans. 10s. 6d.)
Pi rrn•ro aside the merits of puns as puns, it is a pity that Mr. Waugh should have chosen one so misleading as the title of his book. It suggests levity and that his subject is either Waugh or War. Actually the book is a serious justification of Italian action and a damning indictment of Abyssinian character, the Emperor's regime and the body of would-be reformers known as the Jeunesse d'Ethiopie. Its lighter passages do indeed feature Waugh—but in no undue promin- ence above his journalistic confreres—in a series of anecdotes reminiscent of Black Mischief ; while war itself, the scene of which he and they strove in vain to reach, provides no more than a background.
As might be expected, the whole book is admirably written. The first chapter, .a very fine piece of lucid condensation, exposes the philosophy which guided and the methods Which effected the partition of Africa. Its moral is that Italy only followed the example of her sternest critic, but with less cant. Certainly she intended, says Mr. Waugh, to extend her influence, commercial and cultural, over the doinains of the Negus, but only did so by force when friendly measures failed through the folly and duplicity of. the Ethiopian. It is -at this point that one begins to suteet the author of bias. To continue the already inveterate practice of promoting disloyalty by bribes among the subjects of a monarch with whom you have just concluded a treaty of friendship is not perhaps the best way of inspiring 'con- fidence and is ethically no less reprehensible than the action of, those subjects who, having accepted the bribes, refused to part with their loyalty—an action which. Mr. Waugh ' finds indefensible.
His opinion of the Abyssinian as an individual seems to be no higher than of him as a ruler. Here is his pictt‘ of the mission-trained hoipital dressers ; " flabby-faced :soft- . spoken youths . . . lounging and giggling." Poor Abyssinian Bearded and raw-meat-eating he is an uncultured savage ; Moustached and shod in patent leather, a time-serving hypocrite and rogue-; mi,ssionised, a flabby degenerate. Mr. Waugh congratulates the British Ambulance on hiving refused his services in favour of recruits from Kenya ; land yet in the annals of that same Ambulance it is recoiled that, when all but three of the 'Kenya recruits applied for repatriation after the bombing of Kworam, it was the loyalty of the Abyssinian dressers which never faltered. These are but two of many instances which tend to show that. Mr. Waugh's antipathies at times outweighed his judgeinent and outran his knowledge.
' The closing chapters record impressions of Abyssinia in Italian hands. Mr. Waugh was the first British journalist to be-allowed to return and—wisely, in view of his most obvious sympathies—he received full scope. At Harar he found peace, contentment and a currency problem. Little sign of damage by bombs remained elteept in the Abyssinian Church; the drawing-room of the French doctor and the Catholic church. The Hararis, commercialists to the core, were happy in the change. At Addis Ababa things were for the moment less bright. The rains had forbidden the widening of the occupied zone round the capital and hostile bands lurked on its outskirts. But of serious danger from within or without there was none. The plight of small semi-isolated posts, such as presumably exist, must have been rather more peri- lous and a good deal more dismal. An account of them would have been interesting, but they were naturally in- accessible to Mr. Waugh. There is, however,' no cause to quarrel with his conclusion that with the -dry weather paci- fication will proceed apace and without serious opposition.
Last of all he passed down what will in years to come he the most amazing road in Africa—perhaps in the world. It is designed to join Massawa with Mogadishu. It captured Mr. Waugh's imagination and it will, I think, capture that of his readers. N.ot, all; of them. will travel all the way with him. Many, flelighting,in his pen pictures of Madame Idot falsely 'gay, of Madame Moriatis frankly dismal,, and of that prince of canard-therchanta, VVazir Ali Beg (who was going strung at the same -trade eighteen years ago), will resent his bitter strictures on a race of which an fond he knows but little. But all; deeply though they may regret the manner of its undertaking, will join in hoping that the road and its makers' will bring to Abyssinia an era of peace and progress in which the tragic memories of the past will be forgotten.
L. I. A.
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