Adventure with Calipers
Ethiopian Realities; By Major Poison Newman. (Allen and Unwin. 3s. 6d.),• WHILE Mr. Coon, an Anieriean anthropologiSt, was preparing
for an expedition to Abyssinia he fell in with Gabri Zaudu, " a small thin-fingered black man with a large and bulbous forehead who, dressed in fashionable sport clothes, was frequently to be seen walking rapidly in and out of the Museum."
This Gabri Zaudu was an Ethiopian of alleged patrician birth and immense racial pride. In that he was in great part the rock on which the expedition foundered, it was a pity that Mr. Coon decided to take him with him ; but since he afforded material for much entertaining reading and an interesting study of "young Ethiopia" his addition to the party was a piece of good luck for the reader.
Not only was Zaudu a very difficult person, always ready to fly into a violent rage or a fit of sulks, but he also proved a fraud whose grand relations were imaginary and influence in high quarters negligible. It was not altogether his fault that Mr. Coon, on arriving at Addis Ababa, failed to get leave to go any further. Times were unfavourable, and too many travellers had recently availed themselves of the country's hospitality to write nasty things about its Govern- ment for an addition to their number to be welcome. Therefore, Mr. Coon did not get beyond the capital where he discovered a rare and aristocratic frog in low circumstances and got into what was nearly serious trouble by measuring an un- authorised number of Ethiopians in a back room in the hotel compound. In the end, after many and varied annoyances, lie only made his escape to the railway station with the help of a strong escort.
This story might well have made barren or even bitter reading, but Mr. Coon never loses a very pleasant sense of humour and proportion. He is, moreover, a skilled observer who inspires' 6,!!'iftlence, and his talc of the short time he spent in the country throws a shrewd and goodnatured light on many aspects of Ethiopia and its officialdom. Of young Ethiopia he writes :
In the days before bright young Ethiopians were exported to Europe and America for schooling, there was no such thing as a racial inferiority complex in the country. . . . As more and more of them come to live in the city, as still more go abroad for study, the truth of the matter, that white men as a whole consider them to be black men, and hence of inferior calibre, will become a common issue in the country side . . . and troubles will multiply."
Against this comment, which opens a field for serious thought,
must be set the opinion of a highly qualified observer just back from Abyssinia, that the present emergency has developed a sense of responsibility in the young Ethiopian in which racial hypersensitiveness seems to be submerged ; and that his contacts with sympathetic Europeans are characterised by mutual good feeling and respect. • "" Only once, in stating that few if any Ethiopian slaves would willingly exchange their servitude for Italian political domi-
nation, does Mr. Coon fall into a common pitfall and lay down the law on a controversial point Which cannot conceivably have come within the range of his personal experience. In contrast, Major Poison Newman in Ethiopian **ties seldom
escapes from it. ills introduction mentions that he returned from a journey to Ethiopia, British and French Somalilands and Italy in October, 1935. It omits the fact that he only started on that journey in the latter half of the year, and that therefore very little of what he writes about, Ethiopia can be based on first-hand knowledge or experience. In point of fact, his book is one of the best presentments of events, recent and historical, from the Italian standpoint, which I have read.
That this should be so will surprise no one who recognises in its author one of the principal contributor& to The British- Italian Bulletin, a periodical of recent birth and violent propa- gandist tendencies., It is an excellent thing that the Italian argument should so clearly be presented to*he /finish public ; but when I read Major Newman'iStatement that it was not till
last October that the idea of writing a book on Ethiopia occurred to him, and as I turaeil page after page of skilfully co-related facts and inforthatimi .by no"-ineans easily to be come by, I fosral it hard to resist the conehiSion that much of his material must have been presented to hire in almost ready-made forth.
If I was right, it is a pity that he should have made no reference to his authorities and should have left uncorrected the impression, which the book certainly gives, that it is the outcome of his - own . unbiased observation and research. However that may be, it is a very well written and informative book.. • . • To turn' from Major Poison. Newman and join Mr. Coon in his flight to Arabia, which. incidentally was accomplished in a dhow under sanitary circumstances which must have been as uncomfortable as they are amusing, is to be filled with admira- tion for the author and for his brave and much-enduring wife. Sana'a and its ruler, the Imam Yahya, in spite of their repute- tion for exclusiveness, received the expedition with almost open arms. To some extent the party owed its good reception to its American nationality, but much of its success—and it was allowed to measure an entire army, and part of it twice over—was due to the Jew Israel, a rather pathetic and very _ attractive character. Even in Sena's international politics. raised their heads, and the story of Italian activity is remark- ably interesting. This part of the book makes even better reading than' the Ethiopian episode. Mr. Coon has the supreme gift of persuading the reader that, as he turns the pages, lie himself is making the journey, and making it in the best and most delightful company.
LAWRENCE Assam.
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