Cyber Ethiopia

Monsieur Jean Baraglion, a Frenchman, was a prominent gunsmith at Adwa, during the reign of Emperor Yohannes, or John IV. He is also our subject for today. Augustus B. Wylde Our best portrait of Mussie Jean, as he was locally known, comes from the British traveller Augustus Blandy book "'83 to '87 in the Soudan", which we now quote. Monopolist There was "no doubt", Wylde says, that Baraglion had "a monopoly of the gun-mending work in Adowa and the north part of the country". He was "very short and very fat, and very good-humoured; he liked nothing better than to have a long chat with a visitor". He had "been in the country fourteen years, and had only been home once, when he went away with sundry dollars [i.e. Maria

Theresa dollars] to his home near Marseilles to give a portion to his son and daughter, who were both going to be married". A "Crooked" House "The old gentleman", Wylde recalls, "received you at the top of his house, and his building was one of the most extraordinary ones I ever saw. On entering from the street the door opened inwards to the side of a hill. The property might have been twenty yards wide and about one hundred yards deep, and was all 'slantingdicular'; the walls were not straight, the house was not straight, and everything was... crooked. The entrance door was just high enough to allow of a mule going through, and I had to stoop to get through. On entering I found myself alongside a staircase. About half a dozen steps up took one to the roof of the buildings in the court-yard, and a few more steps brought me onto a long low single room, which was the sleeping and dwelling place of our host. The room was badly lighted by small window, totally inadequate for ventilation purposes, and had it not been for the door, light and air would have been scarce. It was full of all sorts of odds and ends and curios, and the samples of guns and rifles were most amusing, there being specimens of guns hundreds of years old up to those of quite modern pattern. Here a gun that wanted a new lock, there one that wanted a new stock, others hammerless, sightless, barrels burst, barrels bent, barrels bulged - a regular hospital for sick fire-arms - and the doctor, touching himself with pride, saying, 'These are only some of my patients, and I shall mend them all'". Remington Rifles and Carbines Wylde goes in to describe "some Remington rifles and carbines", of which Baraglion had "seven or eight with their sticks broken off at the grip. These", he says, "had just come into the country [in the 1880s] and had been sent to him for repair". Many "showed signs of relatively recent firing, and one or two were marked with blood". "The old flint locks", he continues, "were most curious, some of them were of Portuguese manufacture - one with a bell mouth was well inlaid and carved, and had evidently been brought over by the Portuguese" [presumably in the sixteenth or seventeenth century]. There were" he adds, Bedouin guns, German, Belgian, Italian, Birmingham, and guns of every nationality. Pistols of all sorts, and revolvers of Belgian manufacture". "Very Proud" Our traveller told Baraglion that his [i.e. Wylde's] gun had "met with an accident", whereupon the Frenchman "insisted that I should send to camp for it that I might see how long it would take him to repair". Before their conversation was over Wylde's servant had brought the weapon, and Baraglion promised that "it would be ready the next day". While they were talking Wylde was given taj, i.e. mead or honey wine, which he drank out of a Dresden bowl, of which Baraglion was "very proud". It had once belonged to Dajazmach Webe, the former ruler of Tegray, and had been given to him as part-payment for services rendered. "Not Pure Invention" The Frenchman, we are told, was "called away on two occasions by clamorous soldiers, asking if their arms were repaired, and during our stay", Wylde continues, Baraglion "received several dollars, a proof that he was paid for his work, and that what he said about the number of dollars he could make was not pure invention. His workshop below, in the yard, was also full of cripples, and he had at least two or three months' hard work on hand for himself and his two native assistants... Our host', Wylde adds, "informed us that the Abyssinians greatly preferred breech-loaders to the old sorts of guns, and the only difficulty was with cartridges, which were very scarce and dear. The powder used in the country was of home manufacture and of slow combustion, very likely more suited to the old muzzle-loaders, which, in their old and bad state, could not stand good English powder. A most welcome present to any Abyssinian", Wylde says, "was a tin of English powder, which they invariably mixed with their own, and they then did not need require so much to charge their pieces with". Continuing with this account of late nineteenth century fire-arms, Wylde declares: "Old Ramshackle Guns" "The breech-loaders and better class of guns nearly all belong to the soldiers, though some of the merchants who trade with Massowah [Massawa]... are also well armed. The old ramshackle guns generally belong to the peasants, who use then for driving off the animals that feed on their crops. "The bullets used on some of the weapons are made of hammered iron generally, and are a great deal too small for the barrels, and they are covered with soft cotton rags to make them fit. When iron cannot be procured stones are used, and I saw some very good specimens of stone bullets. Lead is, of course, used when procurable" - but was treated as contraband at Massawa, where the Egyptians, then in control of the port, prohibited its importation. "Flint-locks", Wylde reports, did not at that time "seem to be so much used as those with slow match, the latter being more sure of igniting the powder in damp weather and easier kept dry; the place generally used to carry and keep the slow match dry is under the arm-pit, and the slow match is easily lighted with a flint and steel..." "An Honour to Help a European" Baraglion, as promised, duly repaired Wylde's gun, "I expressed my thanks", the Englishman recalls, "and on asking for my bill I was told that it was too great an honour to help a European in difficulties, and that it would offend if money was offered".