rTHB; AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Underwood & Under wood CHERRY BLOSSOM TIME IN WASHINGTON MAY, 1932 BANKING AND INVESTMENT SERVICE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD The National City Bank of New York and Affiliated Institutions THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK HEAD OFFICE: 55 WALL STREET, NEW YORK Foreign Branches in ARGENTINA . BELGIUM . BRAZIL . CHILE . CHINA . COLOMBIA . CUBA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC . ENGLAND . INDIA . ITALY . JAPAN . MANCHURIA . MEXICO . PERU . PHILIPPINE ISLANDS . PUERTO RICO . REPUBLIC OF PANAMA . STRAITS SETTLEMENTS . URUGUAY . VENEZUELA. THE NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK (FRANCE) S. A. Paris 60 AVENUE DES CHAMPS ELYSEES 41 BOULEVARD HAUSSMANN Nice 6 JARDIN du Roi ALBERT 1 er. INTERNATIONAL BANKING CORPORATION Head Office: 55 WALL STREET, NEW YORK Foreign and Domestic Branches in UNITED STATES . SPAIN . ENGLAND and Representatives in The National City Bank Chinese Branches &ANQUE NATIONALE DE LA REPUBLIQUE D’HAITI Ihad Office: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI CITY BANK FARMERS TRUST COMPANY Head Office: 22 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK THE NATIONAL CITY COMPANY OFFICES IN PRINCIPAL AMERICAN CITIES Foreign Offices: LONDON . AMSTERDAM . GENEVA . TOKIO . SHANGHAI Canadian Offices: MONTREAL . TORONTO The National City Company, through its offices and affiliations in the United States and abroad, offers a world-wide investment service to those interested in Dollar Securities. London Offices 34, BISHOPSGATE, E. C. 2 11, WATERLOO PLACE, S. W. 1 THE FOREIGN S JOURNAL VOL. IX, No. 5. WASHINGTON, D. C. MAY, 1932 The Land of the Gentle Medacqua* By DAVID THOMASSON, Clerk of Legation at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ONE thing struck my imagination forcibly as Said line—one day. At Port Said you can wait I browsed in the Library of Congress, in comfort (in my case five days) for the next gathering information on my new post— Messageries Maritimes boat, or the infrequent Addis Ababa. At the time of the Coronation it Italian or German freighters which occasionally took the governors of certain distant provinces take passengers for Djibouti. The mail boats of Ethiopia as long to reach the capital as it did make the Port Said-Djibouti run in five days. for the American A less onerous Special Delegation route from the to travel fro m standpoint of con¬ Washington. M y nections and bag¬ schedule was all gage transfers, how¬ made up. With good ever, ls: steamer luck a n d happy New York-Cher- connections it would bourg, rail to Mar¬ take just a month seilles, and Mes¬ to r e a c h Addis sageries steamer di¬ A b a b a. A long rect to Djibouti. journey ! But extra¬ Djibouti is the ordinarily enough gateway to Ethio¬ my destination was pia. Its raison a country in the in¬ d'etre, apart from terior of which one being the seat of had to travel as government of long by caravan to French Somaliland, reach certain of its is to provide, by l rontiers! means of the However, the A. Adler, Addis Ababa Franco - Ethiopian trip from the States The Medacqua or Dik-Dik, member of the antelope family Railway, a port for is more formidable the hides, coffee in prospect than in performance. and skins of the vast plateau which comprises the There is an excellent American steamship line empire of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie from New York to Alexandria—16 days. Thence the First. you take the Egyptian State Railways to Port Ethiopia dominates Djibouti. Its principal Said, changing at Benha to the main Cairo-Port square is the Place Menelik, its chief street, the 16S Avenue d’Abyssinia. Your presence there has The departure from Djibouti of the once-a- only two explanations : you are either coming from week, 36-hour “express” (in contrast to the bi¬ ‘‘Addis” and awaiting a boat, or YOU are going to weekly slow trains which make the journey in Addis and awaiting a train. In the latter case the three days) is still something of an event. There street urchins will entreat you to change for is a milling crowd of Europeans and Somalis at francs the Ethiopian silver coins which they have the station. Excitement prevails. A chorus of earned from transients by diving from the side cheers and farewells follows the sturdy little train of a liner of fanning away the pestiferous flies. as it moves out over the narrow-gage track, its In Djibouti you will encounter (if you have two boxcars bringing up the rear, beginning my luck) Ethiopian dignitaries hound for abroad, almost immediately the climb toward the plateau. accompanied by a colorful suite. Capes of royal The first night's run is through desert country, blue lined with red, fastened with heavy gold lonely and vast under brilliant stars. For miles buckles; a Coptic priest in a hooded robe of black not a hut. not a light- then unexpectedly beside satin, holding aloft in blessing a gilt cross of intri¬ the track flares the brushtire of a Somali, his thin cate scroll work; dignified retainers in white figure wrapped in a blanket against the cold. chammas with wide red borders—altogether an Morning in Dire-Daoua is a contrastingly cheerful impressive spectacle. affair; the sunshine is strong by 8 o'clock. This Everyone talks of Addis Ababa as being ‘'tip is the Ethiopian frontier where passengers' hand- there," with a gesture toward the western moun¬ luggage is examined. Armed guards mount the tains shimmering in the intense sunlight. You platforms while the passengers retire to nearby feel as if you were about to make a balloon ascen¬ hotels for breakfast. The station is draped in a sion. mantle of bougainvillaea. Tropical trees and And you are, approximately. The more tin flowers border the streets. usual part of the journey which now begins, lies ()ff again, and up again- this time through a almost totally uphill. series of rocky foothills seared with great gullies 1 may say here that of all the articles available by the rains, characterized by flat-topped mimosa to the intending visitor to Ethiopia, that by my trees. There are also euphorbias, like the ribs of chief. Minister Addison E. Southard, in the June, an umbrella blown inside-out. and thorn bushes 19,11, National Geographic Magazine, contains by growing tenaciously between the rocks. A sense far the most helpful information. So thoroughly, of vastness pervades the landscape. The cities in fact, has he noted the aspects of life in Ethio¬ of the world seem very far away. Mountains pia that 1 feel somewhat presumptuous in adding and more mountains loom on the horizon as the even these few first impressions. little train twists and wriggles up the steep ascent. Photo by A. Adler A TYPICAL ADDIS ABABA PANORAMA: 166 The glare of the sunlight is intense. Fortunately light discloses rich fields of barley. Groves ot the windows are provided with wooden blinds. eucalyptus (which you are later to find the most When the train puffs into Afdem, where a halt is characteristic feature of the Ethiopian landscape) made for luncheon, you feel it has earned a rest. soar from the valleys. From the native “tukuls" The hotels en route are owned by Greeks. Meals with their walls of mud and straw and roofs of are served with commendable dispatch. The thatch, rises the fragrant smoke of blue-gum plates are piled neatly—you can tell at a glance wood. The atmosphere has an unaccustomed just how many courses you are going to have. rarity. You have come five hundred miles in the The knife and fork which are to last you little train and are now about eight thousand feel throughout the repast are propped expectantly on up. a French porte-cuillers. Barefoot Ethiopian boys •‘The station’s the best building in the town, in their thin cotton coats and jodpur trousers says a disgruntled returning resident. “Take a tight about the legs, bring you platters of lentils good look at it.” and meat stews. But lie’s wrong, for we are soon to discover A screech of the whistle—strange sound in this the curious, the almost unbelievable contrasts of dormant, blazing land, and you are off again. the capital. Well-built and comfortably furnished More precipitous, dry water courses; more mi¬ stone houses rub shoulders with groups of mud mosa trees. The only evidences of human life huts. It is at first a bewildering mix-up. As our are the little earthen tracks beside the right-of- shiny American car climbs the long road from way, branching off now and then toward huts in¬ station to town we see, on the left, the majestic visible in the brush. Dinner is at Aouache, under hill of the “Ghebbi” crowned with the many a canopy of corrugated iron roofing, surrounded buildings of the imperial palace. The rest of the by a riot of more familiar vegetation than you city perches precariously on other slopes. The car have observed during the day—zinnias, cannas, follows a rocky street hounded by stone walls, and marigolds. Immediately the sun sets it grows turns in at a gate, and we glimpse our hotel, a chilly. At Aouache we meet the descending slow solid structure in a garden of flowers—iris, calla train, which stops there the night while the lilies, geraniums, chrysanthemums and carnations passengers sleep in the hotel. Its coaches are run —all blooming, strangely enough, at the same time. into a stockade surrounding a portion of the The bedrooms are large and lofty, with French track—a precaution against nocturnal marauders. windows opening on balconies and superb views But we push on, couplings creaking as the engine of eucalyptus covered valley and mountains.