January
1927
After completing the expedition around Harer I returned to Dire Dawa and went from there by train to Addis Ababa. The wonderful expedition around Harer was considered somewhat venturesome. It turned out that to travel around in the country it was necessary to have an official paper from the government, which could be obtained only if it had the seal of the regent, the government or the empress, Zaudith. [1] My ‘good fairy,’ Madame de Vilmorin, had done her work for me here as well. According to custom, one of the ministers must introduce a visitor from abroad to the government of Ethiopia. The French envoy, who had received a letter of recommendation from Madame de Vilmorin, agreed to introduce me to Ras Tafari, who later, in 1930, became the emperor of Abyssinia. [2]
The capital, Addis Ababa (‘Spring Flower’) is situated within a dense forest of Australian eucalyptus. In the not so distant past, the Ethiopian capital was moved every hundred years or so; when a forest had been depleted of firewood, the inhabitants were periodically forced to move the capital somewhere else. One of the foreign missions introduced Australian eucalyptus, which happened to be exceptionally fast-growing under the conditions of the Abyssinian climate and quite superior in this respect to the local vegetation of conifers. The clever Emperor Menelik II quickly realized the importance of this valuable tree and now the capital, just like many other cities in Abyssinia, is covered by whole forests of eucalyptus. They are also planted along the roads in northern Abyssinia.
Notes:
- Usually Zauditu or Zewditu. Ras Tafari was her second cousin. [↩]
- He was Regent at the time of Vavilov’s visit. The archives of Time magazine contain accounts of Tafari as Regent and of Zauditu’s controversial death. [↩]
Show on map