FROM BONDAGE TO THRONE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 207, 10 December 1910, Page 10

FROM BONDAGE TO THRONE.

A WOMAN'S RISE AND FALL. THE QUEEN OF SHEBA'S SEAT. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah is sick unto death; the throne of the Queen of Sheba is occupied by a child, and the wonderful woman who has shared it with the Emperor for so many years is now nothing but an old and despised sick nurse to the moribund Menelik. What a career has been that of Taitu! From misery and hardship she climbed to imperial splendor. From the virtual slavery of an army drab she lifted herself to a throne about which cluster traditions more hoary and romantic than even those that brood over the thrones of China and Persia. And now she has fallen from her high estate. Old age is coming on in a gray twilight of mist and misery. MENBLIK'S LAST DAYS. For Menelik is no longer Negua Neghesti of Abyssinia, Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Scioa. He has laid down the sceptre of Balkis and the five crowned tiara; he has left the sacred bed by which the Ethiopians swear and taken to a humbler couch whereon he lies, waiting for the grim summons which no King has ever disobeyed. The Empress Taitu has put of her royal robes and waits upon her lord and' master like a servant. And the throne of Balkis, Queen of Sheba, is occupied by Lig Yassau, "Prince Jesus," a boy of twelve, whom she hates. "Thou has put down the mighty from their seats; thou hast exalted the humble and the weak." The words are those of David, ancestor of Menelik, if the tradition is true. The Empress Taitu is not of noble family, but her people were respectable. She has little if any negro blood in her veins. Though her lips are full ana fleshy they are rather Semitic than Ethiopian in type. Her nose is well shaped, and has no resemblance to that of a negro, as the wings of the nostrils are small, the bridge is high, and there is no flattening or breadth. Her eyes are large, brilliant, prominent,, commanding . She has a long powerful neck, and she carries her head imperiously. To-day she is enormously fat, but there is something stately about her bearing even now. She is only about ■fifty-five years old, yet her life has been so crowded with adventures that she seems, and undoubtedly feels, far older than her years . From childhood she has been mixed up in politics and intrigue. Married at the early age that is customary in Africa, she and her husband took an active part in fc, conspiracy against the Emperor John. They were caught; her husband was cast into chains; their property was confiscated, and she was given to a common soldier as his wife. TAITU'S HARD DAYS. No harder lot could have been chosen for her. The women of Abyssinia axe the commissariat corps of the army. They are also the pack mules. So Taitu ran barefoot behind the soldiers, carrying on her back a calabash of tedj, or talla, the national drink, strapped to her by thongs across her forehead and around liernvaist. She climbed up and down the rugged mountains with the army; her feet bruised by the rocks and her legs torn by the thorns of the mimosas, She pounded the douraih and the tief; she made bread and concocted the barberry sauce with which the soldiers season the raw meat that is their staple ration. When she grew tired and lagged, she was beaten to make her hurry. Her bed was the bare ground. But in Abyssinia the chanees of war are infinite, and the martial rites are brittle. Whether Taitu's soldier husband died, was killed, vanished, or was merely supplanted the chronicler does not relate, but she soon changed masters, and the new one was a petty chieftain. He too disappeared, and she was taken by another chief, this time of slightly more exalted position. How often thie operation was repeated probably she herself cannot remember, but it took place many times, and with each successive marriage Taitu climbed higher in the social scale. ' SHE BECOMES EMPRESS. * Finally she reached the sacred bed by which all the empire swears—"Ba Alga!". Menelik at this time was a. widower. He was hot yet Emperor, for the Negus John was still alive, but he was King of Scioa. His wife had been a daughter of the Emperor Theadore, but he had married her for reasons ol State, and never had loved her. Finally, in 1885, he married Taitu with all the ceremony of the ancient Abyssinian Church. Now she was Queen and about to be Empress, for Menelik had been chosen heir to the throne. The goal of hei ambition was in sight. .And she made good use of her power to assure the position' of herself and her family. Nepotism is not regarded with disfavour in Abyssinia. The man in power who does not provide well for all:his relations would be looked upon as an un natural monster. So Taitu had her brother, Ras Olieh, appointed Governor of North Ethiopia. Another brother, Ras Mangascia, she made Lord of Tigre. Her daughter, Uizero Zeodita, she married to Ras Sellaeieh, son of the Emperor John and when the latter was killed at the battle of Metemma against the dervishes on March 12, 1889, Menelik became Emperor, and she was crowned Empress with him. Her royal son-in-law was dead, but he_ had left a son, who was the natural heir to the throne, being a grandson ol the Emperor John. But. in order to assnre the succession in her own family, she married her widowed daughter to Ras Michael, another scion of the ancient royal house. The result of their union was the young prince, Lig Yassau. TAITU'S GREAT RULING GIFTS. Around herself she built up a political machine, selecting with wonder astuteness those ras who were most able and who represented the old dynasty. She was abler than Menelik in many ways. She was even a great general. Before the battle of Adowa the Abyssinian commanders would have retreated, seeing themselves face to face with an Italian army with modern guns. But Taitu recognised that the Abyssinian had the advantage of position and numbers, and she compelled them to hold their ground. The result was that the Italians stormed the heights in vain, and that the horde of native warriors repelled them with great slaughter. This decisive victory ga.ve to Taitu a prestige among the fighting chiefs that far over-balanced that of the Emperor. She fostered this prestige by selecting officials from the army and by enriching the soldiers from the public funds. As Menelik grew older his health began to fail. Arterio-solerosis in an intense form seized upon him and developed into progressive paralysis. Taitu nursed him like a dutiful wife, but conspired with her followers to succeed him at his death. She selected as her own heir her eldest the

FALL FROM POWER. But the great chiefs and ras were not content to see Taitu, the adventuress, succeed to all the power. They had behind them a greater number of serviceable rifles than the followers' of the Empress could command. And rifles are the strongest argument in Abyssinia. So Menelik abdicated; Taitu was deposed from power, and the grandson she hated, Lig Yassau, was proclaimed Negus Neghesti of Abyssinia, Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Scioa, with his father, Ras Michael, as Regent. Taitu took her dying husband to Debra Libanos, a sacred place, three days' journey from the capital. She has no followers, few servants; she is virtually a prisoner in her husband's apartments. But who can tell? Abyssinia is a land of swift and sudden revolutions, and it may be that the clever Taitu is even now plotting to overthrow the boy Emperor and regain the power that had been hers for twenty years. Yet so far as can be judged at this distance, she is "down and out,"