Debarq

High on the western foothills of the Semien Mountains, Debarq stands on the route north from Gondar toward Axum. Its cool upland setting and market made it a useful stopping place for travelers crossing the Ethiopian highlands. The town's trade also brought revenue to the officials who governed Semien and supervised its marketplace.

In the late seventeenth century, Debarq served as a place of replenishment for Emperor Iyasu I's journeys and campaigns north from Gondar. The traveler James Bruce passed through its market in 1770 and remarked on the contrast between the highland climate and the hot sun. By the early nineteenth century the market was important enough to have a nagadras, an official who oversaw trade and collected fees. In the 1830s the market's taxes paid substantial sums to both the governor of Semien and the nagadras.