March to Magdala Part 9

The Chief was accompanied by some of his staff, and by Mr. Holmes, of the British Museum, who had hoped to acquire some old ma.n.u.scripts there, especially as he had heard of one said to be of great value, and bound in silver gilt. It turned out, however, to be quite modern; and up to the present time Mr. Holmes, although he has been indefatigable in his search, has not succeeded in finding any ma.n.u.script of great antiquity; he has, however, heard of some at a place a little distant from our line of march, which he hopes to acquire upon our return, and which, if they correspond to the description given of them, will be of very great value. It was hardly to be expected that, skirting as the line of march does upon the very edge of the table-land of Abyssinia-a portion of the country remote from the princ.i.p.al towns, and exposed to the constant devastation of border warfare-any remains of very great antiquity would be met with. Had our course led through Axoum, which was the capital of that strange Greek possession of which Adulis or Zulla was the seaport, we might have expected some interesting discoveries to have taken place. There is yet a possibility that we may see Axoum; for although, if there is any chance of getting out of the country before the rainy season, we shall of course make every effort to get back in time, there is a rumour that, if we are obliged to pa.s.s the wet season here, a portion of the force will go back by Axoum and Adowa.

This camp is called Antalo, but it is a mere name of courtesy, like that of a good many English railway-stations. It is nearly six miles from the town of Antalo, going by the most direct and most difficult road; eight miles fully by the more accessible path. The position of Antalo was certainly selected more with a view to its defensibility than for its convenience. It lies upon a small undulating plain six or seven hundred feet above the general level of the valley, and at the foot of a very lofty and precipitous hill which rises nearly sheer up fifteen hundred feet above it. This hill is accessible only at one or two places, and walls are built across them; so that it forms a safe retreat for the inhabitants of Antalo in the event of their being attacked by a superior force. This hill fortress is called Amba Antalo. A position such as this is no unnecessary protection in this part of the country, for Antalo lies at the very edge of the territory of the warlike Gallas. These tribes, whenever their harvest is a bad one, gather together and make a foray upon the villages of the plain, and sweep off crops and cattle. Everywhere on the plain are ruined villages, which attest the frequency and ferocity of these forays; and Antalo itself has evidently, and at no very distant time, contained four times as large a population as it does at present. I rode over there the day before yesterday to the weekly fair.

I described fully the market at Attegrat in a former letter; and as this was precisely the same scene upon a rather larger scale, I have little to add to what I then said. Very large quant.i.ties of flour were brought in, and the commissariat secured a considerable supply. Numbers of mules, donkeys, and cattle were also there. The small-goods market too was crowded, and herbs and grain of all sorts-onions, chillies, cloth, and most of the other articles I mentioned as having seen at Attegrat-were here, with the exception only of pumpkins, of which I did not see a single specimen. I, however, bought three pounds of coffee, which I look upon as a great prize, as it will be a change from the excessively bitter herb termed by courtesy tea. The commissariat have purchased a considerable quant.i.ty of coffee, and I am told we shall find it much more plentiful as we go forward. This will be a very great boon for the men.

I think that the people here are more merry and full of fun than those at Attegrat; they enter, or rather attempt to enter, into conversation much more freely, and really seem anxious to do anything for one. I had at least a dozen of them yesterday all talking together, and endeavouring to make out what I wanted to find out about some small packets of lead-ore which were used as a medium of exchange. It was a rich flaky ore, containing quite eighty per cent of lead, and marking paper freely. I was very desirous of finding out which part of the country it came from; but neither my pantomime nor the united endeavours of the lookers-on to understand me availed to elicit the required information.

During my progress through the country I have not seen any sign of mineral ground, with the exception of some very rich samples of ironstone. During the last three or four days' march the formation has changed several times from sandstone to a hard blue limestone, and _vice versa_. On the faces of these bare hills it would be easy even at a distance to detect the change of colour or the rising ridges which generally indicate the existence of a vein of mineral; but, as I have said, although I have carefully examined the country as I pa.s.sed through it, I have seen no mineral indication whatever.

To return to the fair. The scene, as at Attegrat, was very amusing; and the att.i.tude of the groups-the women sitting about everywhere with their baskets, the men leaning upon their spears, the cattle standing about in groups-the whole scene reminded me strongly of an Irish fair, barring only the absence of the friendly pig, with his agonised shriek of expostulation and disgust.

Antalo consists of four or five villages, each standing upon the summits of small rises. They were formerly connected together, and even now are surrounded by ruined huts. The last blow Antalo suffered was three years ago, when it was attacked by the Gallas, incited and led by a rebel against Ka.s.sa, named Waldo Yasus. Both Antalo and the villages on the plains suffered greatly at that time; and a terrible attack of cholera, which swept over the country shortly afterwards, completed their ruin. The houses have all high conical roofs, thatched with rushes. Each house has a courtyard surrounded by a high wall. The women here are less picturesque in dress and less pleasing in feature than those of Attegrat. Their morality is lax in the extreme. "A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband:" I fear there are very few crowned heads in Abyssinia. I had left my horse at the foot of the ascent from the plain up to Attegrat, and had walked the last two miles. It was a very hot day, and one of our first inquiries upon reaching the fair was for "tedge." We were conducted to what answered to a public-house. Here we entered, and pa.s.sing through a sort of outer pa.s.sage, found ourselves in almost outer darkness. It was some time before we could see sufficiently to avail ourselves of the invitation to be seated, but presently descried two seats or couches, built up of stone and covered with skins. The room was semicircular in form, and very lofty, going up to the thatched roof, which was lined with bamboo; on either side were small chambers, which appeared devoted to miscellaneous purposes; for after we had been some minutes in the place, and were able to see a little, we made out that a donkey was standing placidly at the door of one of these chambers, and that a goat and a fireplace were the princ.i.p.al articles of furniture in the other. The walls of the room were smoothly plastered, and as an abode it no doubt possessed the advantage of coolness, even in the hottest weather. Tedge, as I have before said, is a liquor made from fermented honey and water, with herbs, and tastes like a mixture of small beer and lemonade made from mouldy lemons, and was brought in in a flask very like a Lucca oil-flask, but rather flatter, and with a larger neck. From the neck of this flask we drank by turns; and as it did not hold more than half a pint, and as we were four in number and the clay was hot, we demanded more. It seems that no more was strained; so a large jar was brought, the wife of the proprietor put a fold of her very dirty garment over its mouth, and strained the liquor through it into the flask, and we drank it. In calmer moments and in other climes, it is probable that we should not have done so-probable even that a feeling of sickness would have overpowered us. I am happy to say, however, that the army in Abyssinia has altogether overcome any feeling of squeamishness. I have seen some rum drank in which several c.o.c.kroaches had committed suicide; and I have a.s.sisted to eat honey which was black with ants whose appet.i.tes had caused their untimely death. As for cooking, I confess that I avoid the cooking-fires. I have seen sights which have tried my philosophy to the utmost, and am now quite content to eat the very excellent dinners our servants prepare from rations, and not to think of the processes the meat has undergone. My tent-companion and myself pride ourselves much upon our cooks. They are two Goa Portuguese, and are, we flatter ourselves, beyond all comparison the best cooks in camp. Their soups are excellent, their cutlets the best I ever tasted, their preserved potatoes, baked in cakes, delicious. They sent up birds in as good a style as I can get them in a London club. Their pumpkin-pie-when we could get pumpkins-was the talk of camp; the fame of their baked sheep's head, with brain cutlets, came to the ears of Sir Robert Napier himself. Imagine, then, our feelings, when the stern decree was emanated-all native servants whatever are to be sent away; each officer is to carry 75 lb. of luggage, including bed, cooking-utensils, and plates and dishes; and three officers are to be allotted to each bell-tent. Heads of departments only are to be allowed a bell-tent between two. At first we had believed that this order did not apply to us; that having our own baggage-animals, and providing our forage, &c. at our own cost, and the tent being our own property, we thought that it was a matter which concerned no one but ourselves as to what or who we took on with us.

But we were deceived. Quartermaster-generals, eager to effect the greatest possible cutting down, had their eyes upon the special correspondents and the scientific gentlemen who accompany the camp; and we were officially informed that we must be amenable to the same rules as others. We pointed out that we found our own carriage, and therefore that the weight we carried mattered to no one; but were sternly informed that if we purchased grain for our animals, there was so much the less available for the public service. To a certain extent this was true; and so we said that we were ready to go on with the weight that other officers were allowed, but that the tent in the first place was our own, and that it would be quite impossible for three men to write in a tent together. We were ready, therefore, to carry less than the permitted 75 lbs. of baggage, in order to have half a tent each; so that our total kit, including tent, would not exceed the prescribed 140 lbs. Our friends in the quartermaster department were quite unable to grant us this request, and it was only upon a personal application to Sir Robert Napier that we gained our point, as, upon our stating the case, he at once consented to our retaining our own tent to ourselves. The next question was that of servants. "All servants to be sent back, a gra.s.s-cutter only being allowed for each horse." At first we thought we should be obliged to send our servants back.

Fortunately, however, a gra.s.s-cutter is allowed for each horse; and as we have each two horses, we have retained our cooks under the t.i.tle of gra.s.s-cutters for our second horses. We are not singular in our management, and there are very few staff-officers who have not managed in some such manner to retain their servants. The fact is, that a rule of this sort bears very much more hardly upon a staff-officer, or a civilian living as we are, than it does upon a regimental officer. A soldier-servant is allotted to each officer upon application, and regimental officers who pick handy men from their own companies, and who live three in a tent, have their three soldier-servants between them as usual. It is far otherwise with a staff-officer: he may obtain a soldier-servant from a regiment; but that soldier does not know him, and will not work for him as he will for his own officer. In the next place, the soldier has certain regimental work to do, which will take him away from his master's tent for a considerable portion of the day; and lastly, a staff-officer is liable to be sent away on duty from the camp where the regiment to which his servant belongs is stationed. In our own case a soldier-servant would be useless; we might wish at any moment to push on to the pioneer force, or to accompany the Commander-in-chief upon a short expedition, and we should then be left without any servant whatever. At any rate, the order is generally evaded. Were it not that two months must elapse before a copy of this letter can come out to us, I should not speak so freely upon this point, as we should be having a special committee of officers of the quarter-master-general's department a.s.sembling to consider the question of "evasion of the general order relating to servants by officers and civilians attached to the army."

Antalo, March 7th.

I am happy to say that Major Minion, of the commissariat, arrived here early this morning with a large convoy, carrying among other stores a large quant.i.ty of rum; and it is now finally decided that a certain quant.i.ty of both rum and tea shall be served out daily to the troops on the advance. This happy state of things has been princ.i.p.ally brought about by the energetic remonstrances of all the medical officers, and by their representation of the disastrous effect which the sudden privation of tea and rum would have upon the health of the troops, especially under the circ.u.mstances of the water being so bad. Sir Robert Napier himself was, I know, most averse to so extreme a measure; and nothing but the most urgent feeling of the necessity of pushing on in the lightest and most speedy manner could have induced him to consent to it; and I am sure that he is as pleased as anyone that he is able to continue the issue of what are really essentials to the soldiers.

It is still intended that we shall march on the 9th instant; indeed, orders were issued for a forward movement for both yesterday and to-day.

The orders were, however, countermanded, for the road is not practicable for more than one day's march. As to the state of the road beyond, we receive contradictory reports. Colonel Phayre, with his usual happy, sanguine way of seeing things, states, I hear, that it is not a very bad road; while the engineer officer, on the other hand, reports that it will require a great deal of work to make it practicable for baggage-animals, especially for the elephants with the guns. The reason why the order was given for the troops to march forward at once was, that Colonel Phayre sent in to say that Waldo Yasus, the destroyer of Antalo, had sent in to say that he should oppose our pa.s.sage. It caused quite an excitement for a time. But I learn to-day that Brigadier-general Field, who commands the pioneer forces, has sent in a letter to say that the whole thing is a mistake, and that Waldo Yasus is perfectly friendly, and that some of the Scindees have already gone on.

M. Munzinger, whose name I have frequently had occasion to mention as French consul at Ma.s.sowah, and as accompanying the force as political adviser and interpreter, has gone on ahead on a mission to Gobayze. M.

Munzinger has been some years in the country; he has married an Abyssinian woman, and owns villages and land near here. He is therefore well known to the natives, speaks their language, and is in every respect very well fitted for an expedition of this sort. On the other hand, there is some dissatisfaction among members of the staff, who say that an officer ought to have been selected for a mission of such importance, and should of course have been accompanied by an interpreter. It is urged, too, that the French look with great jealousy at our proceedings, and that their interests are totally opposed to our own; and that therefore a gentleman, however eligible in other respects, who is a French official should not have been intrusted with so important a mission. From all I have heard of M. Munzinger, I think there need be no objection upon the latter score; but I confess that I agree with those who think that a British officer-Major Grant, for instance-ought to have gone as our amba.s.sador, or at least should have accompanied M. Munzinger. M. Munzinger was, I believe, sent forward by Colonel Merewether without Sir Robert Napier's knowledge. As M. Munzinger went forward, he had an interview with Waldo Yasus, who expressed some little fear that we, as the friends of Ka.s.sa, might intend to attack his amba, or fort, which stands on a lofty rock immediately beside the defile through which we pa.s.s. M. Munzinger, however, tranquillised him upon that score, and a.s.sured him that we should in no way interfere with any dissensions in the country. Waldo expressed himself as perfectly satisfied. M. Munzinger has now nearly reached Lake Ashangi, and his report of the road is decidedly favourable.

The gentleman to whom this expedition is most greatly indebted, and who has done infinitely more with the natives than the whole of our so-called politicals and interpreters put together, is Mr. Speedy. I have already mentioned that Mr. Speedy was sent for from New Zealand to accompany the expedition, Sir Stafford Northcote having strongly recommended him to Sir Robert Napier. The summons arrived somewhat unexpectedly to Mr. Speedy, for he had already written to Colonel Merewether volunteering his services, which had been declined by that officer. Mr. Speedy, however, came off in three days after he received General Napier's communication.

His services here have been simply invaluable. Almost every useful negotiation with the natives has been conducted by him. He speaks the language exceedingly well, and is unwearied in his work. He hears complaints, receives chiefs, and is in fact at present our great medium of communication with the natives. He may be said to have completely extinguished the little light of our former politicals. Unquestionably he would have been the man to have sent to Gobayze; but even had not Colonel Merewether sent off his emissary, M. Munzinger, without consulting Sir Robert Napier, the Commander-in-chief would not have parted with Mr.

Speedy, who is now his right-hand in all his communications with the natives. Among the other stores which have arrived to-day is some tobacco.

The quant.i.ty is quite insufficient for the wants of the troops during their advance; but even a small supply per man will be a very great boon, for at present there is hardly any tobacco left among them. Even the officers' supplies are beginning to run short, and they as well as the men will soon be reduced to smoke the country tobacco, which is a disgusting mixture of tobacco and cow-dung formed into flat cakes.

The generals of the advanced force are Brigadier-general Field (who has only just been promoted), who commands the pioneer force; Brigadier-general Schneider, who has the first brigade; and Brigadier-general Wilby the second. Brigadier-general Collings, who has. .h.i.therto commanded the advanced brigade, is to be left behind here. This has naturally given rise to very strong comment. General Collings is far senior in the service to any of the men who have been thus chosen for the post of honour, and he has seen probably as much active service as the other three officers together. He is in every respect an excellent soldier and a most popular man; and there is a general feeling that his being thus pa.s.sed over is a most undeserved slight, to put it in the mildest form.

There is another reason why he should have certainly formed part of the advance. The first division is composed almost entirely of Europeans; and yet two out of the three officers chosen are Indian officers who have never commanded an English soldier during the whole of their service.

General Collings has not, as far as I have heard, in any way neglected his duty; and his case is a matter of regret and sympathy with every officer with whom I have spoken-I mean, of course, outside the charmed pale of the official circle.

The general health of the troops continues excellent. There have been a few cases of dysentery, but the hospitals are all but empty.

Antalo is low, that is, in comparison with some of the places we have marched through: it is little over 6000 feet above the sea, that is, 3000 feet lower than Ad Abaga. The nights are consequently much milder than those we have lately experienced. The sun is hot between eight and ten in the morning; but at the latter hour a breeze springs up, which continues to blow with violence all day, and renders the heat of the sun, which would otherwise be great, bearable and even pleasant. The spirit of the troops is no less good than their health. Men who were marching up with the first wings of the 4th and 33d would suffer anything from sore feet rather than say a word on the subject, lest they should be left behind.

One case of this ill.u.s.trates the feeling even more strongly. The day upon which we marched out from Attegrat, three of the men of the 4th in some way obtained some liquor, and were convicted of drunkenness upon the line of march. This is a serious military offence, punishable by fifty lashes; but Colonel Cameron told them that, as they were all good-conduct men, he would only punish them by sending them back to the wing behind. The men all came forward and requested as a favour to be flogged instead of being left behind. Nothing could speak in stronger terms for the spirit of the troops than this. I am glad to say that, in consideration of their previous good conduct, Colonel Cameron felt himself enabled to pardon them. This fact, in itself, is a better answer to those who argue for the abolition of corporal punishment in the army than a hundred pamphlets would be. The only cogent reason of any force which the objectors to corporal punishment can allege is, that it degrades a soldier in his own eyes, and that he is good for nothing afterwards. Now, this is not the case. I have at various times spoken to hundreds of soldiers on the subject, and their answer is almost invariably the same: "It is not the punishment in which is the disgrace; it is the crime. If a man is flogged for stealing, he gets it thrown in his teeth afterwards that he has been flogged for being a thief; but if he gets a drop too much, and perhaps is impudent to a sergeant or officer, he may be flogged, but he will never have it brought up against him as a disgrace afterwards." The present instance proves this. These three soldiers, all good-conduct men, who had seen seven years of service, all considered that there would be much greater disgrace in being sent to the rear than in being flogged.

There is not very much shooting in this neighbourhood; a few guinea-fowls and grouse, and an occasional hare, have been bagged, but even these are scarce. As for the wild-beasts, of which we were to see so much, they simply are not. The rhinoceroses, who were to dispute the pa.s.sage of the defiles; the alligators and hippopotami, who were to lurk around the watering-places, and to render the fetching a jug of water a service of as great danger as was the drawing a goblet from the enchanted fountain in our dear old fairy tales,-all these monsters are unknown here. We hear of lions, indeed, but somehow they are never found in the parts of the country we traverse. The hyena and jackal are the only animals met with which could, even by courtesy, be called wild-beasts. These, indeed, swarm; and their numerous holes are a serious hindrance and danger to riders; beyond this they are harmless, and one would as soon think of shooting a fox as a jackal. Sportsmen are seriously disappointed; almost everyone has brought out either rifle or gun, and many have carried both.

Now, when our luggage is limited to seventy-five pounds, the weight of even one rifle, with its bullet-mould and a good stock of lead and powder, is a very material consideration; and, after the sacrifice of many little comforts to retain the rifle, it is very hard to find that it is quite useless. There is still a faint hope that we may find large game near the Ashangi Lake; but, considering that it is over 5000 feet above the sea, I can hardly think it is likely that we shall find any large game there, except perhaps elephants. The owners of fowling-pieces are better off.

There have been few camping-grounds where a good shot might not get a guinea-fowl or two in an hour's ramble; and a guinea-fowl well cooked is one of the best game birds I know. Powder and shot are very valuable; indeed, they cannot be bought at any price, unless one is fortunate enough to find some one who, in the readjustment of his baggage, finds that he cannot possibly carry on all his stock of ammunition.

The plains here are singularly devoid of flowers: I never travelled in any country, indeed, where there was such a complete absence of wild-flowers; excepting, of course, the little watered dells, which I have described in previous letters. There is one solitary sort of flower, however, which I have met with in the plains in the neighbourhood, and which differs from any I ever saw before: it is a pea. The flower is of the size and colour of the "everlasting-pea;" but, instead of growing as a climber, the flower grows upon its own stalk from the ground. These flowers grow in cl.u.s.ters; but there are no leaves or stems, with the exception of the flower-stalk itself, three or four inches in height. The flower has a scent exactly resembling that of a violet, but less powerful: the seed is contained in a long, narrow pod, like that of a wallflower.

Scorpions are rather abundant here; and so, I am sorry to say, are white ants. It is not that one has any peculiar objection to white ants. They are certainly repulsive-looking insects, with their flabby white bodies and their big yellow heads, but that is of little consequence; and if they would but content themselves with walking about the tents and climbing over everything, as do other ants, together with spiders of every size, and a few beetles, one would not wish to interfere with their pleasures.

Unfortunately they will not amuse themselves in this harmless way: they shun the light, and work in darkness, and their work consists in eating holes in the bottom of one's portmanteau, or in the waterproof-sheet under one's bed, or one's saddles, or books, or anything else which may come handy to them.

Now, as we are going to leave most of our portmanteaus and luggage here until we return, this propensity of theirs becomes a grave inconvenience.

I fancy that we shall find our luggage, when we return, in a very dilapidated condition. There is only one satisfaction,-our clothes are rapidly getting into a state beyond which even white ants can effect little further damage.

The remaining wing of the 4th Regiment arrived two days ago, and the second wing of the 33d marched in this morning. We have therefore all the troops now collected in readiness for the forward move, with the exception only of a portion of the Beloochees, the 3d Dragoon Guards, and the elephants with the six-inch mortars; together with the elephants to carry Murray's guns. All these will, it is said, be here in two or three days.

There is another thing of some slight importance lacking: this is money.

The commissariat have purchased such enormous quant.i.ties of flour and other stores, that the money brought up is exhausted. Fortunately another treasure-convoy is expected in a day or two.

This morning, at a quarter to six, General Staveley had all the troops out for a field-day. A deserted village upon a rising ground was attacked and carried in excellent style; but the manuvres would have no interest to a general reader beyond those of any garrison field-day.

Antalo, March 11th.

When Colonel Phayre went ahead on the day of our arrival at Antalo, and reported that the road was rather bad, but not impracticable, every one looked at the range of peaks ahead of us and had serious misgivings. An order was issued for our march upon the 7th, and a party of pioneers were sent on to clear away any slight obstacles which might occur. The report of their commanding officer as to the state of the road was most unfavourable, and a wing of the 33d were sent out to a.s.sist. In consequence of the reports which came in, the march was postponed to the 9th, and Captain Macgregor, of the quartermaster's department, was sent out to report. On the evening of the 8th a joint report from this officer and Captain Goodfellow, of the Engineers, was received. It stated, "that they knew nearly every pa.s.s in India, but that in their experience they had met nothing whatever to compare to this defile, and that the Sooro pa.s.s was child's-play in comparison. With the 800 men at work, it would, they calculated, take another ten days' labour to make it practicable for mules." All this time Colonel Phayre was still in front, but his reports gave us no idea of the true state of things. In the mean time we were receiving reports from Mr. Munzinger, who, as I stated in my last, had gone ahead to see Gobayze, and he said that the road, although difficult in places, was by no means bad. Of course, on the receipt of the reports of Captains Macgregor and Goodfellow, the march was again postponed.

Everyone was indignant. Sir Robert Napier, I have reason to know, was more indignant than anyone, for his heart is set upon getting onward as fast as possible. On the 9th arrived an officer from the front, with the astounding intelligence that he had just ridden down the other road, which was known to exist; that it was six miles shorter; it pa.s.sed over the mountain range at a point 1500 feet lower than the other, and presented throughout its whole distance no serious difficulties whatever. This it appeared, was the very route that Munzinger had travelled, and the discrepancies between his accounts and the real state of things were at once explained. At first the news was received with absolute incredulity.

It seemed impossible that the quartermaster-general could have kept the troops at work for a week upon an impracticable road, when a good one lay ready at hand. The road, too, which Colonel Phayre had not explored is called the Royal road, which in itself was sufficient to show that it was the best and most frequented of the two. But the fact was, our political officer had heard that a rebel chief had a fortress upon this road; the same chief whom I mentioned in my last as having been reported by Colonel Phayre as opposing our way. The man really is perfectly friendly, and was at first rather more afraid of us than our quartermaster-general was of him. However, the mere fact of his being there was a.s.sumed to be a good reason for our not taking the road. And so a precious week has been wasted, and all the labour thrown away. The new road is, of course, not yet pa.s.sable for the elephants with the heavy guns, but Sir Robert will push on with the 4th Regiment and the steel guns, and the 33d and the pioneer force will set to work and get it in order for the rest of the force as soon as possible. It is not often that we find a pioneer force engaged in making a road after the head-quarters and part of the army have gone by. Our first march is only eight miles. The distance thence up the pa.s.s is nineteen. I believe that the troops will do it in two days, but that Sir Robert Napier, with an escort, will go straight through to Attala, in order to judge for himself of the real state of things.

Our items of news from the rear are but of slight general interest.

Captain St. John reports, I am told, that the natives have ceased to damage the telegraph-wires; but as a _per-contra_, he says that the wires are frequently broken by the baboons, who climb up the poles, and hang on the wires by their tails. I am a.s.sured that this is an absolute fact. One of the mule-drivers near Attegrat shot a native the other day. The man, who was armed with a gun, attempted to rob the mule; but the driver resisted, wrenched the gun from his hand, and shot him. The robber is not dead, but lies in a precarious state. The lesson was greatly required; but instead of being rewarded for his conduct, the mule-driver got a dozen lashes! I hope that the next driver whose mule is attacked will allow it to be looted, and that the functionary who has just so ably instructed mule-drivers not to defend the public property will be ordered to pay the cost of the stores stolen. Tents have been erected here for the reception of such luggage as cannot be carried on under the present regulations. I sent my portmanteau in this morning, and had the pleasure when moving it of finding that the white ants had eaten a large hole in the bottom. I do not expect to find any remains of it, or of its contents, upon my return.

Captain Moore, the Commander-in-chief's interpreter, has gone on ahead to pacify the local chiefs, and to a.s.sure them that we have no intention of molesting them. No better man could have been selected for the office.

Captain Moore speaks almost every known language, and has had as much experience of native potentates as any man living. Major Grant has gone on to Attala, to buy provisions, &c. An officer of his African experience and standing would have been far better employed as an amba.s.sador to King Gobayze; while bargaining with natives would have been much more in accordance with Mr. Munzinger's experience and powers. Some tobacco has come up, and has been distributed among the troops, to their great satisfaction. During the last few days the troops have been exercised in turning out rapidly on the alarm being sounded. The sentries have, too, been placed and instructed as if in front of an enemy, who might at any moment make a night attack.

The natives here unanimously express their hopes and wishes that we should take possession of the country and become their masters. Our style of paying for everything we require has taken them entirely by surprise. It is altogether contrary to their experience. There is no doubt that they are extremely poor, and terribly ground down, and many of their very numerous vices are, to a certain extent, excusable upon this score. They are so poor that they will sell anything for dollars-their corn, their flour, their donkeys, their cattle, their wives, or their daughters. They are a terribly priest-ridden people. I should say that no people in the world pay such extortionate dues. The priests claim two-fifths of the gross produce; of the remainder one-third is claimed by the King; then comes the local chief: so that finally the unfortunate cultivator gets less than one-fifth of the crop he has raised. It is no wonder that the people are poor, and that in times of drought, or when the locusts sweep over the land, or the rebels, more destructive still, carry off crops and herds and flocks, famine stalks through the land. There is no doubt that our mastership would be an unmixed blessing to them, but it would certainly be the very reverse of advantageous to ourselves. From our landing at Zulla to the present time we have pa.s.sed through a country more barren than any I ever traversed. Except for grazing purposes it is absolutely valueless. Here and there, in the valleys, are little patches of cultivation by the side of the streams; but in the whole two hundred miles we have pa.s.sed through, looking east and west as far as the eye can reach, I do not think that we have seen, in all, five hundred acres of cultivated land. Taking the two hundred miles north and south by, say, ten miles east and west-in all, two thousand square miles-I would not take the fee-simple as a gift. I am not, of course, suggesting that the ground we have traversed is to be taken as a fair sample of Abyssinia.

Unquestionably it is not so. It would be as fair to land in the north of England, and to skirt the sea-coast, keeping on the c.u.mberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, Welsh, and Cornwall hills, and then to p.r.o.nounce England a sterile country. Still, by what we have seen, by the ranges of mountain-summits discernible everywhere in the far west, it is evident that a very large portion of Abyssinia is mere grazing-land; and it is probable that the valleys and low-lying plains, which are extremely fertile, would be unhealthy for European const.i.tutions. Whatever ideas may have been entertained at one time as to our taking possession of a country so rich, so fertile, and so salubrious as this was represented to be, the experience of this expedition must have entirely dispelled this notion.

The general aspect of the country is so bare, the fertile portions so distant from the coast, the roads so impracticable, that any idea of English colonisers settling here, as suggested by Mr. Dufton and others, is simply preposterous; and in addition to all this, a very large force would be required to keep a warlike and turbulent people in order. We see by the English papers that "A British Taxpayer" has been writing indignantly, demanding why two or three thousand men were not sufficient for this paltry business. If the British Taxpayer had been out here, he would not have asked such a question. British soldiers are by no means men to overrate difficulties, or to hold their enemies at higher than their real value. But the universal opinion here is, that we have not one man too many in the country. The tribes of Shohos on the sea-coast; the King of Tigre, who can summon 20,000 or 30,000 men to his banner; the fierce Gallas, through whom we have still to pa.s.s,-all these have been, and probably will be, friendly. But why? Simply because we are strong enough to keep them in order. No one doubts for a moment that if they thought that they were strong enough, they would fall upon us instantly for the sake of plunder. If the three thousand men who, according to this critic, would have been amply sufficient, could have been endowed with the agreeable faculty of going for three months without food, and if their horses had been similarly gifted, they would without doubt have been amply sufficient. Three thousand British soldiers, as long as they keep together in a compact body, could march from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope. But, unfortunately, men and animals who can go for three months without food are scarce in these degenerate days. Our experience here is that, with the exception of meat, no food whatever is procurable between Zulla and our present most advanced post, with the solitary exception of Antalo. Grain for the animals is almost as scarce. We have bought small quant.i.ties, indeed, at most of the stations, but we never get it for the first few days after our arrival. It is only after we have been at a place for a short time, and when the people find out how large a sum we pay for it, that they bring in even small quant.i.ties. Then the problem would present itself: these three thousand men must be fed. To be fed, they must carry supplies with them. These supplies must be conveyed upon baggage-animals. These baggage-animals must be fed. But there is no food to be obtained as they march on direct. Therefore, it is evident that depots must be formed, and these must be guarded; communication must be kept up, roads must be made to some extent, for there are many places perfectly impracticable for loaded animals. And so the three thousand men would be frittered all over the country, and would be hara.s.sed to death by overwork and watching, and it is certain they could never penetrate to Magdala. Has a "Taxpayer" ever read the history of the French campaign in Spain? Has he any idea of the number of hundred thousand men who marched into that country, and of the numbers who returned to France? A very small proportion of the deficit fell under British steel and lead. They were accounted for by the peasantry. They died, shot down upon baggage-guard, cut off when in search of provisions, surprised when in small parties, hara.s.sed to death by overwork. Such would have been the fate of three thousand men landing in Abyssinia. The people here are as brave as the Spaniards, the country is beyond all comparison more difficult, and the resources which, it offers to an invader are as nothing to those of Spain.

Our force, as it is now const.i.tuted, is sufficient to overawe the country, and it is fortunate that it is so. For I say fearlessly, and there is not an officer here who would not support me in that opinion, that if the people were hostile, we could not even with our present force have ever hoped to reach Magdala. It would have been a sheer impossibility. A mere pa.s.sive resistance, the driving away of flocks and herds, and the burning of the gra.s.s, would have brought us to a standstill at Senafe; while the bare idea of defending our communication, and guarding the enormous trains required for our march of three hundred miles through a barren, hostile, and most difficult country, is so supremely ridiculous as to be laughable.

The experiment of the three thousand men, had it been tried, would have ended in a disaster such as, with the exception of Cabul, the British arms have never experienced, and it must afterwards have been retrieved with a force of three times the strength even of our present one, and at an expenditure which might have taught even the "British Taxpayer" that penny wisdom is an equivalent for pound foolishness.

A general order has just appeared regulating the whole distribution of the troops; and as this is a final arrangement, it will no doubt be interesting to all who have friends in the army here.

First Division.-Major-general Staveley, K.C.B., in command; Colonel Wood, deputy-adjutant-general; Major Baigrie, deputy-quartermaster-general.

Pioneer Force: Brigadier-general Field. Troops: forty sabres 3d Native Cavalry; forty Scinde Horse; 3d and 4th company Bombay Sappers and Miners; two companies 33d Regiment; two companies Beloochees; one company Punjaub Pioneers.

First Brigade, Brigadier-general Schneider.-Troops: Head-quarters wing 3d Dragoon Guards, 3d Native Cavalry, Scinde Horse, G battery, 14, Royal Artillery, A battery 21st company Royal Artillery, 4th King's Own, Head-quarters and eight companies 33d, 10th company Royal Engineers, Head-quarters and two companies Beloochees, Head-quarters wing 10th Native Infantry.

Second Brigade, Brigadier-general Wilby.-Wing of 12th Bengal Cavalry, B battery 21st Royal Artillery, two 8-inch mortars, with detachment 5th battery 25th Royal Artillery, Rocket Naval Brigade, K company Madras Sappers, seven companies Punjaub Pioneers, wing of Beloochees.

It will thus be seen that the 1st Division consists of four entire infantry regiments-the 4th, 33d, Beloochees, and Punjaub Pioneers-and a wing of the 10th Native Infantry, of the 3d Native Cavalry, the Scinde Horse, a wing of the Dragoon Guards, and a wing of the 12th Bengal Cavalry, three batteries of Royal Artillery and two 8-inch mortars, and three companies of Sappers and Miners and one company of Royal Engineers; an admirably-selected force, and which, as long as it kept together, would be invincible.

Another general order has also been promulgated, which I have very great pleasure in giving, because it does full justice to a most meritorious and hardworking body of officers. I have the more pleasure in giving publication to the order, as it thoroughly indorses the opinion I have all along stated that the transport officers were in no way to blame for the confusion which took place at Zulla:

"General Order.-Head-quarters, Camp Antalo, March 4th.-The Commander-in-chief has lately received from the Director Transport Train, Abyssinia field force, a full and particular report of the service rendered to the corps by the officers under his command. His Excellency has perused this report with much satisfaction, and it is most gratifying to him to find that, in spite of the numerous and extraordinary difficulties with which the officers of the transport-train have had to contend, and notwithstanding the hard and unceasing work they have had to perform, they have, almost without exception, displayed an amount of steady determination to do their best which is beyond all praise. The Commander-in-chief begs to a.s.sure Major Warden and the officers under his command that the work performed by them has not been overlooked, and shall not be forgotten. His Excellency trusts that one and all will remember that upon their individual exertions depends, in a great measure, the success of the expedition. The transport-train, for reasons far beyond the control of the officers belonging to it, has just commenced to a.s.sume that military organisation so requisite to its well-being, and for want of which at first it suffered so severely.... The Commander-in-chief is well aware how much the services of the officers of the transport-train have been depreciated, and how unfairly blame has been attached to them for shortcomings beyond their control. His Excellency, however, a.s.sures them that he has never for a moment lost confidence in them, nor has he ever doubted that their exertions would eventually bring order and regularity out of confusion and indiscipline.... All cannot of course work under the eye of the Commander-in-chief, and comparatively few can accompany the advanced force; but his Excellency will make no distinction when the campaign is over between those who were in front and those who were necessarily in the rear. All by good work can contribute materially to the success of the campaign, and it will be by that standard, and by that alone, that his Excellency will be guided when making hereafter his report upon the services performed by the officers under his command.-By order of his Excellency the Commander-in-chief. Fred. Thesiger, lieutenant-colonel, deputy-adjutant-general."