than because it passed nearer than he relished to his own stronghold. His feelings on this point came out very plainly during his interview with his Excellency in our camp at Athala. The burden of his speech on that occasion was, that we had opened up the way for the approach of his blood-enemy Kassa, and were therefore bound to repel him with our soldiers, should he attempt to enter Wodjerat. There was some show of reason in this appeal. It was true that the Prince of Tigreh had conceived the idea of following in our wake for the purpose of reducing Waldee Yasoos again to his allegiance. But Sir R. Napier had no sooner heard of this design than he had prevailed on Kassa to abandon it, not, of course, from any interest in the fate of the Shoom of Wodjerat, but because complications of this nature occurring on our line of route would have been fraught with embarrassment to us. No assurances, however, seemed sufficient to satisfy this half chieftain half cateran that Kassa was not even then close at hand, and bent on his destruction. The trimming policy which the situation of his country between two powerful and generally hostile princes has made to him a necessity, seems to have produced its natural influence on his character. The jacket of gaudy silk which he wore when he visited us, added to his tall lithe frame, and vacillating expression of countenance, and masses of plaited hair, suggested to one the idea of an Amazon. There was, however, a frankness and out-spokenness about him which covered a multitude of sins; and the quaint answers which he and his younger brother, the Shoom Sălāwā Bāriō Georgis, gave to our questions about Theodore, caused us some amusement. He departed, of course, laden with gifts.

If ever chief could plead in excuse of a marauding life the natural facilities for foray and rapine which his country offers, then Waldee Yasoos is that chief. Moun

tain dens, to which the celebrated beef-tub of the Marquises of Annandale is as a mere sheep-pen, have been constructed by nature at convenient distances throughout the province, as if for the special purpose of inclining men to cattlelifting. "Belted Will Howard" or "Little Jock Elliott" would certainly have called it a grand country to live in. A modern artist would come to the same opinion about it, looking at it from a different point of view. The variety of scenery which it presents within the compass of a day's journey is often very striking. At one time all is bleakness and desolation, while the way lies perhaps across broad tracts of undulating moorland, not unlike what is so well known on the borders of Scotland and England, perhaps amid panoramas of grim brown mountains, mingling in the distance with the fleecy clouds or clear blue heaven. In such tracts not a sign of life is visible, unless it be some little linnet flitting upward from among the grey stones; and the grass, which waves in many a tuft upon the wind-swept plain, is at this season scorched yellow by the sun. But all at once a bend in the road may change the whole picture; and the eye that was a moment ago oppressed as with a view of regions of the dead, is made glad with the sight of green pastures and quiet waters, far down perhaps in the depths of a lovely valley, along the slope of which the path is winding amongst sweet-smelling copsewood, and trees from whose boughs a species of lichen hangs in graceful tresses over one's head. A large sheet of water, marked on the map as Lake Ashangee, lies just beyond the southern limits of the province. This is so passing fair a spot that one felt sorry it had been wasting its beauty all unvisited during so many ages. The soul of Wordsworth would have loved it well. We spent a couple of days encamped close to the lake. One of the first objects

which met the eye on its green margin was a copy of the Magazine lying on the sward, fresh from our postmaster's bag. There was an appropriateness in this. If the Shepherd could have seen Maga's circulation extending itself like this, depend upon it he would have introduced the subject at the next "Noctes." What a description he and Christopher North between them would have given us, to be sure, of Lake Ashangee!

The Azuba Gallas, a rude Mohammedan people inhabiting the tract of country lying to the eastward of Wodjerat, have many villages round about the lake. They are divided into septs under separate shaiks or chiefs, and speak a language of their own, though occasional intercourse with Mecca has introduced a limited knowledge of Arabic into their communities. Sir Robert Napier had caused a friendly letter to be written from Senafeh to these wild chiefs; and on our arrival at Ashangee, a reply was received in the form of an Arabic letter from one of their holy men who lives at some distance in the interior. The bearer of the letter was the son of the priest himself, and his appearance impressed us favourably. One of the identical hajees of his Highness the Nizam, for whose sake, according to some, it was even necessary to undertake this expedition, had, it so happened, volunteered to serve the British Government in Abyssinia, and had joined his Excellency from Bombay.

It was worthy of the empire on which the sun never sets that when a Moslem of Central Africa visited the camp of our army, he found there, standing at his Excellency's right hand, a co-religionist of his own, who, though a faithful follower of the Arabian prophet, and learned in all the traditions of Islam, could yet tell, from his own experience, of the catholic sympathies and love of justice of the great British nation, wherever it is rightly represented by its rulers. Some have thought that a great

deal more might be done by us than has yet been attempted towards thus availing ourselves of the assistance of natives of India, of the higher classes, in our varied enterprises. In the present expedition the experiment has been tried in at least this one instance, with highly satisfactory and encouraging results. We have necessarily had a great deal of intercourse with the Azuba Galla tribes just alluded to.

These are of the wildest and most savage type of humankind, with tangled masses of hair hanging round the head, after a fashion which makes them somewhat resemble wild beasts. Their favourite weapon is the club, and a spear with a very large blade. They are in a state of constant feud with the Christians of the districts near them. At a spot on the southeastern border of Lake Ashangee we were shown the site of a battle which had occurred about three months ago between a party of Gallas and Lasta people. Eleven skulls were counted on the quiet margin of the lake, and seven of the number were indented as with sword-cuts. It seems a body of Gallas had been returning from the plunder of some villages, when they were set upon by a band of Christians who had started in pursuit. At first the Gallas fled, but were rallied by their chiefs, when a desperate encounter followed. The leader of the Gallas, after having slain, as is said, no fewer than seventeen of the enemy with his own spear, was killed by a celebrated warrior of Lasta called Abba Chinkee; and his followers, finding themselves about to be driven into the lake, surrendered at discretion. Another large branch of Mohammedan Gallas, the Wollos, has spread itself over the province of Worro Haymans, in which Magdala is situated. With these, likewise, we may soon have occasion to open friendly intercourse. They are the sworn enemies of Theodore, though apparently too much divided amongst themselves under rival

chiefs to be capable of effecting much.

The advanced brigade will march the day after to-morrow. The troops are in excellent health, though by no means overburdened with luxuries, and with only a small bell-tent for about every twenty men. No kit, as has been mentioned already, was brought farther on with us than Lat, excepting what could be carried by the infantry on their backs, and by the cavalry and Staff-officers on their horses. The Commander-in-Chief himself sleeps on the ground like the other soldiers of the army. Owing to a breakdown in certain local agencies to which we had trusted for the carriage of our supplies, the store of liquor and one or two other comforts with the first brigade has either failed altogether, or run sadly short since leaving Lat. Frequent storms of rain and hail have assailed us during the last few days among the Lasta mountains, where it seems to rain whenever it likes, not observing, as it does on the whole in India, its set times and seasons. It is not very cheerful work encamping wet and weary on a muddy plain after a day's march, and listening to the rain come down on the thin sheet of canvass overhead, with dinner only in remotest prospect. Few of us thought that our tents, which are of the single-fly, bellshaped kind, manufactured by Messrs Carry and Prior of Southgate Road, would keep out heavy rain as they do. The double-roofed tents of the same pattern, which we exchanged at Lat for lighter ones, gave admirable protection in all weathers save a high wind. But even the ones we have now, when tightly pitched and once fairly wetted, afford all the shelter which soldiers in the field should ever wish for. Three of them can be carried on one good mule, though two are the preferable load. Even the double-fly tent forms barely a mule-load.

VOL. CIII.-NO. DCXXXII.

The progress of the expedition through Wadela and Talanta and Worro Haymans to Magdala will depend, as it has done between Zoulla and our present encampment, on what success attends our endeavours to supply ourselves with food. There is no want ever of beef and mutton, but grain, and more especially flour, are obtained with difficulty. The Commanderin-Chief has certainly not found the resources of the country developed before his arrival in the different districts to that extent which, had circumstances admitted of it, they ought to have been. The truth seems to be that the condition of the country through which our route has lain was, prior to the landing of the headquarters of the expedition in Annesley Bay, not clearly apprehended in its true political aspect. Even the natural resources of those districts had formed, in many important respects, the subject of error and delusion. Hence it is in part that we have had to depend at every step on what could be done towards supplementing up to the needed point, by means of local agencies, the deficiencies at once in our supplies themselves, and in the means of transport which we had been provided with from Bombay. The assistance which we were led to expect from Wagshoom Gobazeh in this direction is being but tardily rendered. In the cold reception. afforded to us by this powerful chief, even with our ample army before his eyes, may be read an indication of how it would have fared with a "flying column," supposing it possible for such to have ever reached the province of Lasta at all.

They who have pronounced the progress of our troops up to this point to have been slow, are invited to suspend their judgment on this point until history shall place before them the true features of the expedition which is now drawing very near its crisis.

3 D

THERE is a report abroad at this time that the French Emperor has of late shown great reluctance to engage in affairs of State; that he is less eager than formerly to see and converse with Ministers, and actually exhibits a degree of apathy about matters which are charged with significant meaning.

Of course there are a variety of explanations for this remarkable change. Some attribute it to breaking health and the inroad of serious malady; some opine it proceeds from the disappointment and chagrin occasioned by the growth and success of Prussia, and the diminished influence of France over the Continent. Others say that the hour is not favourable to action, and that the seeming indifference is in reality a studied reserve, and that he is simply following out his old-his only, policy, that of watching events, and waiting for that opportunity which sooner or later falls to the lot of him who has patience to await it. There is, however, another explanation which I am disposed to believe nearer the truth than any of these. The Emperor has latterly undergone a change of mind on a number of weighty questions; he has not fully determined to take action on his new convictions, and he is still in the throes of a certain conflict with himself, and it is this doubt and this hesitation that have imparted the semblance of indolence to his conduct.

The Italian question was one of considerable difficulty. To maintain the Pope and not disgust the Liberal party; to snub the Legitimists and yet not offend the priests; to discourage the overweening pretensions of the Church, and at the same time to dissuade the Italians from aggression-need

ed a light hand and very dexterous management. The Prussian difficulty, too, was trying in many ways; for though it was good policy to encourage Prussian vanity, to be boastful about Sadowa, and indulge in an unmeasured self-conceit, this could not be carried too far, lest it might inflame French susceptibility and provoke a reaction inopportunely. It was necessary, therefore, to prepare the mind of France for Prussian pretension, and to make German bumptiousness a thing to smile at.

The question of questions, however, was the East, and on this, it is said, the Emperor has come to a complete change of mind. He is a man of "inevitable destinies," and one of these, in his opinion, is the Russian conquest of Turkey, and he is now bethinking himself what is the best bargain to be made with the new owner of the Dardanelles. Coolnesses with England he has had from time to time during Lord Palmerston's administration-they were constantly occurring. Palmerston never liked the Emperor, and made very little secret of his dislike; he distrusted him too, and was not slow to admit it.

The Whigs, however, never ceased to parade the French alliance as the masterstroke of their foreign policy, and there was a polite understanding between the two Governments that, whatever they might think, they should always speak civilly of each other before the world. This game of mutual blarney was played out to the last card. We had it in Queen's speeches and City dinners, and we read of it in Auxerre declarations and letters to Prefects of the Seine, and there is a wonderful efficacy in mere repetition; at least I am confident that simple reiteration