The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-10 00:00:00

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THE A]3ll

EDITIOIV.

(From the Saturday Review.)

Abyssinia is an elevated table-land studded with
mountains and rocky pinnacles, between which lie
fertile valleys and broad forests, and it stands like
a green island in the midst of the African deserts.
All round it is a mountain wall that looks on the
map like a surrounding cliff ; and indeed there
would seem to be other signs, as well as the confor-
mation of its boundary, that the Red Sea once
covered the space between the eastern barrier and
the present shore, for a great part of the region still
resembles, in its deep chasms, sandflats, and fright-
ful bairenness, the bed of the ocean. But the lice of
the highlands is not parallel to the margin of the
sea, which it approaches much more nearly at Mas-
sowah and Annesley Bay than elsewhere. Nothing
that can properly be called desert forms an obstacle
to an advance from this part of the coast, for every
march can be timed so as to halt amidst verdure,
shelter, and water. At Massowah, and along the
shores of the bay, the water is deep, and suitable
for landing ; transports could there ride in security;
and joining these facts to the circumstance, so
all-important, that the strip of intervening space
between the sea and the highlands is here at
its minimum, we cannot but infer that, of all the
possible starting points which have been indicated,
this offers most advantages, and will be selected,
unless Col. Merewether can show more proof than
we have yet met with in support of his opinion that
Amphila Bay is to be preferred. Suakin, higher up
the Red Sea, has found an advocate iu Sir Samuel
Baker, whose preference seems to be founded on the
single fact that he has himself advanced from that
point, not into Abyssinia, but towards the Nile.
Now, supposing an army to have advanced from
Suakin to Kassala—a very marked and important
point on the route, to which it must be transported
on camels across the Nubian desert—it would leave
behind it a long list of most precarious and costly
communication with the sea, and would still be as
far from Theodore and his prisoners as if it were at
once set down at Massowah. Tajurrah, another
seaport considerably to the southward, is separated
from the nearest part of the highlands by a wide
expanse of desert, so pestilential, so impenetrable,
so devoid of water, and so beset with all the ob-
stacles that an insupportable climate and malignant
inhabitants can interpose, that it may be at once
rejected as impracticable for a base. We shall,
therefore, assume that Massowah, or the head of
Annesley Bay, or both of these places, will be the
points of debarkation.
All travellers who have visited Massowah agree
that it is among the most unhealthy parts of the
globe's surface. Fierce ultra-tropical heat, numer-
ous climatic diseases, and a barren soil, combine to
render it dangerous to Europeans, while the absence
of water, which is brought in scanty supply, and of
bad quality, from a village at some distance, com-
pletes the objections against the establishment of a
camp in its neighbourhood. In sele3tlng it for a
base, therefore, sufficient preparation should be
made to enable the troops to march forward imme-
diately on landing to the high ground which inter-
venes between this place and the table-land. To the
westward are seen, 40 or 50 miles off, the moun-
tains that bound Abyssinia, and many routes lead
thither from Massowah and the head of the bay,
several of which might be used for expedition and
greater freedom of movement. Soon after leaving
Massowah we hear of plenty of wood and water--
roads, though difficult, yet "practicable for camels
and even artillery," "running water found continu-
ally," " the hills dotted with dense wood and high
grass," " the heat (in April) by no means excessive."
Next we find "a steep ascent unsuited to draught
artillery, easy enough for mules carrying moun-
tain guns, but difficult for laden camels, unless
having light burdens." The plateau being reached,
there appeared "hills densely clothed with verdure."
and " a finer or richer country than this could not
be desired." Such is Col. Merewether's report of
an excursion made last spring, no doubt with a view
to the present expedition. In January he struck
off towards the mountains in another direction,
making for Adowa by Ailet, "a fine plain covered
with rich verdure," "an excellent place to locate a
large body of cavalry on first landing, there being
plenty of wood, water, forage, and meat," with a
• perennial spring on the left side of the valley."
Evidently there is no obstacle then to the movement
of troops into the temperate region of the highlands,
which may easily be accomplished, by several paths,
in four marches. The first care of the commander
of the expedition will probably be to establish thus
far from the sea a fortified camp enclosing space for
considerable magazines of supplies. And the col-
lection of these, as well as the transport of the field
artillery, will be greatly accelerated by such
improvements in the road as could easily be made
by a band of pioneers, for all accounts go to prove
that in that country roads may be mended, and
even created, with unusual facility.

Planted with his army on the plateau, in a cool
and temperate region, with supplies at land suffi-
cient for the next stages in the campaign, and Mas -
sowah with its heat and pestilences far below him,
the General may look forward with a lightened
heart. Yet many difficulties must still remain to be
overcome before he can attain any kind of decisive
success. Not the least of these is the difficulty of
fixing on any point in the country as that in which
success is absolutely to be found. Here is no capital,
to seize which will be to hold a sure guarantee for
compelling the foe to yield; no fortress, to cut him
off from which will be to ruin him ; not even an
army, with the defeat of which his obstinacy might
give way; but a desperate chief, hemmed in by his
own revolted subjects, and standing at bay with
forces daily diminishing. It may be fairly doubted
whether, for the accomplishment of our object, it
would not be preferable to see him restored to his
former power, offering to us tangible successes and
substantial means of enforcing his submission. Cer-
tainly it is not easy to imagine that one in his situa-
tion will be influenced, as some sanguine people
seem to suppose, by the threat that we are about to
add to the nember of his alreadyoverwhelming foes.
Of the politics of the revolted chiefs we know
nothing. Any attempt to play one off against
another can only be founded on coarse appeals to
the mercenary nature of a savage. Fidelity to
engagements contracted on such grounds can
only be insured by fresh bribes ; and we can never
be sure that jealousy of the foreigner may not pre-
vail over internal dissension, and unite all in a league
against us. Meanwhile there is something almost
ludicrous in the disproportion between the means
we are amassing.—the thousands of disciplined
troops, the scientific arms, the costly vessels, the
droves of transport animals which will darken the
Abyssinian pastures—and the object of rescuing a
few captives from the broken power of this bank-
rupt despot. So glaring indeed seems the discre-
pancy, so unusual this complete and lavish prepa-
ration for any English military enterprise, that, if
these were days when fresh conquests were deemed
desirable, we might almost suspect that the func-
tions of this formidable expedition would not cease
with the attainment of its ostensible object, but
that a new and by no means unprofitable colony
would be added to our empire. Nevertheless, all
this considerable force will be needed, not indeed to
fight, for the coup de grace may probably be given
to Theodore by an advanced guard of cavalry, but
to protect the long line of communications on which
our troops must be, to all appearance, absolutely de-
pendent. The country is productive in a high de-
gree of food and forage and cattle, sustenance for
man and beast; but the incessant wars of the pre-
sent and former reigns have restricted the labours
of the rural population to the raising of what is in-
dispensable for their own support, and within these
few years extensive famines have prevailed in many
districts. Even were the crops and herds as abun-
dant as they might be, the absence of roads would
still render them in a great degree unavailable to
an invading force. Large depots must therefore
from time to time be established, fortified, and gar-
risoned; and between these, and the sea on one
side, the army on the other, long convoys must pass
which must be strongly escorted, for even in a dis-
trict which calls itself friendly it would be impossi-
ble to say how long the most virtuous ally could
resist the temptation offered by an unguarded train
of stores, or how far a population that considers the
art of plunder a necessary part of a liberal educa •