The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-25 00:00:00

Ititobaik IND ms WWII

Those who saw him next day, when the bo3y ha been
cleansed from blood, and the face become more composed,
declare that his personal appearance was very striking.
The face, though in complexion very dark, had nothing
whatever of the negro about it. The features were finely
cut, though generally far more expressive of power and
strength of will than of delicacy or refinement ; the brow
massive and thoughtful, the lips thin and closely drawn,
indicative of rare determination. His frame was small
and slight, but well-shaped and firmly knit. It WAS
strangely shrunken and emaciated, as if the constant
fatigue and anxiety of the last few years, combined with
almost daily dissipation, had told upon it. In his best
days Theodore's whole appearance may have borne
out all that his admirers have said in favour of it;
but the hard life he has latterly led had stamped
upon the face—at least when I saw it—an expres-
sion of grossness and sensuality which greatly im-
paired its otherwise striking effect. However, Mr.
Holmes, a first-rate amateur artist, has taken what is de-
clared by those who knew Theodore well to be an admir-
able likeness of him, so that all who are curious to know
what the famous or infamous Emperor of Abyssinia looked
like will have an opportunity of gratifying their curiosity
without further description from me. Theodore's body
was placed at the disposal of his widow, or perhaps I
ought to say his principal widow—for there are at least two
royal ladies, and there is no saying how many semi-royal,
who laya quasi-conjugal claim to him. The Oriental fashion,
it seems, holds good in Abyssinia, that any woman upon
whorl the Imperial eyes have once looked with favour is
thenceforth set apart as sacred from the approach of ordi-
nary mortals ; and as Theodore was constantly on the
march, and his affections—at least latterly—shortlived (in
his earlier days he was famous throughout wondering
Abyssinia for his devotion to one favourite queen), his
harem grew very large. When on the first anxious day
of negotiation Lieutenant Prideaux told him that
honourable treatment would be given to him and his
family if he surrendered himself and Magdala, he broke out
with an odd mixture, for such a moment, of humour and
indignation. " What does your chief mean by my family?
Is he prepared for a thousand?" However, only two
widows have been recognised. The widow-in-chief is the
daughter of Ras Oubia, of Tigrd, and therefore belongs to
one of the oldest and most powerful dynasties in Abys-
sinia, crushed, with so many others, by Theodore, when
he for a time effected the consolidation of the
empire. Those who saw her on the day of the storming
of Magclala, when her face was exposed, say that she must
in her day have been a very great beauty, cruelly thrown
away upon Abyssinia, of the thoroughbred type, the
features delicate and well-cut, the hands and.feet small
and exquisitely shaped. The British soldier did not, of
course, understand that the removal of her veil (the pro-
foundest proof of submission and humiliation that
an Abyssinian lady can give) was anything out of the
way, and his efforts to console her by slapping her
on the back and informing her that nobody should
hurt her, but that " T4dros was maffish "—an
Arabic word used here to denote anything and
everything not good or to the purpose were anything but
reassuring, however well meant. Happily, Dr. Blanc came
up in time to rescue her, and she is now safe somewhere in
our camp, closely muffled up and screened from profane
eyes. She did not even affect to feel any grief at her hus-
band's death, and left the British to do what they thought
best with his body, which was placed in the outer porch of
the wretched cabin in Magdala dignified by the name of
church, for as a suicide Theodore could not be gi.:a,l Chris-
tian rites or military honours.

THE EXODUS FROM MAGDALA.

Wollo Gallas, Theodore's unrelenting enemies, are
among the fiercest warriors and most determined plun-
derers in the world. During our heavy bombardment of
Magdala they were looking vigorously among the huts
close under the walls, until a few rockets, in their im-
mediate direction, dispersed them, and they had clambered
up by the southern gate, almost as soon as the place was
in flames on the last day and our men had begun to retire.
They rob, murder, and mutilate every Abyssinian
they can get hold of, and the British force
has bad far more difficulty in protecting Theo-
dore's army and huge host of followers than it had
in conquering them. The poor wretches have been
leaving Magdala for the last two days in thousands, and
lining the road between this and the Dalanta plateau for
many miles. I have heard them estimated at from 25,000
to 30,000, but any European estimate could be little more
than a loose g ess, and the Abyssinians themselves have
as vague a notion of numbers as of distance. Whatever
the population was, it seemed to cover with swarming
'multitudinous life not only the Amba, but nearly all the
immediate neighbourhood, and presented as strange and
motley a collection as it would be easy to find
out of a museum—men and women, the young and
the old, the infirm and the vigorous, fathers borne
on the shoulders of stalwart sons, weak women tottering
under the weight of noisy, animated bundles- sometimes
two or three such bundles ; the chief, conspicuous in his
red-striped shams, striding impatiently and haughtily,
albeit a little crestfallen, ahead of his overladen Shangalla
slaves, negroes, big-limbed and black, to borrow Johnson's
simile, as a " Cyclops from the forge ;" the lady of rank, on
her sleek, gaily caparisoned mule, riding—as ladies in
Rotten-row do not ride, and so closely muffled up from head
to foot as to shew nothing more to the passing eye than a well-
shaped , but yellowish torso of nose and by no means expres-
sionless black eye, her handmaids making a body-guard
round her on humbler animals and in coarser clothes, but,
as a compensation, free from the drawbacks of rank, and
thus enjoying the double feminine pleasure of seeing and
being seen ; here and there a friendless cripple, unable
to drag his palsied limbs further down the steep hill,
and piteously imploring every passer-by for water or
the support of a strong arm ; and—most startling,
though not saddest sight of all —the corpse of some
one fallen faint from hunger or thirst by the way-
side, or a rude litter carrying high above the dense throng
the body of some dead or wounded soldier, a ghastly
token of the recent days of blood. It was certainly a
most marvellous exodus, and would have been inexpres-
sibly painful if one had thought the people were leaving
for ever real homes in which they bad lived from child-
hood, and for which they cared. But such sufferers were
in a small minority. A few inhabitants may have been
loth to leave Magdala ; some from age or infirmity
were physically unable to leave it with comfort, or even
at all. A few of these clung to their huts up to the last
moment, and had to be hunted from hiding-place to
hiding-place. Just before the gate was blown up-• the last
act of destruction—a loathsome cripple, covered with sores,
was discovered near it by a corporal of the 33rd, whose
name, unfortunately, I have not learnt, and carried by
him to a place of safety. The man will, it is to be hoped,
get some other reward than that of a good conscience.
There are many in the force who would only too gladly
have joined the storming party and risked their lives in
the narrow path, but who would have shrunk from this
safe and simple act of heroism. It is, however, but one,
perhaps striking, instance out of many.