The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-01 00:00:00

THEODOEFS FAMILY.

The doomed king had but a short time to arrange the
affairs of his family. His domestic life had not been
happy of late years, and its course may be described in a
few words. When Theodorus was a young chief, with
his power and influence increasing year by year, he
received the hand of the fair Tzoubedje, the daughter of
Ras Ali. This was a marriage of love, and many of the good
qualities attributed to the rising chief in Mr. Plowden's
account—his mercy, his abstemiousness, his chastity—were
due to the influence of his beloved wife. But they had no
children, and she died. The loss to him was irremediable.
He was free to contract a political alliance, and when he
defeated Oubie, the great chief of ngrd, he married his
daughter, the mud Toronecb, by whom he had an only
child, named Alumayahu, a boy now about 7 years of age.
But the marriage proved most unhappy. She was prouder
even than the fiery Theodoros, despising him as an upstart.
It was impossible for two such firebrands to live together,
and for some years she had resided apart from him,
with her little boy, in the King's house, at Magdala.
Since their separation Theodoros had lived a disgracefully
irregular life at Debra Tabor ; and his favourite concubine,
a fat Yedju Galla woman, named Itamanyu, had been
living for some time with the Queen at Magdala, and
receiving almost daily letters from her absent lord. The
time for oblivion had now arrived. It is certain that
Theodoros and his wife Toronech passed some time
together on that fatal Saturday afternoon. It is to be
hoped that they were reconciled, and, as we shall see pre-
sently, he expressed a last wish which she afterwards re-
peated. Theodoros had several illegitimate children,
among whom was a son, named Mashesba, now about 20
years of age, who was with him on Salamgi.—Macmillan's
Magazine for July.

RAILWAY ACROSS THE SOLWAY FIRTH.

The last two girders of the viaduct across the Solway
Firth, which forms the chief engineering work on the
Solway Junction Railway, has been laid by Mr. Brogden,
of Ulverstone, the chairman of the directors, in the
presence of the engineers and leading promoters of the
undertaking. The work is a wonderful triumph of engi-
neering skill. The bridge is 1,940 yards in length,
and, with its sea embankments at each end, forms a road
across the sea nearly two miles in length. Some idea of
the gigantic nature of the undertaking may be gathered
from the fact that 1,800 tons of wrought iron and 2,900
tons of cast iron have been used in its construction. The
bridge is formed upon iron piles screwed and driven
into the subsoil. The foundations proved better than
had been anticipated, and the work is one of great
solidity. This new railway bridge will form a new con-
necting link between England and Scotland, and will pro-
vide a short route for the rich iron ore of Cumberland in
its transmission to Scotland.. The chairman, in proposing
success to the line at a luncheon held in celebration of
the event on Saturday, said that the Scotch ironmasters
were looking forward to the opening of the line with
great interest. That might be well understood when
it was remembered that a saving of one shilling per
ton in the carriage of ore would amount to £lO,OOO in the
year. That was no small sum to look forward to when
they remembered the present depressed condition of the
iron trade. He believed this was the largest viaduct that
had ever been constructed in the kingdom, and they had to
look forward but a short time to the completion of a work
which was interesting both physically and commercially,
and was calculated to confer great advantages upon Cum-
berland and Scotland.