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

THE EXODUS FROM MAGDALA.

rne 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 guess, 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 presente3 na strung. 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
.sbama, 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 had 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,
nerhaps striking, instance out of many.