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

THE SUN, LUIS-DON. TUESDAY EVENiNG, JANUAR 7, 18t8.

THE ABESSINI,4Ik7 EXPEDITION.

Letters from correspondents bring down the news frOin
Annesley Bay to December. 19 and Rayray Guddy to
December 111. At the former life was varied by fresh

arrivals of ships with material, food, forage, mules, camels,
and saddles. The supply of water was still limited. It
was not that the steamers in the harbour were not able to

condense a sufficient amount, but that the boats of the
ships were incapable of placing daily in the shore tanks
the quantity requisite for the large consumption
entailed by the presence of 5,000 men and 2,000
mules and oxen. With the exception of the all-

important water question, and of the fact that
the proportion of drivers to animals was still too
small, matters wear by no means a gloomy aspect ; the
health of the camp was remarkably good, V. 1.0 weather not
excessively hot, and the rations of first-class quality. Each
European soldier got per diem ono pound of meat, one of
biscuit, some flour, rice, tea, sugar, and salt, one quart of

porter, and a dram of arrack.
The route from the camp to Sena,f6 is tlnis described:—
" The first thirteen miles is over a sandy plain, then the

ascent commences, at first by a gradual slope, but after
thirty miles growing much steeper, until near Senaf6
itself the road has to become a zigzag in order to climb
the side of the mountain. The camping grounds are
extremely narrow, as it is not permitted to sleep in the
bed of the river, which constitutes the road, and the rocks
shelving upon each side of the stream allow but
little space to pitch tents on to bivouac. The prohibition
is absolutely necessary for the safety of the troops, as the
Abyssinian watercourses are subject to the most rapid
rising, and the accounts of all travellers agree that the
dry nullah of the evening often becomes a deep and rapid
torrent before morning. The orders are equally stringent
in forbidding all defilement of the scanty supply of water
to be met with on the route, and especially enjoin that
the carcases of dead animals are to be burned, as the
only effectual means of getting rid of the nuisance which
their presence creates. Except in the last march but
one, no extraordinary fatigue had to be undergone. The
marches were always by night, except where the difficulty
of the route rendered it necessary to wait for daylight."
At Senaf6 itself a lake or sheet of water is stated to have
been found, and straw of a kind fit for fodder can be ob-
tained to a large amount. Writing from Rayray Guddy,
the correspondent of the Daily Netts says : "I hear the
epidemic which smote the-cavalry horses so severely when
they were in the lowlands, and which clung to them when
moved to the higher grounds, has now nearly disappeared.
It was high time.. Forage is found in considerable quan-
tities in the vicinity of Senaf6—that is to say, it suffices
for the one cavalry regiment and horses of the battery
there now, but it is doubtful whether a larger force would
be able to remain there unless it were in large measure
supplied from the depots in the rear." At these depots
the accumulation of impedimenta continues. This corre-
spondent considers it extremely doubtful whether the
expedition will he able to move from Senaf6 before the
middle of February.
Our readers are aware that the chief obstructions to the
march of an army up the Koomaylie Pass existed about
Middle Sooroo, which is ten miles above the first halting-
place, Koomaylie. At that point, and onwards for a
mile and a half, the torrent-bed, which is the road itself,
is shut in by rocky walls so perpendicular and of such
tough material, and is, moreover, so narrow, that before
the passage could be deemed really safe for an army with
its indispensable material, the greatest exertions were
required on the part of the Sappers. By dint of
unremitting labour they- have now completed about
three-quarters of their task ; but no wheeled cart can
proceed till the remaining portion is cleared. The cor-
respondent of the Morning Herald, dating from Upper
Sooroo, begins by retracting his opinion that the defile
would turn out a bugbear, as the fever, guinea-worm, and
tetu flies bad done. After acquaintance with most of the
passes of the Alps and Tyrol, he confesses that it is the
roughest piece of road he ever saw. From Lower to
Upper Sooroo is a distance of five miles. Lower Sooroo
is 900 feet above the sea, Upper Sooroo 1,800. It is in this
portion of the road that the real difficulties of the pass are
situated. There is a succession of narrow and pre
cipitous gorges. The sides of these gorges are is
many places perfectly perpendicular, and the scenery,
although not very lofty, is yet wild and grand in the
extreme, and seen with the bright light and deep shadows
thrown by the full moon, it was one of the most impres-
sive pieces of scenery. The difficulty of the pass consists
not in its steepness, for the rise. is little over 200 feet in a
mile, but in the mass of huge boulders which strew its
bottom. Throughout its length, indeed, the path winds its
way in and out and over a chaos of immense stones, which
look as if they had but j u3t fallen from the almost overhang
ing sides of the ravine. Some of these arches are as large
as a good-sized ho.ise, with barely room between them for a,
mule to pass with his burden. In many places, indeed,
there was no room at all until the Madras Sappers, who
are encamped about half-way up the pass, set to work to
make it practicable by blasting away projecting edges, and
in some slight way smoothing the path among the smaller
rocks. In some places great dams have been found right
' across the ravine, owing to two or three monster
boulders having blocked the course of the stream,
and from the accumulated' rocks which the winter
torrents have swept down upon them. Upon
these great obstacles nothing less than an army of sappers
could make any impression ; and here the engineers have
sai the
contented themselves by building a road up to the top of
tliedatme
makeand down
four-me again
nilthpe h
passage,
d
shouting, and the difficulties of the way must be imagined.
As several attempts at robbery have been made by the
natives upon small parties, every one rode with his
loaded revolver in his holster. At Sooroo the troops have
made the unwelcome acquaintance of camel tick, a creeper
somewhat larger than a sheep tick. They bite the horses
a sosta and the
It
labour,took three
hours
and men, raising a bump as big as a man's fist upon the
former, and causing great pain and swelling to the latter.
The situation of the camp at Senaf6 is said to be extremely
pleasant. Colonels Merewether and Phayre were absent
at our latest advices on some expedition to reconnoitre in
the surrounding country.
It would appear that at Annesley Bay, since the arriva
of Sir Charles Staveley, the officers have worked prodi-
giously to reduce the chaos to order. The want of harmony
in their efforts is still, however, complained of. Each
head of department works for himself, whereas if they
were only branches of an intendance generale, they might
meet each other and their chief on an evening, and work
with a mutual understanding.
The Bombay Times states that the shipment of elephants
ror Abyssinia created great interest. Such a shipmen:
was probably never made before. The Compta took
twenty remarkably fine animals, and the Hahnemann was
being fitted for a second batch, numbering about twenty-
six. It required special tackle to lower these unwieldy
creatures into the hold of the Compta, some twenty or
thirty feet. They weighed about seventy tons in all.
They require a large amount of forage, each animal con-
suming in his daily ration about 150 pounds of grass,
twenty pounds of grain, and about a barrel of water each.
To each elephant theresis a mahout and an attendant, and
over twenty mahouts a jenidar.
The Morning Post correspondent thus describes the
accompaniment of the journey to Sooroo :—" Although
2,000 feet above the sea level, the temperature is not
appreciably cooler, except inasmuch as the perpendicular
hills which hem us in afford' a certain protection from the
ardour of the morning and evening sun, Camels groan
dismally, jackals cry like 10,000 ' teething babies,'
monkeys bark, locusts flap about one's eyes' and ears
the dust chokes every pore, and the odour of putre:
fying mules (wafted up the pass) recalls the advice
Let us sacrifice our olfactory organs'; but these are all
minor miseries when the nerves are irritated to madness,
and the brain in a whirl of Confusion, from the plague of
flies which fill the air, and from which no immunity can be
contrived. From sunrise tee sunset they reign supreme,
and every tree and every tent is covered with a living,
moving, buzzing mass of these little black torments. Yon
may kill them by hundreds on your head, arms, legs.
table, anywhere, but it is perfectly futile ; Hydra-like,
for every dozen you fancy you have exterminated, fifty
swarm up in tbeir place. The only redeeming feature
about the spot is the existence of ' running ' water in
plenty, a boon only to be properly appreciated by those
who for some weeks have been slaking their thirst with
the contents of warm condensing tanks and dirty maw-
kish wells. The trickling sound of the water alone is
grateful to the ear, and will cause us to leave Upper
Sooroo with:almost a pang of regret."
As far as regards stores and appliances sent from Europe,
isuez has become the base of operations. The great article
of exportation is pack animals. Nearly 9,000 animals
have been conveyed to Alexandria. At Suez Captain
Morrison initiated a system by which, with the assistance
of only twenty English officers, noncommissioned officers,
and men, he has maintained, for four months, a camp of
Feix acres in extent fil'ed with mules and horses. The
camp lies to the north of the town of Suez, in the Desert,
not far from the road by which the Israelites are said to
have moved. The camp itself is surrounded by a ditch,
and is well roped iu a very necessary precaution,
for the mules, having a peculiar appetite for halters,
eat them off, and were it not for the surround-
ing fence would career ownerless into the far Desert.
A few interpreters make the orders of the English officers
understood to the head men, who communicate them each
to the men in his own tent. The camp is rapidly getting
smaller. Of the total number of animals bought on the
coasts of the Mediterranean a very few have died on shore,
but nearly 200 were lost at sea. This loss was occasioned
by the animals having to be thrown overboard to save the
vessel in which they were being transported to Alexandria.
About 2,000 now remain at Suez waiting far vessels to
take them to Abyssinia. The rest have•been Bent to An-
npsloy Bay,

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.—This Day,

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

BREAKING INTO A SHOP.—Two rough-looking
young men, named Scott Wallace, described as a
sailor, and William Nutley, a labourer, were
charged before Mr. Tyrwhitt with feloniously break-
ing and entering the shop of Mr. James Ward,
greengrocer, 36, Little Pulteney-street, with intent
to steal therein.

Mr. Peters, residing. at No. 36, Little Pulteney-
street, said that in consequence of being spoken to
by a girl named Lear, he went into the yard of
the house and saw the shutters down and the win-
dow forced open, belonging to the back shop of
Mr. Ward, a greengrocer, occupying the shop
floor, and on afterwards going into the front shop
with a police sergeant he saw the prisoners there
concealed behind the boxes.

Thos. Rosch, manager to Mr. Ward, said that on
leaving the shop at a quarter to ten the previous
night it was secure, the window being nailed down.
On going to the shop subsequently he found that
the shutters were down and the window had been
forced open, and a shop desk also been forced open,
but nothing had been taken from it.
In answer to Mr. Tyrwhitt, the witness said that
he knew Wallace, having employed him a few weeks
since as an odd man.