The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-18 00:00:00

THE SUERENLEE OF THE CAPTIVES,

It requites (says the writer, on April 12) a life-long
faith in figures and almanacks to believe that barely a
day and a half have elapsed since we were looking for-
ward to the safe delivery of the captives as a doubtful
event, and to the possibility of another year of absence
from home and roughing it in Abyssinia, supposing Theo-
dore escaped. Measured not by minutes, but by variety
and intensity of sensations, as psychologists tell us time
should be measured, there are in a life few months that
would not pass more quickly than these short hours.
11-,,:u1,1 that any description of mine could do justice to
them ! But, so far from this, I have to ask the indul-
gc-nee of your readers for a report that must be written,
not only against time, but in such a Babel of questions,
answers, congratulations, kissings, ha.ndshakings, tears,
runours, contradictions, and counter contradic-
tions as only the present occasion could create, and to which
nothing short of utter blindness, deafness, and heartlessness
could make even a special correspondent impervious. Within
four yard 3 of the little tente d'abri under which I have to

lying at my length on the ground, Mrs. Flad, who
was prevented by illness from coming into camp last night,
is at this very moment exchanging greetings and congratu-
lations with Mrs. Rosenthal, both happy and free at last,
after so many weary months of well-nigh hopeless cap-
tivity ; a group of small children are carrying on an
animated conversation in a strange patois, compounded
possibly- of German and Abyssinian ; and a strong-lunged
baby is performing, in the universal baby language, a solo
of its own. Exactly twenty-four hours ago these people
entary fear of a cruel death, at the

wrlt

w 're in mir

3 :32y of a ; rciless tyrant, who two days before had in
c i blood I .tchered over 300 innocent captives, slaying
s,wine with his own hand, and who, mad with rage and
Ltrong thernately threatened and flattered them as
ft,,lr or ~redominated. Just twenty-four hours ago
their ,ere literally not worth a moment's purchase.
are as safe as five thousand gallant hearts ready
1, s)e

every drop of blood in their defence can make
hem, th friendly faces and friendly voices on all sides
Oni, and big, rough men—the sailors of the Rocket
Brigade, of course, as conspicuous as they were in the
f • ' of Friday—almost crying over their children.

THE ENGAGESIENT ON GOOD FRIDAY.

main body of the British army had drawn near to

when King Theodore, misinformed by spies,
t' it only a small pioneer force was advancing with
bagzagz, to find a camping ground for the rest of the
tro pl. His niiitalce was immediately confirmed by the
sl p3-_irance at the top of the Arogee Pass of Colonel
blil.vard'A men, more especially as the mules of
the battery and the Rocket Brigade looked to
7 -, ii.:2xp...•rienced eye like ordinary baggage animals.
few minutes more one of the guns on Fahla poured
fo7ll. •

1. heavy booming sound, evidently in preconcerted
cign7.l, and almost simultaneously the steep road leading
clown from the heights, and the hilly, broken ground
below them, wore alive with armed men, horse and foot,
r,,-.1,:c impetuously to battle. A finer or more spirit-
s 7-ring sight it is difficult to imagine, not more, how-
from tlio. bold, martial bearing of the men—some

them, tn, splendid horsemen—although they came
t:i ir:th the proud, triumphant confidence of
med to conqu2st, than from the magnificent
sce:itry in which the action was carried on, Magdala
and the adjoining maintains forming, as it were, a
n;-and natni.al amphitheatre, and a spacious terrace at the
.4, of 17.1.1,13 making an admirable stage on which to give

effect. to the brilliant game of war. The effect on our
troop.; was magical. They had scarcely ever dared to believe
fiat the AbyKinians would fight even behind walls, and
in.l them rushing on in this gallant style to do battle in
was, indeed, an unlooked-for taste of tin
" Stern joy which warriors feel
" In foemen worthy of their steel."

A Teeing cheer broke from their ranks, and the two
aredes hastened to close. Up to the moment when
the first battle-gun from Fahla sounded the prelude to the
battle, the 4th were crawling listlessly along, constantly
falling out of the ranks to lie down, utterly knocked up
by a terribly trying march, and imploring anyone who
passed for a drop of water, which on that day was as pre-
cious and rare a commodity as champagne. No hallowed
rag of saint or winking virgin ever wrought such
a miracle upon halt- or lame as did the sound
or. that one Abjssinian gun upon the dead-beat men
of the 4th. In five minutes they were to the
front, dressing up, and hurrying past the Beloochees
—not that the Belooches were a whit the less eager, but
the) had not the deadly Snider to recommend them, and
in a very few minutes more—though to anxious eyes
abov it may have appeared a longer time—they emerged
from he hollow into which they had disappeared on leav-
ing tb. '-'ll, ae,l began steadily to mount the step which
the eneu._ had at first so dauntlessly made their own, and
to take it I m them inch by inch. To describe the fight
after the St came into play would be only to describe a
ltattue. Its :harp, short cracks, following each other in
breathless Si; es ;ion, were the death knell of the Abys-
sinian cause. The unfortunate foe had no longer even
the shadow of a chance, but went down like grass before
the scythe. v they kept their ground at all when
Sid leis, mountain guns, and rockets had begun to get
fairly at them is a marvel, and says a good deal fur
their national " pluck," notwithstanding that they
never managed to hold even for a few minutes after
the first impetuous onset any ground from which it
was attempted to dislodge them. That they came on
so pluckity is accounted for by their mistaking the
character of the force, but this mistake, soon dis-
c wered, could only have contributed to their confusion,
as yet to the very last, though they had left, it is thought,
some 500 comrades dead on the field, among them their
leader, Theodore's favourite general, and must have had
at least three times that number wounded, they kept up
some show of resistance, rallied to make a few faint
charges, and mustered up spirits enough for a mock-
victorious cheer when Sir Charles Staveley, as night was
coining on, and nothing more was to be ggined by
useless butchery, sounded the retreat. Their
Theodore's famous guns gave them no
assistance whatever ; on the contrary, killed
it is said, oe CI en. The big gun burst at the first
explosion, the rest—there were about seven, I believe,
altogether posted on Fahla—kept up a steady cannonade
easily distinguishable by its dull, heavy sound, ascribed
to the slow ignition of bad powder, from the quick rattle
of the mountain guns, but did not even touch one of our
Yuen. Not cne man on our side, strange to say, was killed,
an 1 only nineteen were wounded, among them one officer,
Captain Roberts, of the 4th, who was bit by a bullet in
the elbow joint.

artillcry