The Foray.

Thus far the greatest irregularity and confusion had prevailed among the Amhára troops, alike during the march and the encampment. A council of war was daily convened, when each leader made his report and received verbal instructions for his guidance; but no order of any sort was promulgated until the moment before it was to be carried into effect, and all depended rather upon the whim and caprice of the monarch than upon the exigencies of the service. The first intimation of intended march was conveyed by the royal drums sounding suddenly to saddle a quarter of an hour before the advance, which, as the state pavilion went down, was announced by a flourish of horns.

But notwithstanding that the strictest silence had been observed on the subject by the Negoos, as well as by all who might have been unavoidably admitted to his confidence, strong surmises were entertained that a foray from Karábarek was to be the order of the following day; and about two hours after midnight, the sudden and unusual cessation of the psalm singing, followed by the heavy tramp past our tents of Ayto Shishigo’s detachment of Shoa-Meda horse, confirming the opinion, the hum of the surrounding body, like that of a disturbed hive of bees, continued until dawn. No sooner was it light than His Majesty rode silently forth from his enclosure without beat of the nugáreet, and thousands instantly flocked towards the royal person. The state umbrellas were encased in white bags, and the usual cumbrous Abyssinian robe, which effectually impedes all rapid movement, was on this occasion cast aside. Short wide trousers of various hues hung loosely to the knee. A thick white cloth girded up the loins. The skins of wild beasts, the lion, the panther, and the ocelot, alone hung over the brawny shoulder of the warrior; and, with exception of about two hundred musqueteers with bayonets fixed, every man-at-arms was equipped with spear, sword, and buckler, a mounted henchman behind many leading a spare charger.

At first starting the crush and confusion was truly terrific. Horses and mules rearing, kicking, and plunging, with lances bristling, and shields thumping in every direction, threatened instant destruction to each component member of the dense mass, which, crowded and locked fast together, streamed at a rapid trot after the king without the slightest order or regularity, save such as was preserved by the exertions of the shield-bearers who rode immediately behind. The occasional passage of ploughed land, producing a suffocating cloud of dust, served still more to increase the confusion, which had reached its climax when a rivulet intersected the line of march. Steep perpendicular banks and treacherous channels opposing the extended front of the legion, and checking advance, a simultaneous exertion was made to gain the only practicable fords, which were in an instant filled to choking. The fiercest struggle for extrication ensued. Numbers floundering in the soft mud, or borne out of their saddles by the pressure of the crowd, were trampled under foot, whilst those who bestrode the stoutest steeds, clearing the way before them by sheer strength, forced their weaker neighbours to incline to the right and to the left, like frail reeds before the rush of the mountain deer.

The morning was bitterly cold. The hoar-frost lay thick and white upon the meadows; and as the rabble host trampled over the crisp grass towards the high range of Garra Gorphoo, which, at the distance of a few miles, rose to the height of twelve or fifteen hundred feet, the breath arose heavy from the nostril of man and beast, like a cloud of smoke, mixing with the dark columns of dust which followed the clattering hoofs of neighing war-steeds. During the first hour’s advance up the valley, reports were continually being brought in, and messenger after messenger galloping off in every direction; and as the foot of the mountain was gained, Ayto Berkie, with a large detachment of the men of Bulga, leaving the main body, moved upon the left, whilst the king struck up the steep face of the range in the centre of an extended line of men, who scoured every hill and hollow, and beat every nook and corner at a rapid pace.

Stretching thirty miles in length by about twelve or fifteen in breadth, the mountains of Garra Gorphoo, covered throughout with one sheet of rich cultivation, form the water-shed between the Nile and the Háwash. The various rivulets that on either side wind down towards the parent streams, intersect it into hundreds of verdant valleys, on the swelling slopes of which the white-roofed houses of secluded Galla hamlets peep forth among dark green groves of juniper and acacia, that add beauty to the fair prospect. These tropical highlands are inhabited by the Sertie tribe, who, long in a state of open rebellion, had rendered themselves doubly obnoxious to the despot, by attacking a detachment of Amhára the preceding year, of whom, whilst entangled in a morass near the foot of the range, eight hundred men were slain. The day of retribution had at length arrived. The object of the expedition, hitherto so carefully concealed, was now fully developed; and the military dispositions for sweeping destruction appeared to be right skilfully made.

Hurrying onward with ominous rapidity, slaughtering all who fell in their path, and with their weapons goading forward the herds of sleek cattle which teemed in every valley, the wild host now poured like an overwhelming torrent down the flowery slopes—now breasted the steep sunny acclivity like flames driven before the wind—and now wound in Indian file along the edges of cliffs affording scanty footing for a wild cat, where the loose soil, crumbling at every step, left the naked precipitous rock as the only available passage. Far and wide the crops were laid prostrate, as if beaten down under the violence of the hurricane; and before ten o’clock, the highest pinnacle of the green range having been crowned, a wide prospect burst upon the eye. A succession of richly cultivated plains dotted over with clusters of conical white houses, in parts surrounded by clumps of tall junipers, stretched away from the foot, the very picture of peace and plenty. Embosomed between the isolated peaks of Yerrur, Sequala, and the far-famed Entótto, lay the wide plain of Germáma, thickly peopled by the Ekka and Finfinni Galla, upon whose doomed heads the thunderbolt was next to fall; and full in its centre two placid silver lakes, like great mirrors, reflected back the rays of the morning sun across sheets of luxuriant cultivation, extending for miles, nearly ready for the sickle. Far beyond, the long wooded line of the Háwash, rolling its troubled waters towards the plain of the Ada?el, loomed indistinctly through the haze; and in the extreme distance, the lofty blue range of the Aroosi and Ittoo Galla, skirting the mysterious regions of Guráguê, bounded the almost interminable prospect.

The morning mist, loaded with dust raised by the tramp of the Amhára steeds over acres of ploughed land, hung heavy on the slopes, and partially screening the approach of the locust army, conspired to enhance its success. Twenty thousand brawny warriors, in three divisions, covering many miles of country, and linked by detachments in every direction, pressed on towards the inviting goal—their hearts burning with the implacable hatred of hostile barbarians, and panting to consummate their bloody revenge. Taken entirely by surprise, their devoted victims lay helplessly before them, indulging in fatal dreams of happiness and security, alas! too speedily to be dispelled. Hundreds of cattle grazed in tempting herds over the flowery meads. Unconscious of danger, the unarmed husbandman pursued his peaceful occupation in the field; his wife and children carolled blithely over their ordinary household avocations; and the ascending sun shone bright on smiling valleys, which, long before his going down, were left tenanted only by the wolf and the vulture.

Preceded by the holy ark of Saint Michael, veiled under its scarlet canopy, the king still led the van, closely attended by the father confessor, and by a band of priests, with whom having briefly conferred, he turned towards the expectant army, and pronounced the ominous words which were the well-known signal for carrying fire and sword through the land—“May the God who is the God of my forefathers strengthen and absolve!” Rolling on like the waves of the mighty ocean, down poured the Amhára host among the rich glades and rural hamlets, at the heels of the flying inhabitants—trampling under foot the fields of ripening corn, in parts half reaped, and sweeping before them the vast herds of cattle which grazed untended in every direction. In the extreme distance their destructive progress was still marked by the red flames that burst forth in turn from the thatched roofs of each invaded village; and the havoc committed many miles to the right by the division of Abogáz Maretch, who was advancing parallel to the main body, and had been reinforced by the detachment under Ayto Shishigo, became equally manifest in numerous columns of white smoke, towering upwards to the azure firmament in rapid succession.

We followed close in the train of the Negoos, who halted for a few minutes on the eastern face of the range; and the eye of the despot g............