The Royal Achievement.

Welcome to all was the first grey light that illumined the eastern sky, and summoned the warrior from his uneasy slumbers. So uncomfortably had the night been passed, that it was in truth rest to rise. The despot was among the first to abandon his cold couch; and a bulletin of success having been penned by the royal hand, for the information of Queen Besábesh, the main body of the division, convoying the interminable droves of cattle, was in motion across the Ekka valley. Escorted by five thousand cavalry. His Majesty then proceeded to a knoll at some distance within the scene of yesterday’s carnage, upon the summit of which he tarried, whilst parties went out in search of the body of his grand-nephew, the youthful son of Ayto Besuehnech, who, with several others of the Christian host, had fallen in the running conflict.

It was a cool and lovely morning, and the mountain breeze played freshly down each opening glade. The ascending sunbeam danced over the steep rugged sides and ruined stone edifices of the fastness of Entótto, anciently the proud seat of Ethiopic splendour, and still believed to conceal much of the wealth lost to the empire at the period of Graan’s invasion, when Nebla Dengel was driven into Tigré. The great volcanic cone of Sequala, rivalling the lowland Aiúlloo, was again visible in the distance, its once active crater converted by the revolutions of ages into an extensive lagoon, on the banks of which stands the celebrated shrine of Guebra Manfas Kedoos, a saint renowned for the destruction, by his prayers, of live hundred genies. On the one hand frowned the dark wooded slave mart of Roqué, in the Yerrur hill, where millions of Christians have been bought and sold; and on the other rose the mountain Dalácha, sacred to the Wato sorcerers, whose tempting demesnes have escaped pillage and conflagration, in consequence of their blessing having been followed by the birth of Sáhela Selássie. Far in the distance a low belt of vegetation screened the sleepy Háwash, and over the intervening tract numerous tributaries to the Casam, absorbed eventually in the parched plain of the Ada?el, conveyed the eastern drainage of Garra Gorphoo through the ravaged valley of Germáma.

Over this wide expanse not a living inhabitant was now to be seen. In every direction the bloodstained ground was strewed with the slaughtered foe, around whose disfigured corses groups of surfeited vultures flapped their foul wings, and screamed the death note. The embers of deserted villages smouldered over the scorched and blackened plain. Ripe crops, which the morning before had gladdened the heart of the cultivator—now no more—were level with the ground. Flocks of sheep, untended by the shepherd, strayed over the lone meadow; and bands of howling dogs wandered up and down in fruitless quest of their lost masters. A single day had reduced to a wilderness the rich and flourishing vale of Germáma, including the dark forests of Finfinni, which for years had slept in peace; and their late numerous and unsuspecting population had in a few hours been swept from off the face of the earth by the devastating irruption of the barbarian Amhára hordes.

The remains of the fallen chief having, after much search, been recovered from the ashes of a still smoking village, were shrouded with a white cloth, and borne upon a bier from the scene of desolation. Glutted with booty, the despot now left his locusts to pursue their own course up the Ekka valley, where flames and plunder again marked their straggling return towards the mountains of Garra Gorphoo. Each hamlet was ravaged in succession; and cats, the sole remaining tenants of the deserted huts, were dislodged by the torch of the Wóbo.

For miles and miles the road was lined with dusty and wayworn warriors laden with spoil: flocks and herds, donkeys, mules, and horses, honeycombs, poultry, household utensils and farming gear, with captive women and children, indiscriminately mingled with the men-at-arms. Whilst some of these latter, wounded and mutilated, were lashed upon the backs of their palfreys, others, dismounted, were dragging behind them their lame and exhausted steeds; sheep and goats, unable through fatigue to proceed, being cut limb from limb while still alive, and the bleeding trunks left quivering in the path by the wanton butchers.

Re-entering the mountains, across which the sun now cast the long dark shadows of evening, the camp was sought in vain; but the rear division, with tents and baggage, was at length descried pouring down the opposite height under a vast canopy of dust to the encamping ground at Boora Roofa. A long march the preceding day had brought it to Sululta near to Moolo Fálada, where it met and destroyed those who had fled from the immediate scene of the king’s inroad, made numerous female captives, and, with the loss of the sumpter horses laden with horns of hydromel, acquired considerable booty; information casually received of the main division having thence led it back through the mountains to the present halting-ground, after all had made up their minds to another cold bivouac in the open air. During its more recent progress, this division had carried fire and sword through the country of the Sertie Galla, where it yet remained unplundered; and, as the day again closed, the vault of heaven was re-illumined by volumes of lurid smoke from the surrounding hamlets. Such is the appalling retribution with which Sáhela Selássie is wont to visit those rebel tribes who withhold the moderate tribute imposed upon them. The relinquishment to the crown of three or four hundred of the many thousand head of cattle captured during this and the preceding day, would, with some twenty or thirty horses, have averted this awful chastisement, the fearful consequence of taxation refused. The revolt of tribes inhabiting remote portions of His Majesty’s dominions arises too frequently from the oppression of Galla governors, over whose proceedings he can exercise very inadequate control; but it is caused in a principal degree by the absence of outpost or fortification to hold his wild subjects in check. Could he be prevailed upon to abandon his present weak mode of securing the Galla dependencies, to strengthen them by those military arrangements for which the country is so peculiarly adapted, and to place a better limit upon the exactions of frontier governors, what bloodshed and misery might not be averted!

The army halted at Boora Roofa to enable straggling detachments to rejoin; and small parties went out in various directions to complete the work of demolition among the deserted hamlets of the Sertie tribe, some of which, embosomed deep among the mountain glens, had hitherto escaped attention: hives of ungathered honey, heaps of unwinnowed corn, and the half-flayed carcass abandoned within the filthy habitation, bearing ample testimony to the precipitate flight of the hunted inmates, around many of whose bodies gaunt vultures already held their carnival.

Early during the forenoon, horsemen rode in to the royal pavilion with important intelligence, that Ayto Hierát, a favourite governor, had, at the distance of a few miles, surprised and surrounded a Galla in a tree, among the branches of which the caitiff awaited the arrival of the king. Impatient to wreathe his brow with new laurels, the monarch lost not a moment in sallying forth to destroy the unfortunate wretch, taking a most formidable array of single and double-barrelled guns and rifles of every calibre, together with an escort of five thousand cavalry.

Receiving a long shot through the thigh at the royal hands, whilst imperfectly ensconced among the foliage, the victim, abandoning all hope of escape, wisely cast away his weapons, and cried loudly for quarter; being admitted to which, he kissed the feet of His Majesty, and thus escaped his otherwise inevitable............