This is by far the most satisfactory intelligence we have yet received since we landed in Abyssinia, and if these supplies continue to come in, it will very greatly shorten the duration of our campaign. The great question is to accumulate supplies sufficient for us to march to Magdala. As long as we have to consume the supplies the mules bring up, the process of accumulation must be a very long one. Flour and meat are the only two articles of diet which are of material weight. The preserved vegetables, tea, sugar, and salt, amount together to under six ounces per diem per man; and one mule would therefore carry the rations of 500 men of these articles. When we reach Antalo and join the advanced force our number will not exceed 1200 Europeans, and 50 mules will carry three weeks’ rations for them, exclusive of meat, which we can always purchase, flour, and rum. At present the ration of rum is one drachm a day, but it is possible that at any moment this may be stopped; and it is at all events probable that no rum will be carried beyond Antalo. If, therefore, we can purchase flour and meat along the march, and the Europeans of the advance force number 3000, we shall only require six mules a day to carry their rations, or 186 mules for a month’s supply. Of course this calculation will not hold good for our journey, as it is most improbable that we shall succeed in getting flour or bread along the road; but if we can only buy sufficient quantities for our consumption while we are stopping at Antalo, it will be an immense [pg 272]relief to the transport-train. The native bread is not at all bad. It is baked in cakes about an inch thick and eight inches in diameter. It is dark in colour, and sometimes sour; but I have tasted some as good bread as one could wish to eat. The price I have paid here is a dollar for five of these loaves, weighing about a pound and a half each. Wood is very scarce, a dollar being charged for four bundles of sticks weighing under ten pounds a bundle.
The pause of to-day is made partly to enable the artillery to repair a wheel of one of their store-wagons, which broke in coming down the last descent, partly to rest the animals, which now, after four days’ work, greatly needed a day’s rest. We require more cavalry with us. The 3d Native Cavalry have had tremendously hard work; what with marching and picket-duty, the men never get more than two nights in the week in bed, and sometimes not more than one. It is surprising how the animals, with so great an amount of work and with insufficient food, keep in such good condition as they are at present. All the animals will, however, be improved by a short stay at Antalo.
The weather has very much changed since we left Ad Abaga. We have a strong and really cold north-wind blowing all day, and between five and eight o’clock of an evening it is most cutting. At night it drops; and the temperature is then not so cold as it was either at Senafe or Attegrat. The natives generally are affected with coughs and colds; and the amount of coughing which goes on at night in the vicinity of our tent is both astonishing and disagreeable.
Sir Charles Staveley came up from Zulla, and joined us on the day of our leaving Ad Abaga. He has taken command of the advanced brigade. I hear that, owing to the quantities [pg 273]of stores taken up by the trains which accompanied General Collings’s column and our own, the supplies at Senafe and other places along the line were very low; so much so, that the troops who were ordered up have been kept back at Zulla until further stores could be accumulated. I trust that by this time a large stock has been collected at Senafe, as Captain Griffiths, who commanded the portion of the transport-train which went forward with General Collings’s column, has just passed downward with his mules to fetch up another supply.
Antalo, March 4th.
When I wrote, four days since, from Doullo, I mentioned that we had news of flour and other stores being purchased in considerable quantities at Antalo, and that if supplies continued to come in, the prospects of the expedition would be altogether changed. But I certainly did not anticipate that we should be able to advance from here under three weeks or a month. Two days before we arrived here, indeed, there were rumours of a much earlier move than had been anticipated; and an order was issued that in all probability we should be compelled to go forward without either rum, tea, or sugar. Of course everyone is prepared to make great sacrifices, and to submit to every hardship which may be absolutely necessary. Every reduction of kit, the dismissal of the native followers, and the diminution of carriage, has been received not only without a murmur, but with actual satisfaction by everyone. The reductions were felt to be necessary; for in no other way would it be possible to penetrate this inhospitable country. It was considered pro[pg 274]bable that beyond Lât we should have to go without tents, and with only a blanket and one change of clothes; and I have not heard an expression of repugnance or complaint at the prospect: but this order to proceed without rum, tea, or sugar, was received with the gravest dissatisfaction by men and officers of all ranks. It was not as a matter of comfort that it was objected to, but as a matter of health. Rum is an article difficult of carriage, and can be dispensed with; sugar also might be done without; but tea is upon a campaign like this an absolute necessity, if the men are to have no rum. It is not that the tea is nice, for it certainly is not; it is positively nasty. It bears no resemblance whatever to the herb we drink in England as tea; at the same time it is an absolute essential. The mornings and nights are very cold; the troops are on the move at half-past five in the morning, when everything is saturated with dew; they are hard at work all day; their picket-duty is very severe; and to give them with their breakfast in the morning and their supper at the end of their day’s work nothing but cold water to drink, was simply to send the whole army into hospital. Were the water good, the results might not have been so disastrous, but it is almost always drawn from stagnant pools, and is the reverse of wholesome. Officers generally drink the water only after filtering, but the men never think of taking the trouble. Boiling the water is no doubt even superior in its effect to filtering it; but the men would certainly not boil the water if they had nothing to put in it. They would drink nothing but impure water, which in a country where the changes in temperature are so great and so sudden as they are here, would most certainly bring on dysentery in a very short time. The [pg 275]privation of their rum would in itself be much felt among the men. They have all been some years in India, where rum forms part of a soldier’s regular ration. They are accustomed to its use, and no doubt would feel somewhat its sudden privation. Had they been troops fresh from England, it would have mattered comparatively little. Our adjutant-general, Colonel Thesiger, is a total abstainer; I believe that is the polite expression for a teetotaller. Of course his theory is, that men are much better without spirits; and the present will be a great opportunity for testing the effects of a Maine Law. I believe, however, that officers and men would give up their rum and their sugar without a murmur where tea is but allowed them; but I am sure that bad water alone will lay up half the troops. Nor will there be any saving in carriage by leaving tea behind. We shall have to take a greater weight of medicines than we should of the tea. The reason given for thus leaving behind what everyone feels to be, bad as it is, the most precious portion of our stores, was, that we can procure any amount of native carriage, but that the natives will only carry flour and grain, and refuse to undertake the carriage of rum, sugar, and tea, partly because of the greater responsibility, and partly because of the shape of the barrels and casks, which are inconvenient to pack upon the little oxen and donkeys. Everyone asks, Have we, then, no carriage of our own? Have we no available transport-mules besides those carrying the tents? One mule will carry from 150 to 200 pounds weight, which would give 500 men their day’s ration of tea. The advance brigade will not contain much over 3000 men, and consequently fifty mules will carry two months’ rations of tea for them; and it is an extraordinary [pg 276]thing if, out of the 15,000 baggage-animals in the transport-train, fifty cannot be spared to carry an article which everyone feels to be all-important both for the health and comfort of the troops. I am sure that Sir Robert Napier himself consented with the greatest reluctance to the proposition, and that he shares in the general satisfaction which is experienced at the report that the commissariat find that some of the natives are consenting to take on tea, if it is packed in skins or in stout bags, and that therefore a proportion of tea will at any rate be taken on.
I began this letter by saying that the news of the purchase of flour and grain would, if true, completely change the whole prospect of the expedition. I am happy to say that the news we heard is now more than verified, and that the commissariat are purchasing at the rate of 12,000 lbs. or 14,000 lbs. of flour a day. In addition to this, they are buying sufficient bread for the daily consumption of the troops. Very large convoys of native baggage-animals have also come in during the last few days, and we find ourselves with two months’ provision of all kinds, and four months’ provision of flour already in hand for the whole of the advanced division. This is a more forward state of things than I expected to have seen in another two months, and entirely alters the prospect of the campaign. Had we found the same dearth of food here which we experienced all along the line, we must have waited so long that it would have been an impossibility to have returned before the rain. Now there is a chance of our so doing.
Sanguine spirits even mention the 1st of April as the probable day for reaching Magdala. If we are there at the end of the first week in April, we shall, should Theodore [pg 277]await us and no hitch occur, start upon our return march by the 15th, pass through this place by the 7th of May, and be at Zulla in another month, that is, before the rains begin. I have, however, seen so many unforeseen obstacles, so many unavoidable delays occur since we first landed, that I cannot put any faith in this sudden express speed. When we arrived here two days since, the intention was that we should march on the 6th. I hear that our advance is now postponed, at any rate, until the 9th; and I should not be surprised if we were here for a week after that date. The fact is, no one knows anything whatever about the roads in front of us. All travellers, with one exception, who have journeyed here have turned to the right at Antalo, and have gone down the valley to Socota. The one exception is Dr. Krapf, and his report of the road is far too vague to be of any practical utility. It only requires a look to the southward of this camp to give us a notion of the country we are going to travel through. A chain of rugged mountains with peak rising beyond peak extends in an unbroken line. Over or through them we have somehow to get, and at present we know next to nothing about them.