The scene is a very amusing one. The Punjaubees do not stand, but sit in a circle, and play away with the greatest gravity; very well they play too, for they are beyond all comparison the best band out here. The sailors dance without the least idea that there is anything comic in the business; while round stand a crowd of amused soldiers and of astonished natives of the country, to whom the whole performance is a profound mystery.
The Punjaub Pioneers still maintain the high opinion they have earned by their hard work. They are indeed a splendid regiment, and reflect the greatest credit upon Major Chamberlain, their popular commanding-officer. Major Chamberlain’s case is a particularly hard one. He was promoted to the rank of major during the mutinies, and was subsequently, for his great services, recommended no less than three times for his colonelcy. The Indian Government, however, refused, on account of his recent promotion. Eleven years have since elapsed, and that objection must long ere this be done away with; and yet Major Chamberlain is only Major Chamberlain still. It is to be hoped that at the end of this campaign a tardy recognition will be made of his services.
It was Major Chamberlain and his Punjaubees who found water at a short distance from Zulla. He asserted, and very rightly, that as there was water at Koomaylo, it must find its way down to the sea somehow, and so he set his men to work to dig. Down he went steadily, amidst the laughter and chaff of his friends in the Engineers. Still he persevered, and at nearly sixty feet from the surface he struck water. An abundant supply is now obtainable from this well, and by this service alone he has amply earned his promotion.
The difficulties of writing since we left Lât have been greater than ever, and the manual operation of inditing an epistle is a most serious business. Of course there is nothing resembling a chair or a table,—not even a box. The only way to write is lying upon the ground, and putting one’s paper upon one’s pillow. Now my pillow is not a comfortable one for sleeping upon, much less for writing. It is composed of a revolver, a box of cartridges, a telescope, a bag of dollars, a packet of candles, a powder-flask, a bag of bullets, a comb, a pair of stockings, and a flannel-shirt,—in fact, all my worldly belongings. A most useful kit, no doubt, but uncomfortable as a pillow, inconvenient as a writing-table. However, one gets accustomed to anything; and if this campaign lasts another month or two, we shall not improbably have learnt to dispense with much more important articles than tables and chairs; for we have only the clothes we stand in, and these are already giving unmistakable signs of approaching dissolution.
Dalanta, April 5th.
We are now getting to names which are somewhat familiar to us. The river Djedda, which the troops crossed yesterday, and the plain of Dalanta, where we are encamped to-day, were both mentioned frequently in the letters from the captives. The river Djedda was the place where Theodore was detained so long making a practicable road for his guns, and where he was represented as encouraging his men at their task by working with his own hands. Dalanta was the province or tract which was spoken of as in rebellion against him for a considerable time previously, but which submitted as soon as he had crossed the Djedda.
After I had sent off my letter of the 3d, intelligence arrived that Theodore had broken up his camp before Magdala, and was moving to attack us. I need hardly say that the news was untrue. The Chief, however, was bound to act upon it, and consequently we were ordered to march at seven; and instead of halting, as previously intended, upon the edge of the ravine of the Djedda, we were to cross and encamp on the other side, so as to avoid the possibility of having to take such a strong position. Colonel Milward, who had marched the evening before with the Punjaubees, and two companies of the 4th, was ordered to cross early, and General Staveley was to bring up his force to the edge of the ravine. We started punctually at the time ordered, and marched across a precisely similar country to that we had traversed for the few previous days. Some miles before we reached the edge of the Djedda the whole aspect was changed. The yellow stubble and hay, which had before stretched away upon both sides, was all burnt, and the ground was covered only with a black ash. The flocks and herds which had dotted the country were gone, and scarcely a human being was to be seen over the black expanse. The snug homesteads and villages had disappeared, and in their places were bare walls and heaps of stones. I rode up to one of these. On the floor lay the half-charred thatch of the roof; among it were portions of broken pots and baking effects. Here was a long round stone, which was used as a rolling-pin to make the flat bread; there was a large vessel of baked earth and cow-dung which had once held flour or milk. A rat scuttled away as I looked in. There was not a living soul in what had once been a large village. This was indeed the desolation of war. Presently we saw rising, apparently a few feet [pg 360]above the plain, at a distance of five or six miles, a long perpendicular wall of rock. This, we knew, was the upper edge of the opposite side of the Djedda. The ground then sank a little in front of us, and, riding along the slight depression, we suddenly turned a corner, and below us lay the wonderful gorge of the Djedda. Its width from edge to edge was four or five miles, its depth to the stream 3800 feet. It was a wonderful ravine. As far as eye could see either way, the upper part upon sides appeared like two perpendicular walls of perhaps a third of its total depth. Then, on either side, was a plain or shoulder of from a mile to a mile and a half in width, with a gradual slope towards the stream. The lower portion was again extremely steep, but still with a gradual descent, and not mere walls of rock like the upper edges. It was easy to imagine the whole process of the formation of this gorge. Originally it must have been an arm of the sea; a gulf of five miles across, and with perpendicular cliffs upon either side, and its depth the level of the broad shoulders. Then the land rose, and a great river ran through the centre of what was now a noble valley, gradually eating its way down until its bed attained its present enormous depth. It was this ravine which had been the cause of the immense detour we have had to make. Forty miles back, at Santarai, we were said to be as close to Magdala as we were when we stood prepared to descend into the Djedda. But the perpendicular walls barred our progress, and we have marched along nearly parallel to its course until we have reached the one spot where a break in its iron walls allow of our descent. By this route Theodore marched, and when we saw the road he had made for us, we felt for the first time since our arrival really grateful to the Abyssinian tyrant.
It is really a wonderful road, almost as good as could have been made by our own engineers; the only difference being that they would have thrown a layer of earth over the loose stones to bind them together, and to afford a firm and level surface. The road is really constructed with great engineering skill. Blasting-tools have been freely used wherever the rock required it. Every wind and turn, every shoulder and slope, has been taken advantage of in order to make zigzags, and render the descent more gradual. It is true that in places it is fearfully steep—an incline of one and a quarter to one—which, to convey the idea more popularly, is about the slope of the bank of a railway-cutting. The leaving the road in its present state, with loose stones, may have been done with an object, for upon a solid road of this angle it would have been next to impossible to have kept heavy cannon on wheels from running down, whereas upon a very loose and heavy road the matter was comparatively easy. The length of the descent is four miles and a half, that of the ascent three miles and a half. Two miles and a half of the former, and a mile and a half of the latter, are across and partially along the shoulders, where the slope was very slight. In consequence, it may be said that actually three thousand feet of depth were on either side attained in two miles, which would give an average incline of one in three. The road is from twenty to thirty feet in width; generally it is made through basalt, which, in cooling, had crystallised, so that its surface resembles a mosaic pavement, and this readily breaks up. Parts, however, are cut through a hard stone, and portions through a conglomerate, which must have tried to the utmost the tools and patience of Theodore’s army. How he achieved [pg 362]the task with the means at his disposal I am at a loss to understand; and the road has certainly raised Theodore very many degrees in the estimation of our men. Upon every level space in the camping-ground of his army, there are their fireplaces, and innumerable little bowers of five feet high and little more in diameter, in which his troops curled themselves up when their day’s work was over. It was a long and very weary descent. Going down a steep place is comparatively easy when one carries no load; but when one has over fifty pounds upon the back it is extremely trying. At last we reached the bottom, a stony waste of a quarter of a mile wide, with a few large trees growing upon what in the rainy season are, no doubt, islands. The bed of the stream is perfectly dry, except that here and there, at intervals of a quarter of a mile or so, were pools of water, very soft and unpleasant to the taste, and full of tadpoles. The troops when they arrived here were a good deal done up, having already marched thirteen miles, and it was hoped that the Chief would order a halt for the night. He, however, considered it essential that the plateau should be gained that evening, and Milward’s corps, whose rearguard left the river as we descended to it, supported. The troops were ordered to halt and rest until four o’clock, and to have their dinners, and the mules were to be unloaded, fed, and watered.