When the cost of the assault came to be reckoned, it was found that 17 British had been wounded, though none of them mortally. The Abyssinian dead were estimated at 60, with double that number of wounded.
On the fourth morning after the fall of Magdala, the Abyssinians, to the number of 30,000, commenced their march for Dalanta. Every living soul having left, the gates were blown up, and the houses set on fire. The flames soon did their work, and nothing escaped.
On the 18th April, 1868, the troops turned their faces northward for their homeward march, their object fully attained.
CHAPTER LVII.
THE BATTLES OF AMOAFUL AND ORDASHU.
1874.
For years the Ashantees had been a source of trouble and annoyance to the British settlers on the Gold Coast, and the campaign of 1873-74 was by no means entered upon without considerable provocation from this barbarous and fanatical people.
With the march of time, Britain extended and strengthened her hold upon the settlement, and ultimately, pursuing this policy, brought out the Danes, and made exchanges with the Dutch there. These proceedings culminated in Britain becoming possessors of the whole of the territory formerly under Dutch protection. The taking over of the Dutch forts caused heart-burning among the Ashantees. Particularly was this the case with regard to Elimina, where, at the time the negotiations for the transfer were being considered, a number of Ashantee troops were lying.
King Koffee Kalkali, the ruler of the Ashantees, protested against the transfer, maintaining that the Dutch had no right to hand over the territory to Britain, as it belonged to him. Notwithstanding, the Dutch contrived to get rid of the truculent Koffee and his followers then stationed at Elimina.
Not only did the Ashantees resent the Anglo-Dutch agreement, but other tribes in several instances also took objection. This especially was the case as regarded the Fanties and Eliminas, who hated each other, and interchanged hostile acts, although by this time both were under one common protection.
The old hatred of Britain had been awakened. King Koffee assumed a dominant and aggressive spirit, and became bent on invasion. To some extent he was abetted by the Eliminas, who, in part at any rate, were disloyal to the whites. From these causes arose the campaign of ’73-’74 and the battles of Amoaful and Ordashu.