road, along which even our jaunting-car could not pass; but a short walk brought us out, after passing under a dark wood, suddenly in full view of Lough Derg.

We seemed to have left civilisation far behind. Not a house was to be seen. Bare mountains, rising wave after wave, surround the mysterious little lake, where in that island, not far from the shore, was the narrow vault dug by Ulysses when he made his descent into hell, or by the more orthodox ascribed to St. Patrick, who is said to have "obtained, by his fervent prayers, to make the people eye-witnesses of those punishments and tortures which the wicked endure after this life."

Thousands of pilgrims flocked from all parts of the country to this spot every summer, and, though the numbers are now reduced to hundreds instead of thousands, the superstition has not died out.

All the summer certain priests live in the houses which have taken the place of the old monastery in the island, and spiritually console and absolve the penitents who visit them; and then the whole road and island present a lively scene. But when we were there the pilgrims' season was over, the island-buildings were deserted, the gigantic ferryboat laid up in its winter-house, and not a soul could be found to take us across. However, there was a boat which we managed to launch, and, with one oar and a piece of board, we contrived to reach the saints' island.

There was not a breath of wind, and standing on this solitary spot, the gate of Hades, the stillness was so intense all round, that it could almost be heard. It was a relief to hear the wild cry of the heron, which rose, startled at our approach, from the far side of the island, where he had been quietly fishing, for the lake is full of trout, from the smallest to a very good weight.

We left the solitary lake to its loneliness, and our lively carman drove us along again with all his usual demonstrations by voice and whip. Really, Irish horses are the most wonderful animals to keep on their legs. Our driver, in answer to our exclamations of surprise at his reckless driving, replied, "Sure I won't give him time to go down, yer honour!" and neither Paddy's lungs, most powerfully exercised all the way along, nor his horse's spirits, seemed in the least depressed as we rattled down the steep hill into Ballyshannon, once also a flourishing country town, which, before the Union, returned its two members to parliament.

We had lingered long at Lough Derg, and often by the road, as every new view, more charming than the last, of the lake or mountains opened itself before us. We had spent some time also at Belleck, interested in that national work, the china manufactory, established by one of the most enterprising and truly patriotic men Fermanagh possesses. I say national work, for is it not what the nation wants, above all law reform or franchise, to have manufactories, seats of industry, established on her soil? We lingered along the banks of the rushing Erne, swollen by recent rains, madly foaming over the stubborn walls of opposing limestone, dashing up white mists of spray, eddying on silently, but swiftly, under the dark overhanging cliffs pierced by caves, and crowned by swaying trees, till, gathering strength for a new effort, again the dark, peat-coloured water rushes at another fall. And now, as we drive down the steep hill of the little town, our eyes are dazzled by the bright gas; so that it is a relief to find ourselves again in the simple clear moonlight.

The aspect of the country has gradually altered since we left Belleck; and now all round are bare hills, divided into stony unprofitable-looking fields by cold stone walls. The weather, delightful in the morning, has changed; the wind comes keen and chill from the north; the sea, even, is shivering in the silver light; the mountains, wrapped in mist for half their height, hold up their cold heads against the clear sky, as if longing for a cap of cloud; and the prospect of a good fire, accompanied by a good supper, inside one of those bright windows bespangling the hill before us, becomes more and more agreeable. And a good fire and capital supper, and still better beds, we have. We are again in an hotel kept up by gentlemen.

The Brighton of Ireland! Well, it's as little like our London-superMare as any collection of houses could well be. A long street, nearly a mile and a half from end to end, with one or two terraces running at right angles to it along the sea, form the whole town. But we did not come to see the houses, but the scenery and the people, and in these we certainly were not disappointed. Bundoran lies along the south-eastern corner of the Bay of Donegal, whose coast is here fronted with rugged limestone cliffs, pierced by curious caves and grottos, worn even in one or two places into grotesque pillars and arches, running out into bold headlands, and retreating again into quiet shelving bays, floored with finest sand of crushed shells of every tint, tempting for a bath. The Atlantic rolls in with all its force.

We were fortunate; there was a great storm on Sunday afternoona regular sou'-wester. We stood upon the black craggy rock of the boldest headland, about a mile from the town. Below us was the mouth of a dark cavern; and as the sea came rolling in, in all its fury, wave after wave rushed up the cave, filling it, till the pent-up air burst the water out again, like a falling waterspout; with a huge, booming noise; and ever and again a great wave recoiling from the dark cliff, and meeting one inward bound, they leap up as if trying which can overcome the other.

Can London-super-Mare compare with such glorious sea as this?

Again, look across the bay and see those mountains sometimes rising so clearly out of the blue, glistening water, that every watercourse and change of herbage can be traced upon their faces; and at others half veiled in uneven white mists, or capped at sunset with gold and crimsoncoloured clouds gently resting on their summits, crowning them with glory. There, just opposite, pointed out by its white lighthouse on St. John's head, lies Killibegs. Charming little harbour.! defended on every side by guardian mountains from the fear of storms, and at the farthest corner of the bay, rising majestically two thousand feet above the ocean, so nearly perpendicular that a stone can be dropped from the top into the sea, is the famous cliff of Sleive League.

Why is it that a country so near, so beautiful, so rich in land, and mines, and harbours, and all the natural resources of power, whose people are so fit in mind and body for the highest arts and greatest labour, should yet remain so much unknown, its wealth so slightly developed?

How comes it-we repeat the often-quoted question of the Kilkenny parliament, but we may not stay now to answer it-how comes it that the sovereign is never the richer for Ireland?

C. K. O.

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

THE CAMPAIGN IN ABYSSINIA.

THE campaign projected for the relief of our countrymen and other Europeans-diplomats and missionaries-detained and grievously illtreated by the treacherous and vindictive Theodorus, presents so many elements of the unknown, so many difficulties to encounter at the onset, and so many more in carrying it out to a successful issue, that a few words explanatory of the real state of things will be probably welcome to our readers.

It is necessary to understand the bearings of the question to premise a few words regarding the present ruler of Abyssinia. We shall then proceed to things as they now exist, or at least are supposed to do so, up to the latest moment at our command. Then to the discussion of the most available means of getting into the interior, and the character of the harbours and shores, of the littoral or the extensive tract of almost uninhabited country which stretches from the shore to the Abyssinian uplands (and which we shall show to vary much in its character at different places), and of the interior itself.

In reading the accounts of travellers since the time of Father Lobo (translated by Dr. Johnson, who afterwards penned his "Rasselas" from the intimacy obtained with the country in that task), and who visited Abyssinia in the fifteenth century, or the more recent voyages of Bruce, Salt, Burckhardt, Rüppell, Krapf, Vayssières, Gobat, Beke, Parkins, Lejean, and others, we find everywhere the same civil wars, the same feudal chiefs arrogating to themselves the ruling power, the same devastated provinces, the same desultory combats, which, by deciding the fate of a few months or a few years, allow the country to taste the blessings of peace for longer or shorter intervals. At the end of every brief period new rivals start up, and anarchy and disorder succeed the temporary calm. When Theodorus, or Theodore, then known as Kassa, or Li Kassa, a young man of good family, though poor, proclaimed his independence at the head of a handful of followers, cast off his allegiance to King John, and defied his cowardly but powerful minister Ras Ali, it was only one more of the inevitable insurrectionary movements which have never ceased to desolate the country. Theodorus was at that epoch thirty-two to thirty-three years of age; he was at that age not only bold and enterprising, but he was also sober, pious, and endowed with a superior intelligence, and hence it is not surprising that he should have been joined, under the temptations of plunder, by a band of enterprising followers. Ras Ali, beginning to be alarmed, gave him his daughter in marriage, and named him governor of the country he had taken possession Oct. VOL. CXLI. NO. DLXII,

K

of. Kassa agreed to these terms, and from that time directed his attention to the Sudan, the cradle of the Abyssinian empire. He descended into the plains of Galabar, which are extremely fertile in grain and cattle, at the head, it is said, of some sixteen thousand or twenty thousand men ; but the East is the land of extravagant diction, and especially of numerical exaggeration. His army was, however, repulsed by a handful of Egyptian troops entrenched behind some extemporised earthworks. It was then that Theodorus obtained his first lesson in the art of modern warfare, and of the importance of great guns and musketry—a lesson which has never since been lost upon him.*

Although deceived, humiliated, and wounded, and his army decimated and mutinous, his spirit did not abandon him. A surgeon had refused to extract the Egyptian bullet which had been lodged in his body, except upon the preliminary payment of a cow; he had appealed for this to his wife's family, but in vain, and, disgusted at such treatment, he was no sooner restored to health than he raised a new band of adventurous followers and commenced pillaging the provinces under the government of Ras Ali. The youthful insurgent was summoned to court, but he refused to go. Several so-called generals were sent out against him; these he vanquished with ease, and increased his army by means of their soldiers. At last, fancying himself strong enough to attack Ras Ali at his amba, or strong place, he did so with success, obtaining possession of the place; the governor, his father-in-law, managing to save his life by flight, but leaving to the fortunate conqueror his army, his country, and his strong place.

Kassa having thus attained to power, he defeated all his rivals, the independent chiefs of Godjam, Shoa or Shwa, and Tigray. So great and so rapid were his successes, that scarcely a year had elapsed from the flight of Ras Ali before Kassa was hailed by the whole of Abyssinia as emperor; and he was crowned under the name of Theodorus, or Theodore, in 1855, at the ancient metropolis of Ethiopia, Axum. For several years after this inauguration matters went on smoothly. All Abyssinia was subject to the new Cæsar, and his army, or rather the number of his armed subjects (and every adult is armed in such countries), estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand in very round numbers, looked upon him as more than human, and was ready to follow him everywhere and anywhere.

The idea of re-establishing the ancient Ethiopian empire became the dominating thought of the new emperor; but remembering his repulse by the Egyptians at Gadaref, he sought to arm and organise his troops after the European fashion. Being also a "Christian" prince of Africa, he sought the aid of England and France in what he termed a new crusade against the Mussulman race, offering in his pride to share the empire of the Muhammadans with his allies; and it is probably from the contemptuous refusal with which his propositions were met, that he has ever

* Théodore II.: Le Nouvel Empire d'Abyssinie. Les Intérêts Français dans le Sud de la Mer Rouge. Par Guillaume Lejean, Ancien Vice-Consul de France à Massaoua.

See also a letter from Dr. Blanc, one of the captives, to the Rev. M. Pauchaud of Lausanne, originally published in the Indépendance Belge, and in which a summary is given of the above work, as also in the New Monthly for July, 1866.

since-although he has tolerated some Europeans for useful purposes, and extended his positive friendship to others, as to the Englishmen Bell and Plowden-nurtured a profound dislike to both English and French-a dislike which, in his later years of fierce and uncontrolled passions, having their origin in inebriation, debauchery, and the sanguinary lust of power, has assumed the sad character of a vindictive and deadly hostility.

The number of armed men whom he is said to have surrounded himself by in order to carry out his favourite idea, has been estimated at the enormous figure of seven hundred thousand men. But we have before called attention to the latitude which must be given to these Oriental estimates, especially where the men are not enrolled. Be this, however, as it may, it is certain that such a mass of soldiery had to be fed and clothed at the expense of the remainder of an exceedingly poor and by no means numerous population, and that the Abyssinians, tired at last with so miserable an existence, naked and badly fed, whilst the soldiers were fully provided for, rebelled against a yoke which had become so fatally oppressive. Theodorus had thus at the onset of his career to waive his pretensions to an extension of power and dominion, and to devote all his energies to re-establishing order. But once that authority has been set at defiance in Abyssinia, it is difficult to compel the people to resume their allegiance to their king. This, it will be felt, has an important bearing upon the present state of things. Everywhere in the more remote provinces, and more especially in Shoa and Tigray, both on the way to the interior, if approached from Tajurra, or from Suakim or Massawah, the peasants took refuge in the mountains, and, under able leaders, they were enabled to set what are euphonistically designated as "the imperial troops" at defiance. Theodorus went forth in person to fight them, and such was the terror his very name inspired that he found resistance nowhere. He devastated the rebellious provinces; but as the peasants had not cultivated the land for a year or two, the tribute in corn, in silver, and in stuffs became more scarce in the camp. The soldiers complained, and then began to desert. Theodorus made vain. efforts; he was everywhere; there were no enemies, but there were also no victuals. It was a passive war; his soldiers, always victorious in the battle-field, were in turn vanquished by famine and decimated by desertion. There is a lesson also conveyed in this fact, in as far as famine and a deserted country extends, which might also, under very unfavourable circumstances scarcely to be anticipated, be made to apply to an invading army. Were Theodorus beloved by his subjects, such a category might be taken into serious consideration; but so oppressive and tyrannical has his rule become of late, that there are probably not a dozen Abyssinians in the whole country who would not hail their deliverance from the swarthy Nero as the happiest event which could befal them.

Little by little Theodorus's army decreased, and his dominions too; new independent kingdoms were formed, till at the present moment we have the authority of Mr. Henry Blanc for saying that he has not more than six thousand followers, while, with the exception of his chief ambas, or strong places, Devra Tabor and Magdala, and a few provinces, his kingdom exists no longer. Nay, according to the despatches which arrived at Aden from Massawah on July 15, the whole country was in rebellion; Theodorus was not only sorely beset by his enemies, but he