Presently the 33rd and Naval Brigade arrived on the spot, as well as Penn's Battery, and fire was opened upon Magdala by the guns and rockets. Soon some of the conical thatched houses which covered the top of Magdala were in flames, and after half an hour's fire the 33rd advanced to the attack. As they ascended the steep hill, shots were fired from the inside. The 33rd replied by thrusting their muskets through the loopholes; others climbed up a steep shoulder, from which they commanded the back of the gate. The defenders were shot down, and the English soon entered the place. A few shots more only were fired, and one of these proved fatal to the Abyssinian king. Whether he killed himself, or whether he was shot, will ever remain a disputed question. But the general opinion was that he fell by his own hands. Certain it was that the shot entered his mouth and passed out at the back of his head. The work of the expedition was now over. Great numbers of native prisoners, many of whom had been detained in Magdala for years, were released; the huts dignified by the name of the Palace were fired; and soon nothing remained of the royal town save blackened ashes. The expedition then turned its face to the sea, which it reached just in time. Had it been a few days later, the rains, which had already commenced, would have filled the passes, and confined the troops prisoners on the plateau land until their subsidence. The result of this expedition gave great satisfaction at home, and a peerage was conferred upon the able and fortunate commander, under the title of Napier of Magdala. CHAPTER TWENTY. THE ASHANTI WAR--1874. Seven years after the Abyssinian campaign another African war broke out, this time upon the western coast. Here, at a short distance above the line, lies the British colony of Cape Coast. The town, known as Cape Coast Castle, had been in the possession of the English for centuries, and a large tract of country down the sea coast, and extending back 80 miles to the river Prah, was under their protectorate.