When we reached the cavalry, however, we found a state of some excitement prevailing: some eight or ten horsemen, among whom Captain Speedy had recognised Theodore himself, having just galloped up brandishing spears and discharging their muskets in defiance. Colonel Locke could not, of course, charge without orders; and, indeed, it would have been most imprudent to do so, as the whole of the shoulder, a quarter of a mile wide, and six or seven hundred yards to the fort of Magdala, were covered with the little huts, behind and in which any number of men might be concealed. Colonel Locke then threw-out a few of his men as skirmishers. The horsemen continued to gallop about, sometimes approaching to within three hundred yards, sometimes dashing across the plateau as if they meditated a descent into the valley far below by one of the winding paths which led down. To prevent this, Colonel Locke called to five or six soldiers of the 33d, and two or three artillerymen, who had somehow got separated from their corps and had come down towards us, to take up a position to command the path, and to open fire if the horsemen attempted to go down it. At the same time we saw upon the top of Salamgi, behind us, a company of the 33d, who had gone up there to plant the colours. Colonel Locke had the advance blown, and signalled to them to come down to command the opposite side of the shoulder, in case the horsemen might attempt to descend into the valley by any path which might exist upon that side. The horsemen again moved in and discharged their rifles at us; and the cavalry keeping their places, our little party of 33d answered with their Sniders. As they did so, they moved forward, and in another hundred yards we came upon no less than twenty cannon, which Theodore had, no doubt, intended to have moved across into Magdala, but had had no time to accomplish. These were, of course, taken possession of; and, as an officer remarked with a laugh to me, it is probably the first time that twenty guns were ever captured in the face of an enemy by six men of the line, two artillerymen, three or four officers, and the press. In the tumbrils of the guns were their ammunition; and Lieutenant Nolan, of the Artillery, assisted by two artillerymen, Captain Speedy, and the civilians, at once proceeded to load them, and opened fire with ball upon the foot-men, a hundred or so of whom we could now see clustered at the foot of the road up to Magdala; the 33d men keeping up a fire upon the horsemen and a few foot-men running over the plains, and who occasionally answered; and the company of the 33d, who had now come down nearly to the foot of the slope behind us, also opening fire. It was one of the funniest scenes I ever saw. There was Magdala at 500 yards’ distance, with its garrison keeping up a scattered fire at us, none of the bullets, however, reaching so far; there were a few shots from behind the little haycock huts; there was Theodore himself galloping about