All were laden; for once, the men had to share the labours of their wives and families; and indeed I may say that the males of this portion of Abyssinia are less lazy, and more willing to bear their share of the family-labours, than were the men of Tigre, who, as I before mentioned, never condescend to assist their wives in any way. The men carried bags of grain—which, by the way, the men always carry on one shoulder, and not upon their backs as the women do; the women were similarly burdened, and in addition had gourds of water and ghee, with a child or two clinging round their necks. The children, too, carried their share of the household goods, all but the very little ones; and these, little, naked, pot-bellied things, trotted along holding by their mothers’ skirts. A few, who in the crowd and confusion had lost their friends, sat down and cried pitifully; but as a general thing they kept steadily up the steep ascent, which was trying enough to men, to say nothing of these poor little mites. Although an involuntary exodus, it did not appear to me to cause any pain or regret to anyone. Neither upon this occasion nor upon the day when they quitted Magdala did I see a tear shed, or witness any demonstrations of grief. Now, the Abyssinians are an extremely demonstrative people, and weep and wail copiously and obstreperously over the smallest fancied grievance; consequently, I cannot but think that the great proportion of the people were glad to leave Magdala, and to return to their respective countries. All pressed steadily forward; there was no halting, no delay, scarce a pause to take breath; for on their rear and flank, and sometimes in their very midst, were the robber Gallas plundering all whom they came across. I spoke of the Gallas in my last. Since that time they have become even more bold and troublesome, and not a few have fallen in skirmishes with our troops. Soon after we had joined the body of fugitives, I heard screams and cries in front, and riding-in at a gallop with my friend, we came upon a number of natives in a state of great excitement, the women crying and wringing their hands. They pointed to a ravine, and made us understand that the Gallas were there. Riding up to it, we came upon a party of eight or ten men with spears and shields driving off a couple of dozen oxen they had just stolen. Before they could recover from their surprise we were in their midst, and our revolvers soon sent them flying up the hill with two or three of their number wounded. We drove back the cattle, and were received with acclamations by the unfortunate but miserably cowardly natives, who could only with stones have kept their assailants at a distance, had they had the pluck of so many sheep. A few hundred yards further on we came upon another party of Gallas actively engaged in looting; and at the sight of us with our rifles and revolvers in hand, most of them fled; but we captured two of the