It was between twelve and one we heard the Fit-Auraris engaged, and there was sharp firing on both sides, which soon ceased. Michael ordered his army immediately to halt; he and the king, and Billetana Gueta Tecla, commanded the van; Welleta Michael,and Ayto Tesfos of Siré, the rear. Having marched a little farther, he changed his order of battle; he drew up the body of troops which he commanded, together with the king, on a flat, large hill, with two valleys running parallel to the sides of it like trenches. Beyond these trenches were two higher ridges of hills that ran along the side of them, about half a musket-shot from him; the valleys were soft ground which yet could bear horses, and these hills, on his right and on his left, advanced about 100 yards on each side farther than the line of his front. The gross of these side-divisions occupied the height; but a line of soldiers from them came down to the edge of the valleys like wings. In the plain ground, about three hundred yards directly in his front, he had placed all the cavalry, except the king’s body-guards drawn up before him, commanded by an old officer of Mariam Barea. As prince George was in the cavalry, he strongly solicited the Ras at least to let him remain with them, and see them engage; but the Ras, considering his extreme youth and natural rashness, called him back, and placed him beside me before the king. It was not long before the Fit-Auraris’s two messengers arrived, running like deer along the plain, which was not absolutely flat, but sloped gently down towards us, declining, as I should guess, not a fathom in fifteen. Their account was, that they had fallen in with Fasil’s Fit-Auraris; that they had attacked him smartly, and, though the enemy were greatly superior, being all horse, except a few musqueteers, had killed four of them. The Ras having first heard the message of the Fit-Auraris alone, he sent a man to report it to the king; and, immediately after this, he ordered two horsemen to go full gallop along the east side of the hill, the low road to Wainadega, to warn Kefla Yasous of Fasil’s being near at hand; he likewise directed the Fit-Auraris to advance cautiously till he had seen Fasil, and to pursue no party that should retreat before him. The King, the Ras, and the whole army, began to be in pain for Kefla Yasous; and we should have changed our ground, and marched forward immediately, had we not heard the alarm-guns fired by Fit-Auraris Netcho, and presently he and his party came in, the men running, and the horses at full gallop. Ras Michael had given his orders, and returned to the presence of the king on his mule; he could not venture among horse, being wounded in the middle of the thigh, and lame in that leg, but always charged on a mule among the musquetry. He said shortly to the king, “No fear, Sir, stand firm; Fasil is lost if he fights to-day on this ground.”