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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 815, 9 January 1868, Page 2

Speaking of the Abyssinian expedition, the Athenmum writes :

A vast armament is being fitted out under the command of one of our ablest Generals, who, after serving with glory in China, India, and Persia, is about to gather fresh laurels in Eastern Africa. According to the most recent intelligence, the pioneer expedition, under the command of Col. Merewether, has already left Aden, for the purpose of finding a suitable harbour and shore for the location and debarkation of some two hundred steamers and transports ; and in a few weeks they are to be followed by the main body of the army, under Sir Robert Napier, consisting of at least ten thousand men of all arms, with followers swelling tlie number to more than twice as many. It is pro bable that the landing will take place in

Annesley Bay, otherwise the Bay of Adulus —the “ Key of Abyssinia,” as has recently been pointed out in our columns ; where such a congregation of vessels and troops will not have been since the Emperor Elesboas, with the co-operation of his ally, the Roman Emperor Justinian, fitted out a fleet for the transport of seventy thousand Abyssinians into Arabia, of which country he subjugated the whole coast from Leuke Kome to Sabsea, gaining the complete mastery in the Red Sea. Of this supremacy the Abyssinians were shortly afterwards deprived by the Persians ; but, as Gibbon remarks, “ if a Christian power bad been maintained in Arabia, Mahomet must have been crashed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a revolution, which has changed the civil and religious state of the world.”

It is well for a wayfarer not to whistle until he is out of the wood. “One of our ablest Generals” may find Abyssinia a greater difficulty than is anticipated, although we hope not. At the same time, and notwithstanding all that is said about a “vast armament,” it may turn out, as it did in the Crimea and elsewhere, that the British Government will be better prepared for war at the end than at the beginning of the campaign. There is a sense, too, in which, —asmuchas with the English Reform Bill, —this Abyssinian venture is “ a leap in the dark.” Abyssinia is marked in our map as the “Mountains of the Moon ” are ; but confessedly we do not know much ot the one or the other. Books, mere catchpennies most of them, are now appearing on the subject, but they will do little more than make the darkness visible. Practically, Abyssinia is an unknown land—unknown as regards its geography, and equally unknown as regards its politics. If we are, however, to credit one or more of the publications referred to, it would appear that King Thodore is not exactly a mindless savage. Rather, indeed, he is like some of our Maori chiefs, a man of mark, who may give the British some trouble. Here is a description of the monarch by a gentleman for some time French vice-consul at Massowah. It is rather florid, as French descriptions are apt to be :

“ The man on whose head now rests the lot of Abyssinia is forty-six years of age He is of average stature, of an imposing carriage, and of an open and sympathetic physiognomy. His features less regular than those of most Abyssinians, are expressive and changeable, and have none of that borrowed dignity which marks certain Oriental faces with solemn insignificance. The look is lively and piercing; the distinct lines of the profile well express the firm will which has enthralled the freest and least docile people of the East. Rigorous towards others in matters of etiquette, the Negus has emancipated himself in matters of costume, and affects a negligence which, however, never becomes bad taste. A simple soldier’s coat, a pair of trousers, and a belt from which hang pistols and an English sword, and over all a chama, or embroidered toga-this is his habitual costume. That which at first is the most striking in Theodore is a happy combination of suppleness and force especially of force. Born proud, violent, and inclined to pleasure, he commands his passions in this sense —that they never make him overstep the limits he Las marked out for himself. He has been unjustly accused of drunkenness, and on this subject the late French consul has collected some information. He is very sober, eats little, drinks more, but never up to any marked over-excitement, far less to coarse drunkenness more worthy of a yolof or Mandingo king than of a sovereign of Christian-Abyssinia.” We shall probably know more by-and-bye. If the man would stay and fight his assailants, all might turn out well, and the campaign be soon o"er, but there is reason to fear that be knows better and will be to us what the Parthians were to the Romans. Theodore is a barbarian unquestionably, measured by a Western standard, but on the other hand he appears to know a thing or two, and his knowledge or rather perhaps British ignorance may lead to a good deal of trouble.