KING THEODORES OF ABYSSINIA.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 79, 13 July 1868, Page 168

KING THEODORES OF ABYSSINIA.

The cable announces that General Napier has fought the Abyssinian army, carried its stronghold, and killed its King who was personally com manding the forces of the ‘Empire. His real name was Li Kassa. Under this name he organised a revolt in 1850 against the Government of the country, then ruled over by “King John” who was the last of the royal Mohammedan line, and who bore the title of “ Negus,” anglice Emperor. At this date Li Kassa was 32 years of age. By address, cunning, and. by the assumption of sobriety to the degree of austerity, be inaugurated himself with several warlike' tribes, and starting with but a handful, received considerable accessions by which he was able to subdue and attack several outer provinces. At first he set up only as chief of partisan adherents. What, however, with the growth of ambition, and the native restlessness of his followers, he excited the alarm of Ras Ali, head minister to the King to secure him, the latter offered to Li Kassa his daughter in marriage, on the condition precedent of his ceasing hotilities to the Government. The marriage took place, and for the time Li Kassa was pacific to the royal rule. He, however, turned his arms in another direction. With 16,000 men Egypt was invaded, and Li Kassa decended from the heights of Jichelsa to the plains of Gala bar. At Ganardras, however, his army was totally routed by the Turkish relays of the Egyptian, Seudan, and Li Kassa himself was badly, and permanently, crippled by a bullet in the knee. Impoverished in spirit and broken in fortune, he was not able even to fee an Abyssinian doctor to extract the ball from his leg and without money the leech refused to work. Tn this extremity of suffering he besought his wife to .send him a cow, by the gift of which he hoped to stimulate the physician’s with-held milk of human kindness. The cow never came, but there did come plenty of taunts, and a notice of final abandonment, from, Mrs Li Kassa then so-called. Stung, to the energy of revenge by this treatment, the chief determined, to have it' out with his wife, her ministerial 'father; and the whole regal concern.; Partially recruitings both his health and; ;,his forces, he began an indiscriminate career of pillage upon the,Paternal Government.” He. was formally impeached by the Abyssinian Bump, and summoned iot trial: ‘Heywißntljbut it was to the wager, of'^battle.. ’ "The respective chiefs sent out against him were defeated,'and at Amba he completely vanquished Ras Ali himself, the Premier of the kingdom, and the

father of his wife, by whom he wias loved neither too wisely nor too well.

As a result of this he was crowned Emperor, under the name of Theo- ! dorus, at Assum, by the Bishop of Salarna; For a while he was quiet, 1 but,, smarting, under rememberance, he again invaded the territory of the * Egyptian Seudan, after ineffectually' having solicited the Governments of France and England to join in his crusade, which comprised in design the re-establishment of the ancient Ethiopian Empire.. , The expedition was successful as against ■ the Seudan. But the army which by numbers had conquered was practically starved out by the Fabian policy of his antagonist, and desertions by the wholesale at i last left Thegdorus a barren victory and the' headship of a* force not larger than 6,000 men and the control of a few futile fortresses. The foreign entanglements which have eventuated iu the present war and the supremacy of British rule in Abyssinia began prior to Theodorus’s accession .to the throne as far back as 1848. A Mr Plowden, British Consulate at Massowah, had concluded a treaty favorable to the residence and business of foreigners in the empire. . Theodorus set -this wise concession, of Ris Ali, bis enemy and father-in-law, quietly aside and played the plunderer and freebooter with Europeans in general and Britishers in particular. Mr Plowden himself was killed by a predatory band in the interior. To keep up a friendly appearance, Theodorus slaughtered 1,500 of his subjects as reprisal. Mr Plowden was succeeded by Captain Cameron. He was received with outward kindness but every official obstacle was thrown in his way and he himself was captured by a Tigre chief. Released after delay, however, he bore an autograph letter from Theodorus to Victoria soliciting English aid to realize his old dream of restoring the Ethiopian Empire. To this proposition Earl Russell returned a refusal. Returning with his refusal, Captain Cameron was maltreated, and all the English missionaries in the. country were imprisoned. The successive diplomatic attempts to negotiate these gentlemen out of confinement are familiar to the public. They failed, and last year General Robert Napier set out from India with an expeditionary force of Britons and Sepoy allies, comprising iu all an estimate of 30,000 men. Thesteps .taken, slowly but surely, by this force, the tardy with which the constituents of the home government acquiesced in the extra imposition of > taxes necessary to the expenses of the campaign, all the incidents preliminary to the one decisive battle have become familiar to our readers. That the-campaign is virtually ended in one battle dissipates many of the apochryphal stories concerning the resources, if not the bravery of the Abyssinian forces, and the disco very f alive and well, of the English prisoners, who have been the gravamen of the dispute, will send satisfaction as generally through all Christendom as it will be particularly through the British Empire. The dead Theodorus ! was forty seven years old, was of average stature, imposing presence* and of an irregular, but not unimpressive physignoiny; His habits were those of an astute demagogue* At court he revelled in luxury and show. : In the field, he affected simplicity as. well of dress as of diet. He has been credited with being chivalrous and frank. His varied fortunes changed him to duplicity and cruelty. To get power he was temperate, brave austere. ; In power he proved vindictive and savage, though ; not devoid of the politics arts which conserved the responsibilities he had gained by usurpation. ' After the ruptiire of his alliance .wjth the daughter of Ras Ali,. lie became very muehmarried; v'-:.

He seisms‘tphave taken ;no; means to name his successor,,; r ; It isprobable that British jpccupation'. will effect, and has all along been intended as the precursor of ' British rule. The v Spectator, months Ago, ga/ve out that, England would hold! what" Napier would win.;. The , kingdom; of Abyssinia is probably as dead as Theodorus, and 'the’land will them become,; as India, ■ a of the ;; 'country ;; whose; drum-beats are heard j aroimdL - the world. v V*'* V