LATEST TELEGRAMS.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 276, 19 June 1868, Page 2

LATEST TELEGRAMS.

Galle, May 19. The Prince and Princess of Wales returned to London on the 27th of April, after their visit to Ireland. They visited Carnarvon on the route home.

The Abyssinian war is over. A decisive battle was fought during a violent storm of rain, thunder and lightning, at dusk in Arogee Valley on Easter Monday. Next day the English troops occuried strong positions before Magdala threatening the town. Theodoras sent Lieutenant Prideaux and his flag with two captives, offering to release all the others at once, if Sir Eobert Napier would assist him to consolidate his power. Sir Robert Napier, in reply, demanded the unconditional surrender of all the prisoners, promising, on that condition, protection to Theodoras and his family. Theodorus refused to submit to the force of a nation ruled by a woman. During that night he endeavored to escape with 500 followers to the mountains. However, the agents sent by General Napier had roused the Gallas tribe, who were offered very large rewards for capturing Theodorus, dead or alive. Finding he could not escape, Theodorus returned to Magdala. Next day, half his army, amounting to 5000 men, gave up their arms, and surrendered the strong positions of Q-ahla, Selassie, and Salamgee. The captives, sixty-one in all, were released. The German missionaries bringing with them their Abyssinian wives and children.

At daylight on Good Eriday, fire was opened on Magdala. The town was soon afterwards assaulted by troops, who entered with little difficulty. Upon their entrance Theodorus shot himself through the head. His body was found close by the inner gate. The garrison welcomed the invaders warmly. The army was to commence the return journey immediately. Of the Abyssinians, 5000 were killed and 1000 wounded. Numbers of the chiefs fell, their scarlet robes forming excellent marks for our riflemen. The English had one officer, Captain Roberts, of the 4th Regiment, and seventeen men wounded, not a man killed.

Sir Kobert Napier has been gazetted to the Order of the Bath.

The news of the attack upon Prince Alfred, at Sydney, occasioned great sensation in England and India. The British Parliament adopted addresses to the Queen on the subject. The Government has been defeated on the Irish Church question. The Fenians, Burke and Shaw, were found guilty, and received sentences respectively of fifteen and seven years. Reductions in the Prussian army are contemplated. The Submarine Cable from Malta to Alexandria is repaired. The capital is subscribed for the new Indo-European Telegraph. The race for the Two Thousand Guineas has been run. Moslem and Formosa ran a dead heat, and the stakes

were divided. A protest was entered, and Moslem walked over.

The closing scene of the assault at Magdala is told as follows by the correspondent of the "Times of India :

" Sir R. Napier could see that the defence of the garrison was. not likely to be desperate. When either shell or rocket fell among the group of houses near the gate, where the defending forces might have been expected to be, a rush of women and children from the spot was all that could be discerned. He humanely forbade artillery to be advanced, as the butchery of the innocent and defenceless would be wholesale. The guns were silenced, and the order of assault was formed about four o'clock, in the following order—the Royal Engineers and the Bombay and Madras Sappers went first; then the 33rd Regiment; after them the 45th Regiment. The 4th (King's Own) was in reserve, with Beloochees supporting. The batteries, which also moved forward, now and again cleared the neighborhood of the gateway with shells. The storming party advanced close to the natural wall of Amba before firing a shot, and then the Sniders opened fire. On the approach of our columns, Theodoras sounded his last rallying cry, and gathered his men around him for one more desperate effort. The bullets came whistling thick and fast over our heads, but as our squadrons closed on their centre, all that was over. A party had taken refuge behind the gate, from whence they kept firing upon the Engineers, who were busy belaboring the fabric. On either side of the gate was a loop-holed wall, flanked by a strong thick fence, composed of horizontal pointed stakes, through which it was found impossible to force one's way, and the slightest slip involved a fall of eighty or a hundred feet. A narrow track, fit only for goat 3 was discovered, and a few daring fellows scrambled along the narrow track, hauled up the scaling ladder, crossed the fence, chased the Abyssinians from behind, and assailed the gate, while the 33rd swarmed rapidly after them. Some woodwork then gave way, whereupon it was discovered in what the strength of the entrance consisted. The doors were double, and the space of twenty feet between them was strongly built up with large stones. Inside the gate lay a group of dead and wounded, mostly chiefs. But another and narrower ascent had yet to be faced which was defended by strong doors at the top, and commanded by loop-holed battlements all round. Up this the 33rd swarmed in single file, or climbed over huts, houses, and wall into the fort, bayoneting and shooting every armed man in the way. Magdala was taken. The firing had ceased. Theodoras lay dead beside the inner gate. The captives were crowding round the hands and feet of their deliverers, and the women were chanting notes of welcome."