3-021-417 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Abyssinian Expedition: the Middle Sooroo Defile in the Senafe Pass, 1868. View of '...the Middle Sooroo defile, with a pioneer party making their way along it...The Tekonda Pass from the coast has now been given up as the route to be followed by the British army in ascending to the Abyssinian table-land. A pass leading more directly to Senafe, from the landing-place at Zulla in Annesley Bay, has been found...and troops are now daily pushed up to Senafe by this road; but it has required many days' labour to make the road passable for guns upon wheels. The Senafe Pass, as it will henceforth be called, is fifty miles in length. The Sooroo is by far the most difficult part of the Senafe Pass. It is a very narrow gorge, between high and precipitous mountains; and for about four miles the bed of the stream is completely choked up with enormous boulders, which must either be removed by blasting, or built over, to construct a practicable road. By the labour of several companies of Sappers, and working parties of the 10th, 21st, and 27th Beloochee Regiments of Native Infantry, very much has been done'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.