3-021-418 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Abyssinian Expedition: the place of execution of Theodore's prisoners at Magdala, 1868. '...on their way up to [the fortress of] Magdala on the Monday morning, a little below the spot where King Theodore [of Ethiopia] left some of his guns after the battle of Good Friday, the officers and men of the second brigade [British Army] witnessed a very shocking sight. The stench of dead and putrefying bodies caused them to look over the precipice by the roadside, where they saw, heaped on a ledge of rock, about 70 ft. below them, the corpses of a number of prisoners whom King Theodore had put to death on the Saturday, and had caused to be thrown down there. The number seen by our correspondent was 196, while other accounts say there were more than 300; but it is possible that some of the bodies may have been removed before our correspondent visited the dreadful scene. Who and what these slaughtered prisoners were, and why King Theodore should have perpetrated such a massacre immediately after his defeat, are questions not yet solved'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.