3-021-420 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Abyssinian Expedition: the water-tanks at Zulla, 1868. Engraving of a sketch by Captain F. F. Atkinson, 45th Regiment (British Army). 'Officers and men of all the services are working like slaves, dressed in every conceivable costume...A condensing-engine...is working day and night, filling water-tanks for the numerous fatigue parties employed in its vicinity and also for the use of the locomotives...At these tanks,...an average number of 6000 animals daily receive their supply of water. In the morning and evening an almost interminable line of sheep, cattle, and beasts of burden may be seen hurrying with extreme impatience towards the trough, which is capable of accommodating about one hundred of the animals at once. Horses, in their mad desire for water, often break the rein and halter, and gallop furiously down to the tanks. Each and all are allowed as much as they wish to drink, before being driven away to make room for their neighbours. Their Indian drivers and attendants drink at the same time with them, side by side. The natives of the country cannot understand how such an immense crowd of men and animals obtain this water...The process of condensing must seem to their unscientific minds a kind of black, unholy magic'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.