3-021-424 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Abyssinian Expedition: view of the plateau at Senafe, looking towards the Adowa Peaks, 1868. View from a hill near the camp of the British Army, looking '...in a south-west direction, across the rocky basin in which Senafe lies, and over the level surface of the upland platform beyond it, as far as the city of Adowa, which is not, however, itself visible, but the situation of which is perceived by the singular group of peaked hills that surround it. Adowa is one of the largest towns in Abyssinia; and Axum, in its neighbourhood, contains the ruins of the ancient metropolis of the kingdom of Ethiopia. These places, belonging to the province of Tigre, which has rebelled and seceded from the empire of King Theodore, may not, perhaps, lie in the way of the British military operations. The advance of our army from Senafe will rather be directed along the road southward, by Attegerat to Antalo, the eastern capital of Abyssinia...The distance from Senafe to Antalo, as shown by the map, is about a hundred miles, and from Antalo to Magdala 150 miles, generally taking a southward course'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.