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The March to Magdala

Chapter 1: PREFACE.
By G. A. Henty
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About This Book

A special correspondent's collected field letters chronicle a British military expedition into the Ethiopian highlands to secure the release of detained nationals. Presented largely in the original, present-tense dispatches, the account follows embarkation, sea transport, successive marches through rugged mountain passes, and the strain of supply and transport, describing camps, skirmishes, and the culminating assault on a remote mountain stronghold. Vivid landscape sketches and portraits of local peoples and customs are interwoven with tactical detail and reflections on the hardships, uncertainties, and how early predictions compared with actual experience.

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Title: The March to Magdala

Author: G. A. Henty

Release date: April 17, 2012 [eBook #39470]
Most recently updated: March 5, 2022

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARCH TO MAGDALA ***

THE MARCH TO MAGDALA.

LONDON:
ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS,
PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.

THE

MARCH TO MAGDALA.


By G. A. HENTY,
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE “STANDARD;” AUTHOR OF “A SEARCH FOR A SECRET,” ETC.



LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1868.

Contents
[pg v]

PREFACE.

In submitting to the public in a collected form the Letters which have already appeared in the daily press, a Special Correspondent has the option of one of two courses. The one course is, to publish the Letters as nearly as possible as they originally stood, as a journal written from day to day, and from week to week; the other, to recast the whole, to rewrite the Letters, and to give a continuous narrative of the expedition as of a past event. The second of these courses has the advantage of unity of purpose; it will contain fewer errors, fewer mistaken predictions of the probable course of events, and, above all, less of the repetitions which must unavoidably occur in a series of letters. The style, too, will naturally be far smoother and more polished than in the original letters, written as they usually were in haste and under circumstances of great difficulty. But, on the other hand, such a narrative would lose much of the freshness which original letters possess, and it would be deficient in that interest which a knowledge of the hopes and [pg vi]fears, the doubts and anticipations, the plans destined to be frustrated, and the opinions constantly varying with the course of events, must give to a narrative. The present tense too is far more pleasant and less monotonous than the preterite. I have therefore determined, in submitting my Letters for republication, to adhere as closely as possible to the original form and matter; not hesitating, however, to make many additions, alterations, and excisions, where subsequent information or the course of events have proved my opinions or conclusions to have been erroneous.

The present work does not profess to be a scientific record of the expedition. It gives neither statistics, general orders, nor official documents. This will no doubt be hereafter done by some officer far better qualified for the task than I can be. It is merely the plain narrative of a looker-on, who accompanied the expedition from the commencement of December 1867, when affairs at Zulla were at their worst, to the closing scene at Magdala. At the same time, I have not shrunk from stating my own opinions as to the course of events. A great disaster like that of the complete break-down of the Transport-train at Zulla cannot occur without grievous blame attaching to somebody. I conceive it to be one of the first duties of a correspondent to state fearlessly the persons and the causes which, [pg vii]in his opinion, have brought on a great public disaster. Unpleasant, therefore, though it be to find fault, I have not hesitated to assign the blame where I consider it was due. This I did in the very first letter I wrote from Zulla after landing, before I had gone up to Senafe; and the opinion I then expressed, I now, after months have elapsed, and after hearing the matter discussed in every light, do not hesitate to reaffirm.

With the exceptions I have alluded to, the Letters are the same in form and substance as when they appeared in the columns of the Standard; and although, for the reasons I have given, I am convinced that it is the wisest course to leave them so, yet, remembering as I do the circumstances of haste, fatigue, and difficulty under which they were written, I cannot but feel extreme diffidence in submitting them to the public “with all their errors on their head.”

G. A. H.