firm self-reliance, which ever brings them to the surface in the time of action, and impels them to the front in the hour of peril, would seem rather to justify the popular legend, which assigns a loftier origin to the name, and makes the first man of the family, what so many of his descendants have been-the man who had "nae peer." It is pleasant to find that the old heroic blood of the family is in no danger of dying out, and that it runs in every branch of that remarkable family. The blood of the inventor of the logarithms ran in the veins of the chivalrous Napiers, who only a few years ago disappeared from among us, though their achievements will endure as long as the nation; but scarcely have they sunk below the horizon than the eminence of the name is carried on and the glories of the race illustrated by one who counts, we believe, only a remote kinship with them-our latest hero-the Napier who conquered Abyssinia.

into the interior till six months' supplies had been stored on the coast, every one was ready with his cynical comment that this was not the way in which great successes were accomplished and victories wrested out of the hands of fortune.

army, with all the equipments of regular warfare, was simply to give King Theodore warning of our approach, and enable him to get out of our way. Under such circumstances it was very confiidently predicted that England was commited to a long and purposeless war at a fabulous expense; and that the least we could calculate upon was that the troops should remain in Abyssinia for a second year. The idea of their return before the rainy season of the present year set in was derided as a good specimen of the dreams in which men indulged who believed what they wished. We purposely pass over the predictions of the calamities that were to befall man and beast from the noxious climate and the plagues of the country-for these would equally have applied to any leader. But the special censure thrown upon Sir Robert Napier was the timidity of his movements, and his resolution to trust nothing to fortune. And when it was announcThe story of the Abyssinian Expeditioned that he refused to make an onward step has all the interest, and we may add all the completeness, of a romance. The incidents are as varied, and the catastrophe as impressive, as any that are to be found in works of fiction. In the brilliant success which has crowned the invasion we ought not to forget the sinister predictions with which it was undertaken. There was hardly a journal in this country that had not its evil word to say of the bold enterprise. The plans of the leader were censured as extravagant, and his anticipations of speedy success branded as visionary. We were told that the army was organized on a scale far more than proportioned to the work which it had to do, and that it would break down under its own weight. The idea of a force of 10,000 or 11,000 men being sent to bring a savage to terms was ridiculed as the height of timidity. Such an army, encumbered, as it must necessarily be, by a train of camp followers exceeding in number the fighting men whom they attended, would render the work of the commissariat an impossibility, and bring the expedition to a stand-still for want of supplies in the heart of the country, How much better would it be, we were reminded, to organize a force of 1,000 men or thereabouts, lightly equipped, and with them "make a dash" to seize the tyrant in his stronghold. But to move with a large

The issue of the expedition has been swift to vindicate the wisdom and foresight of the General, and to cover his detractors with confusion. There has been indeed, all through the expedition a rare admixture of prudence and daring. No precautions were neglected as far as precautions could be taken; no timidity was shown in those points where precautions were of no avail. The General laid his foundations broad and solid, in order that from them he might be able at last to make the bolder spring. It was no light matter to march 400 miles into the interior of a country that was almost unknown, and of which all sorts of evil were predicted; and the result showed that the determination of the General not to move till a large depot of provisions had been stored up was abundantly justified. For three parts of the march, at least, there were no supplies worth notice to be had in the country; and with all Sir Robert Napier's foresight, it will be remembered that for some time there was a doubt whether supplies could be brought up to the front sufficient to keep the troops

trusting to the spirit and valor of his troops, he made a dash at the enemy, and in one spring he secured his prize. It must be owned that in this great success he owed something to fortune, something to the doggedness and stupidity of his enemy; but these advantages were available to him only because he had neglected nothing in the way of prudence, and was thus in a position to seize fortune when it presented itself.

in their positions, much less to enable them to advance. That difficulty was at last overcome; but to the last moment it was the most anxious point in the expedition, and was only finally removed by the energy of the commander in stripping his army of the encumbrances with which Indian troops have been accustomed to move, and to leave behind every man and animal that was not absolutely necessary. It may now be admitted that the original allowance of camp Of the difficulties presented by the nature followers in proportion to fighting men was of the country we have not left ourselves a mistake, and for this the General must be room to speak. It is impossible, however, held in some measure responsible; but he to read the accounts of the correspondents deserves less censure for his putting the army who have accompanied the army of the ruginto what is after all the traditional condi-ged nature of the ground, the hills that were tion of an Indian army on the march, than to be climbed, the ravines that were to be he does credit for the promptitude and ener-threaded, and the precipitous and narrow gy with which he remedied the blunder, in opposition to the advice and remonstrances of the principal officers of his staff,

passes, where there was scarcely tooting for a loaded mule, that were to be penetrated, without being struck with the skill and resoAs to the extent of the force, whatever lution of the commander and the hardihood might have been the notion of critics at of his troops. Some criticism was made at home, the universal opinion of those with the time, of the wisdom of appointing an enthe army was that there was not a man too gineer officer to the command of the army. many. Not that they were all wanted for We believe, indeed, this is the first time that the purpose of fighting King Theodore, but an officer of one of the scientific corps has to keep up the chain of communications had the responsible post confided to him, from the sea-coast to the front. Now that though we need not remind our readers that the plans of the General lie fully before us, there is a precedent in the French army, we see the sagacity which provided that de- | where Napoleon began his career as an Arpots should be established at certain fixed tillery officer. But the wisdom of the appoints along the line of march, with garri-pointment in this, as in other particulars, sons in each strong enough to defend them justified the event, for it is hardly to be conagainst the incursions of marauders, and to ceived that any other than an officer of Enkeep up the line of communications betweengineers could have overcome the difficulties one post and another. If any one of these which Nature threw in the way. The march, garrisons had been overpowered the whole indeed, was more difficult than the battle, army would have been paralyzed; and a re-aud presented more determined obstacles. trograde movement must at once have taken place to re-establish the chain. Thus the large force was wanted, not so much to overpower Theodore, but to secure that the attack should be made upon him with a fair prospect of success. And when that object was at last secured, when the chain was established, link by link, from the harbor of Zoulla to the table-land of Lat, the character of the General suddenly changed. From the cautious plodding administrator he became the daring captain. Abandoning all the caution and prudence he had hitherto shown, he left his baggage behind him, and,

he

And yet the courage of King Theodore must not be underrated. Savage as he was, he showed that he had some tinge of honor. Overmatched as he was by British courage and science, still he refused to yield; and, like Macbeth, though he could not fly, determined, bear-like, to fight the course. Whether or no he actually committed suicide, there is a gloomy grandeur about his fate which will earn for him the respect even of those he so long imprisoned. Their restoration to their country and their friends crowns the splendor of this wonderful expedition.

Many of the doctors employed as sur-rington, and his long hair and the scape galgeons in the camp were utterly incompetent, lows expression of his countenance will be and while now and then one was found who well remembered by my comrades when they was a man of some humanity, and cared read his name. I was myself one day seizproperly for his patients, most of them ed with a violent attack of the cramp colic, treated the sick with gross inhumanity. Dr. and was suffering intense pain. One of my Todd, a resident physician of Indianapolis, comrades went to him at the dispensary to employed for some time in charge of our get something for my relief. It happened to ward of the hospital, deserves honorable be a few minutes after four o'clock, the reg mention here for his uniform interest in his ular hour for closing it, and though he was patients and courtesy towards them. still there, and the medicines within his reach, he would give nothing, insultingly sending me word I ought to have got sick in the morning.

One Dr. Cowles (his name may perhaps not be spelled correctly) richly deserves mention of another character. Brutal in the extreme, it was his delight to heap insult upon all who were unfortunate enough to fall into his hands. He would go on his rounds through the barracks, and such scenes as the following would take place: Coming to a sick man's bunk he would say: "Well, you are sick, are you? What's the ers," as he styled them. matter with you?"

"I had a chill, doctor."

"Damn you, how do you know you had a chill? You know so well what is the matter with you, I guess you know how to cure yourself," and off he would go, leaving the poor fellow without prescribing for him at all. Again he would tell a sick man to hold out his arm that he might feel his pulse, and then turning his back upon him would take hold of his own wrist, as though feeling his pulse, and direct his clerk what prescription

He met a well-merited fate. Having been released from prison before the close of the war, he spoke of raising a company of tories in Arkansas to catch and hang a brother-inlaw of his, who was in command of a company of partizan rangers, or "bushwhack

His brother-in-law, hearing of his threats, hunted him up and shot him.

Application being made one day by some of the patients for permission to have some religious services in their ward, the Yankees in charge refused, saying that religion was too good a thing for a set of d-d rebels to have anything to do with it.

I have often been asked what we could find to do to pass away our time in prison, and a briet sketch just here of the various modes of spending our time and employing our

minds, may be appropriate and interesting. Some of the men were engaged in manufactures. Large guttapercua buttons were in constant demand at the sutler's shop. Of these were made rings and breastpins, variously and very ingeniously carved and ornamented. Sets were often inserted in them of silver and gold, and with not better tools than pocket-knives these sets were handsomely engraved. Some of the engraving, indeed, thus done by Southern boys, who had never seen anything of the kind done in their lives, would have done credit to a New York or Philadelphia engraver. What was ¡ 'done by these rebel boys in prison, almost

without material to work, or tools to work with, satisfied me that the boasted superiority of the Yankee in mechanical genius was all a myth, and that it was only necessary for Southern men to have their attention and enterprise diverted in that direction to enable them to bear off the palm in that department, as they have in true eloquence and statesmanship-and military genius.

have their little joke, by asking whether they counted that stuff or measured it by the peck.

Stock speculation, or rather money brokerage, was, strange to say, an employment here. Every now and then rumors of exchange would spring up, and, with strong hopes of soon returning to Dixie, Confed currency, as compared with sutler's tickets or greenbacks, would take a rise. We had regular bulls and bears, shrewd at their tricks in working for a rise or fall in the money market as any experienced Wall street broker.

These rumors of exchange with the spec

ulations to which they gave rise, and the ef

forts to trace them to a reliable source were nations of buoyant hope and subsequent bitsometimes very amusing, though the alterter disappointment were sorely trying. The patients in the hospital, coming more frequently in contact with Yankees who had been out in the city, and having better opportunities of seeing papers than men in the barracks, were usually saddled with these reports, and the "reliable gentleman" who the war, was, in our camp, supplied by the figured so conspicuously in the papers during

"hospital rat."

Battles over chess or chequer boards serv

young men managed to procure books, and spent some of this lazy time in improving their education, and, there being both Frenchmer and Germans in the camp, some of the prisoners availed themselves of the opportunity to acquire a knowledge of those lan

With no tool but his penknife, one man whittled out a model of a saw mill, which was set to work by a branch running through the camp, which the boys dignified with the title of the Potomac. Another made a model of a blacksmith shop, with the smith hammering away on his anvil, which was al-ed to beguile many a weary hour. Some so set to work by the same stream. By selling the rings and breastpins which they made to the Yankee guards or to those of their comrades who received money from their friends, the workmen were enabled to buy tobacco and provisions from the sutler to eke out the scanty supply furnished them.guages. Though something of a bookworm Gambling employed large numbers most of their time. The open space behind the sutler shop in good weather was crowded with boxes, or with blankets spread upon the ground, round which squatted groups of players, as eager and excited as the Wall street gamblers at the gold room. Ever and anon would ring out from the dealer such words as "Here's the place to win your tobacco," or "Here's the place to lose your Confed." The stakes varied from a chew of tobacco, or a twenty-five cent sutler ticket, to a hundred dollars in Confed. Large piles of the latter currency could be seen piled up on the dealers' boxes, at which the Yankee officers passing through the camp would

from boyhood, and preferring the company of my books to almost any other company, I never so highly appreciated the pleasure of reading, and its power of causing what would otherwise have been leaden-footed hours to pass rapidly and pleasantly away as I did here. Amongst other books a lady friend in Washington City sent me a French copy of Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables," and I owe a debt of gratitude to the distinguished author for the many hours that were beguiled of their weariness and sadness by its pages. I confess, however, when I came across the passage where the author ranks John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry with the battle of Bunker's Hill and other noted