Amba Alaji, near Atillam 1868

Watercolour by Captain Cornelius Francis James, Bombay Staff Corps, 1868.

Lieutenant-General Sir Robert (later Field Marshal Lord) Napier's expeditionary force passed through Amba Alaji during its advance to Emperor Tewodros II (or King Theodore) of Abyssinia's capital at Magdala. Although the engineers laid a railway and built a road part of the way into the interior of the country, Napier's men still had to traverse over 400 miles (640 km) of difficult country to get to Magdala, near to which the decisive actions of the campaign were fought in April 1868.