18 AUGUST 1888, Page 2

On Monday, news was received in Rome of the defeat

of a party of seven hundred Bashi-Ba.aouks, commanded. by five Italian officers, despatched from Massowah to attack the Abyssinians at a place called Sagameiti. On reaching the village of that name the enemy were found to be in over- whelming force, and a panic, at first ascribed to treachery, ensued among the Bashi-Bazouks, in which some two hundred. were killed, and the rest put to rout. The Italian officers, however, supported by a few of their men, fought, as usual,. with great bravery, maintaining their ground till completely overwhelmed. Four of them are known to have been killed, but the fate of the fifth remains uncertain. The defeat appears to have reawakened the dislike of the African enter- prise felt in Italy, Clerical and Radical papers joining in their. condemnation of the Government for ever having undertaken it, and in their demand for evacuation. That, ' however, is impossible, after the attitude taken up in Signor Crispi's note..