"compelled to feed upon the insects on his body." Kirkham was discovered in his cage by a party of British sailors landed from the gunboat HMS Teazer, one of whom described him as ragged, half-naked and starving. The sailors wished to free him, but upon enquiry via cable to London, the naval party was informed that Kirkham had sacrificed the right to British protection by taking service with Yohannes. He was left in his cage. Kirkham eventually developed delirium tremens as a result of his treatment by the Egyptians and was taken to the Lutheran mission in Massawa for treatment. He died there, of alcohol poisoning and dysentery, in the middle of June 1876, six months after his capture. Kirkham's military abilities were praised by Gordon, who described him as "an officer (there being but few others) in whom I could place implicit trust." He was, however, wounded twice, severely, in the head during the latter stages of the Taiping Rebellion, after which his personality and military capacity are said to have changed sharply for the worse. Kirkham was visited, at his home in Ethiopia, by Dermot Bourke, the Earl of Mayo, in January 1875. Bourke described him as "a fair, rather good-looking, slim man" who was shabbily dressed in "an undress general's uniform with a large sword clanking by his side" and thin old button boots "which were rather trying to his poor feet on the rocks." A few months later, after his capture, Kirkham was seen by the former Confederate General William Loring, who had taken service with the Egyptians, and described as "utterly used up by disease and dissipation", wearing an ancient and much-patched British military uniform, and being very indignant that his nationality and British passport were being ignored. References Cosson, EA de (1877). The Cradle of the Blue Nile: A Visit to the Court of King John of Ethiopia. London, 2 vols. Dye, W. (1880). Moslem Egypt and Christian Abyssinia. New York. Fisher, Frederic (1938). Naval Reminiscences of Admiral Sir Frederic William Fisher. London. Gabre-Selaissie, Zedwe (1975). Yohannes IV of Ethiopia: A Political Biography. Oxford. Hesseltine, WB, and HC Wolf (1961). The Blue and the Gray on the Nile. Chicago. Loring, WW (1884). A Confederate Soldier in Egypt. New York. Mayo, Earl of (1876). Sport in Abyssinia. Edinburgh. Rubenson, Sven (1976). The Survival of Ethiopian Independence. London. Simon, G. (1885). Voyage en Abyssinie et Chez