MAGDALA (more correctly Malcdala), a natural stronghold in the country to the south of Abyssinia, situated about 200 miles inland from the Gulf of Aden, in 11° 22' N. lat. and 39° 25' E. long. The basaltic plateau of which it consists rises 9110 feet above the level of the sea, and forms along with the neighbouring height of Salassye (9160 feet), with which it is connected by the ridge of Salamgye (8650 feet), a comparatively small and narrow outrunner of the Amara Seint plateau. It is about three quarters of a mile in length by less than half a mile in breadth, and lies more than a thousand feet higher than the neighbouring plain of Arogye. To the south runs the Kukullo Ravine and to the north and the west the Bashilo and the Wark Waha Ravines, all of which ultimately drain into the Abai, and thus belong to the basin of the Nile. Chosen by King Theodore of Abyssinia as his principal stronghold in the south, Magdala owes its celebrity to the fact that, as the place of imprisonment of the English captives, it became the goal of the great English expedition of 1868. At the time of its capture it contained huts for a permanent population of about three thousand, a royal residence of the most meagre pretensions, a still more insignificant church, and a large treasure-house stored with arms, ecclesiastical furniture, and vast quantities of Abyssinian manuscripts. The whole rock was burned bare by order of Sir Robert Napier, and on the departure of the English it was seized by Mastwat, queen of the Wollo Gallas, in whose country it is situated.

See Markham, History of the Abyssinian Expedition, 1869; and Rassam, British Mission to Theodore, 1869. Both contain plans and views of Magdala.

a city on the west side of the sea of Galilee, near Dalmanutha; Jesus, after the miracle of the seven loaves, being said by St. Matthew to have gone by ship to the coasts of Magdala, Matt. xv, 39; and by St. Mark, to the parts of Dalmanutha,” Mark viii, 10. Mr. Buckingham came to a small village in this situation called Migdal, close to the edge of the lake, beneath a range of high cliffs, in which small grottoes are seen, with the remains of an old square tower, and some larger buildings, of rude construction, apparently of great antiquity. Migdol implies a tower, or fortress; and this place, from having this name particularly applied to it, was doubtless, like the Egyptian Migdol, one of considerable importance; and may be considered as the site of the Migdal of the Naphtalites, as well as the Magdala of the New Testament.