into camp, a prisoner, wrapped in an old table-cloth, yet every inch a king; the blowing up of the powder taken from the cliff-side magazine, superintended by Colley; the great snake, writhing among the powder barrels, put there, said the Zulus, by the witch-doctors to guard the magazine, but brought to a speedy end by John Dunn's rifle.

And then, when the settlement of Zululand was accomplished, we entered the Transvaal, passing together "over Laing's Nek, under the shadow of Majuba Mountain"; and so on to Standerton, where Sir Garnet held that interview with Joubert in which he told him the irrevocable decision of the British Government to retain the Transvaal. At that interview there were four of us present-Sir Garnet Wolseley, Colley, St Leger Herbert, and myself. St Leger Herbert, no soldier by profession, but a born fighting man, brave and handsome as a god, sleeps in the yellow desert sand of the Soudan, where a bullet found its mark at Gubat. Colley lies beside his comrades near the field where he fought and fell. Near the end of September came the message from Lord Lytton summoning Colley back to India, to his post of private secretary, the massacre at Kabul having occurred. Great as must have been his unwillingness to part with him, Sir Garnet, "in view of the urgency of the demand, had no alternative but to allow him to return." He took but a few hours to make the preparations

for his start. Before he left, he told me that Sir Garnet had decided I was to officiate as chief of the staff, and explained to me clearly and concisely the condition of affairs. He returned to India. We who remained had a sharp and interesting little campaign in the north of the Transvaal, when the stronghold of a chief called Sekukuni was captured by assault, and that chief himself taken prisoner and brought to Pretoria. Early in 1880, affairs in the Transvaal seemed to have so quieted down that Sir Garnet, leaving the Administrator, Sir Owen Lanyon, in charge, returned to Maritzburg. Sir Garnet, who had only accepted the High Commissionership and command on the condition that he was to return home as soon as military operations were at an end, had recommended that Colley, whose term of service in India was, with Lord Lytton's expiring term of Viceroyalty, nearing its end, should succeed him, and the Government offered the post to Colley.

Once again, and once only, I was to meet my friend. At Maritzburg I received a telegram from him, asking me if I would accept the post of private secretary to the Viceroy. Sir Garnet bade me go; Herbert Stewart, who had actually put his things on board the steamer at Durban to return to England, was offered my post, and hastened up to Maritzburg. A steamer taking troops conveyed me from Durban to Bombay. There I heard from Colley, saying he had gone up to Simla,

(p. 275), "I am still inclined to believe that the actual resolute fighting element is small, composed of an inconsiderable faction, and of the young bloods of the country." And I think this tends distinctly to show that, before his first fight at Laing's Nek, Colley did not realise how strong and determined a resistance he would meet.

The attack upon the Boer position at Laing's Nek was a combined front and flank attack-an operation which, if successful, is generally signally so, but in which failure of combination on the part of those engaged is apt to have evil results. The front attack was up a steep hill, the ascent of which was covered from the Boer fire, except such as could be delivered from another hill on the flank. The flank attack was intended to take this latter hill first, but it failed to do so: it was then too late to stop the front attack, and the men who made it were exposed throughout its whole progress to severe flanking fire. It was met valiantly in front; and Colley's own words, quoted by me on page 560, were proved true: "No advance can succeed against good troops holding a fair position till these have been, not merely shaken, but practically broken and destroyed as a fighting body." After Laing's Nek there was no more room in his mind for any delusion as to the fighting qualities of the Boers. "I must say," he wrote to Sir Garnet Wolseley, "they were no cowards, exposing themselves freely to artillery fire, and coming

He now retired, and took up an entrenched position at Prospect Hill, waiting for reinforcements. Sir William Butler has discussed, with what seems to me perfect fairness, the question whether he should have retired to Newcastle. I feel convinced that the adverse influence which such a move must have had on the condition of the besieged garrisons was the prevailing factor in Colley's mind against retirement.

A few days later it became necessary to clear his communications with Newcastle; and his attempt to do this resulted in the action of Ingogo. Here he was on the defensive; the Boers attacked. Heavy as were their losses, our troops held their ground till night closed the scene; and the troops were then drawn off back to Mount Prospect.

It rends the heart of one who knew and loved the man to read Butler's picture on pages 310 and 311 of what he must have gone through and suffered in the days immediately following Ingogo. I bear no ill-will to those who think his judgment faulty, who blame his conduct of military operations, though personally I have thought over the problem in every way, and I cannot see, given the imperative need of striving to relieve the garrisons, what better he could have done. But how any one with the feelings of a man can read those pages and still feel aught but admiration for him personally, passes my comprehension.

Major Brownlow, who bore such a gallant part in the action of Laing's Nek, writes: "I think it is not generally known that if his orders had been carried out at Laing's Nek there is little doubt that we should have won the day." It was open to Colley to cast the blame on others; but writing to his wife at this time of deepest trouble, he says, in reference to one then dead: "Something of this will doubtless leak out, for I have heard officers and men discussing it. But I would ten thousand times rather any amount of criticism were heaped on me than one word cast at him. I can retrieve myself; he cannot."

On 4th February he wrote to welcome Sir Evelyn Wood, told him his future plans, and what his wishes were, and said, "You will, I am sure, understand that I mean to take the Nek myself." In this letter he expressed his intention to add the 15th Hussars, 2nd Battalion 60th Rifles, and 92nd Highlanders to his own force, and to leave Sir Evelyn Wood command of a second column, composed of three other battalions of infantry and two batteries of artillery. This is important, in view of something I shall have to say later on.

In considering his subsequent action, it seems to me that there are three things which must be borne prominently in mind. First (see pp. 339, 343), his fear that the home Government was inclined to make peace with the Boers as with a victorious foe, while he conceived it would be a slur upon

the honour of the British troops if peace were made before Laing's Nek was taken; secondly, his determination, as above shown, to take Laing's Nek himself with the same troops who had failed there, and whose honour he considered was at stake; thirdly, his conviction of the difficulty, amounting almost to impossibility, of forcing a strong position by a front attack — a conviction born, as we have seen, of his tactical studies, and which must have been immensely strengthened by (1) the failure of his own front attack at Laing's Nek, (2) the failure of the Boers to take the position at Ingogo, and (3) the fact that the Boers had never ventured to attack him at Mount Prospect.

The occupation of Majuba Hill would afford him, so far as could be judged from his observations from a distance, a strong defensive position, practically impregnable to assault, the possession of which would make the Boer position at Laing's Nek untenable by them, would in this way compel them to retire, enable him to occupy and hold Laing's Nek when sufficient reinforcements arrived, and thus at once satisfy the honour of the troops, and ensure that peace should not be made before that honour was satisfied. Therefore, as soon as (pp. 349, 361) it entered into his head that the Boers were about to occupy it and entrench it themselves, - before even he had brought up the whole of the troops which, in his letter to Wood of 4th February, he had