This, considering the corps landed with a full complement of 250 horses and has since received nearly 150 remounts, will give you an idea of what we have gone through, and the wear and tear our horses have had through hard marching and short feeding.
Taking it as a whole, officers and men have kept excellent health, the only prevalent disease being dysentery. The days are bright and sunny, without being hot; at times it is even cold. The nights, however, are always bitterly cold, and it is quite a usual occurrence, on awaking, to find the grass covered with frost and the water in the hand-basin frozen over. This will give you some idea of the pleasure of sleeping out with only the sky for a roof.
Our total casualties have amounted to twenty-five—just ten per cent. of the force we landed with, and a very large proportion of our ordinary fighting strength, considering that the most we have ever put in the field was 186, and we are now reduced to under a hundred mounted men.
We have heard of the release of our prisoners, and expect them to join us in a few days. Our only casualties in this shape were the seven taken on April 30 at Ospruit.
I cannot say too much in praise of the conduct of my officers and men from first to last, under many hardships and in very trying circumstances, and I feel sure they have gained a name for themselves which their many friends both in England and in India have just cause to be proud of.
I am confident that my meed of praise will be fully endorsed by those under whom I and my corps have had the honour to serve.
It is considered that the war is virtually over, and, at any rate, I fancy all Volunteer corps will be disbanded within a short time.
I have kept our accounts as nearly as possible up to date, but we are unaware if any pay already claimed has yet been placed to our credit in Cape Town, and in the meantime troopers are receiving advances through this office out of the funds brought by me from India. Fortunately, I have been able to cash cheques in the towns we have passed through, and I hope I may succeed in doing so at Pretoria to-morrow, as our cash in the box is reduced to four sovereigns.
We have received no mails, either from England or India, for the past six weeks, and we are all anxiously awaiting news.
The Special Correspondent of the ‘Englishman,’ whose close association with the corps in all circumstances can be traced through every letter, does not take his banishment to lines of communication with the Stoical philosophy that characterises Colonel Lumsden. After the freshness of it has gone he writes: