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Royal Sappers & Miners

Plate XVI.

Uniform 1854.

Printed by M & N Hanhart.

HISTORY
OF THE
ROYAL SAPPERS AND MINERS,

FROM THE FORMATION OF THE CORPS IN MARCH 1772, TO THE DATE

WHEN ITS DESIGNATION WAS CHANGED TO THAT OF

ROYAL ENGINEERS,

IN OCTOBER 1856.

BY

T. W. J. CONNOLLY,

QUARTERMASTER OF THE ROYAL ENGINEERS.

“Of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents, by flood and field;

Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach.”—Shakspeare.

“There is a corps which is often about him, unseen and unsuspected, and which is labouring as hard for him in peace as others do in war.”—The Times.

With Seventeen Coloured Illustrations.

SECOND EDITION, WITH CONSIDERABLE ADDITIONS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.—VOL. II.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, AND ROBERTS.

1857.

LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Royal Sappers & Miners

Plate XVII.

Working Dress 1854.

Printed by M & N Hanhart.

HISTORY

OF THE

ROYAL SAPPERS AND MINERS.

1848.

Staff appointments—Survey of London—Colour-sergeant Smith—Sergeant Bay—Trigonometrical operations—Opposition to the military survey—Observatory above St. Paul’s; the scaffolding—Privates Pemble and Porteous—Sergeant Steel—Industry and conduct of the Sappers in the Metropolitan survey—Preliminary arrangements of the Arctic expedition—Privates Waddell and Sulter—Corporal Mackie—Expedition starts; corporal McLaren—Coasting journeys and services—Overland march—Winter at Fort Confidence—Party detached to Great Bear Lake—Close of the search for Sir John Franklin and his crews.

Sergeant-major Jenkin Jones was commissioned to be quartermaster to the corps on the 11th January, 1848, vice Hilton retired. These pages amply testify to the merits of Mr. Jones. A more indefatigable non-commissioned officer never served his country, nor one more worthy of the honours conferred upon him. Colour-sergeant Michael Bradford, a good soldier and foreman, succeeded him as sergeant-major at Woolwich.

With a view to establish a system for the sanitary improvement of the drainage of London, a survey of the metropolis, under the auspices of the Commissioners of Sewers, was commenced in January, 1848, and continued with a fluctuating detachment—once as many as forty-three strong, and as few as two men only—until January, 1850. Captain Yolland, R.E., had the direction of the work, and colour-sergeant Joseph Smith[^[1]] was first appointed to the executive charge, but he being soon afterwards discharged, it then fell upon sergeant Andrew Bay,[^[2]] sergeant Doherty, and others. With this survey was connected the determination of the relative levels of all parts of London.

The great triangulation was the first point attended to. “That wonderful specimen of skill, the scaffolding on and around the cross of St. Paul’s, put up in the spring, was the main station for observations. The summits of Primrose and other hills, the towers,” steeples, “and roofs of churches, the parapets or terraces of public buildings or houses,” were made “available as the sites for signal-staffs, visible from each other and from St. Paul’s.”[^[3]] By these observations, “the relative angular positions” of the several points were obtained, from which, as the bases of the work, a detailed survey was made, embracing not only the principal streets and squares, but the minutiæ of alleys and single buildings. Of every street the slope or ascent was ascertained, and also the exact height of every spot above the assumed datum or base-line.[^[4]] The benchmarks to show the permanent points of the survey and levels were cut in stone, or on the most prominent objects, by the sappers, who, though not brought up to that work, became very expert in the use of the mallet and chisel. At least twelve parties with twelve-inch instruments were scattered to the most conspicuous places in the metropolis and its vicinage, to complete the observations; and sergeant James Donelan, with the great three-feet instrument, visited some of the old stations celebrated by the labours of General Roy and other officers, to check the smaller triangles formed by the operation of the twelve-inch instruments. Some of those stations were at Hanger’s Hill near Twyford, Banstead Downs, Severndroog Castle on Shooter’s Hill, &c. The survey, including the city, extended to a distance of eight miles in every direction from St. Paul’s.[^[5]]

London was unaccustomed to see soldiers employed in so important a work as the metropolitan survey, and much excitement was caused by their unobtrusive and peaceful operations. The jealousy of a class of surveyors was at once called into angry activity, and under the name of the “Associated Civil Surveyors,” they formed themselves into a body, and opposed by meeting, petition, and remonstrance, the continuance of the sappers on the duty.[^[6]] The Metropolitan Commissioners did the Association the honour calmly to investigate their grievance; but from the lucid and truthful statements of Mr. Edwin Chadwick and others, the continuance of the sappers on the duty was confirmed and justified, not only on the score of competency, but of policy, from the disciplined experience of the men, and the perfection of the Ordnance system of responsibility and resource.[^[7]]

The particular objects which elicited from the public the most attention were the observatories on the summit of the north-west tower of Westminster Abbey, and above the cross of St. Paul’s. The latter, from the dexterity with which the construction of the cradle at that dizzy height was pursued, supported only by the architectural ornaments of the structure, excited much curiosity and wonder. The scaffolding was of rough poles; the stage, ten feet square, formed of planks, which supported the observatory, rested on the golden gallery on the top of the great cone. “The four lower posts, twenty-nine feet long, stood upon short planks bedded on the stone footway; and the top supported the angles of four horizontal planks, each twenty-three feet long, bolted together at the angles. From these planks a screen of boards was erected to prevent materials, &c., from falling. The base of the four upper posts, fifty-three feet long, rested on the angles of the above planks; and the scaffold, in addition to these posts, consisted of four sets of horizontal and four sets of transverse, braces on each of the four sides, the whole being fastened together with spikes and ropes. Fifty-six of the uprights were double poles, placed base and point, and bound together with hoop iron and wedges, and with bolts and hoop iron at the splices. The height from base to floor was eighty-two feet, and to the extreme top of the observatory, ninety-two feet.”[^[8]] A railing, roughly but securely put up, surrounded the “crow’s-nest.” “The ascent was by the inside of the tower or lantern to the circular openings, then to the outside of the foot-ladders set at the north-east corner, parallel to the north-east principal post inside the scaffold. The whole of the materials were drawn up from the floor by a permanent windlass erected in the tower, to the golden gallery, and thence passed to the outside, horizontally, through an aperture thirty-two inches wide, and finally were drawn up and put into position by purchase erected for the purpose.”[^[9]] The whole construction weighed about five tons, and though designed by sergeant James Steel, was erected by sergeant James Beaton, the most successful builder of these aerial fabrics, assisted by privates Richard Pemble and John Porteous,[^[10]] and some civil labourers, under the direction of Captain Yolland.[^[11]] The time occupied in going up the ladder was about seven minutes, but the descent required only four or five.[^[12]] On the 2nd November the last piece of the scaffolding was removed and carted away. In the hazardous and intricate operations of building and dismantling it, not the slightest accident to human life or limb—not even the breaking of a single pane of glass—occurred.[^[13]]

The observations were taken by sergeant James Steel with an eighteen-inch theodolite, both at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s. When not prevented by haze, the sergeant attended to his duty, frequently when the breeze shook his small location to a perilous degree, with a coolness, perseverance, and accuracy that were highly praiseworthy. Sometimes he and his assistant sapper—private John Wotherspoon[^[14]]—ascended to the observatory at St. Paul’s as often as three times a-day, and this carried through a period of four months—between the 17th June and 16th October—with unflinching resolution and assiduity, made the sergeant and the sappers objects of much interest and of curious and anxious inquiry. The observations taken from this height comprised between 8,000 and 10,000. In many instances the same subject was gone over as many as six times, none less than three or four, and the utmost distance obtained was twenty-six miles.[^[15]] The points thus trigonometrically fixed were 2,140, a vast number being church towers, spires, conspicuous public buildings, and manufactories.

To carry on the survey during the day in crowded streets, with an unbroken stream of vehicles in double transit, was an extremely difficult and irksome operation; but to be free as much as possible from this interruption, the sappers went to work every morning as soon as day broke, and pushed the survey while the metropolis was still at rest. The survey was completed in January, 1850, and the mapping finished at Southampton. For the merit and talent with which the work was conducted, the periodical press frequently expressed its admiration; and Sir Henry de la Beche and Mr. Edwin Chadwick—two of the Commissioners of the highest authority—praised the survey as being one of extreme success.[^[16]] At another time the former gentleman observed at a special court of the Commissioners, that “the Ordnance undertook the work of the surface. A triangulation of no common order, but such as they might have expected from that distinguished service, was undertaken and executed; and upon that triangulation was founded a block plan of extreme efficiency and completeness; and it was also no common map, for it always had reference to that great triangulation to which he had already referred.”[^[17]]

The arctic expedition, which halted in October, 1847, for the winter, detached in the spring of 1848 a party of sappers to Cedar Lake to repair the boats, first cutting the wood for the purpose. When this preliminary service was accomplished, six of the party were selected to drag three planks each to Cedar Lake. Each man took with him ten days’ provisions; but from the weary labour and fatigue of carrying such heavy burdens, and the snow-blindness that affected the men, the journey was not completed under sixteen days. The party consequently suffered great privation. After the boats were made thoroughly seaworthy, the sappers brought them and the stores up to Cumberland House on the first opening of the Saskatchewan.[^[18]]

Privates James Waddell and John Sulter afterwards started from Cumberland House without a guide, considering the half-disclosed tracts of a previous party to be sufficient for their purpose. They were going to Cedar Lake. At Point Partridge, however, the snow having fallen heavily, the track was missed and they lost their way. For several days they continued to travel, and were wholly without food for more than seventy-two hours. Hunger pressed them to resort to expedients to mitigate their cravings. In this extremity Waddell, who had a spare pair of mocassins and a morsel of buffalo grease, consigned both to the canteen. When boiled, the old boots were speedily devoured, and the soup equally divided among the famished adventurers, formed a novel but refreshing repast. Onwards the party went, winding through the woods and trending through the deep snow, when after a journey of about four miles they gained an Indian encampment, where the natives provided them with musk-rats to eat, and one of their number guided them to the lake.

It is right also to record another little adventure in which lance-corporal Robert Mackie was the actor. He strayed in the winter on Cedar Lake. Overpowered by exertion and weariness he laid down on his planks and fell asleep. When he awoke two of his toes were frozen. Nothing dismayed by this untoward affliction, he started off to seek a retreat from his difficulties. A native sent to search for him, found the wanderer “contentedly steering for the moon, which being near the horizon and gleaming red through the forest, was mistaken by him for the fire of the men’s bivouac. The snow which covered the ground at the time fortunately enabled the Indian who went in pursuit of him to trace his steps before he had gone many miles.”[^[19]]

Reinforced by the party from Cedar Lake, the expedition started in May, 1848, from Cumberland House, with boats fully laden, leaving two sappers behind “who were unequal to the labours of the voyage.” One had received an injury in the hand by which he lost a joint of one of his fingers, and the other suffered from scurvy and pains in the bones. Both were sent to England by the first conveyance after their arrival at York Factory; and the expedition thus lost the services of second-corporal James McLaren, a man of enlarged intelligence and experience, and active zeal.

Very prosperously the expedition now moved on, crossing rivers, lakes, and streams, pulling the boats over difficult and rugged portages, and bearing heavy burdens. For three days they were delayed by ice in Beaver Lake, and then pressing on anew, tracked the course to Methy Lake, where on the 27th June, Sir John Richardson reached his men. They had encamped at the landing-place the previous day, and were advanced one stage of different lengths according to the physical capabilities of the respective individuals. “On visiting the men, Sir John found two of the sappers lame from the fatigue of crossing the numerous carrying places on Churchill River, and unfit for any labour on the long Methy portage.”[^[20]]

The baggage, which it was indispensable to carry with the expedition, was equally distributed, which gave to each man a burden of 450lbs., exclusive of his clothing and bedding, all of which he shouldered over the portages in three or more trips according to the measure of his strength. This was an enormous load, and was borne day after day under constantly-varying circumstances of trial and fatigue. The boats with their masts, sails, anchors, &c., were also carried by the whole party at every portage.[^[21]]

“On the 3rd July the baggage and the boats were brought to the banks of the Little Lake; and on the 6th, everything having been taken over to Clear-water River, the expedition descended from the Cockscomb, where they had been encamped for two days,” and in nine days more completed the laborious passage of the Methy portage. “The transport of the four boats was made on the men’s shoulders, and occupied two days and a half.”[^[22]]

On the 7th two of the boats were broken in crossing the portage of the woods, but, being repaired with some dexterity by the sappers, they were ready for proceeding the following morning. Athabasca Lake was entered on the 11th July, but two of the boats taking a more easterly branch of the river in the night, delayed the arrival at Fort Chipewyan. In the misguided craft were the chief artificers of the sappers, and the accident prevented the boats being completely repaired and furnished with false keels, to contend with the difficulties inseparable from adventure. All leaks, however, were stopped, and some damaged planks replaced, which enabled the party to start again on the 12th July.[^[23]]

Many days were now spent in effecting the clearance of numerous portages over broken and rocky prominences, and driving on through narrow and tortuous channels made picturesque by the presence of frosted cascades, dashing over ledges, or rushing past blocks of trees and drift timber—the accumulation of ages. A boat was upset in one of the portages by lowering it down a narrow channel, when several articles of marine importance were lost or damaged, among which were the indispensable oars, which, however, were soon replaced by the assiduity of the sappers. Fort Resolution was gained on the 17th July, from which, by rapid marches, laboured boat journeys, and toilsome industry, they made, on the 24th, the first range of the Rocky Mountains. Hurried stages, through intricate courses and over rocky chasms, with gales blowing and heavy rains falling, brought them on the 2nd August to Point Encounter, where they encamped for the night; and on the 3rd they reached the estuary of the Mackenzie River, where a horde of Esquimaux visited the boats. The interview on the part of the natives was characterised by a spirit of intrigue and hostility, but terminated without serious consequences; and, striking out from the shore, the boats pushed on to Copland Hutchison Inlet, Cape Bathurst, Point Deas Thomson, and Cape Young, where the expedition went ashore to repair the boats, which had been rendered unseaworthy by the ice tearing the planks into leaks. The damage was repaired by the sappers in the evening.

Near Point Cockburn, on the 22nd August, a storm overtook the party. The sky was dark and lowering, heavy showers fell, and a waterspout was seen on shore. Sir John Richardson thus alludes to it. “Ice-floes lying close off Cape Hope caused us no little trouble, the passages among them being very intricate, and the perpendicular walls of the masses being too high to allow of landing or seeing over them. In the afternoon we passed Cape Bexley, running before a stiff breeze, and at 5 P.M. a storm suddenly coming on we were compelled to reduce our canvas to the goosewing of the mainsail, under which we scudded for an hour, and then entering among large masses of ice, about two miles from Point Cockburn, found shelter under some pieces that had grounded.” To encamp was impracticable, for the shore was flat, and they passed a bitter night in the open boats. “The ice-cold sea-water chilled the men as they waded to and fro;” and, as the wind was too strong to admit of the employment of any expedient to shelter or warm them, no protection could be afforded against the biting bleakness of the storm.[^[24]]

On the 26th August the expedition was at Lambert Island. A frosty night covered the sea and ponds with young ice, and glued all the floes immoveably together so that the rise of the tide was no longer of service. “Assisted by the seamen, the sappers launched the boats and carried the cargo ashore, devoting the greater part of the day to the operation of cutting through tongues of ice, dragging the boats over the floes, moving large stones” that intersected the route, and resorting to every conceivable expedient to make progress. Two more rugged portages were also crossed; and in that day of severe toil and unremitted zeal a journey of five miles only was accomplished. Heavy snow-storms now succeeded, the cold became intense, and the surface of the pools of sea-water was converted into a consistency like paste, which demanded great physical exertion in pushing on the boats. On the 28th, three hours were spent in moving forward an inconsiderable distance—about one hundred yards—owing to the benumbing coldness paralysing the physical energies of the men.[^[25]]

With little incentive to spirit and none to amusement, save what the incidents of arctic travel were calculated to produce, the men relaxed no effort, and avoided no danger, in their endeavour to achieve the great purpose of the enterprise. Against obstacles both by land and sea, from wind and storm, they bore an undismayed front, and, driving on day by day, they gained Basil Hall Bay, and encamped about eight miles from Cape Kendall. In dragging the boats over the floes in these parts they were greatly shattered, the planks being torn and broken, although they had been strengthened by the sappers “on the water-line with sheets of tin beat out from the pemican cases.”[^[26]]

Here terminated the coasting voyage, some distance from the Coppermine River, on account of the ice having, from the severity of the weather, become too thick and firm to admit the continuance of the ascent, without jeopardising the safety of the expedition, in the few frail boats employed in their along-shore adventures. An overland journey in quest of Sir John Franklin and his missing crews was therefore decided upon, and arrangements for the march were at once entered into. Thirteen days’ provisions were packed up for the party, with cooking utensils, bedding, snow-shoes, fowling-pieces, a portable boat, &c. The burdens were apportioned by lot, each load weighing about 70lbs.[^[27]] The boats, tents, stores, &c., that could not be taken on were abandoned on the coast; and on the 3rd September, after breakfast, prayers being read to propitiate guidance and protection from a gracious Providence, the march commenced. With few exceptions, the men trudged on with so indifferent a pace, that to keep up they lightened their loads by leaving their carbines behind. About seven-miles from Cape Kendall a halt was made, and the men slept at night in the cold air, under the miserable shelter of some towering blocks of basalt 200 feet high. Private Donald Fraser this day sprained his knee, and on the next he was so unfit for his task that his burden was eased by throwing away his large hatchet, and distributing, for carriage, a portion of his pemican among the other travellers. Several of the men straggled and made but slow progress. Rae’s and Richardson’s Rivers being crossed—the latter by a portable boat fastened to a hawser—the expedition reached, on the 5th September, the Coppermine River and bivouacked about three miles above a dreary spot bearing the tragic designation of the Bloody Fall.[^[28]]

On the 6th the weather was clear, with a hard frost, but the sun, which had been a stranger for more than a fortnight, now shone brilliantly. Generally the party walked briskly, protected in some degree from frostbite by an addition to their cumbersome apparel of warm seal-skin boots; “but three of the seamen and two of the sappers and miners were so lame it was necessary to make long and frequent halts to allow them to close in;” so much so, that they “were unable to accomplish two geographical miles in the hour.” To give respite to their sufferings and time to gather strength, a camp was formed which greatly refreshed them; and next day they resumed the march in the face of a snowstorm, heightened by a piercing northerly wind.[^[29]] Two rapid torrents, full of boulders, were forded in the course of the day’s journey, and “the discomfort of the march was greatly augmented by the men’s clothes, which had been saturated in crossing the streams, freezing on their backs.” In the vicinity of some narrow lakes by the side of a cluster of low, naked, but wide spreading spruce trees the expedition encamped, and here, as in other places, they arranged a “bivouac by placing small branches between the frozen ground and their blankets.” The following day found them resting near the Copper Mountains, crossing which, they walked onwards in snow-shoes, not without much difficulty and fatigue; and those of the travellers who lagged were assisted on their way by easing them “of everything but their blankets, spare clothing, and a few pounds of pemican.”[^[30]]

The Kendall River was crossed on the 11th by a raft made on the spot of dry timber assisted by the sappers. It supported in its transit three at a time. A fresh disposition of the burdens was made here, and the carriage of some books and dried plants relinquished. The log raft was also broken up to recover the cordage by which the timbers were lashed together. This done the course of the party was shaped across the country for Dease’s River. They started in a fog, which became denser as they proceeded, so that at length an object three yards in advance could not be seen. The compass was necessarily used to steer by; all wended onwards in Indian file, and though the pace was brisk none fell back. The lakes which barred their way had a dreary aspect, for they were not seen until the travellers “came suddenly to the brink of the rocks which bounded them, when the contrast of the dark surface of their waters with the unbroken snow of their borders, combined with the loss of all definite outline in the fog, caused them to resemble hideous pits sinking to an unknown depth.” The intersection of their track by these lakes was very hazardous, and it was a wonder none of the straggling explorers fell into the abysses and met their fate. At night they spread their blankets on an isolated rock, and without supper, or the cheering gleams of a fire to give solace to their spirits, sought to snatch some repose. Snow fell on their exposed bodies as they lay. Many groaned bitterly with pain, and but few could sleep. Next morning, however, all were early afoot, and before the day fairly opened, they had marched three hours, and forded, up to their waists, a tributary of the Kendall, by which they “were all more or less benumbed.”[^[31]]

In a country like the arctic region much is uncertain, and extremes may be experienced with almost incredible rapidity. Here a supperless night was succeeded by one which gave a sumptuous meal of venison, and a sound night’s rest in a snug encampment. With light loads, full stomachs, and a long halt in prospect, the spirits of the party received a barometrical rise that indicated alike their satisfaction and cheerfulness. Hill after hill they mounted; and traversed, with unusual alacrity and ardour, stretches of undulated country. Now they were wading through a swamp, now trending a rough hummocky tract of land, now scaling a difficult height, and then forcing across an expanse of deep snow. The journey was trying and harassing, and each night, the party, jaded, lame and footsore, sought repose in open bivouac; but on the morning of the 15th of September, after fording the Dease, the travellers arrived at Fort Confidence—the haven appointed to recruit their wasted energies, and to shelter them from the storms and tempests of the coming winter. The overland journey had occupied thirteen days.

Three days subsequently, Sir John Richardson, finding he could dispense with the services of eighteen persons, sent them on to the fishery location of Big Island on Great Slave Lake. Ten of the detached party were sappers, leaving only three of the corps with the chief, viz: lance-corporals James Mitchell and Robert Mackie, and private David Brodie. The two latter fitted up the meagre establishment with tables and chairs, and such other social commodities as were considered to be requisite to give the fort a character of domestication, and to afford facilities of comfort to the adventurers. The fort was about three miles from the mouth of the Dease River and near to Fishery Island.

As far as the European contingent was concerned, the expedition was brought to a close; and the search, prosecuted under very trying circumstances, amid perils, hardships, and want, failed to discover any trace of the whereabouts of Sir John Franklin and his crews. The shores of Wollaston and Victoria could not be examined as had originally been intended, as Sir John Richardson had no means of carrying out the project, his craft having, unavoidably, been abandoned in September, 1848. With the only boat, however, taken up to Fort Confidence, Mr. Rae, with a party of natives, essayed unsuccessfully to pass to Wollaston land. Had this been achieved, a defined clue, in all probability, would have been presented to the track of the missing adventurers. It was in the vicinity of this region, a few years after, that the mournful relics of the fated explorers, found by some Esquimaux, passed into the possession of Mr. Rae, and confirmed in this country the certainty of the appalling destiny of the expedition.

1848.

Augmentation to corps—A calculating prodigy—Company removed from Portsmouth to Ireland—Chartist demonstration and services of the sappers in London—Road-making in Zetland—Company to the Mauritius—Major Sandham—Sergeant Anderson—Sergeant Ross—Sir Harry Smith’s frontier tour at the Cape—Passage of the Mooi; corporal Pringle—Passage of the Konap; sergeant McLeod; also of the Orange River—Boem Plaatz—Spirited conduct of a party in removing an ammunition tumbril, which had upset in some burning grass—Peace—Inspection at Gibraltar by Sir Robert Wilson—Also at Hong-Kong by Major-General Stavely—Company at Corfu—Return of party to England from the Falkland Islands—Sergeant Hearnden.

The nineteenth company was formed on the 1st of April and appropriated for the duties of the survey.[^[32]] On the 1st of September, another company, numbered the 20th, was organized, which increased the establishment from 1,800 to 2,000 of all ranks. The detachment of one sergeant, one corporal and twelve privates, formed by royal warrant in July, 1839, for service in South Australia, merged into the establishment in December, by an order dated 15th of that month, and thus reduced the corps from 2,000 to 1,985 of all ranks. This measure was effected to simplify details and to make the detachment form part of a company, without removing it from the province. Its expense still continued to be borne by the colonial government.

The company at Portsmouth, ninety-eight strong, under Captain Robertson, R.E., was sent by rapid conveyances to Dublin, and arrived there on the 2nd of April, to assist in quelling the rebellion in Ireland. Late in July, Lieutenant Akers, R.E., with one sergeant and fifteen rank and file, accompanied the troops under the command of Major-General Macdonald to Thurles, and encamped about a mile from the town, and returned to Dublin in September, without any necessity for their services arising. The meditated revolt was crushed, and Smith O’Brien with some other demagogues, convicted of traitorous designs, were expatriated. The company on being withdrawn from Ireland, removed to Woolwich, where it arrived on the 19th of February, 1849.

A rising of the Chartists being anticipated, measures were taken to thwart their designs. Troops were collected with rapidity from all quarters and appointed to various posts in London, to act if occasion required. Late in the evening of Saturday the 8th of April, a company of 100 strong with sergeant-major Bradford, under the command of Captain Tylee, R.E., was detached from Woolwich to the Tower of London. Each man took with him forty rounds of ammunition. The company slept in the Tower that night, but early next morning, two sergeants and thirty-two rank and file, under Lieutenant Sedley, R.E., were sent to the Ordnance Office, Pall Mall, to oppose any attempt at possession by the Chartists. Another party with sergeant-major Bradford under Lieutenant Wilkinson, R.E., was removed to the Bank of England. On the roof of this edifice were built platforms; and at certain places, massive timbers with loop-holes were run up as positions for defence. Several thousand sand-bags filled the upper tier of windows facing the Royal Exchange, and others as high as a man were piled upon the parapet of the roof, with apertures between them for musketry. Over the entrance of the building, a strong wooden machicouli, resting upon ponderous beams, projected into the street, which held a party of the corps ready to open a volley on the rabble, had an attempt been made to force an entrance. In the yard leading to the workshops, &c., the sappers also erected an enormous barricade of casks, handcarts, &c.

The detachment at the Tower was no less zealous. At the Byward tower, the face—overlooking the entrance to the fortress from the Thames by the bridge—was loop-holed, as also a building to command the other entrance. About thirty yards inside—from the gate of the Byward tower—a strong intrenched stockade was erected; and on the wharf near the Traitor’s tower, two barricades were constructed of crates with bricks in them, iron coal boxes, &c., which were loop-holed for musketry. Along the Traitor’s wall was an erection of sand-bags with openings for firing, and on the roof of the barracks, banquettes, to enable the troops to play on the mob in the rear near to the Mint, were formed of scaffolding and military forms. The old bricked-up embrasures facing Tower Hill were also rendered ready for the reception of guns by picking out the bricks and clearing away the debris, which for years had been accumulating there. Fortunately no outbreak occurred, and the company returned to Woolwich on the 14th of April.

There happened at the time to be a handful of the corps in London employed in the metropolitan survey, who, as the occasion was ominous and pressing, were relieved from their professional operations to assist in those of defence. So well did they discharge the duties intrusted to them in barricading the entrances to the high offices of the State, that their conduct was acknowledged in a communication from Lieut.-Colonel Alderson of the engineers in these terms. “I have been requested by Mr. Trevelyan, on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other authorities of the government, to express their satisfaction at the good conduct of the detachment of royal sappers and miners, under the command of colour-sergeant Smith, during their employment under me at the Treasury and government-offices on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday last; also in the efficient professional aid they afforded, in putting the Treasury-buildings and Downing-street in a state of defence.”

In May, Captain Webb, R.E., with one sergeant and one private, both surveyors, proceeded to Zetland by an order from the Commissioners of the Treasury, and laid out and surveyed nearly ninety miles of road, upon which the poor of the islands were employed to afford them relief. In September, the party returned to Woolwich, where Captain Webb and the sergeant completed the plans of the work for the Home Office. The conduct and zeal of sergeant R. Forsyth were specially brought to the notice of the Treasury, and in a letter from Sir Charles Trevelyan to Captain Webb, dated 26th of December, 1848, it is stated, “that my lords have received with satisfaction your report of the zeal and intelligence displayed by sergeant Forsyth in assisting in this service; and that if his exertions shall continue to be equally useful, they will be prepared to grant him some moderate additional remuneration when these operations have been brought to a close.”[^[33]]

A new station was opened for the corps this year, by detaching to the Mauritius a company of 100 strong, under the command of Captain J. Fenwick, R.E., which embarked at Gravesend on the 2nd of May, and landed from the ‘Edmundsbury’ on the 19th of August. A half company had previously been employed there, but on the completion of the citadel in 1840, it was removed to the Cape of Good Hope.

Captain John Walpole, R.E., was commissioned as brigade-major to the corps on the 1st of June, 1848, vice Major Sandham removed to the ordnance office as second inspector-general. With the sappers, Major Sandham had served for many years, and the great interest he took in their concerns is well known. Strict impartiality and a penetrating discrimination marked his whole conduct; and his attention to the discipline and drill, raised the character of the corps for military appearance and efficiency. The ready testimony of Lord Bloomfield, the commandant of Woolwich garrison, was frequently awarded to Major Sandham for his success in these particulars, and never was the corps present at a garrison parade, but his lordship called the attention of his staff to its correct marching and manœuvring. A sterling friend to the sappers, Major Sandham, with hearty goodwill, provided many non-commissioned officers and men with comfortable and lucrative situations in civil life, although in doing so, he laid himself under many and deep obligations to those from whom he obtained the patronage.[^[34]]

At the Cape of Good Hope, the companies were still dispersed to about fifteen stations on the eastern frontier and at Pieter Maritzburg. In February, corporal George Pringle, having under him twelve men of the 45th regiment, threw a raft of casks for the passage of his Excellency Sir Harry Smith and his guard, over the rivers Umgani, Mooi, Bushman’s, and the two Tugelas. Sir Harry was taking a peaceful tour of the colony from the frontier to Natal, during which he inquired into the disaffection of the Boers, and settled matters with Pretorius relative to the sovereignty of some territory north of the Orange river, and eastward as far as the Draakenberg mountains.[^[35]] Corporal George Pringle and party, under Lieutenant Gibb, R.E., went from Pieter Maritzburg to the foot of the Draakenberg range, about 120 miles, to meet him. His Excellency noticed corporal Pringle for the activity and intelligence he displayed on this service. When crossing the Mooi, in consequence of the strain on the hawser which had been previously fastened to the opposite bank, the raft capsized, and threw the pontoon party and fifteen men of the Cape mounted rifles into the stream. Corporal Pringle and a man of the 45th regiment, alone clung to the raft; and as it swept along with the rapid current, whirling round and round with the eddy, the corporal dexterously seized the end of a breast-line, jumped into the stream, and swimming to the shore, moored the raft to a clump of bush, by which it swung in safety. All the saddles and carbines, the waggon, and Sir Harry Smith’s horse, which were on the pontoon at the time, were thrown into the river. The horse, by means of a lasso, was soon rescued; and the waggon, about five feet under water, was recovered by the coolness of the corporal, who swam to the spot, and lashing it to the boom, hauled it, with the assistance of his party, to the bank. All the soldiers were saved. The corporal now adopted another method to take his Excellency and the guard across, and the passage of the Mooi, more than fifty yards wide, was eventually effected without accident to the troops or injury to the baggage.

Six privates, under sergeant Alexander M. M‘Leod, left King William’s Town on the 2nd August with a division commanded by Sir Harry Smith, to chastise the rebel Boers at Boem Plaatz. On nearing the Konap, the party was sent in advance to discover the ford. All night was spent in the tedious search, but by daylight next morning it was effectually traced and the march across the Konap commenced. The train, however, was soon stopped in its progress, as the leading waggon, unskilfully conducted by the vorlooper in charge of it, got off a ledge of rock upon which it was proceeding safely, and sinking into the water, the gunpowder it contained was destroyed. At the same time the vorlooper, young and weak, unable to stand against the current, was swept off his legs. In this emergency Colonel Buller directed the sergeant to assist the train in crossing. Standing in the centre of the stream, he controlled the refractory oxen and drove them to the opposite shore. There, however, fresh difficulties arose, for, as the soil was greasy and the bank steep, the oxen could not draw the waggons out of the river. Instantly the party of sappers reduced the bank, and throwing the excavated earth on the slippery beach, the waggons were at length dragged to the shore.

Arriving at the Great Fish River, the troops, guns, and baggage were ferried across on the India-rubber raft taken with the sappers, while the empty waggons were drawn over by means of a hawser. On the 20th the Orange River was reached; next day four other sappers were added to the party, and on the 22nd, at day-light, the India-rubber float was launched for the passage of the division. The river was 250 yards wide and a very rapid tide was running, when, having stretched a sheer line across the stream fastened on either shore to a tree, the operation was successfully carried out. Forty men were ferried across at a time, the expedient of the guiding hawser considerably lessening the labours of the party. Three guns and several waggons were also taken over. The latter were simply rolled on the raft without disturbing their loads, and were deprived of any dangerous motion by blocking their wheels. Not a single accident occurred; and in compliment to the unfailing zeal and efficiency of the men, Sir Harry Smith took occasion, on a general parade at Graham’s Town in October, 1848, to acknowledge that to the royal sappers and miners he was “greatly indebted for the means with which he had been enabled to make the passage of the Orange River, many of the men swimming in the river like dolphins in getting across the baggage and material.”[^[36]]

Marching for Boem Plaatz the detachment was present in an engagement with the Boers, remaining for a time in the rear in charge of ten ammunition tumbrils, and four engineer waggons, containing engineer tools and stores; but ordered to the front by the Governor’s aide-de-camp, Captain Holdich, they pressed forward with four ammunition[ammunition] waggons, and did good service, during the remainder of the action, by serving out the cartridges to the troops.

It was not long before the Boers were beaten, and the column advanced, followed by the sappers and the train of waggons. The grass was on fire on either side of the road. Just at this time the fore-skean or linch-pin of the leading waggon broke, the near fore-wheel came off, and the tumbril upset. Another minute and the burning grass would have blown it up; but there were resolute spirits in the party, who, undaunted by the danger, rushed to the spot, raised the dismembered waggon from the fire, and replacing the wheel, fastened it by the drag-chain through the spokes to the tessel-boom. The expedient answered its purpose for twelve miles, when, by Sir Harry Smith’s orders, the ammunition was removed to a commissariat waggon.

On the 30th August, at Bloem Fontein, the Sovereignty was proclaimed to be British territory. A few days after, marching for Wynberg, the sappers cut a road up the steep and rugged banks of the river they crossed on the route, and repaired a drift for the waggons at Wynberg. There a review was held by Sir Harry Smith. Moshes, the paramount chief of the Sovereignty, and his sons were present, attended by a cortege of 800 armed horsemen clothed in European garb, and 1,500 foot warriors in their war costume and accoutrements. When the display terminated, the Kaffirs formed a circle round Sir Harry Smith and the chief Moshes, and performed a frantic war-dance to serve as an additional proof of the re-establishment of peace. The sappers with the other troops witnessed this barbaric demonstration, and afterwards returned to Bloem Fontein.

The companies at Gibraltar, brought to a strength of 197 men by the arrival of a reinforcement of 53 rank and file, were inspected by the Governor, Sir Robert Wilson, in May, and his report complimented them on their efficiency, zeal, and capacity. “Under arms,” Sir Robert added, “their appearance is soldier-like, and their exercises were creditably performed.” His Excellency, however, had to regret “that the vice of drunkenness should exist in a corps otherwise so respectable.”

In October, Major-General Stavely inspected the half company at Hong Kong, but while he commended the men for their “fine looks” and “being well dressed,” he censured the irregularity which had recently marked their conduct. Intoxication, the greatest bane of the colony, was the chief predisposing cause of disease; and the sappers, who from the nature of their service were continually employed and often much exposed to the sun, carried the propensity to an extent which produced much sickness, and justly called for the Major-General’s animadversion.

Very different, however, was the conduct of the seventh company at Corfu, which, having completed its tour of foreign duty, was relieved early in the year and returned to Woolwich. The Lieutenant-General spoke of their constant good conduct and exertions during the period they had been under his command, and commended them for the excellency of their services. In parting with the company he expressed his good wishes for their welfare, and a vast concourse of the inhabitants cheered them through the streets to the point of embarkation. Since 1824, the companies successively sent to Corfu were chiefly employed in the works of the citadel, and the defences of Vido. Fort Neuf and the church in the citadel, as well as Fort George, Lunette Wellington, and the Maitland Tower at Vido, attest the skilful workmanship of the sappers. Individuals or small parties were at different times detached on particular duty to Santa Maura, Zante, Paxo, and Cephalonia. Of this special duty some idea may be formed, from the nature of the employment of a corporal, who being sent to Santa Maura in December, 1845, by order of the Lord High Commissioner, superintended the workmen engaged in opening a new channel into the port, to render the inner passage once more practicable for ships sailing either up or down the coast.

The detachment at the Falkland Islands was removed from that settlement on the recall of Governor Captain Moody, and landed at Woolwich the 29th November, 1848. For more than six years the party had discharged all the duties of soldiers and artificers, assisted by about forty civilians chiefly labourers; and in that short period a considerable improvement had been made in the colony. Several buildings had been erected, including the Government-house and offices; also a school-house and barracks, and cottages for emigrants and workmen, with houses for boats and stores. Jetties were also constructed, sea-walls made, roads traced and formed, bridges thrown, weirs made for fishing, and kraals for cattle, with numerous ditches, drains, sod walls, and sod huts. To these must be added the performance of an endless variety of services, which the wants and contingencies of a new and inhospitable colony rendered indispensable. Four of the detachment were discharged in the settlement, and the remaining four, soon after reaching England, left the corps by purchase or on pension.[^[37]]

1849.

Breach in the sea embankment at Foulness—Company to Portsmouth—Augmentation to corps—Homeward journey of the Arctic expedition—Private Brodie—Great Slave Lake party—Expedition arrives in England—South Australia—Sergeant R. Gardiner—Road-making in Zetland—Survey of Dover—Wreck of the ‘Richard Dart’—Miserable condition of the survivors on Prince Edward’s Island—Found, and taken to the Cape—Remeasurement of the base-line on Salisbury Plain—Shoeburyness—Eulogium by the Marquis of Anglesey—Fatal accident at Sandhurst College.

On the 10th January fifty-five men, under Captain Tylee of the engineers, were sent by express conveyances from Chatham to Foulness Island, near the entrance of the river Burnham on the coast of Essex, to repair the sea embankment which for about 200 feet had been forced away by a heavy sea. The detachment took with it a quantity of intrenching tools, water-boots, and stores, including 300 fascines and 3,000 sand-bags, which were made and filled in about three hours. In less than twelve hours from the commencement of the work, the breach was effectually mended by an ingenious placement of fascines and sand-bags, at an expense not exceeding 6l. 10s. The party worked in two divisions. The day was extremely wet, but the men laboured with the utmost zeal, and their conduct both on sea and land was exemplary.[^[38]]

A company was sent from Woolwich to Portsmouth in January to supply the place of the one removed from that garrison to Dublin in February, 1848. The return of a company to Portsmouth induced much opposition to its employment on the part of the civil workmen, and disparaging remarks, with respect both to its conduct and its mechanical abilities, appeared in the provincial journals of the time.

One company, the twenty-first, was raised 1st February, and another, the twenty-second, on the 1st March, thereby increasing the establishment of the corps from 1,985 to 2,185 of all ranks. The royal warrant, authorizing the formation of the last eight companies, is dated 22nd August, 1849, and on its authority the companies were organized as follows,—

When the summer fairly set in, the arctic expedition under Sir John Richardson commenced its return. The van, with corporal Mackie, started about a week before Sir John, who followed on the 7th May with Mitchell, Brodie, and three seamen. In five and a half days the journey over the ice was completed, and on the 12th they encamped at Cape Macdonald, clearing away for the purpose snow to the depth of five feet. They then moved on to Fort Franklin, where the advance division had arrived with a good supply of provisions for the voyage. Soon afterwards a detached party was commissioned to Fort Norman for a barge and stores, for which Sir John Richardson waited nearly a month, having with him Mitchell and Brodie and two fishermen, who, in the mean time, lived on trout, whitefish, herrings, and geese, and “bivouacked under the shelter of a boat’s sail as a substitute for a tent.” In time they quitted the vicinity of the fishing-hut, and moved to the banks of the Bear Lake river, where they encamped until the 9th June, when the descent of the river commenced. In the fishing coble brought from Fort Norman, Sir John Richardson with three of the party embarked, whilst Mitchell, Brodie, and a fisherman named Morrison, walked along the bank of the river, each of them carrying his own bedding and clothing. Narcisse, another fisherman, was left behind in charge of some stores. Half an hour after setting out, the party in the coble put ashore, “and in a short time Corporal Mitchell and Morrison joined them, but private Brodie, having struck into the woods with the view of making a straighter course, did not arrive in the hour that the chief waited for him;” and expecting that he had gone past, the voyage was resumed with Mitchell and Morrison added to the party in the boat.[^[39]]

Fourteen miles from the lake a cache was reached; and as Brodie had not arrived in the course of the day, it was evident he had lost himself, and therefore corporal Mitchell and Morrison were sent “back to the lake to acquaint Narcisse with what had happened, and to engage an Indian living at the fishery to go in quest of Brodie. In the meantime the party at intervals fired their fowling-pieces, and set fire to some trees, that the smoke might be seen by the strayed wayfarer at a distance.”[^[40]]

Next day the men came back from the lake. “After placing written directions for Brodie in the cache, the expedition re-embarked, and in a short time came to the influx of the Black River, then flooded. There another paper of instructions was left for Brodie, directing him to the cache for provisions, and to remain with Narcisse until the barge came for him.” “The incident,” writes Sir John Richardson, “of Brodie’s straying gave me much uneasiness, as I feared he would experience some suffering, though I did not apprehend he would lose his life. He was a man of much personal activity and considerable intelligence. When he discovered he was walking in a wrong direction, he began to mend his pace, and to run, as is usual in such cases, but took an inland course, and at length came to the borders of an extensive swamp. Here the woods being more open he obtained a distant view of the ‘hill at the rapid,’ which he recognized, from having seen it on his former journey to the cache; and as he knew that he must pass it in descending the river, he resolved on walking straight for it, in the hope of arriving there before us. After this he came to the Black River,” a rapid, unfordable stream, scarcely passable by a raft; but, continues Sir John Richardson, “being a fearless swimmer, he swam across it carrying his clothes on his head. The stream being very tortuous, came again in his way, when he crossed it a second and a third time in the same manner; but on the last occasion, his bundle slipping off, floated away, and he regained the bank with difficulty in a state of perfect nudity. After a moment’s reflection, he came to the conclusion that without clothes he must perish, and that he might as well be drowned in trying to recover them as to attempt proceeding naked. On which he plunged in again, and fortunately landed this time safely with his habiliments. He now refreshed himself with a part of a small piece of dried meat, which in his anxiety he had hitherto left untouched, and forthwith decided on finding the cache and returning from thence to the lake. On the third day (11th June) he found my note, together with some provisions which had been suspended to a pole for his use, but he had so husbanded his own small supply, that he had still a morsel of dried meat remaining. He had no difficulty afterwards in joining Narcisse, by keeping sight of the river the whole way;”[^[41]] and in due course he joined the expedition at Fort Simpson, in a barge sent to receive him.

At this fort also joined the ten sappers who had wintered on the Great Slave Lake; and on the 25th June Sir John started again on his homeward journey, encountering a succession of hardships, until he arrived at Norway House on the 13th August. The services of the mission were now wholly ended, and of the sappers, Sir John Richardson thus recorded his opinion: “During the time these men were under my command, not a single act of disobedience occurred. Crews better fitted for heavy portage work and for the ordinary duties of a winter’s residence in the north, might doubtless have been selected in the country, but none that I could have depended upon with so much confidence in adverse circumstances.”[^[42]]

The arctic travellers arrived in England in November 1849, when three or four, in recognition of their usefulness, received gratuities of 15l. each, and the remainder 10l. each.

Captain Freeling, R.E., appointed surveyor-general in South Australia, with a party of five surveyors—sappers and miners—sailed for Port Adelaide on the 6th March, and landed there the 21st June. These men were forwarded to the colony to fill the vacancies occasioned by men discharged. Captain Frome, R.E., who had commanded the detachment in that province since 1839, was recalled to the corps in consequence of his period on the seconded list having expired.[^[43]]

Early in March one sergeant and five rank and file under the orders of Captain Webb, R.E., returned to Zetland to lay out and superintend the construction of the roads surveyed in the two previous years. Up to this time, there was nothing in the island that could be called a road, except from Lerwick to Scallaway, a distance of about six miles, which, though not finished, was passable for riders, &c. Captain Craigie, R.N., the commissioner for Zetland, accorded them high credit for their exertions in directing the work, and controlling the poor employed upon it; and in a report to the Edinburgh section of the Central Board, he thus wrote of their usefulness and merits: “I cannot close this report without bearing my humble testimony to the invaluable services of Captain Webb, R.E., sergeant Forsyth and the staff of royal sappers and miners, and recording the gratitude felt towards Government by the whole community, for their consideration in granting an officer so eminently fitted to conduct and carry out to completion, works of such public and permanent utility. But great and most important as these works unquestionably are, they fall into comparative insignificance as compared to the social regeneration now in progress, in the industrious habits of the people, and to which their efforts have mainly contributed. The patience, forbearance, the tact and temper with which Captain Webb and his staff have led the people on, step by step, to a knowledge of their physical powers; their indefatigable industry and disregard of difficulties of no ordinary kind in such a climate and country; but above all, their being looked up to as the organ and representatives of government in this remote region, have invested them with a moral influence among all classes which can scarcely be calculated.”

In April eight rank and file from Chatham were employed under the direction of Lieutenant Stotherd, R.E., in completing the survey and contouring of Dover.

A detachment of one sergeant, one corporal, and twenty-six privates, with four women and nine children, embarked at Woolwich on the 3rd April, 1849, on board the brig ‘Richard Dart,’ for New Zealand, under the command of Lieutenant Liddell, R.E. The ship sailed from Gravesend on the 5th April, and made a pleasant voyage until the 15th June, when, to the southward of the Cape of Good Hope, foggy and rainy weather set in, which continuing till the 19th, the ship was carried to the north side of Prince Edward’s Island and struck on the rocks. The waves at the time ran high, and within a few short minutes, the stern cabin-windows were stove in, the boats were filled and torn from the quarter, and while the vessel, beaten by a raging sea fell to pieces, wave after wave swept the decks and rigging and carried forty-seven of the crew and passengers into the deep. Of this number twenty-four men belonged to the detachment of sappers, who, with all their wives and children, and Lieutenant Liddell, perished.

Eleven souls only out of sixty-three were saved. Among those who escaped were the captain of the ship—Samuel Potter—and four sappers, named Thomas Inglis, Owen Devany, James Reid and William Goldsmith. They took refuge in the mainmast rigging; and the wreck, having been driven broadside to the shore, the mainmast went by the board, falling fortunately upon the rock, and the survivors crawled along the shaking spar to the shore. The rocks being exceedingly steep and difficult of access, the men had to undergo much labour and fatigue in reaching the summit of the cliff, occasionally hanging on by fragile sea-weeds and every now and then throwing themselves into crevices to prevent the receding surge drawing them into the sea. Most of the party were barefoot and thinly clad. The night was cold; the snow fell fast and thick, and beating upon their drenched and shivering frames, their sufferings may possibly be imagined but never adequately described.

The island was a mass of black rocks, torn by volcanic violence, and wore an aspect of wild and sterile desolation. Selecting a small green spot where fresh water was found, they made it a temporary residence, and built with the wood recovered from the wreck and some sods, a small hut, which sheltered them in a measure from the bitter wind and frost. A few sperm candles and some blankets, washed from the wreck, were all that could be found to reward their anxious exertions. No provisions of any kind could be picked up; but at length, when forced by hunger, they killed some young albatrosses and fed sparingly on the raw flesh. The candles in this extremity became savoury morsels and were devoured with considerable relish. As they were without fire, or the means of procuring any to assuage the bitterness of their distress, they determined, on the seventh day of their deliverance, to explore the island and see what Providence might turn up to their hopes.

Two of the men, from being frostbitten and cut in the feet, were unable to walk. The remaining nine, therefore, started, leaving a stock of raw meat with the two sick sappers, who laid themselves down on the cold ground only to feel the increase of pangs which the presence even of a spark of fire would have helped to soften. Without a cheering ray to palliate their wretchedness, with the nipping frost gnawing their reeking wounds, they gave themselves up to the destiny which seemed to await them. Hourly the toils and miseries of the adventurers increased. After travelling all day, sometimes over high hills covered with sharp vitrified cinders, sometimes on marshy ground up to their hips in bog, they stopped for the night by the side of a frowning rock. The rain poured in torrents; shelter could not be found; no expedient for kindling a flame succeeded; and in this deplorable condition they sat down on the charred ground, huddled together to preserve some little warmth among them, exposed throughout the night to the drenching storm, covered only by their blankets.

Next morning, resuming their travels, they gained a beach where four sea-elephants were lying basking in the sun, for the day opened with a cheering summer’s warmth. Two of the monsters they killed, but made no use of them. Here the travellers waited for a few days to recruit their strength. The place was called “Double Beach,” but no fissure or cavity could be found to hide them from the winds and rains; and so night after night, rolling themselves up in their blankets, they slept in the open air. After a few days, private Reid, with some others, returned to the first location to visit the invalids. Private Goldsmith—a mere lad, slim and weakly by nature—was much worse; his frame was frightfully emaciated, his agony intense, and his toes were sloughing with gangrene; but private Devany—constitutionally stout and strong—was improving though unable to walk. Three days they remained with their sick comrades to encourage and cheer them with a narrative of their proceedings and a recital of their hopes; and on the 1st July they again repaired to Double Beach, leaving with the sick men the raw flesh of six birds, equal to a week’s provisions. Devany was most assiduous in his attentions to the dying man, and to save his poor mouth from the exertion of mastication, tore up the uncooked flesh into small pieces, and fed him. But the time came when he was no longer able to receive the morsels—the last struggle was upon him—and he closed his eyes for ever.

A snow-storm now set in, which lasted all night and throughout the day of the 2nd. Raw flesh was their only repast, and of this, from the want of powder and gun, they could not obtain a sufficiency to sustain their strength. Weak and attenuated, and completely benumbed by exposure to frost and snow, but little could be done in the way of exploration. Nevertheless they lagged on in their desperate mission, like men contending against some crushing adversity, determined to win. Crusoes they could not hope to be in such a clime and such a barren sea-holm; but whatever was practicable to their ingenuity and strength, they adapted to their use to support life till deliverance gave them succour.

The night of the 2nd July was still more severe in its effects upon the spirits and constitutions of the party, and the rain poured on them incessantly. Miserable nights were these to spend their vigils. Up, however, they rose with the returning dawn—stiff and aching in every limb; then wringing the wet from their stanched blankets, and feasting upon the raw breast of an albatross, journeyed on to seek a retreat from the recurring storms. On the 3rd, private Inglis discovered a cave close to the shore, whither the party joyfully repaired; and as the day was fine, they dried their dripping clothes and blankets. Meanwhile, watching from their lairs upon the passing birds, they brought down eighteen from the wing to replenish their impoverished game store. Stones they threw as if fired from rifles and used sticks with an address not inferior to Kaffirs. Necessity indeed was indulgent to give certainty to the primitive means they employed to secure their prey. Next day, from the return of a severe frost, all power of feeling and motion left their feet and fingers, and confined them to the dreary cave for a full week.

Until the 26th July, the cave afforded them a partial retreat from the severe inclemencies of the weather. On that day, private Inglis, the most successful of the adventurers, discovered a small hut about three miles away, in which a number of men’s names were carved. Under the last name was cut the words, “On a journey round the island, 27th May, 1849.” This unlooked for intimation gave rise to strange emotions and speculations, and the last cloud of despair vanished before the sudden hope which sprung up in his breast. How intensely did he gaze upon the portentous words! and how often did he read them to assure himself that the passage was not the insane impression of a diseased mind! Satisfied that the inscription was not a mental caprice, he started off to announce to his fellow-sufferers the purport of his discovery. All received the intelligence with wondering doubt. “Where! where!” burst from every lip, and hastening forward, they followed Inglis to the hut. There indeed was the “handwriting on the wall;” and seeing in that ominous sentence, the legacy of their lives bequeathed to them by Providence, each voice was swelled in thankful ascriptions to that gracious Power, which, hitherto, had so marvellously preserved them.

It was now resolved that the captain, one seaman, and privates Reid and Inglis, should take a circuit of the sea-girt isle, until they regained the cave, to see whether any one was near to help them. Having started, they reached the hut early in the morning; but as, at the time, it was blowing a heavy gale and snowing hard, they waited a day or two for the weather to moderate. During this interval they consulted together as to their future movements; and private Reid having volunteered to remain alone at the hut, the others commenced, on the 30th July, to make the special tour. Next day two of the party returned to the hut, so that on the 31st July the adventurers were thus dispersed—three on the search, three at the hut, two at the cave, and one of the two sailors in charge of the two sappers at the sick dêpot. The explorers made a long march the first day, examining every nook and every cliff for fresh evidences of habitation. The rain pelted on them; the snow sat in flakes on their gaunt frames; and wearied and foot-sore they dropped at night on the spot where the last speck of twilight left them in darkness. Next morning they were early afoot, and onward they travelled in pursuit of what, so far, seemed an ignis fatuus. Resolved to win their spurs, they would not suffer despondency or gloom to cheat them of their expectations; and another morning had scarcely opened upon them when the reward of their endurance and exertion was within their grasp. It was on the 1st August, when, after rambling about the island for no less than six weeks, shaken and enfeebled by hunger, pain, toil, and frost, they fell in with a party of twelve seafaring men in the service of Mr. Geary of Cape Town. The meeting was one in which mutual amazement and happiness were keenly felt; and for the following thirty-two days, no vessel having touched at the island, the Cape seamen generously shared with the adventurers their scanty stock of farina. Poor Goldsmith was still alive. The strangers carried him more than thirty miles to the cave on the south beach of the island in which they resided. One by one his toes dropped from his feet, and he perished on the 24th August. With every feeling of affection and sorrow for his unhappy fate, his comrades interred his remains on the spot where he ceased the mortal struggle.

The schooner ‘Courier,’ of Cape Town, at length brought up at the island with a supply of provisions; and the survivors of the wreck, after seventy-two days’ sojourn in that bleak and desolate region, having embarked on board of her, landed at Table Bay on the 10th November, where they were gratefully welcomed and entertained by a party of the corps.[^[44]]

A party of sixteen non-commissioned officers and men, afterwards increased to nineteen of all ranks, under sergeant James Steel, was detached on the 1st May with sufficient camp-houses, equipage, and stores, to carry out the remeasurement of the base line on Salisbury Plain, by means of the compensation bars invented by General Colby.[^[45]] No man or officer on the survey had ever seen the apparatus in position before; and sergeant Steel, therefore, has the credit of acquiring a full knowledge of the adaptation and uses of the various instruments belonging to the apparatus, unassisted by the teaching of any practician. This he achieved by more than three months’ unwearied study of some manuscript records on the subject, and by closely observing the results of a series of experiments which he conducted.

During the first fortnight, the line, six miles and three-quarters in length as the crow flies, was three times measured with the chain, marked off, cleared of wood, furze, and other obstacles, and again roughly surveyed. The little wooden encampment of the detachment was by this time in excellent order; and, after three days’ tedious work in testing the apparatus by comparison with the standard bar, the first compensation bar in the remeasurement was laid at Beacon-hill. Owing to the steepness of the ground, and other causes, progress over the hill was both slow and wearisome; but having once mastered the descent, the operation throughout its length presented less difficulties than were at first encountered. From time to time the sergeant communicated to the ordnance map office at Southampton the obstacles, both physical and instrumental, he met with in his progress, and the contrivances he resorted to, to overcome them. The journal so sent was full of practical instruction, of a kind to be easily acquired on future reference, and was replete with interesting information.

The distribution of the party gave ample employment to every man, and the division of labour was adapted to the attainments of the men and the necessities of the duty. Corporal William Jenkins assisted the sergeant at the bars and microscopes. The latter compared the microscopes with the standard on Sundays; and frequently, after a severe day’s work, the same process was necessarily gone through, and other adjustments of the instruments effected. Corporal Edward Harkin constantly attended to the aligning instrument, whilst one man assisted him in preparing the stations, &c.; two privates levelled the triangles for the feet of the supporting stools for the bars; two attended to the adjustment of the stools on the triangles, levelled the camels on them, and moved forward the microscopes, &c.; two carried forward the bars and point-carriers, and levelled the former and fixed the latter; one registered the bars and microscopes, and otherwise aided in moving them forward and adjusting them; one, a carpenter, made the pickets, and repaired the mallets, tents, &c.; four attended to the shifting and placement of the tents; one was sentry over the bars at the dinner hour and during the night, to prevent any disturbance in the apparatus; and two attended to the domestic and miscellaneous duties of the huts.

The camp occupied three different positions on the line. It was thus moved twice forward. On each occasion, for a few days, no progress was made in the remeasurement, and sergeant Steel with two privates, filled up the interval in comparing the bars and microscopes with the standards. In the meantime, the remainder of the detachment fitted up the portable huts in the position selected for them.

Great nicety and precision were required in the placement of the bars; and so rigidly did the sergeant enforce the strictest exactness in their alignment and contiguity, that he would not order the “move forward” until he satisfied himself that the possibility of an error in the operation was not likely to exceed the 10,000th part of an inch. In this way the work was continued till the 16th October, 1848, when the 3,484th bar shot over the old Sarum terminus of the line. This was followed by a spontaneous cheer, hearty and sustained, from the assembled party who thus commemorated the successful accomplishment of the operation. By previous computations from the Lough Foyle base, the perfect accuracy of the remeasurement was proved; for, not only did the predetermined bar reach the gun, but the very inch of it entered the muzzle.

To ascertain by the usual computations whether any error by the omission in the registry of a bar or microscope could be detected, the line was divided into three parts, and each part was used as a base for a minor triangulation. Very great care was taken in executing this triangulation, but it failed to discover any inaccuracy in the measurement. Sergeant James Donelan and corporal William Jenkins, with the two 3-feet instruments, carried out this special service.

The results of the two measurements stand on record as under:—

The precision of the two operations by such different instruments is strikingly close and beautiful, and not only illustrates the excellence of the instruments, but the perfection of the work.

On the completion of the service, corporal Jenkins was intrusted with one of the great theodolites, and removed with a camp party from the base detachment to a mountain station. The remainder were soon dispersed on the general duties of the survey, and sergeant Steel, after again comparing the bars and microscopes with the standard measures, returned with the compensation apparatus, &c., to Southampton.[^[46]]

On the 7th June, one sergeant and twenty-five rank and file were removed from Woolwich to Shoeburyness to erect temporary barracks, &c., for the royal artillery, and also to lay platforms, build batteries, and to execute the varied works which a new station might call for, both for the convenience of the ordnance troops and the interests of the service. The party was increased to thirty of all ranks in July, but in October following was reduced to six non-commissioned officers and privates. Ever since this period, a small detachment has been retained at the station to carry on the current repairs and improvements, and its strength has fluctuated from time to time, in accordance with the prevailing emergencies.

The convicts had been working for a time in repairing the main-sewer in the royal arsenal at Woolwich, but in consequence of the unhealthiness of the duty, were withdrawn from it. As the work was one of considerable importance to the locality in a sanitary point of view, volunteers to finish the drain were therefore demanded from the royal sappers and miners. One sergeant and eight privates at once undertook the work, continuing at it during a portion of the month of August, and its execution was effected without the slightest injury to any one engaged. This led the Marquis of Anglesey, then Master-General, on the 5th September to extol the labours of the party in these words: “I desire to mark my high approbation and admiration of the gallant conduct of the corps of royal sappers and miners, in volunteering an unpleasant and even dangerous service in the cause of humanity. Such self-devotion, wholly devoid as it is of the stimulus of public honour and of glory, far exceeds the renown gained in the battle-field. I offer my thanks to all the individuals concerned.”[^[47]]

On the 6th October an experiment was made at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, to blow in the barrier-gate of the bastion-fort, which cost the lives of the sergeant and one of the privates employed. Sergeant John Cameron under Major Adams, had the conduct of the arrangements and the preparation of the fuse. Nine pounds of powder were placed in a sand-bag having a canvas tube joining into the middle of the powder. In this canvas tube was fixed a grenade fuse with a piece of cotton in it, calculated to burn a sufficient time after the cotton should burst into flame. The bag of powder placed against the barrier, was covered over with a curved iron shield with a hole in it to permit the fuse to come through, and then four sand-bags were lodged against the shield. The arrangements being completed, all the sappers retired except the sergeant and a private to ignite the fuse. Suddenly the explosion took place, and at once the sergeant was blown into the wet ditch, and the private knocked down on the berm. Both were mutilated in a frightful manner and in a few days expired. The accident is supposed to have arisen from some defect in the fuse which was made by the sergeant. Sergeant Cameron was a zealous and talented non-commissioned officer, had several seasons been employed with great advantage at the college, and presented the institution with some interesting military models. His widow was granted a pension of 10l. a-year.

1850.

Sir Robert Gardiner’s opinion of the corps—Party to the penal settlement at Swan River—Detachment to New Zealand—Draft to Hong-Kong—Mining operations at Seaford Bay—Determinations of the latitudes of various trigonometrical stations—Sergeant James Steel—Professor Airy—The leisure of the sergeant—New method of acquiring a knowledge of chess—Hardships of a party landed at Rona.

Early in the year, Sir Robert Gardiner, the governor at Gibraltar, wrote a complimentary letter to Sir John Burgoyne, relative to the companies of the corps under his Excellency’s command. “My opinion of the sappers,” he says, “is everything that you, in your personal, natural, and official station would desire; their movements surprise me, and are proofs of the care and attention of the officers, who must be good tacticians, as well as good engineers.”

On the 15th February, five rank and file embarked at Deptford in the ‘Scindian’ convict ship, under Captain E. Y. W. Henderson, R.E., for the Swan River settlement, and landed at Freemantle on the 11th June. The captain had been appointed comptroller-general of prisons, and obtained the authority of Earl Grey, then Secretary of State for the colonies, to take with him this small detachment. The men were experienced as soldiers and tradesmen: one of their number was a competent draughtsman and architect, and another was acquainted with surveying, camp-duty, and the mode of blasting rock. On their arrival in the colony, they were appointed warders over the convicts, as well to keep them in discipline as to direct them in the execution of the various works that might be undertaken for the establishment of a penal settlement and the development of the colony. The party was also intended to superintend the submarine operations required in the removal of the bar at the mouth of the harbour. The rates of working-pay granted to them, ranged between 1s. 3d. and 2s. a-day. A full company has since been added to the command on the recommendation of Captain Henderson, R.E.

Late in March one sergeant and twenty-six rank and file embarked for New Zealand, under Lieut. F. R. Chesney, R.E., and landed at Auckland on the 26th August, increasing the detachment there to a half-company of forty-one strong. The removal of this party from Woolwich was occasioned by the loss by shipwreck, near the Cape of Good Hope, of the detachment which sailed for that colony in April, 1849.

Fifteen rank and file embarked on the 15th May for China, and landed at Victoria on the 18th October. This was the fifth detachment sent to that country. Two men sent from Woolwich in April, to superintend the laying of asphalte on the government works, arrived at Hong Kong on the 17th June.

At Seaford Bay, on the coast of Sussex, the sea had made considerable encroachment, so as to jeopardise much of the adjacent property, and also the defences and martello-tower in its vicinity. Large sums of money had been expended in the construction of wood groins and clay embankments, with only partial success; and as an effectual remedy, it was proposed to throw down by mining a portion of the chalk rock itself, in the direction of the tidal current, and thus cause it to accumulate the shingle and protect the land and contiguous property. The cliff was high, bold, and bare, and worn at the base into hollows and long perpendicular crevices by the lashing of the waves, which, at high water, rushed up its aged and craggy face. With the view to efficiency and economy, the Master-General approved of the operations being carried out by a detachment of sappers and miners; and accordingly two sergeants and forty-four rank and file of the fourth company left Portsmouth at the end of July under Lieutenant E. W. Ward, R.E., who, on arriving at Seaford, lost no time in commencing the interesting undertaking. Late in August, the party was increased by ten rank and file under Captain Craigie, to assist in completing the final arrangements, and to take the military duty consequent upon the anticipated explosion.

The works were conducted under the direction of Colonel G. G. Lewis, R.E., with Captain E. C. Frome as his executive officer. In the face of the cliff, about thirty-five feet above high-water mark, a nearly horizontal gallery was cut a considerable distance into the chalk. The mouth of this gallery was approached by a ladder and platform, supported by scaffolding. Inside the opening a cave was formed for spare tools and materials, and another also was excavated at the end of the gallery for a similar purpose. At right angles from this gallery, extending fifty-five feet to the right and sixty-five to the left, were corresponding galleries, at the extremities of which were two chambers of about seven feet cube, containing 12,000 lbs. of powder each. Two wires, respectively in connexion with two of Grove’s batteries, completed the arrangements for exploding these charges simultaneously. The chambers of powder were about seventy feet from the face of the cliff, and were intended to drive out its under portions and roll them towards the sea. Upon the surface of the rock, eighty-four feet from its edge, were sunk five vertical shafts, at the bottom of which other chambers were excavated, containing, in three of them, each 600 lbs. of powder, to be fired simultaneously with the two great charges. The two other chambers were not loaded, from the non-arrival of a sufficient quantity of powder. The shaft chambers were connected by wires to a Smee’s battery, placed in a wooden shed erected about 180 feet from the edge of the cliff. The wires to convey the electric fluid to each chamber were covered with tape and varnished or tarred over. The galleries were tamped with sand and chalk, in bags, to within fifty feet of the mouth, both branches being tamped up, and twenty feet down the large gallery. “The men worked in reliefs for the whole twenty-four hours. For the gallery three reliefs of four men each, were appointed; and subsequently for the branches three reliefs of six men for the two.... The relieving hours were 6 A.M., 6 P.M., and midnight, except at periods when the high spring tides prevented the relief passing a projecting part of the cliff at the proper hours, when arrangements were made to equalize the extra time the men were so employed.... The work was hardly ever interrupted in its progress, for by compelling each relief to be in barracks six hours before their turn came for work, the men were invariably fresh at the commencement of their time; and as the working pay was good and the best miners were always employed, the average amount of work performed by night equalled that accomplished by day.”

All the necessary operations being completed, the great explosion, on a signal from the galvanic battery by sergeant Edward Wright took place on the 19th September, under the immediate orders of Colonel Lewis. The effect of firing the two great chambers was to throw out the under portions of the rock, which, from the downward pressure of the superincumbent masses, rolled with a convulsive heaving towards the sea, carrying with them the three smaller chambers unexploded, and causing deep fissures in the chalk as far back as the very foundation of the battery shed. The undertaking, so far as dislocating an immense mass of chalk from the cliff was concerned, was thus perfectly successful; but subsequent experience has thrown doubts upon its utility as a breakwater, for the chalk is gradually being washed away, and if some natural intervention does not take place to conglomerate the mass into a compact resisting body, time will remove the headland altogether, and expose as before the land and its defences to the gradual invasion of the sea.

The explosion was one of the largest that had ever occurred, and passed off without accident, delay, confusion, or inconvenience to any one of the detachment engaged, or to the thousands of spectators who witnessed the operation.[^[48]] The quantity of chalk displaced was about 200,000 cubic yards, or about 292,000 tons. The distance the debris was hurled in front of the original line of cliff was more than 300 feet. The average breadth of the mound formed was about 360 feet, and its mean height about 50 feet.

Much of the expense of the service was paid by Mr. Catt, jun., a miller, to whom the surrounding property belonged, and who, as well for his own interest as for the welfare of Newhaven and its harbour, undertook a large share in the liability. The total cost of the work was 907l. 12s. 11½d. Of this sum only 92l. 3s. 1d. was spent on sapper labour, which included their services for levelling the ground, and other preliminary duties, excavating the galleries, shafts, and chambers, digging a trench above the cliff, loading and tamping the mines, making surveys and sections of the cliff and the works, preparing and laying wires, clearing away the debris, and various other miscellaneous duties, which the extensive and peculiar character of the operations rendered essential.

Lieutenant-General Sir John Burgoyne, the inspector-general of fortifications, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Pasley, and a number of officers of royal engineers, were present to witness the explosion. Later in the day the non-commissioned officers and privates commemorated the success[success] of their exertions with an excellent dinner. “Night and day,” wrote Colonel Lewis, “the detachment worked with great zeal and alacrity, exposed to colds from draughts and alternations of temperature, and to injury from falling masses. Nevertheless, no material accident occurred to any one, and all gained the praise of their officers, and the respect of the inhabitants of Seaford for their courteous behaviour and good conduct.”[^[49]]

The observations made with Airy’s zenith sector for the determination of the latitudes of various trigonometrical stations used in the ordnance survey of the British Isles, which commenced in 1842, terminated in December 1850, and the results have become the subject of an important volume from the pen of Captain Yolland, R.E. The instrument at first was in charge of officers of the corps, but in course of time, from a paucity in their number, it devolved upon corporal, afterwards sergeant, James Steel. The first man of the sappers honoured with the use of the instrument was private Benjamin Keen Spencer,[^[50]] who was employed with the earliest parties in carrying on the observations; and it is not a little curious to add, that General Colby directed his own personal observations, the work of his most able days to be tested by sergeant Steel. This is a striking proof both of the greatness of his mind, and his freedom from those petty jealousies which sometimes mar the superiority of distinguished characters.[^[51]]

The following table (p. 48), taken from Captain Yolland’s Sector Volume, “shows in a condensed form the stations observed from, the period during which the observations were in progress, the officer of royal engineers, or non-commissioned officer of royal sappers and miners in charge of the instrument, and the strength of the party; also the number of nights on which observations were made, and the number of observations registered at each station.”[^[52]]

“The list of stars,” says Captain Yolland, “selected for observation fell within the parallels of declination of 37° 38´ and 69° 54´. About two-thirds of this number were originally chosen, so as to admit of a continuous series of observations being made when the weather proved favourable throughout the night, and two observers were for some time employed with the instrument, who relieved each other after an interval of several hours’ work. The observations were frequently carried on continuously for upwards of eight hours, but six hours’ constant observing was reckoned a good night’s work for one person, in consequence of the fatigue caused by his having to ascend twice to the table to make each complete or double observation.”[^[55]] In the course of the service additional stars, not originally selected for observation, were occasionally observed, some of which were not found in the works of the best authorities.[^[56]] Two men, ready penmen, were also employed in booking, and afterwards copying, the observations on the skeleton forms, for transmission to the map office at Southampton, where the necessary computations in connection with the observations, were carried out and completed under the direction of Captain Yolland, R.E.

It would be out of place here to make any copious detail of the employment of the sappers on this special duty, belonging as it properly does to the history of the operation, and being so amply recorded in Captain Yolland’s Sector Volume; but exception may fairly be taken to a few particulars in the personal services of the sergeant, which may prove interesting to the reader, and induce other non-commissioned officers in the corps to render themselves not only useful to their officers, but to deserve, in executing any important duty for which they may be selected, their confidence and approbation.

Sergeant Steel’s first station was at Hensbarrow,[^[57]] from which he was removed to South Barule, and after completing his observations there, he was stationed for a time on the wild and romantic hill of Ben Lomond. There he witnessed a phenomenon which, perhaps, had never before been seen by any one. He had frequently been above the clouds, and at Hensbarrow, of a low altitude compared with Ben Lomond, he had observed the stars a whole night when the clouds beneath him were saturating with their vapour the little village of Roach below; but on Ben Lomond he saw extensive masses of cloud settle down into a level wide-spread stratum, the upper surface of which was at least 500 feet beneath the camp. This was after sunset, on the 10th September, 1845, with a beautiful moon and a clear blue sky above, altogether presenting an impressive coup d’œil. Such was the depth and density of the mass, that it required the powerful influence of the sun’s rays for the two following days to dispel it. The whiteness of snow was grey, contrasted with the silver hoar of the heavy cloud when the sun rose on the 11th, and it offered, said Steel, in his forcible language, “a strong temptation to a lover of nature’s wildest grandeur, to treat himself to a celestial walk on its upper surface to the peak on the neighbouring hill.” Some tourists ascended the mountain on the 11th and 12th of September in the true spirit of enthusiastic enterprise, wishing to connect their names in history with this startling, yet truly magnificent phenomenon, but their amazement was indeed great, when, after penetrating the cloud, they saw above them an encampment of soldiers carrying on the official services of the station, with all the activity and fearlessness of men accustomed to such extraordinary appearances.

At Ben Heynish, in Tiree, one of the westerly isles of Scotland, the sergeant had to struggle in watching and taking a few observations between the almost incessant storms. Next he was employed in the remeasurement of the latitude of Dunnose, the southern extremity of a British arc of meridian, to verify its result as determined with Ramsden’s zenith sector in 1802, and also to test the value of Professor Airy’s sector. The observations for this purpose were carried on both at Week Down and Dunnose. “The near agreement in the results of the comparison proved very satisfactory as regards the work performed with both instruments; but to endeavour to trace the extent and amount of the disturbance that evidently affected the inclination of the plumbline at Dunnose,” the sergeant afterwards made observations both at Boniface Down and Port Valley, in the Isle of Wight, by which “the difference in the geodetic and astronomical amplitudes between Greenwich and Port Valley were found to be almost insensible, and the comparison with Boniface Down and Week Down tolerably good.” The discovery, however, of singular disagreements in the observations at “one of the stations in the Isle of Wight, which had hitherto been looked on as the southern extremity of the longest of the British arcs of meridian, and where no sensible deviation could à priori have been anticipated, led to the re-examination of the northern extremity of the same arc, situated in Balta Island, by revisiting it, and by observing also from two other stations in the Shetland Islands contiguous to it, viz., Gerth of Scaw and Saxavord.”[^[58]] The disturbance alluded to—the effect of local attraction—caused the plumbline and level to be deflected or acted upon, as a loadstone would influence the needle of a mariner’s compass, and thus, when the levels indicated that the instrument was pointed at zenith, it was in fact directed to a point nearly four seconds to the north of it.

To Unst, in Shetland, the northern extremity of the arc just mentioned, sergeant Steel now repaired, and ascertained the existence of a disturbance at Saxavord, but in the contrary direction. This was fully established by taking a similar series of observations at the Gerth of Scaw, near Lambaness, and on the small uninhabited island of Balta. The relative position of these stations he fixed astronomically as to latitude, and geodetically by triangulation and levelling from the mean level of the sea, which involved observations with regard to the ebb and flow of the tides. By the series of observations so far made, it was clearly proved, that the latitude of a place could not be measured with the degree of certainty formerly supposed, and that though astronomers may profess to give seconds, tenths, and even hundredths of a second of their latitude, yet the real truth is, that the record may often be several whole seconds in error. The discovery, now confirmed by sergeant Steel’s inflexible accuracy, is likely to produce some interesting discussion in the scientific world, and has already been made the subject of an article in the ‘Philosophical Journal of Science’ for April, 1853, embraced in a review of Captain Yolland’s Sector Volume.[^[59]]

After passing a station at Cowhythe Hill, in Banffshire, to verify the sector operations of 1813, and which object was satisfactorily attained, the sergeant fixed his observatory at Southampton, where, in carrying on the duty, he made various experiments to ascertain the cause of apparent errors. In taking the usual readings of the telescope micrometers, the value of the zenith point, derived from each double observation of a star, varied sensibly. To determine this more accurately, by ascertaining the true value of the divisions of the screw, and correcting the error involved in the reduction of the whole of the observation, he adopted the method of making two distinct observations of the same star without reversal of the revolving frame, in the manner described in the Sector Volume, page xxvii, and so excellent was this method considered, that the value of the screw thus obtained, was finally applied to all the observations.

In prosecuting the work, it was also evident, that the most northerly stars furnished the greatest, and the most southerly the least resulting latitudes. To arrive at the cause of this anomaly, sergeant Steel devoted much of his time to careful investigation, and his efforts and experiments were both ingenious and interesting. These embraced comparisons of the arc with Simms’ dividing engine, by which the non-existence of any sensible error in the divisions of the limb that would account for the observed errors was proved; but it was at the same time clearly ascertained, after a patient examination of the micrometer screws, the levels, the lenses, and the fullest consideration of the law of expansion by heat or contraction either by cold or pressure, that the immediate cause of the disparity arose from the compression of the divided limb by the downward pressure of the upper screw pivot, which, at each station, varied in proportion to the degree of pressure supplied. This was, ever after, a special point of attention with the sergeant, and as, from the construction of the instrument, no absolutely permanent and uniform pressure could be insured at all times, he regulated its extent as well by his judgment as his recollection.

It was a rule with him, notwithstanding the apparent errors that might be the result, to register his observations with the strictest exactness. Experience had taught him to expect them as well from local as from indefinable causes. He considered, moreover, that the more perfectly an instrument was constructed, the more honestly would it report the discrepancies of both maker and observer, and that although the conclusions would seem to be a volume of errors, more credit and merit were due to the observer for ascertaining, instead of concealing or covering his errors. Influenced by this novel consideration, he threw an amount of earnestness, care, and faithfulness into his work, that rendered his observations of the highest class for accuracy, and deserving of the fullest confidence.

At Southampton he was assisted in the sector service for nearly twelve months by corporal William Jenkins: the one observed from sunset till midnight, and the other from midnight till sunrise. His final observations were at St. Agnes in Scilly, Goonhilly Down near the Lizard Point, North Rona, and Great Stirling—the north-east peak of Scotland. By this series of observations, the arc of meridian, which before terminated at Forth Mountain in the county of Wexford, and Monach in Lewis, was extended to St. Agnes in the south, and to Rona in the north, a small, unknown, and stormy island, about 100 miles west of Orkney.

At Stirling, according to instructions, he examined the promontory to select for his observations a spot, which would be probably free from unequal attraction, and fix its position by triangulation. In this he was quite successful. The point was “so far to the east as to be out of the direct meridional line of attraction of the hills lying south of Cowhythe,” and by this series of observations it was ascertained, “that the deflection existing at Cowhythe, is not general in those latitudes, and that the discrepancy between its observed and calculated latitude, is not due to an error in the figure used in computing the geodetic result, but to local attraction affecting the astronomical latitude.”[^[60]] The fact of local attraction was now fully established; but from some peculiarities of its influence in particular districts, the inference derivable from it is, notwithstanding the skilful conclusions of scientific men, that the figure of the earth is different to the commonly-received opinion of its form.

In these later services he and his party were alike exposed to dangers at sea, and to trials and privations on land; and besides encountering many perils in difficult boat service, and in landing on almost inaccessible coasts and islets, they were on several occasions nearly shipwrecked.

A small party at Rona was subjected to severe hardships. Its number consisted of corporal Michael Hayes and ten civil labourers, who embarked with sergeant Steel’s party on the 29th of August, 1850, to survey the island. On the following day, by a desperate effort, the corporal and his labourers pushed into the boat, and taking with them a little provisions scrambled amid the surf on shore; but as the weather was boisterous, and there was no harbour or anchorage in which the schooner could lie-to, she was compelled to return that evening to Stornoway with sergeant Steel and the sector party. Several days were now spent in intrepid attempts to regain the island, but such was the roughness of the sea, and such the fury of the wind, that all efforts to do so proved fruitless; thereupon, the master of the vessel considering the undertaking to be impracticable threw up his contract, and it was not until the 7th of September, when another vessel had been engaged for the service, that Rona was approached, and a landing effected. All this time, seven days and eight nights, corporal Hayes and his party were pent up in Rona upon a very scanty allowance of food, and exposed without shelter of tent or hut, or even the comfort of warm clothing, to the cold and tempestuous storms of that dreary and desolate island.

1851.

Malta—Portsmouth—Swan River—Brown Down batteries—Kaffir war—Strength of sappers at the Cape—Corporal Castledine—Attack on Fort Beaufort—Whittlesea, &c.—Skirmish near Grass Kop Tower—Also in Seyolo’s Country—Patrol—Fight at Fort Brown—Patrol—Storming Fort Wiltshire—Patrols—Action at Committy’s Hill—Gallantry of corporal James Wilson at Fort Cox—Patrols—Increase to the Cape by withdrawal of Company from the Mauritius—Sir Harry Smith’s opinion of the sappers—Eulogies concerning them by Lieutenant-Colonel Cole and Captain Stace, R.E.

The fourth company under the command of Captain Craigie, R.E., was removed from Portsmouth on the 3rd January, and sailed from Southampton for Malta, where it landed on the 17th of that month. This was a new station for the corps, and its employment there was recommended on the ground that its services would be of great advantage in the erection of the proposed fortifications, and in providing an efficient force for the purpose of defence, in the event of the contingencies of the times rendering its co-operation desirable. Head-quarters were established at Valetta, and a large detachment was sent to St. Clement’s to build new barracks. Much opposition was shown by the working people to the employment of the company for months after its landing, and even violence in some instances was resorted to. The press of the island also entered into the controversy, and the ‘Mediterraneo’ used its agency in strong editorial articles against the company to effect if possible its removal from the island; but the ‘Malta Times’ ably defended it, and successfully exposed the statements of its contemporary. Malignant as the ‘Mediterraneo’ was, it nevertheless concluded one of its articles thus:—“The sappers and miners are, we admit, a most efficient and therefore highly useful body of men everywhere.”

Immediately on the removal of the company to Malta another from Chatham succeeded it on the works of the royal engineer department in the Portsmouth district.

The small party of five men at Freemantle, Western Australia, was this year increased to a company by the arrival of ninety-five non-commissioned officers and men under Lieutenant Wray, R.E. The additional force was sent out to superintend the convicts in the erection and repair of the various public works and buildings, and to afford military protection to the colonists in the event of any demonstration of the convicts against authority or the settlers. The first detachment of sixty-five non-commissioned officers and privates embarked at Woolwich 10th September, 1851, under Lieutenant Wray, and anchored in Gage’s Roads 17th December, 1851. The second, under Lieutenants Crossman and E. F. Du Cane, R.E., of two sergeants and twenty-eight rank and file, embarked as a convict guard 21st October, 1851, and landed 2nd February, 1852. The number of women and children that accompanied the parties were seventy-one of the former and ninety of the latter, and ten children were born on the voyage. Located for a time as a sanitary expedient on a slip of land running into the sea, called Woodman’s Point, the company was removed, as soon as the restriction was rescinded, to Freemantle, where the projected works for the formation of the convict establishment at once commenced. Many of the men were appointed instructing-warders, with working pay at 2s. a-day each. The company was soon after distributed in small sections through the penal district, superintending the formation of labour depôts for ticket-of-leave men, or working at their trades at the different convict buildings, bridges, &c., and also in the making of roads. One man for many months assisted in the duty of exploring and surveying a portion of the colony under the Surveyor-General; and another—private John Cameron—did good service as a diver in recovering from the wrecks of vessels on the coast, treasure and valuable property.

An additional company was added to the Portsmouth district by the arrival at Gosport from Woolwich on the 10th December, of the second company under the command of Captain J. H. Freeth, R.E. The object of this reinforcement was to enable the commanding royal engineer to construct two large earthen batteries on the sea-shore at Brown Down, some two or three miles below Gosport. As soon as the works were completed, the company, early in April, 1852, was removed to Chatham for instruction in the field duties of the corps.

Hostile irruptions had occasionally been made on the frontiers of the Cape of Good Hope by the Kaffirs from the adjacent territories, and murders of peaceable subjects perpetrated, which rendered it essential to check by force of arms their incursions and their crimes. With that intention the first movement of troops took place in December, 1850. The opposition of the enemy was determined and furious, and there was every appearance in the onslaught to induce the belief that the contest would be severe and protracted.

At the period of the outbreak the total of the sappers in the colony, scattered to fifteen posts and forts on the frontiers, was about 200 of all ranks, and notwithstanding that their services were much required in carrying on the temporary defences in the several localities, they were, in this war, called upon for a more general co-operation than in any previous struggle in the colony.

From the unexpected firing of a field-piece from the tower of Fort Beaufort on the 20th January, 1851, it was feared that the enemy by some means had entered the place unobserved. Corporal Benjamin Castledine of the corps, without any delay, reported the circumstance to Colonel Sutton, Cape mounted rifles, and received his orders to assemble the troops under arms at their several posts. The order was promptly obeyed; but scarcely had it been effected when a reinforcement of the Graaf Reinet levy rode up, and the tumult was readily explained. The firing was given as a salute to the reinforcement by some imprudent civilians who had not communicated their intentions to the authorities. The people who had thus so alarmed the fort were arrested, so that the affair might be fully sifted; but while measures were being taken with this object by Captain Pennington and a detachment of the 91st regiment to secure the persons of the offenders, a concourse of people assembled at Colonel Sutton’s quarters, where his lady was alone and unprotected, and there deported themselves with gross outrage, at the same time demanding an entrance. Corporal Castledine arrived at the moment, threw himself between the garden-gate and the excited people, and effectually prevented, by his firmness and military bearing, the ingress they so valorously sought. The party then made off, but all concerned were afterwards arrested to await the result of a full inquiry into their conduct. At this investigation, the explanations given being sufficiently satisfactory to exonerate them from the perpetration of intentional alarm or of complicity with the enemy, the Colonel at once released them from restraint. The “Graham’s Town Journal” of the 8th February, contained some animadversions on the conduct of corporal Castledine in this matter, which led Colonel Sutton, in the impression of that Journal for the 22nd February, to vindicate in every particular the corporal’s conduct, and added “Corporal Castledine is one of those well-educated, respectable, and efficient soldiers which are only at present occasionally met with.... During twenty-four years’ service as a regimental officer I have never met corporal Castledine’s superior in his position—seldom his equal.”

In the attack on Fort Beaufort in which Hermanus was killed, corporal Castledine was posted with seven sappers in charge of a tower where the ammunition was kept, and commanded a 24-pounder howitzer mounted on it. The post of honour was given to this trustworthy non-commissioned officer in anticipation of an attack from Sandilli, who showed in force on the opposite side of the town. At the commencement of the action corporal Castledine was nominated to be garrison sergeant-major, and held the appointment until ill health compelled him to resign. This occurred in February, 1852, when Major-General Somerset, in a division order, acknowledged that “corporal Castledine had performed its arduous duties with the highest credit.” Colonel Sutton, for many months, was the only officer at Fort Beaufort, and on many occasions, when the nature of the service required his presence elsewhere, corporal Castledine commanded the garrison in his absence. Often he had to send escorts of provisions and ammunition to supply General Somerset’s division, which service was always so satisfactorily performed that both the General and Colonel Sutton repeatedly commended him for his judgment, promptitude, and zeal.

Five rank and file attached to Captain Tylden, R.E., employed surveying in the territory of the chief Mapassa, being interrupted in the duty, were now necessarily occupied in adopting expedients for protection. Early in the year they assisted the inhabitants of Whittlesea in strengthening their houses against attack, and in converting the village into a strong defensible position. Afterwards they constructed a small musket-proof redoubt of dry stones, twelve feet square, with walls three feet thick and seven high, round their own camp, to protect the field guns, military stores, and equipment. The waggons were also brought into requisition, and stone walls were built up under them to render them defensible. By the evening of the second day everything was completed. Into this miserable post the Captain with his five sappers, one officer, a sergeant of police and his wife and four children, took refuge. The sappers worked so hard during the day that the Captain had to take his turn at sentry during the night.[^[61]] Soon after these precautionary services, repeated actions took place between the garrison with the levied troops raised by Captain Tylden, and the neighbouring tribes, in every one of which, though attacked by an immensely-superior force, the little band beat off their assailants with severe loss, and gained for it the admiration and thanks of the General commanding-in-chief. The desperation and difficulties of their isolation, coupled with the paucity of their numbers, whetted their spirit of enterprise, and though their endurance and heroism might be equalled, they could never be excelled. In all the operations at Whittlesea, and in the actions with the tribes at adjacent places, as many of the few sappers as could be spared from the redoubt and the village were engaged, who participated with credit in the frequent desperate attacks, exceeding twenty in number, which it fell to the good fortune of Captain Tylden to repel, and to his strategical tact and prowess to win.

Sergeant John Poole accompanied a patrol of fifteen mounted men on the 18th February, under Ensign Gill of the Cape mounted rifles, in pursuit of Kaffirs. Near Grass Kop Tower the spoor of cattle was discovered and followed up to within sight of Double Drift, where some cattle were seen in charge of about twenty of the enemy. Taking at once to the bush, half the detachment advanced, unperceived, until within a few yards of the kraal, where the Kaffirs fought for a short time, and then fled to the river. In crossing the stream, sergeant Poole shot one of the rebel Kaffir police, and one of the two other Kaffirs who were killed on the occasion. In this gallant affair the patrol captured 106 head of cattle, 2 guns, 3 horses, &c., and received the approbation of Sir Harry Smith. Sergeant Poole was second in command of the party.

One sergeant and twenty rank and file were attached, on the 28th March, to a patrol of 900 men under Major Wilmot, R.A., and assisted in the devastation of Seyolo’s country until the 31st March. With a detachment of the 6th regiment the sappers remained in charge of the pack-horses and ammunition, and when attacked, vigorously dispersed the enemy. Private George Wilson killed two Kaffirs in this skirmish, and private Charles Jarvis was wounded, the ball striking the fore-finger and thumb, and lodging in the stock of his carbine.

Two rank and file under Lieutenant Jesse, R.E., were present in the field with Major-General Somerset’s division from the 27th March to 9th April. During this patrol the country was scoured near the old Tyumie Post, Hertzog, Eland’s Post, and the adjacent highlands. The two men were found very useful in repairing the numerous bad drifts through which the guns and waggons had to pass, and in the execution of various incidental services of a professional character.

Sergeant John Poole and one corporal of the corps were present in repulsing a midnight attack on Fort Brown on the 9th April. The enemy consisted of ninety-three Hottentots and fifteen Kaffirs. Robert Dunlop of the corps was the corporal of the guard that night. Hearing the dogs barking more than usual, he went out to see that the sentries were on the alert; but finding the Hottentot posted over the cattle, away from his post in a cloak, he was satisfied of the existence of some traitorous design, and discovered that the enemy was already in the kraal. Giving the alarm, the guard and the military in the fort were quickly assembled, and, under the command of Ensign Gill of the Cape mounted rifles, a sharp action for two hours was maintained, when the enemy was driven from the fort with great loss. The rebels attacked both the tower and the kraal; but from the latter they succeeded in carrying off about 200 head of cattle.[^[62]]

From the 20th to the 24th April, four sergeants and seventy-six rank and file under Lieutenant Pasley, R.A., were despatched, with Major Wilmot’s patrol, into the country of Stock and Seyolo. Near the Keiskama the sappers and artillery were placed in ambush to attack the flank and rear of the enemy, while the main body of the patrol engaged the Kaffirs in front. The country through which the division passed was very perilous, consisting of high kloofs and dense bush, broken by precipices. In this march the sappers assisted in destroying about 100 huts, several large gardens of the enemy, and capturing some large granaries of corn. In returning, the detachment, acting with the 6th regiment as skirmishers, kept the enemy at bay and desolated their crops.

On the 30th April, two sergeants and forty-eight rank and file, in burgher jackets, and laden with provisions and the usual war equipment, were engaged with the Kaffirs on the march from the Chumie junction to Fort Wiltshire, and shared in storming and driving them from the heights, where they had occupied a strong position, under cover of the ruins of an old tower and a detached outwork. On the 1st May the party was again in action on the Keiskama; and after five days’ patrolling through the territories of Seyolo, Stock, Sonto, Tola, and Botman, regained King William’s Town on the 2nd May. The troops were reported to have conducted themselves admirably. As the sappers re-entered King William’s Town, Sir Harry Smith welcomed them by saying, with characteristic cordiality, “Well done, my lads; you can both build works and storm them!”

Two sergeants and sixty-nine rank and file, from the 9th to the 13th May, were employed with Major Wilmot’s patrol in the Amatola Mountains. In carrying out the service, the division penetrated difficult and precipitous fastnesses, surprised several of the enemy, and captured some cattle. The sappers were reported to have conducted themselves on this duty with willingness and zeal.

From the 17th to the 22nd May, one sergeant and twenty-one rank and file accompanied a patrol of 800 men under Major Wilmot to Seyolo’s country as far as Fort Peddie, and returned with a convoy of waggons, cattle, &c. A similar patrol of two sergeants and forty-one men scoured the Amatola range, was once engaged with the enemy near Bailie’s Grave, and returned to King William’s Town, after a harassing march of seven days, on the 31st May. One sergeant and twenty men were out with another detachment under Major Wilmot as far as Fort Peddie. The march extended over ten days, and the patrol returned to King’s William’s Town on the 14th June. Again from the 19th to 21st July two sergeants and forty-nine men were detached with Colonel Eyre’s patrol, and assisted in clearing the rebels out of the Buffalo Poorts and Mount Kempt. The marching was very heavy, being for the most part, between eighty and ninety miles, through dense bush.

Under Captain Robertson, R.E., four sergeants and seventy-seven rank and file quitted King William’s Town, with the force, about 400 strong, under Lieutenant-Colonel Burns of the 2nd Queen’s on the 30th August. A body of Kaffirs and Hottentots being at Committy’s Hill, the troops marched on the 1st September from their bivouac at Fort Montgomery Williams by Breakfast Vley to the hill. One division of the sappers was extended as flankers on each side of the advancing column, and upon them a galling fire was soon opened from the bush. The sappers readily charged into it, and where the thicket could be penetrated drove the enemy back; but the denseness of the kloof in rear afforded the Kaffirs much security in retreating. Having ascended the summit of the hill, the sappers faced right about, and made a rapid charge down the hill on the enemy, who were gradually collecting in the bush from which they had just been driven, and inflicted considerable loss upon them. The charge was made with cheering, yet not in a hurry; the men stopped at each kloof and fired volleys into it, and then dashed after the fugitives. “It is most gratifying,” writes Captain Robertson, “to report the admirable and gallant conduct of the men under my command during this conflict which lasted nearly three hours, and of the readiness with which they advanced to carry off the wounded of their own and of other corps under a heavy fire.” The officers of the 2nd Queen’s spoke in terms of high commendation of the spirited manner in which the sappers acted, and of their cheerfulness in obeying their officers. Private James Murray behaved with great courage in exciting the men both of the 2nd and his own corps to follow him. Running forward like one whose life depended on the action of the moment, he was followed by several who lined the bush to which he drew them, and some fell in their gallant exertions. Among them was private James Fergus, whose arm was pierced by a ball which passed through the left breast and out near the spine below the heart. He died in camp soon after the action. Private Patrick Conroy, a cool and brave soldier, fired at a Kaffir more than 300 yards away and killed him. Private John Arthur came in contact with one in passing round a bush, and in a personal conflict laid him dead at his feet; and private Robert M‘Intosh, whilst in the act of ramming home a cartridge, saw a Hottentot about to fire at him, but not having time to withdraw the ramrod capped and fired, and the ramrod passed through his opponent’s body. Lance-corporal Hosick Cowen and privates Charles Foot and Thomas Brooking were wounded; the last severely.

At Fort Cox, on the 28th September, second-corporal James Wilson behaved with intrepidity in repulsing a meditated attack on the cattle-guard. A body of Kaffirs intended to drive the cattle from the post unperceived, and then to massacre the guard. Two civilians and the corporal happened to go out at the time for recreation to an unfrequented spot, and were unconsciously directing their steps to the bush where the enemy were concealed in ambush. Fortunately one of the two in advance fired a random shot, and suddenly more than 200 Kaffirs made their appearance. The civilians were in front, and the corporal considerably in rear followed in support. A sharp fire now opened on the corporal, and the enemy made a disposition to surround him; but the corporal stealthily retired, and took up a favourable position, from which he kept up an unerring fire on his adversaries, who fortunately for him seemed more bent on capturing the cattle than spending their efforts in beating down a single opponent. Taking advantage of their predatory activity, the corporal shot down five of the Kaffirs before any assistance was rendered by the military cattle-guard. On being apprised of the approach of the enemy, the guard lost no time in collecting and driving off the cattle to a place of security, but in the attempt two soldiers of the 45th were shot dead. The Kaffirs at once stripped them, and placing their red jackets on their own bodies, danced frantically at their triumph. While this scene of exultation was going on, corporal Wilson, through the intricate windings of the bush, cautiously neared the group, and firing, one of the savages received the ball from his carbine and fell dead. On the troops advancing, the corporal at once joined them, and assisted in driving the enemy from the post.[^[63]]

From the 14th to the 31st October, two sergeants and thirty-one rank and file served in the field operations with Major-General Somerset’s division in the Water Kloof, Fuller’s Hoek, Blinkwater, and Kat river. Again, from the 4th to the 7th November, two sergeants and forty rank and file were on patrol in Seyolo’s country; and again, from the 1st December until the 18th January, nine rank and file were present in the long marches and difficult services of the division under Colonel Eyre. This party was intended to cut loop-holes in the missionary station at Butterworth. The India-rubber pontoon raft taken with the party, was used in the passage of the Kei. This service occupied two days, and the sappers worked with much ardour in its accomplishment.

With the exception of two or three patrols, in which the sappers were commanded by the officers already named, it was the good fortune of the corps in every instance during the campaign to be under the orders of Captain C. D. Robertson, R.E.

The cessation of the works at the Mauritius made the services of the company there available for duty at other stations. Accordingly, with the sanction of Earl Grey, the seventeenth company, under Captain Fenwick, R.E., quitted the island on the 25th October, and landed at the Cape of Good Hope on the 19th November. The force of sappers on the Eastern frontier now consisted of three companies, and counted 276 men of all ranks.

Speaking of the reinforcement Sir Harry Smith thus wrote to Earl Grey, under date the 4th October, “I assure your Lordship that I very much appreciate the value of this reinforcement. No officers and soldiers in Her Majesty’s army do their duty in a more gallant and exemplary manner.”[^[64]] On the same date, Sir Harry thus wrote to Sir John Burgoyne, the inspector-general of fortifications, “I have 120 sappers here now, under as gallant a fellow as ever lived—Captain Robertson. These men are the finest soldiers I almost ever saw, and have taken their tour of most arduous patrol duty heart and soul.”

“From being employed on the works,” wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Cole, the commanding royal engineer, “and their usual industrious habits, the men were generally found to endure long marches and fatigues better than the line, particularly in the commencement of the war.” “Besides,” said Captain W. C. Stace, R.E., “the performance of garrison, patrols, and escort duties in the field at most of the posts on the frontier, the works provided for in the annual estimates, and several special and numerous incidental services, many of them contingent on the war, were executed by the sappers and miners, and their important and valuable services have been duly acknowledged to me verbally by different officers. The want of such a body of men would have been seriously felt on many urgent occasions during the war, in consequence of the difficulty at all times, and sometimes impracticability, to obtain artificers when required.”

1851.
GREAT EXHIBITION.

Sappers attached to it—Opening—Distribution of the force employed—Duties; general superintendence—Clerks and draughtsmen—Charge of stationery—Robert Marshall—Testing iron-work of building—Workshops—Marking building—Receiving and removing goods—Custom-house examination—Fire arrangements—Ventilation—Classmen—Private R. Dunlop—Clearing arrangements—Miscellaneous services—Bribery—Working-pay—Close of the Exhibition—Encomium by Colonel Reid—Also by Prince Albert and the Royal Commissioners—Honours and rewards—Their distribution—Statistical particulars—Lance-corporal Noon—Removing the goods—Return of companies to Woolwich—Contributors to the Exhibition—The Ordnance survey—And Mr. Forbes, late sergeant-major.

It was the good fortune of the royal sappers and miners this year to be associated with the Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations, by which its name and character, its acquirements and usefulness, became more extensively known, appreciated, and commended. For this honour, the corps is indebted to Lieutenant-Colonel Reid, the Chairman of the Executive Committee. Receiving the cordial concurrence of his civil colleagues, he represented to Prince Albert and the Royal Commissioners, the desirableness of military co-operation for carrying out the subordinate details of the work. The measure—at once approved of—was ordered to be carried into effect, and accordingly, three lance-corporals—Richard Rice Lindsay, Thomas Baker, and Charles Fear—were attached on the 11th September, 1850, to the executive committee. The two former were clerks and draughtsmen, and the latter an ingenious mechanic and modeller. Their first duty was to execute a plan and model of the proposed arrangements for the Exhibition. By the end of the year, fifteen rank and file, clerks and draughtsmen, including a founder and an engineer, were added to the party, who for a time were quartered in Kensington cavalry barracks. By degrees the force continued to augment, and at last by the arrival of the fifth and twenty-second companies, under Captains Owen and Gibb, R.E., and a strong detachment under Lieutenant Stopford, R.E., who was appointed acting-adjutant, the corps, on the 21st April, 1851, counted 200 non-commissioned officers and men. This was the greatest number of the sappers ever employed at the Exhibition. The enlarged force was furnished on the ground that as the corps was composed of artizans, its services would be especially useful, particularly in the mechanical part of the arrangements. As soon as the small cavalry barrack was full, the subsequent arrivals at the Exhibition were quartered in the royal palace at Kensington, and ultimately the detachment in the former barrack was also removed to the palace.

Just prior to the opening of the Exhibition on the 1st May, parties of the corps placed barriers across the various entrances into the building and also at some of the naves leading into the transept. At each outer barrier a small section of men was posted to prevent its removal, or the ingress of persons not authorized to view or take part in the state ceremonial. Within the area of the transept a strong detachment was stationed near Her Majesty, to attend to any orders which Prince Albert or the Royal Commissioners might see necessary to enforce. As the crowd kept flowing in, the “temporary barriers to protect the space round the throne were in part swept away” by the excusable impetuosity of the throng, “and the entire space of the nave seemed to be permanently in possession of the spectators. In this emergency Colonel Reid called out a party of sappers who soon restored order, and thus,” wrote ‘The Times,’ to whose columns these pages are indebted for the above description—“added one additional service to the many others which they had contributed for months within the walls of the Exhibition.” With temper and management the confusion soon subsided, and by ten o’clock order was established, “and reasonable facility afforded for the royal progress round the nave of the building.”[^[65]] Immediately the Queen proclaimed the Exhibition opened, the sappers removed the barriers, and the avenues of the building were at once rendered free for the unrestrained passage of the people. For the temperate, quiet, and efficient conduct of the sappers on the occasion, they received the thanks of Colonel Reid, Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, and Sir Richard Mayne, the Chief Commissioner of Police.[^[69]]

The subjoined table shows the strength of the corps at the Exhibition at the beginning of each month from October, 1850, to December, 1851, and also illustrates the divisions of labour in which the several parties were occupied.[^[70]]

[66]. Part of day only.

[67]. Duty, furlough, pass, &c.

[68]. Clerk, Royal Engineers’ Department, Glasgow.

A brief but more extended exposition of their duties than the above detail adduces, is here given to show the general nature of the connection of the sappers with the Exhibition, and the availability of the men to discharge onerous duty and varied occupation.[^[71]]

One of the colour-sergeants during the arrangements superintended the sappers on the British side, and the other on the foreign side. After the opening of the Exhibition, colour-sergeant Thomas Harding acted as sergeant-major; and colour-sergeant Noah Deary as foreman of works, in the repair of damages which accidents and the pressure of the crowd were continually causing to the railings, counters, &c. On two or three occasions when there was a press for money-takers, colour-sergeant Deary and sergeant Thomas P. Cook and William Jamieson did duty as collectors.

The clerks were employed under the various officers, military and civil, of the Executive Committee; the draughtsmen, partly under Sir W. Cubitt and Mr. M. Digby Wyatt, when they found such assistance necessary in the superintendence and record of the progress of the building; but principally under the Executive Committee, in making the numerous plans which were necessary during the preliminary arrangements. It was from their surveys and drawings that the plans in the Commissioners’ First Report were made. The men employed as clerks and draughtsmen varied at different times from three to forty in number. One of the men, lance-corporal John Pendered, was also employed in working an autographic press, which was useful when a few circulars were required at a short notice. The facility with which he acquired a knowledge of the apparatus was creditable to his aptitude, and the simple method he adopted to throw off the copies with rapidity and clearness proved him to be intelligent and skilful. The most distinguished of the draughtsmen were lance-corporals James Mack, Thomas Baker, and Nicholas Clabby, corporal Archibald Gardner, and lance-corporals Richard R. Lindsay and John Venner. The large plans, both of the ground and galleries, made for the convenience of the visitors, to enable them to find their way more easily to the parts likely most to engage their curiosity, and which were displayed at the south side of the transept during the later months of the Exhibition, were prepared by corporals Mack, Baker, Gardner, and Gabby. Both were considered to be highly-creditable specimens of drawing, combining boldness and skill with perspicuity. A daily journal, after noticing one of the drawings, thus wrote of the sappers, “Indeed that body have rendered invaluable services, not only in the general arrangements of the interior, but more especially in making those nice measurements which were essential with reference to the question of space.” It then concluded its notice by making some flattering allusions to the proficiency of the sappers employed on the national surveys.[^[72]] The plans were each twenty-one feet long by six feet wide. Similar drawings on a very reduced scale, from which the plans in the first report were engraved, were executed by corporals Gardner, Mack, Clabby, Venner, and Lindsay, but the principal and most effective part of the work devolved on corporal Mack. The ground plan was drawn by the three first-named non-commissioned officers, and the galleries by corporals Mack and Venner. The interesting coloured diagram to show the fluctuations in the number of visitors, and other characteristic details, was wholly drawn by corporal Mack. The plan of the exhibition building to illustrate the water-supply, and measures for security against fire, was drawn by corporal Lindsay. These four drawings comprised the plans in the First Report.

The chart exhibited in the transept on the 6th October, to show by diagrams the fluctuations in the number of visitors to the building, was prepared by corporals Gardner and Mack, under the direction of Captain Owen. ‘The Times,’[^[73]] said it was “a production of great merit and of much public interest, and resembled those scales of mountain elevations which are usually prefixed to atlasses. The shilling days were the Himalayas and Andes of the chart; while the half-crown and five shilling days were represented by heights of much lower altitude.” With the permission of the Executive Committee, these two non-commissioned officers compiled, on the same principle, a similar diagram with more copious general information, for the proprietors of the ‘Weekly Dispatch,’ from which an engraving was made, and copies in immense numbers were thrown off and issued on two stated occasions to the purchasers of that newspaper. Referring to the great chart shown in the Exhibition, the ‘Weekly Dispatch’ thus wrote: “This chart, which is beautifully executed, and is altogether a production of very great merit, reflects the utmost credit upon the authors—corporals Gardner and Mack of the royal sappers and miners, a corps which has rendered most intelligent and valuable service to the Exhibition.”[^[74]]

Corporal Baker, under Mr. Henry Cole, had the honour of preparing a coloured plan of the arrangements for Her Majesty, another for Prince Albert, one for the Duchess of Kent, and several for the members of the Royal Commission. He also surveyed the whole of the arrangements on the ground floor. In an instructive article in ‘Chambers’ Journal,’ on the ‘Crystal Palace,’ allusion is popularly made to this portion of the sappers’ duty, and it is justly added, that “the men were found very useful. All our surveying and planning have been done by them.”[^[75]]

During the latter months of the Exhibition, corporal Clabby recorded hourly the number of visitors who had entered the building up to the time of making the registry. This he did on a large sheet of paper fixed in the transept, at a sufficient elevation for the public to consult it. The rush at the moment of making the record was always great, and the interest with which the corporal was greeted and questioned by the curious, was accompanied by many honourable indications of kindness and good will.[^[76]]

Two men were in permanent charge of the receipt and issue of printed forms, and all articles of stationery to the various officers. Second-corporal John Vercoe was in chief charge. He also assisted as a clerk, and was pay-sergeant for Lieutenant Stopford’s detachment. From the 2nd October, 1850, to 23rd January, 1851, he had the charge of the party then at the Exhibition, and for his courteous deportment and address, was well spoken of by those with whom he was brought in contact.[^[77]]

Two men were employed during the erection of the building in testing the cast-iron girders and columns with an hydraulic press, &c., and in ascertaining that all the bolts were sufficiently screwed up; also in keeping a record of the ironwork fixed each day. This duty was intrusted to lance-corporals Robert Fleming and Joseph Barrow; the former tested the girders, and the latter the proper adjustment of the fitments and bolts. In cases of dispute about the practicable application of some defective columns and girders, the opinion of corporal Fleming was, on three or four occasions, sought for; and he gave it in so clear and manly a manner, that his views were readily followed by the contractors. It is not a little remarkable that this non-commissioned officer was the only sapper recommended by Sir William Reid for promotion, during the period that the Colonel commanded the corps at the Exhibition. Corporal Barrow, when not employed in examining the fitments, took his place in the drawing-room, and notwithstanding the rough occupation he had been accustomed to, was found efficient. For the successful stability of the building, some little credit is at least due to these two humble officials. Their exertions were very great, and their vigilance in the important work intrusted to them was fully equal to the responsibility.

Soon after the building was constructed, and before the goods began to be deposited, it was considered desirable to ascertain the effect of regular oscillation in the galleries. Experiments of different kinds were tried, but to carry out that which was regarded as the most trying, a strong detachment of the corps in close columns, keeping military time and step, was marched several times up and down, and round, and finally were made to mark time. With the result of this last test the eminent scientific men present expressed themselves highly gratified, and the incident was considered to be sufficiently interesting to become the subject of illustration in a popular journal.[^[78]]

Lance-corporal Charles W. Fear made, in the early part of the arrangements, a model of a portion of the building for the information of the Royal Commissioners, and afterwards was employed in making small models of counters of various parts of the building and other things of the kind required during the progress of the work. After the opening of the Exhibition a party was employed in repairing damages caused to the railings, counters, &c., and in copying, in model, some of the simplest and most instructive mechanical inventions and appliances for provincial institutions. The better to carry out the new style of constructing models, four of the party attended lectures on the subject delivered by Professor Cowper at King’s College, Somerset House.

A party, varying from five to twenty-five men, all painters, was employed during the arrangements in numbering and lettering the columns, and laying down on the floor of the building the plan of the proposed passages and counters. Lance-corporal John Venner, who also worked as a clerk and draughtsman, was conspicuous in this division of duty. Corporal Archibald Gardner, also a draughtsman, was in great request for printing. The facility with which he lettered notices, labels, &c., required in an instant, brought him greatly into favour with the officials. The amount of work he had to execute rendered it indispensable that some more convenient substance than Indian ink, which took an immense time to grind, should be found. This he effectually provided, and thereby caused a considerable saving of expense. Gas-stoves were used in the Exhibition offices, in which he observed a very available description of soot to accumulate; and carefully collecting the material and mixing it with common ink and a little glue, he manufactured an abundance of a fine jet black preparation, which was always ready for emergencies.

The number available for unloading the goods when they were coming in varied from twenty to fifty men, and was not sufficient without the assistance of considerable numbers of porters from the docks. As the waggons containing the packages arrived within the building, they were driven to the centre of the transept and there unloaded and marked by a Custom-house officer. From the transept relays of sappers conveyed the packages in trucks to the compartment of the foreign country from which they had been consigned, where another band of Custom-house officers was ready to receive them. There was always a fresh supply of sappers with chisels and other implements to break open lids or other coverings, and who, with military determination, swept everything before them until the goods were revealed. This was the usual course of the reception arrangements.[^[79]] “We have here,” writes a London Journal, “to commend the aptitude and intelligence with which the force of sappers execute the duties intrusted to them. So quietly and precisely do they obey instructions, that their assistance is properly considered of material consequence to the punctual fulfilment of the arrangements in which they are concerned.”[^[80]] Another thus writes, “The sappers and miners form prominent objects in the animated scene. Their work is principally to facilitate the reception of goods, and they get through all they have to do with great energy, and with a certain observance of military precision which is not without its interest to the looker on.”[^[81]]

From ten to twenty men were employed during the receipt of goods in opening the cases, and in assisting the Custom-house examination. Both in this duty and in removing the goods the greatest care was taken; so much so indeed, that only two or three accidents by breakage occurred to the exhibitors’ property.

As early as January, 1851, while the building was still under the control of the contractors, a party of four men of the royal sappers and miners patrolled the building and its workshops every evening after work, remaining until they had seen every fire and light properly extinguished except those in the offices, where the great press of work rendered it necessary to allow fires and lights to be kept up during the night. With the addition of a party of the London fire brigade, this arrangement remained in force until the opening of the building, when a picquet of twenty-four men of the corps was mounted in the building at eight P.M.; this party on arriving at the Exhibition was marched round it to all the stations where the different fire-engines, fire-cocks, tanks, buckets, &c., were placed; thus every individual ascertained that all the stores were correct and ready for use. The whole of the men of the corps at the Exhibition had been drilled to the fire-engines, and made acquainted with all the arrangements undertaken to provide for the immediate extinction of any fire. The twenty-four men slept in the building every night, one man remained on sentry to be in readiness to rouse the men in case of alarm, and a non-commissioned officer and two men patrolled the building every two hours. The picquet came off duty at six A.M., when another party of the sappers relieved them for the usual daily duty. This arrangement continued until the 4th November, 1851. The number was then reduced to twelve, and on the 11th November to two men, who remained all night in the building until it was again given over to the control of the contractors, Messrs. Fox and Henderson, in December, 1851.

By day two non-commissioned officers were selected, one for each side of the building, Foreign and British, whose sole duty it was to take charge of the men who belonged to the fire-party, and in conjunction with the men of the London fire brigade on duty at the building, they were held responsible for all the stores connected with the fire department, that everything was in its proper place and ready for immediate use, and also that the water was on, and the pressure not less than sixty feet. When the body of sappers was marched to work in the building each day, a party of twelve or fifteen men was allotted for each side of the Exhibition, and placed under these two non-commissioned officers, who distributed them to the various fire stations, and visited them during the day to see that they were at their posts, and alert.[^[82]] The promptitude with which this service was attended to was exemplified on an occasion when a fire, in the southern part of the Colonial collection, raised an alarm. The flue attached to a stove in one of the offices of the contractors having become heated, ignited a piece of wood with bunting attached to it. A piece of the burning cloth fell into an open cask of Indian corn, but the drapery of the counter concealed for a time what had happened. Eventually the smoke began to break forth, and as soon as the existence of fire was ascertained, it was extinguished before it had time to do more than slightly char one plank of wood. The stores in charge of the non-commissioned officers were 8 engines complete, 40 cisterns, 16 hydrants, 410 spare buckets, 16 spare hose, 16 axes, 18 hand-pumps, and 15 fire annihilators.

Opening and closing the louvre-boards for ventilation, and keeping a register of the temperature in the building, were attended to by a few of the men. The register was kept from 19th May to the 11th October, and the indications of fourteen thermometers were taken three times a-day.[^[83]] Corporal Thomas Noon was the chief at this duty, and was found very intelligent and attentive.

There were one or more men, termed classmen, attached to each class on the British side, who carried out the orders of the class and district superintendents during the arrangements, and also during the time of the Exhibition. The number of classmen appointed to the thirty divisions of the arrangements during the progress of the building, &c., was fifty-seven; and the number included in the organization for assisting in the classes during the exhibition, was sixty-one of all ranks. Five or six men also assisted on the foreign side, of whom two were attached to the Chinese court. The classmen afforded material help to the exhibitors and their assistants in displaying their property to advantage, and in protecting it.[^[84]] They likewise were often found very useful in giving information to the public, and in conducting individuals through the masses, to those parts of the building which they were the most anxious to visit. Their courteous demeanour and intelligence were rewarded with repeated expressions of thanks and satisfaction, and the exhibitors were desirous to mark, in a substantial form, their appreciation of the services of the classmen, but it was declined on military considerations. Private tokens of respect, however, were frequently presented by some of the superintendents and class assistants to their military subordinates.

A party of about forty men came early in the morning during the Exhibition, and superintended a force of boys in sweeping the British side of the building. The arrangement was systematic, simple, and effective. Six hours—from four o’clock in the morning until ten—were dedicated to this purpose. Had it not been for the peculiarity of the structure, the duty of sweeping would have been insurmountable, but fortunately both floors and roof assisted very greatly to carry off much of the dust and dirt.[^[85]] After finishing the service each morning, the detachment was either kept as a reserve, or returned to the barracks.

In addition to the above they on several occasions assisted the police in their duties, especially on the opening and closing days; occasionally a few trustworthy non-commissioned officers issued tickets during the arrangements,[^[86]] and some of the privates rung the bells at the time the building closed each day. In assisting the police, corporal George Pearson detected an official personage, holding a lucrative situation at the Exhibition, taking money from the place in which it was deposited. The corporal for a long time watched his proceedings, and making known the case to the superintendent of police, the delinquency of the official was fully proved, and his dismissal from employment forthwith ordered.

During the preliminary arrangements the non-commissioned officers who issued tickets, and took charge of the gates and private entrances, were frequently besought by bribes to permit individuals the privilege of entering the building, &c., but no man of the corps was so wanting in a right sense of his duty as in this way to break the trust reposed in him. An instance of another kind was brought to the notice of Colonel Reid by sergeant Thomas P. Cook, who had a party under him employed removing goods from the hoarding to their destination in the building. Many of the exhibitors, wishing to insure a priority of attention in the removal of their property, offered considerations to effect it, but they were justly exposed, and the Colonel made it the occasion of complimenting the sergeant for his integrity.

The working-pay of the non-commissioned officers and men was 1s. 3d. a-day each; but from twenty-five to thirty of the most useful draughtsmen and others received 2s. a-day.

The Exhibition was closed on the 15th October, on which occasion small parties of sappers were posted at the barriers, and in the various passages leading to the transept, to assist the police in preventing the rush of the crowd. They were also placed around three sides of the dais from which the ceremony took place, and from which Prince Albert “took leave of all those who had given their assistance towards conducting the Exhibition to its prosperous issue.”[^[87]] The sappers were engaged the whole of the previous night in removing obstacles likely to interfere with the arrangements for the ceremonial. They also constructed the platform, or dais; and while attending, on the morning of the ceremonial, to the preliminary arrangements for the temporary accommodation of the Prince and the Commissioners, a sustained cheer was given by the visitors for the sappers, as a parting token of thanks and satisfaction for their past services.

Colonel Reid, now Sir William, on being appointed Governor of Malta, resigned on the 27th October, 1851, his charge in London, and the command of the corps at the Exhibition consequently devolved on Captain H. C. Owen, R.E. “I have,” said Sir William on leaving, “the most perfect confidence that they will continue to the end of this service, to perform their duties with the same zeal which they have hitherto invariably shown, and with the same considerate and forbearing conduct towards all with whom they have been connected in this arduous undertaking.”

The crowning testimony to the useful services of the corps was graciously given by Prince Albert and the Royal Commissioners in a letter to the Marquis of Anglesey, the Master-General of the Ordnance. In promulgating the letter,[^[88]] a copy of which follows, his Lordship expressed his confidence that this high testimonial in approbation of the valuable services of those immediately concerned, would be received with feelings of pride and gratitude by the whole corps of ordnance.

“My Lord

“Windsor Castle, Oct. 29th

“I have the honour, as President of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, to convey to your Lordship, both in my own name, and in that of the Commission, our thanks for the cordial aid you lent us in allowing several of the corps of royal engineers, and two companies of royal sappers and miners to assist the executive committee in the arrangement and management of the Exhibition.

“Her Majesty’s Commissioners consider it due to the officers of royal engineers, and to the non-commissioned officers and privates of the royal sappers and miners, who have been thus employed, to express to your Lordship, in strong terms, the sense which they entertain of the admirable conduct of the whole body while engaged in this novel, delicate, and responsible duty.

“The officers of engineers have, in the able assistance rendered by them, afforded another instance of the useful manner in which a military body may be employed in civil services during a time of peace.

“The Royal Commissioners, being desirous of marking their sense of the share which the different persons employed in connexion with the Exhibition have had in bringing it to a successful issue, have requested the various civilians so employed to accept a certain sum of money in recognition of their services. We have ascertained from Colonel Reid, that such a course would not be agreeable to the feelings of the engineer-officers who have similarly given their assistance, and to whom we could have wished to offer a similar token.

“With regard to the non-commissioned officers and privates, it gives me much pleasure to state, that at the period of the preliminary arrangements, when the labour required was sometimes excessive, their exertions were always cheerfully made. During the course of the Exhibition, they practically demonstrated the great value of their schools of instruction by the many useful plans which they drew; and by carefully acting always in subordination to the civil police force, they established for themselves a character for good conduct and attention to the exhibitors and visitors, greatly to the credit of the corps to which they belong.

“The Royal Commissioners have therefore thought fit to award a sum of 600l., to be laid out either in drawing or mathematical instruments, or in other suitable lasting memorial of their connection with the Exhibition, for the non-commissioned officers and privates of the royal sappers and miners, to be distributed by the officers in such manner as your Lordship and the Inspector-General of Fortifications may approve; and we trust that you will give your sanction to the acceptance of these testimonials of their good conduct.

“I have, &c.,

“Albert, President Royal Commission.

“Field Marshal the Marquis of Anglesey,

“Master-General of the Ordnance.”

In the first report of the Commissioners to the Right Honourable the Home Secretary, the corps of sappers and miners was thus alluded to: “In many parts of these arrangements, both before and after the opening of the Exhibition, the Commissioners derived the most important benefit from the co-operation and assistance of the corps of royal engineers and royal sappers and miners, who had been placed at their disposal.”[^[89]]

To carry out the intentions of the Commissioners with respect to the disposal of the 600l. according to individual merit, a board of officers of royal engineers—Captains Owen and Gibb, and Lieutenant Stopford—laid down rules to guide them in the distribution. The cardinal grounds for exclusion were, that none should participate in the rewards who had been less than a month at the Exhibition, or who had been sent to head-quarters in consequence of irregularity, or who had been notoriously idle and useless. Of this character it is satisfactory to add, that among the whole body employed, from the very beginning to the close, only two privates had earned the unenviable distinction.

The distribution of the grant was arranged into sums considered to be equivalent to the criteria of five specific classes of qualification and utility. On this principle therefore, the first class comprised men only, who in situations of considerable responsibility, drew public attention for their steadiness and general ability.

The second and third classes embraced men, who in various degrees called for favourable mention, and who displayed considerable aptitude and zeal.

The fourth class contained men, who not having the same opportunities of distinguishing themselves as the men in the previous classes, gained the commendation of their officers and others for attention to duty, and cheerfulness and exertion in its execution.

The fifth class comprised men who had only been a short time at the Exhibition, but who, nevertheless, rendered themselves, by their conduct and zeal, deserving of a slight memento of their services.

According to this classification, the prizes distributed were in value and number as follows:—

The prizes embraced a selection of gold and silver watches, cases of instruments, portable writing-cases, and such other articles as would tend to increase the professional efficiency of the men, and at the same time form a suitable and handsome memorial of their services. Every article was suitably inscribed with the owner’s name, and the source from whence it was obtained.

In addition to these rewards, each non-commissioned officer and soldier, to the extent of the above number, received a bronze medal inscribed with his name, in a morocco case, to be kept as a token of useful services rendered, and also a pictorial certificate signed by Prince Albert.

The number of men sent to the Exhibition from September 1850 to December 1851, reached a total of 274 of all ranks. Sixty-eight of the number reaped no advantage from the grant. Of these, twenty-four had been removed to head-quarters for slight irregularity, two deserted, two did not participate on account of indolence, thirty-three were only three weeks at the Exhibition before it closed, and the remainder, seven men, were removed after short periods of employment, in consequence of illness.

Only one casualty occurred in the companies during their service under the Royal Commissioners. Lance-corporal Thomas W. Noon had obtained leave to visit his friends at Oxford, and was killed by a railway accident at the Bicester station on the 6th September. Liberally educated, and brought up to the profession of an architect and builder, he promised to be very useful both as a non-commissioned officer and foreman. In several situations of responsibility, he proved the superiority of his attainments, and was consequently one of the first men selected for duty in London. Mr. Wiltshire, under whom he was employed at the Exhibition, bore testimony to the value of his services. Much esteemed by his comrades, his melancholy end was deeply deplored, and his remains, interred in the cemetery of St. Sepulchre, at Oxford, were followed to the grave by a large concourse of mourners, among whom were seven non-commissioned officers of the corps from the Exhibition. In a funeral sermon, preached by the Rev. W. Mitchell, M.A., in Hornton-Street Chapel, Kensington, was given a review of the history and character of the deceased, which awakened interesting sympathies in the crowded congregation.

The removal of the goods commenced immediately after the closing of the Exhibition, and all the available sappers were for some weeks employed in assisting the exhibitors and their assistants to pack their property, and remove it from the building. Soon these duties, from the rapidity with which the clearance was carried on, permitted a large force of the corps to be withdrawn, and accordingly, the 22nd company quitted for Woolwich on the 4th November, and the 5th company with the greater part of Lieutenant Stopford’s detachment on the 11th November. Of the number left, a few were employed in collecting and arranging specimens presented to the Commissioners for the formation of a trade museum, and gradually the numbers were reduced to twenty-four, and by the end of the year to nine men only.

Among the contributors to the Exhibition were the Ordnance Survey, and Mr. Forbes, late sergeant-major of the corps. The Survey sent a number of artistic specimens of maps, one of which, Lancashire, was fifty feet in height and twenty-seven feet in width. A plan of the city of Dublin, on a scale of sixty inches to the mile, was the finest specimen of map engraving ever produced in the United Kingdom.[^[90]] With this plan was associated the name of colour-sergeant John West, late of the corps, whose services have already received honourable mention in these pages. Among the other maps exhibited, which especially attracted attention, was one of the borough of Southampton, on a scale of six inches to a mile. For finished beauty of execution and truthful delineation of the various features of the ground, it was regarded as unrivalled. This specimen was executed by Charles Holland, formerly second-corporal in the corps, and who is still the leading draughtsman at the Ordnance Map office, Southampton. As already noticed in these pages, he received a case of instruments from Prince Albert for his talent in drawing a similar plan of Windsor. Six or seven specimens of electrotype, to illustrate the different stages of the process of engraving the copper-plates, were also exhibited. Sergeant Donald Geddes assisted in mounting the maps, which from the colossal dimensions of one of them, was found very difficult; and he also arranged the various specimens in the space assigned to them at the end of the western gallery. “The Council gold medal was granted to the Ordnance Department who exhibited the maps, as a just and honourable tribute to the meritorious and scientific officers of that department who prepared them.”[^[91]] “For the copper-plate etchings, and for the use of the electrotype process in reproducing the plates, our eulogium,” say the Jurors, “is justly due to the establishment at Southampton, where they are executed.”[^[92]] Sergeant Geddes had from the first the charge of the electrotype branch at Southampton, under the executive officers of royal engineers, Captain Yolland, and afterwards Captain W. D. Gosset; and by his skill and acquaintance with chemical science, attained that perfection in the art which, but a few years past, it would have been thought chimerical to expect.

Mr. Forbes exhibited a beautiful model of his spherangular pontoon in raft, with all its stores complete, and waggon for carriage. He also contributed the model of an apparatus for the ventilation of mines. Both objects were inventions of his own, and the former, though not adopted in the service, gained for him the present of one hundred guineas from the Board of Ordnance. Mr. Forbes was very late in submitting the articles, and they have therefore not been included in the official catalogues.

1851.
SHETLAND ISLANDS.

Observations—Road from Lerwick to Mossbank—To the western districts—And southwards—Between Olnafirth and Doura Voe—Voe to Hillswick; corporal Andrew Ramsay—Island of Yell; sergeant John F. Read—Intrepid bearing of corporal Ramsay—Conduct and usefulness of the party employed on the roads.

For nearly four years one sergeant and five men of the corps had been employed in Zetland constructing some trunk lines of roads, with the view of relieving the wants of the poor of the islands, who, from the failure of their fisheries and other dreadful visitations, were threatened with starvation. Captain T. Webb, R.E., directed the operations of the party for three years, but throughout the fourth year, sergeant Robert Forsyth was alone responsible for its discipline and conduct. With respect, however, to the execution of the works he received instructions from Captain Craigie, R.N.

The roads constructed under the superintendence of the sappers were, considering the character of the country, its frequent storms, heavy rains, and bleak winds, and the utter inexperience of the peasantry in land labour and the use of implements, very extensive and difficult.

In 1849 there was scarcely a practicable road in Zetland, except a few isolated portions in bad condition. But on the removal of the party in January, 1852, more than 100 miles of excellent road, including the island of Yell, had been made practicable both for pedestrians and wheel vehicles.

From Lerwick to Mossbank, twenty-five and a half miles of good road were cut through a mountainous country intersected with large plots of deep bog. It was fifteen feet wide clear of the water-tables. All through the line it was properly drained and gravelled to a depth of between fourteen and eighteen inches. The undulations of the country and the occurrence of streams called for considerable engineering skill. At different parts of this road were built two stone bridges, the first of fifteen feet span and twenty feet high, and the second of ten feet span. Both were of the best rubble masonry. In different parts of the line there were twenty-four large culverts built of dry masonry as substitutes for bridges. A number of cross drains were also laid and properly paved. About eight miles of the road ran along the side of a high hill, and here an embankment and wall were raised on the lower side, and a cutting made on the upper.

The road from Lerwick to the western districts was constructed over the steep and rugged heights of Wormiedale, for one mile of which a cutting was made from the upper side, which assisted in forming an embankment of five feet average on the lower. From thence to the head of Weesdale Voe the road ran comparatively easy. A large stone causeway, however, had to be built over the point of a sheet of water which communicated with the sea. In this causeway were six openings of two and a half feet by four feet for the free passage of the tide. From the head of Weesdale Voe to the Scord of Tresta, one mile, a cutting was made on the upper side, and a retaining wall built on the lower side of the road. To Gruting Voe, six miles, the road was easily prepared. On this line two bridges were erected: one at Bixter with piers of rubble masonry and the superstructure of stout oak, with a span of ten feet; the other at Tumlin of dry masonry with three openings. At the head of Gruting Voe, a causeway of stones, six feet high by thirteen feet broad, with seven openings of two and a half feet wide each, was constructed, crossing a part of the Voe for 120 yards, and thereby shortening the distance to Walls by three quarters of a mile.

From Lerwick, southwards, a road of twenty-three miles was formed to Dunrossness, and portions of the Test road were also improved. Four stone bridges and a wooden one were constructed on this line over heavy and sometimes impassable streams.

From the bridge at Fitch, four miles from Lerwick, a road of one and a half mile long was made, which joined the Scalloway road and the trunk line together.

From the main line at the Olnafirth branch another road was cut for three and a quarter miles, connecting Olnafirth and Doura Voe, whence there is an easy access by boat to Lerwick. One stone bridge of twelve feet span and nine feet high was erected on this line.

From Voe to Hillswick fifteen miles of bridle road were made, and two substantial stone bridges thrown over deep and rapid burns. The ground was very difficult, and in many places the red granite was so hard that blasting the rock was necessarily resorted to. This road passed through part of the parish of Delting, connecting it with North Mavine by a narrow isthmus about sixty yards wide from sea to sea. On the south of this the hills rose to a height of about 700 feet above the level of the sea, and terminated on the shore in very high precipitous cliffs. To surmount such a barrier with anything like tolerable gradients, it would have been necessary to make a detour of at least one mile and three-quarters over uneven and rough ground. To obviate this, a road was cut along the base of the bold cliffs of Cliva for 590 yards, which, considering the description of labour employed, was an undertaking of no ordinary kind. The method adopted was to blast the face of the cliff, in which only 250 lbs. of powder were expended, and this removed more than 10,000 tons of rock. With the dislodged fragments a retaining wall was built, which formed a rampart of thirteen feet broad and twelve feet average height. Some of the stones used in the wall were two tons weight.[^[93]] Corporal Andrew Ramsay was intrusted with the execution of the work, and the fact that 1,700 blasts had been fired by him among a people unused to these operations, and without a single accident occurring, affords sufficient proof of his caution, discretion, and attention.[^[94]]

In the island of Yell a road of twenty miles, nine feet wide, was cut between the two principal harbours—Cullivoe and Burravoe. The line was through a rugged country, with peat morasses, rapid streams, and mica and silicious rocks. In some places deep excavations were made before gravel could be obtained to form the surface of the road; and from the swampy nature of the ground much draining was required to render the foundation solid and the line durable. The danger of sinking in boggy ground for gravel was often felt. Once in particular when the party had dug to the depth of fourteen feet in a broken morass, the sergeant (Read) observed the whole mass of moss in motion. Instantly he ordered the workmen to leave the pit.[pit.] Scarcely had they done so when the sides began to close in, and, as a rush of water at the same time came from beneath, the bog was quickly dislocated, and toppling over, filled the pit.[^[95]] Owing to the inequalities of the surface it was difficult to carry on the line with easy gradients, and from Bastavoe and Mid Yell Voe, running far inland, its course was therefore circuitous. A bridge was constructed over the burn of Dalsetter in North Yell, ten feet span and nine feet high, with piers of strong masonry, while the cross beams, planking, and handrail were of substantial oak. A similar bridge was erected over Laxo burn, Mid Yell, and five large culverts, locally termed sivars, with heavy embankments, between that and Burravoe in South Yell. To accommodate South Yell, and to remove a serious obstruction to the conveyance of the mail and the passage of travellers in the winter season, bridges of ten feet span and seven feet high were erected over the dangerous streams of Hamnavoe and Arrisdale. In building that over Arrisdale a middle pier was erected, the span of the arch being otherwise too great to make it a sound work.[^[96]] Sergeant John F. Read was intrusted with the construction of this road. His conduct throughout his service in Shetland was correct and soldierlike.[^[97]] His report on the character of his operations in Yell, detailing the difficulties he surmounted and the improvements effected in the industrial habits of the people, is highly creditable to his ability.[^[98]]

On one occasion while assisting the making of the Yell road, the conduct of corporal Ramsay, under peculiar and trying circumstances, elicited the praise of his officers.[^[99]] An outbreak occurred in his party, and being unarmed he was placed in a critical position. He was, however, cool and determined, and resisted in a manly but forbearing manner the demands of his labourers. By persuasion and command the angry feelings of the labourers were eventually allayed, and they were induced to resume with a more contented spirit the employment they so unsparingly abused.

In accordance with arrangements made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the connection of the party with the Highland Destitution Board closed early this year, and the men arrived at Woolwich on the 27th January. In parting with the detachment Captain Craigie, R.N., spoke highly of its efficient and creditable services and its excellent conduct. Privates Alexander Smith and David Muir executed all the masonry work on the roads. Sergeant Forsyth, in his character of superintendent, evinced considerable ability, zeal, and intelligence in the discharge of his duties, and was unremitting in his efforts to render Captain Webb’s absence as little felt as possible.[^[100]]

1852.

Party attached to the Commissioners for the Great Exhibition—Mount Alexander—Corporal John McLaren—Spike Island—Brown Down—Hurst Castle—Holmfirth Reservoir—Alderney—Cambridge Asylum—Tidal observations, river Dee—Van Diemen’s Land—Channel Islands—Kaffir war—Passage of the Kei—Patrols—Party benighted in the bush—Action at the Konap pass—Patrol—Fort White—Patrols—Expedition against Moshesh—Orange River—Passage of the Caledon—The Lieuw—Battle of Berea—Return of the expedition; crossing the drift at the Lieuw—Repassage of the Caledon—Perils of the “sick-waggon” in crossing—Thanks of General Cathcart—Conduct of the sappers during the campaign.

The detachment in London under Captain Owen was throughout the year, attached to the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851. Four of the party were generally in the office performing the duty of clerks and draughtsmen. Among the services executed by them was the organization and classification, for historic and scientific purposes, of the voluminous correspondence, documents, and tabulated forms and returns of the department, previous to their deposit in the royal archives. To this was added the duty of preparing the various certificates with the signature of Prince Albert, and forwarding them, with the exhibitors’ and jurors’ medals, and juries’ reports, to the different local and foreign committees throughout the world. To corporal Gardner was intrusted the office of stamping the Prince’s signature. Before he commenced the task he made some experiments to ascertain the best mode of transferring the royal name from the block to the paper. His object was to make the impression a perfect resemblance of the original, to accomplish which the use of common ink was a desideratum. Observation and ingenuity soon led him to adopt an expedient that proved to be very successful. About 20,000 of these certificates he prepared, and many of the transfers were such faithful fac-similes of the original, that the minutest examination of their details failed to discover the slightest deviation from the character of the royal autograph. For two or three months when the men were not employed on more pressing services, they were advantageously occupied in collecting and arranging specimens received from the exhibitors, now composing the trade collection at Kensington palace. They also examined and took charge of the Exhibition photographs, executed in Paris, 18,000 in number, after their return by Messrs. De la Rue and Co. who mounted them. In the evening after the day’s labour had ended, five of the party attended for four months the Government school of design at Somerset House, and received instruction in free-hand drawing. The privilege thus conceded was not only unprecedented but greatly enhanced by an instant departure from the rule of the institution, which required candidates to avail themselves of its benefits in their turn. By the end of the year the sappers with Captain Owen were reduced to four non-commissioned officers.

In January and February two non-commissioned officers with six civilians as labourers, under Mr. John McLaren,[^[101]] the deputy surveyor-general of South Australia, were employed in establishing an overland route from Adelaide to Mount Alexander. They laid out a line of road between these points through the wilderness, removed all striking obstructions, and formed at every practicable locality convenient wells of water for the use of travellers. The object of laying down this line of communication was principally to assist the transit of the “gold diggers” of the Mount and the contiguous country into Adelaide.

Twelve rank and file were sent from Woolwich in April to Spike Island, to superintend the convict mechanical skill and labour placed at the disposal of the Ordnance, in carrying on the defences of the island and other posts in Cork harbour. This measure was strongly urged by Colonel Oldfield, the commanding royal engineer in Ireland, on the score both of utility and economy; and the services of the party in directing the convicts in the quarries, the excavations, and at their trades, were followed by results, indisputably advantageous to the public.

The seventh company, employed first at Portsmouth and then at Gosport, in conjunction with the second company, in constructing the batteries at Brown Down, was removed in June from Fort Monckton to Hurst Castle, to repair its defences and construct new batteries. The men, not quartered in the castle, were provided with accommodation in a detached shed, which was converted into a barrack for the purpose.

Early in the year, under orders from the Home Government, four men of the corps under lance-corporal James S. Taylor, made surveys and plans of the Holmfirth reservoir and the country in its neighbourhood, to assist Captain R. C. Moody, R.E., in his inquiries to ascertain the cause of the bursting of its embankment and the consequent destruction of life and property. On the completion of the work the men were commended for the active and able manner in which it had been executed, and received a liberal allowance for their services.

A new station was opened for the corps this year at Alderney, one of the Channel Islands, whither the eleventh company, under the command of Captain W. F. D. Jervois, R.E., repaired from Woolwich, and arrived at the island on the 30th June. Some four weeks after the men commenced the construction of the permanent works considered necessary in those precarious days, to enable the garrison to resist any attempt at invasion by the enemy. There being but little accommodation in the island for troops, unused as it had been to have soldiers quartered on it, the company was necessarily divided into two portions, and domiciled more than a mile apart, at Longy and Corblets. The “Nunnery” was constituted an hospital for the sick.

An appeal was made to the corps in June to subscribe towards the erection of an asylum for soldiers’ widows in memory of the late Duke of Cambridge. From most of the companies it was met by contributions, which in the aggregate amounted to 101l. 17s., and thus insured to the corps a permanent interest in the institution to the extent of nine votes at every election of a widow. The gift from the non-commissioned officers and men of the sappers was the most liberal that had been received from any regiment in the service.

Sergeant John Berry and one private, both surveyors, were employed under Captain Vetch, late R.E., from June to August, in conducting a series of tidal observations in the River Dee at Chester, for the harbour department of the Admiralty, and to carry out also the provisions of the “Dee Standard Restoration Act.” The observations were to extend over a period of twelve months, but the service was concluded in a fourth of the time. The duty was very carefully attended to, and the registrations were always accurately made by the sergeant and his assistant.

One sergeant and fourteen rank and file embarked for Van Diemen’s Land on the 19th July on board the ‘Lady Montagu,’ as a guard over convicts, in conjunction with a detachment of the line under the command of Captain J. S. Hawkins, R.E., and landed at Hobart Town on the 11th December. The Lieutenant-Governor of the colony applied for the assistance of the sappers to constitute, in the first instance, the nucleus of an efficient survey body, and to carry on, both in the city and the distant bush, the trigonometrical and detail survey of the settlement. The men, eleven of whom were married and had families, were selected from the survey companies, and were all competent for the duty both as surveyors and draughtsmen. A change in the designation of the settlement caused the party to be denominated the “Tasmanian Detachment.” Very early after its arrival, the legislative council of the colony showed much hostility to the employment of the sappers, and at last gained the point for which it had pertinaciously worked. After a service of nearly four years in the triangulation and survey of Tasmania, the detachment quitted Hobart Town on the 9th February, 1856, and landed at Sydney, for similar duty, on the 13th following.

A party of six men from Chatham was employed under Captain G. Bent, R.E., from 24th September to 13th December, in surveying and levelling the ground in the neighbourhood of St. Helier’s, Jersey, to the extent of about ten square miles; and afterwards the same party was removed to Alderney, where, under Lieutenant Martin and Captain Jervois, it completed for military purposes a special survey of the island, in May, 1853.

Hostilities at the Cape were this year continued in the same desultory and unsatisfactory manner as in the previous year. The attempts for a fair open fight were quite unsuccessful, and the patrols undertaken to drive the enemy into action were equally as harassing and arduous as in any former war. In these operations the sappers participated to the extent of their numerical means, not without, in one particular instance, suffering greatly both in loss of life and property. The following detail embraces the active services of the corps on the Cape frontier this year.

A party of two sergeants and sixty-five rank and file, under Captain H. C. B. Moody, R.E., returned to King William’s Town on the 1st January, 1852, after three days’ march in escorting supplies to Forts White and Cox.

One sergeant and thirty rank and file accompanied a patrol of nearly 500 troops from King William’s Town, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Skipwith, 43rd regiment, on the 3rd January. Captain Moody with Lieutenant Fowler, R.E., commanded the sappers. The American pontoon was carried with the party. The division crossed the Kei on foot, at a drift, on the 7th and 8th. On the 14th Colonel Eyre’s division appeared in sight, but as the Kei had then risen considerably, the pontoon was used with effect to cross the stream. About one mile and a half above the drift, at a point where the water was smooth though the current was strong, the raft was employed. The river was about 100 yards wide, with a muddy bottom; the bank was easily accessible by infantry, but not by cavalry or artillery. To form the communication a strong hawser was passed over to the opposite bank, and the pontoon, attached to it by two short lines with running loops, was passed from shore to shore, carrying forty men at each trip. On the first day, seven companies of the 73rd and 60th regiments were in this manner ferried across, as also about 100 Fingoe women and children. During the day the tide again rapidly fell, and the waggons, &c., crossed the stream at the main drift. Captain Moody, in reporting upon the conduct of his detachment, said, “Nothing could exceed the energy and willingness with which they all worked.”

From the 31st January to 2nd February one sergeant and forty rank and file, under Lieutenant Fowler, R.E., accompanied the patrol under the command of Captain Campbell, Cape mounted rifles, and, supplied with sickles, assisted in devastating the crops of the enemy in the neighbourhood of Perie and cutting off their supplies. On the Mangoka river a like razzia was effected, and after a night’s bivouac on the Gwokkobi, several huts were burnt and fifty acres of corn cut down. Further destruction was carried on up the Gwokkobi and Umnaza rivers to the Perie station, to the extent of eighty acres. After a slight skirmish with about 200 Kaffirs in the Perie bush, the patrol returned to King William’s Town, laying waste in its route the gardens in the vicinity of Fort Beresford and down the Umtabini to the point of its junction with the Buffalo river, comprising another area of about eighty acres of thriving corn.

Captain Fenwick, R.E., with twenty rank and file, formed the European part of an escort of 100 strong, which conveyed supplies in five bullock waggons, in addition to seventy head of cattle, to Major Kyle’s column in the Tomacha—a distance of seventeen miles from King William’s Town, to which place the detachment returned on the 5th February after two days’ patrolling.

From 27th January to 28th February ten rank and file, under second-corporal William Roberts, were attached to Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre’s column, and during the operations on the march to the Keiskama, and beyond it, were employed in making drifts practicable for waggons, throwing temporary bridges for the passage of the troops, and assisting in the destruction of the enemy’s crops.

A similar party during the same period, under corporal George Grubb, accompanied Major Kyle’s division to Seyolo’s country; and, in addition to the ordinary duties of the camp, assisted in devastating the crops of the Kaffirs, and improved the drifts for the passage of the waggons and the fording of the troops. This detachment also formed part of the waggon escort which conveyed provisions to the column from Fort White.

On the 22nd and 23rd February one sergeant and sixty rank and file were on patrol to Fort White, with supplies for the columns of Colonel Mitchell and Major Kyle. Ten waggons were in charge of the party, five of which were delivered to an escort from Major Kyle’s patrol, and the remainder were unloaded at the Fort. The party then returned to King William’s Town, capturing on the road two Kaffirs and six horses.

From 5th to 27th March nine rank and file under Captain Robertson, were present in the operations of the force under his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, in driving the enemy from the Waterkloof and adjacent fastnesses, and finally from the Amatola mountains. The sappers, commanded by Captain Fenwick, R.E., were most useful in rendering the drifts injured by heavy rains practicable for the passage of waggons. On this service four men of each regiment accompanied the head-quarters as the Commander-in-Chiefs escort. The party of sappers also shared in the honour, by being permitted to add five men to his Excellency’s body guard. One corporal was also attached to the division under Colonel Eyre, and was present in all its operations from 5th March to 27th April. To this patrol were added seven rank and file on the 20th April, who assisted in the concluding services of the division.

Sixty sappers formed part of a patrol of 150 men, under the command of Captain Moody, R.E., sent out on the 27th March to co-operate with Colonel Eyre’s division, and also to intercept fugitives, cattle, &c., flying from him in the direction of the Isili range. That day Captain Moody formed a junction with Colonel Eyre’s force under Murray’s Kraantz, and in working up by Kaffir tracks to the high ground burnt several of the enemy’s huts. The service required that the party should descend again: this was done in a different direction over shelving rocks and through dense underwood. It then crossed one of the sources of the Buffalo, scoured the country in its vicinage, and returned again through the bush under the Buffalo range towards Colonel Eyre’s camp. The paths were most intricate and rocky, and the detachment consequently marched in Indian file. While in the heart of the bush night came on. The darkness was so intense that the men were obliged to trail on by feeling and calling to each other. It was with the greatest difficulty that the path was kept, but at last it was lost altogether, and halting near a stream the men lay down on the wet ground, without fires, and passed the night in a comfortless bivouac. At grey light next morning the patrol was in motion, and the sappers emerged from the bush after about four hours’ exertion. One man missed his way in the jungle, and spent eighteen hours in endeavouring to gain the detachment. He had nearly exhausted his energies in extricating himself from the steep and broken rocks that lay in his track, when luckily he was rescued by some of his comrades who were sent in quest of him. After renewed efforts to clear the bush of prowling Kaffirs, and driving them and their cattle in the direction of Colonel Eyre’s division, the detachment on the 29th March returned to King William’s Town, laying waste on the route three Kaffir gardens. “As usual,” wrote Captain Moody, “the sappers behaved in an excellent manner.” Their conduct also met with the approval of Colonel Eyre.

With a patrol of about 240 troops, commanded by Captain Robertson, R.E., was sent a party of one sergeant and forty rank and file, under Lieutenant Siborne, R.E. The patrol left King William’s Town on the 30th March. The sappers, broken up into small sections, aided in scouring the Isili Berg. On the 1st April the patrol quitted the bivouac at the source of the Yellow Wood river, destroyed a few huts and several fields of corn, and reached head-quarters on the 2nd April.

A patrol of 300 men, under Captain Moody, R.E., conveyed supplies of cattle and provisions to Fort Cox for the divisions working in the Amatolas, and returned with the empty waggons without opposition from the enemy. The escort was out three days, from 5th to 7th April, and 100 sergeants and rank and file of the corps, under Lieutenant Siborne, R.E., formed a part of the force.

Sergeant John Mealey and ten rank and file accompanied, on the 7th April, a small escort under Lieutenant Broke, 60th rifles, with provisions in waggons to the Green river for Colonel Percival’s division, and returned the next day to King William’s Town.

Soon after this, a detachment of thirty-one men, under Lieutenant Siborne, R.E., built a defensible tower in the Keiskama Hoek, for the purpose of making a demonstration of a fixed purpose permanently to eject the Gaika tribe from that territory and to occupy the Amatolas.

The head-quarters of the ninth company was removed from King William’s Town on the 28th May by Graham’s Town and Fort Brown to Beaufort, at which fort it arrived on the 19th June. Previously to its arrival it was overtaken in the Konap pass on the 13th June by a body of 200 rebel Hottentots, under Ian Cornelis and Damon Kuhn, and at noon was suddenly brought into action. The small force under Captain H. C. B. Moody, R.E., consisted of two sergeants, thirty-one rank and file, and one bugler, in charge of five waggons containing baggage, arms, engineer stores, and 30,000 rounds of musket-ball ammunition, with four women and ten children. The Pass—a long and dangerous one—has a serpentine direction, accommodating itself to the tortuous ravine through which it ascends. On the left, the whole way is a rocky precipice some forty feet high, scarped either by manual labour to form a road or by descending torrents in bygone ages, the summit of which is covered with bush. On the right rises a steep hill, inaccessible, and thickly wooded to the brim; a better position adapted to a lurking foe could not well be imagined, affording the means of enfilade fire at every turn of the road.[^[102]] Acquainted by spies with the movements of the convoy, the rebel Hottentots had before its approach concealed themselves in an impenetrable ambuscade, and as the sappers ascended the hill, the advanced guard was met with a volley which killed three of the mules in the leading waggon and stopped the progress of the train, the road being too narrow to turn it. So sudden and fierce a beginning did not appal the detachment, for instantly, without disorder, they joined issue with the enemy though far superior in force and almost unassailable in position. Some of the party soon tried to push into the bush above them, but the rebels already occupied it close to the edge of the road; and as the thicket was too dense to work in, the men were compelled to retire. At this moment one of the leading drivers showed unmistakeable symptoms of treachery and fraternization with the rebels, and he was instantly shot down by a sapper.[^[103]] In a few seconds the firing was general for more than 150 yards on both sides of the Pass, but the detachment, careful of its ammunition, only fired when the enemy could be seen and picked off. At length the advance men fell back and took cover under the bank, and between it and the leading waggon, where they received a reinforcement of a few men from the rear. Each waggon was now defended with great determination and intrepidity, and each man fought his way through fearful straits. The firing was chiefly within five yards and less of their antagonists. Sometimes in venturing from their shelter to fire upon the rebels in the kloof, they were opposed by a deadly fire from behind, which always lessened the number that returned. At the head of the road a force of the enemy occupied a position which enfiladed the detachment, but the rebels there were held in check by the steady firing of a few men who kept a vigilant look out for them. Without diminishing his fire in the parts he already occupied, the enemy rapidly increased the extent of his flanks and was trying to surround the little band, but to prevent this, and as the men had been driven to the last stand and were fast falling, Captain Moody gave the reluctant order for the women and children to leave the waggons, and all to commence a retreat. Not a move was made to the rear until the order was given; and, with as many of the wounded as could assist themselves, and the women and children—the retreat towards the old Konap post was conducted with steadiness and without precipitation under a spirited fire from the rebels. On clearing the gorge, a section of the men was extended into the bush to keep the advancing enemy in check, and under its cover the detachment gained an abandoned inn, which was soon converted into a post of defence by barricades and loopholes. Here a final stand was to be made, but the Hottentots, although they were aware of the weakness of the party, dared not renew the attack. The action lasted an hour; three-fourths of the time being spent in defending the waggons, which were riddled with balls. The casualties were——

The enemy, though ensconced in the thicket, had many killed.[^[105]] All the spare arms, Minié rifles, ammunition, oxen, baggage, and equipments were captured by the rebels, but the waggons, engineer stores, and some minor articles were recovered.[^[106]] The Minié rifles luckily had been “rendered useless by the precaution of removing the nipples.”[^[107]]

Captain Moody’s conduct throughout commanded the confidence of his men. Of their coolness and courage he reported in the highest terms. Colour-sergeant Alexander Spalding who commanded the rear-guard, and sergeant William King, who had charge of the advance, were favourably noticed in the Captain’s despatch. Sergeant John Davis of the 12th regiment, was also highly spoken of, as well for his coolness and courage, as for his offer to proceed with four volunteer sappers to Fort Brown for assistance. While Captain Moody was assisting the men in their charges, one of the rebels took a steady aim at him by resting his gun on the branch of a tree, but his piece snapped, and before he could re-cap he was shot down by private John Murphy.[^[108]] Three times sergeant King collected his men, and bravely headed them in their fruitless charges on the rebels.[^[109]] Private Thomas Hayward volunteered to go to Fort Brown alone, in disguise, after dusk for assistance, but the firing having been heard at that fort, a detachment of the 12th regiment soon appeared, and rendered the hazardous enterprise of the private unnecessary. The arrival of the reinforcement, however, put the men again on their mettle, and Captain Moody and his sappers returned with the party to the scene of the disaster. On both sides of the road they scoured the jungle, but the rebels had decamped with as much booty as they could carry off.[^[110]] “The little band of sappers,” wrote a London journal, “were noble fellows, who often before, under another of their officers, had fought bravely in a fairer field.”[^[111]] In the Government notice of the Commander-in-Chief, dated June 16th, 1852, the conduct of the men “in defending the waggons to the last,” and their “steady and good order in retreat after inflicting a severe loss on the enemy,” were much lauded. The notice then added, that “the greatest credit is due to Captain Moody and his small party of sappers for their soldier-like and gallant bearing on the occasion.” Even the rebel Hottentots themselves in speaking of the massacre said, that “the sappers fought like men.”[^[112]]

The remnant of the party, taking with it the killed and wounded, and the women and children, reached Fort Brown at dusk on the 14th June. There the brave men who lost their lives were interred. A subscription was forthwith made among the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of the royal artillery and 12th regiment to meet the urgent wants of the party, and the necessities of the motherless children of private Hayward. A further sum of 100l. was collected among the benevolent citizens of Graham’s Town for the same purpose, and the amount was distributed to the sufferers in proportion to their losses and wants.

A visit to the fatal spot a day or two after afforded unmistakeable evidence of the obstinate nature of the conflict. Dead horses, oxen and mules, shot in the fray, blocked up the road. Two of the Hottentots lay stanched in their blood, and wells of gore were scattered about the path in sickening frequency. Two waggons, speckled with shot-holes, had been overturned; and further on, in the line of retreat, were strewn quantities of torn uniform, broken muskets, blood-stained linen, and commissariat supplies.[^[113]]

Captain Moody, having under him thirteen rank and file, was out on patrol with the force under General the Honourable George Cathcart, from the 6th to 15th July. The sappers kept with the guns. They carried with them a proportion of tools to improve the roads, and assisted in some of the operations for driving the enemy from the Kroome range and the Waterkloof.

On the 25th July sergeant John Mealey and nine men of the corps at Fort White were present with about 100 men of the 12th Lancers, 2nd Queens, and Cape Corps in repulsing an attack on the cattle guard. The Hottentots, about 200 in number, under Uithaalder were on the plain in front of the fort in good skirmishing order. After crossing a drift they stood for a time, and kept up a smart fire on the garrison. They then retreated with the loss of six men to Slambie Kop, to the foot of which they were pursued. The British casualties only counted two slightly wounded. The sappers turned out with great promptitude, not waiting to cover themselves with their jackets, and conducted themselves as good soldiers. Captain Robertson, R.E., was also present, and two of the sappers were near to him in the hottest of the fire. The rebels had a bugler among them who was proficient in his duty. The bugle on which he sounded had been captured by the Hottentots in the Konap Pass a month before from bugler Brotherston, who was killed in the action.

Again Captain Moody, in command of twenty-eight rank and file of the corps, was attached to the troops under his Excellency, which operated from the 29th July to the 29th August across the Kei, by Aland’s Post and Whittlesea. On the 6th August the party was increased by the arrival of nine men at Brome Neck, with the patrol from King William’s Town under Lieutenant-Colonel Mitchell. This party brought up the India-rubber pontoons, but the low state of the tides rendered their use unnecessary. The detachment more immediately with Captain Moody was employed on the journey in repairing the defective drifts, and establishing a defensible kraal on the Kei at the standing camp. The conduct of the sappers was well spoken of by the Captain, and his Excellency expressed his satisfaction with all that had been done by them.

A detachment of twenty-seven non-commissioned officers and men landed at the Cape from England on the 11th September, which increased the corps in the colony from 268 to 285 of all ranks.

Eight rank and file left Fort Beaufort, under Captain Moody, on the 11th September, and were attached to the division under his Excellency, to make a demonstration in the Waterkloof. At Nelle’s Farm, under the direction of Captain Jesse, R.E., they constructed an intrenched camp, assisted by the rifle brigade, and formed a similar one in the valley of the Waterkloof near Brown’s Farm. These services were rapidly and creditably executed.

Four rank and file were present in the field services of the column under Colonel Eyre, from 30th September to 30th October. Four also served in the various operations with Major-General York’s division from the 12th to 28th October.

To the expedition against Moshesh commanded by his Excellency Lieutenant-General the Honourable George Cathcart, were attached, on the 7th November, serjeant Joseph Ireland and 13 privates of the corps under Lieutenant Siborne of the engineers. In the column of route, the sappers marched in front of the leading waggon, which carried the intrenching tools; and on several occasions preceded the force, clearing away impediments in the drifts to prevent delay in the progress of the troops. Lieutenant Siborne, aided by Lieutenant Smith of the Kat river levy, directed the sappers in these hurried interstitial labours.