Such alarms and surprises, like too many of the disasters and disgraces which befell our arms in these latter wars, were entirely due to the new formation of our battalions. 'That the destruction of the regimental system by Lord Cardwell has been the original cause of all our reverses, surprises, and humiliation, there can be little hesitation in saying,' to quote Major Ashe. 'The men at Isandhlwana were not well handled, it must be admitted, but it has since leaked out that many of them would not rally round their officers, but attempted safety in flight. Dozens of the men, sergeants, and other non-commissioned officers, have since disclosed that they did not know the names of their company officers, or those of their right or left hand men.' Hence, by the newfangled system, there could be neither confidence nor cohesion. Elsewhere he tells us that the once-splendid 91st Highlanders, 'the envy of all recruiting sergeants, could only muster 200 men when ordered to Zululand,' but was made up by volunteers from other regiments--men all strangers to each other and to their officers, and whose facings were all the colours of the rainbow. Then, after the Intombe, followed the storming of the Inhlobane Mountain, where fell the gallant Colonel Weatherley, and the no less gallant old frontier farmer Pict Nys, who was last seen fighting to his final gasp against a horde of Zulus, across the dead body of his favourite horse, an empty revolver in his left hand, a blood-dripping sabre in his right, and more than one assegai, launched from a distance, quivering in his body. The cry went to Britain now for more troops; and fresh reinforcements came, while the army in Zululand was reconstituted by Lord Chelmsford at Durban. There, amid a brilliant staff in their new uniforms fresh from home, was one central figure, the ill-starred Prince Imperial of France, who had landed two days after the battle of Kambula, and had been appointed an extra aide-de-camp to the general commanding. The army was now formed into two divisions: one under Major-General Crealock, C.B., and another under Major-General Newdigate, while a flying column under Sir Evelyn Wood was to act independently. Hammersley's squadron of Mounted Infantry was attached to the Second Division, with the movements of which our story has necessarily alone to do. The 16th of April saw it marching northward of Natal, and on the 4th of May Lord Chelmsford, who had joined it after church parade--for the day was Sunday--suggested that a reconnaissance should be made towards the Valley of the Umvolosi River to select ground for an entrenched camp, and for this purpose Hammersley's squadron and Buller's Horse were ordered to the front.