The Second Division began its forward march on the 3rd of January, and encamped half a mile distant from the kraal near which the Prince Imperial had perished, while Sir Evelyn Wood's column, advancing by the left, proceeded along the further side of the Ityotyosi. Already the bad rations to which they were reduced--eight pounds of inferior oats and no hay--were telling severely on the horses of the 17th Lancers and Mounted Infantry. On the 4th, when encamped on the bank of the Nondweni River, a cavalry patrol, under Redvers Duller, Hammersley, and others, had a narrow escape from being cut off by two thousand five hundred Zulus, of whom, on the following day, the entire cavalry column went forth in search. When the whole mounted force was getting under arms, Hammersley threw away the end of a cigar before falling in, and said to Florian-- 'Look here, old fellow, I have been thinking about you. I am not a millionnaire, you know, but I have enough and to spare. You have not, I presume--pardon me for saying so; but now that you are an officer, and must want many things, my cheque-book is at your disposal, if you wish to draw on old Chink the Paymaster.' 'A thousand thanks to you, Captain Hammersley,' replied Florian, his heart swelling and his colour deepening with gratitude; 'but I have no need to trespass on your kindness--I want nothing here; we are all pretty much alike in Zululand--officer and private, general and drum-boy.' 'Yes, by Jove! but in the time to come?' 'Thanks again, I say, dear Hammersley, but I am inclined to let to-morrow take care of to-morrow, especially while campaigning in Zululand.' 'Tiresome work I find that, with all my zeal for the service,' observed Hammersley, as the entire cavalry force moved off about four in the morning, when the sky and landscape were alike dark. 'We have much bodily endurance, and run enormous risks which the people at home don't understand or fully appreciate, because our antagonists are naked savages, though second to no men in the world for reckless valour; thus honour may be accorded to us but scantily and grudgingly, because they _are_ savages and not civilised enemies, or, as some one says of the days of the Great Duke, when so many thousand men in red coats and blue breeches met and beat so many thousand men in blue coats and red breeches.' General Marshall, with the King's Dragoon Guards and 17th Lancers, had reconnoitred the country in advance as far as the Upoko River, and there effected a junction with Buller's command on the same ground where the latter had escaped the ambuscade referred to.