At Portsmouth ten men were admitted into hospital with the disease. The company was consequently removed to Southsea Castle and the cholera disappeared. At Gibraltar thirty-one men were admitted, and the deaths were few in proportion to the loss of some regiments in garrison, the 50th regiment having lost nearly fifty men. Of the military at the fortress about 140 died of cholera, but the civilians counted 470 fatal cases. During the raging of the disease, corporal John Hopkins and lance-corporal William Ritchley were conspicuous for their zeal and attention to the sick. Their duties were attended with considerable personal risk; and to the valuable assistance they rendered to the men in the early stages of the attack, both by their cheerful exertions and judgment, is attributed the rapid recovery of many of those who were sent to the hospital. Corporal Hopkins was promoted to the rank of sergeant in consequence. At Halifax, Dr. M‘Donald of the ordnance medical department, gained much credit for his indefatigable attention to his numerous patients, twenty-six of whom recovered under his skilful treatment; and his great success in so many cases was lauded both by the medical chief of his own department, and the Master-General. In December the foundation stone of the citadel of La Petite Montagne, Mauritius, was laid by Major-General Sir William Nicolay, the governor of the colony, with all the parade and ceremony usual on such occasions. The company was present, and private William Reynolds, the most skilful mason in the detachment, had the honour of assisting his Excellency in the deposition of the stone. In the evening of the same day to commemorate the event, the detachment with their wives and families partook of a sumptuous supper generously furnished by his Excellency. From June to October, sergeant George Darbyshire and five men were employed under Captain Henderson, R.E., in the triangulation of the west coast of Scotland, and were encamped during the operations on the mountains. At the Cape of Good Hope the incursions of the Kaffirs brought on a desultory war this year, and the detachment of the corps in the colony was scattered in small parties over the frontier. Though much employed with the advanced forces in superintending the construction of redoubts and other indispensable defensive works, they were never called upon to take any particular part in attacking the enemy. The marching to which they were subjected, through a country of bush and mountain, was severe, and exposed under canvas or in bivouac to every variation of the climate, they shared all the trials and sufferings incident to the troops.