“‘The living die:’ the hopes of a large party in an European nation have been extinguished by the assegais of a mere handful of savages.” (Alluding to the death of the Prince Imperial of France.) “The two events stand side by side in startling contrast, and suggest thoughts which even the wisest might with advantage ponder. Turn, for instance, to the story of the field of Isandhlwana, as now told in plain though interrupted and awful characters by the remains found resting near the ‘neck.’ Could it have been guessed that, while human recollection and human intelligence failed so utterly to convey to the world a history of the events of that too memorable day, Nature herself would have taken the matter in hand, and told us such a story as no one who hears it will ever forget? Four months, all but a day, had elapsed since the defenders of the field stood facing the Zulu myriads—four months of rain and sun, of the hovering of slow-sailing birds of prey, and of the predatory visits, as it might well be deemed, of unregarding enemies. Four months! and during all that time, while the world was ringing from one end to the other with the news of a terrible disaster, while reinforcements were crowding on to our shores, and special correspondents were flooding the telegraph-wires with the last new thing, all through those four months the dead slept quietly on, waiting almost consciously, as one might think, for the revelation which was to establish their fame, and, where necessary, relieve their unjustly sullied reputation. For four months was there a sleep of honour slept upon that bitter field—a sleep unbroken by any of the noise of the war that rolled both to southward and to northward. The defeat of Indlobane had been suffered; the victory of Kambula had been gained; the defenders of Rorke’s Drift had been rewarded, at least with a nation’s praise; the imprisoned column had been released from Etshowe; all the roads in Natal had rung to the tread of men and the rolling of waggon-wheels, as the force which was to “wipe out” the disaster of Isandhlwana moved up to the front. Yet still the honoured dead slept in silence. Only the grasses that waved round them in the autumn breeze murmured to them of their coming resurrection; only the stars that looked down on them, when the night wind even had ceased, and the hills loomed black and silent in the morning hours, bade them be patient and wait. There were many and varied fates entwined in that quiet group: there was the trained officer, there was the private soldier, there was the man who had come to find employment in a colonial service, there were the lads from the colony itself; all these were there, waiting till the moment should come when their heroism should be recognised, when the vague slanders of interest or of cowardice should be dispelled, and the wreath of undying fame hung round each name in the historic temple. And the moment, long waited for—long promised, as it might