It is well to emphasise what may be called the greys and drabs and neutral tints that go to the making up of a complete picture of heroism; it is imperative to appreciate the superb nuances which in their very retirement and unostentatious inconspicuousness made the background to now immemorial scenes in our nation's history. There are so many who have contributed their tiny inch of fine neutral tint, their little all of patience and self-abnegation to make up this background--infinitesimal atoms in the great machinery, whose names and histories are enveloped in the vast dust bosom of the veldt, yet who, unknown and unsung, have contributed the "mickle" which has made the "muckle" belonging to the Empire. The ruminations of a soldier, who, rolled up in his overcoat, was struggling to sleep, shows the pathetic side of the brilliant undertaking: "Horses and mules are dropping down from sheer exhaustion, unfit for further service. They are left on the veldt a prey to the hungry vultures.... I shudder as I inwardly apply the case to myself, how perhaps in years to come, when of no more use to my country, I am left, like those poor creatures, to the mercy of an ungrateful world, or, worse still, thrown as a pauper into some home of destitution." On the 11th they were early astir in the dewy air of the morning, moving across open country to Majana Mabili, which was reached at 7.30 A.M., and on from this place after tea, on and on for eleven miles, till the stars began to shimmer, and moon to light the open veldt. The night was spent at a spot known as the "Hill without Water," a name sufficiently inhospitable and repellent.