to work upwards, along the course of the streams that furrowed the mountain-side. Slowly but sturdily the troops breasted the hills; by day they hacked paths through the jungle; by night they slept in clothing soaked in many fords and torrents. Yet such was the stamina of the Europeans that during the expedition not one fell ill, and they outmarched the Sikhs, who broke down and had to be left behind. After nineteen days of this tremendous strain Edwards reached the rendezvous; the elephants had not yet come up, but a large supply of rice had already arrived, and his troops, eager for vegetable food, pounced on it with delight. In a few days the elephants lumbered up the pass, loaded with commissariat stores of every kind, on which the men feasted, while the animals rested after their climb. Then the long column of men and beasts crashed downwards through the forest and reached Padaung, on the Irrawaddy, in less than a quarter of the time occupied in the upward march. Official thanks were given to all ranks when the convoy of elephants was handed over to the transport department, and a month’s extra batta was granted to those who had taken part in the expedition. The account of the doings of the XVIIIth at the front must now be broken by Lord Wolseley’s description of his first meeting with the regiment of which he is now the honoured Colonel-in-Chief. As a callow subaltern in the 80th, quite new to the practical side of war, he found himself at Rangoon in charge of a piquet, composed in part of very young soldiers of the XVIIIth, who had been left at the base under command of Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Grattan. These youngsters were not yet disciplined; they had been greatly amused at the young officer’s attempts to march his detachment to its post, and three of them, carried away by their high spirits, took liberties and refused to number off in the way he ordered. Wolseley promptly made prisoners of the culprits, and next morning