The horses had no mouths; they wouldn’t answer to bit, rein, or spur, and it was impossible to get one away from the rest.’ When the corps returned from its long trek nearly everybody was in rags, and very unlike the ‘typical trooper’ of ten months earlier, whose smart turn-out had been a source of pride to the corps. Clothing, however, ran short, and many men had difficulty in replacing their tattered garments by new of any kind. [Illustration: _Photo: Johnston & Hoffmann_ H.P. BROWN, A TYPICAL TROOPER ] However, this detachment, under Captain Beresford, having cleared up its camp, marched out a day after the corps headquarters had gone and bivouacked that night ten or twelve miles east of Pretoria, near the pass known as Donker Hoek. Colonel Lumsden, having remained behind to see them off, went on a stage or two by train, hoping that they would overtake the leading company before it joined General French. The two detachments were, in fact, though they did not know it, within cannon sound of each other on September 5, when Mahon had turned back from Belfast to help the Canadians at Pan station; but, after that, every march took them further apart, the Colonel pushing on with what remained to him of A Company as part of Mahon’s brigade, while Captain Beresford’s hundred could make but slow progress on their leg-weary, spiritless horses. The latter troops, on arrival at Belfast, were inspected by Lord Roberts, who rode through their lines but made no speech to them. General Hutton, who was with the Headquarters Staff, cast longing eyes on Lumsden’s Horse, looked them over, and told Captain Clifford that he meant to take them on with him. Against such wholesale appropriation, however, Captain Beresford protested, saying that the men wanted to join their own corps and the horses were not fit yet. After appeal to Lord Roberts, Captain Beresford got his way. While at Belfast the detachment had unpleasant experience of winter temperature at an altitude of more than 6,500 feet above sea level. They tried to supply artificial fuel to the system by additional rations, but were not very successful, as the resources of Belfast at that time were low indeed, and certain restrictions had to be placed on traffic with the Dutch inhabitants, one of whom sold bread from the eating of which twelve or fourteen men of an Infantry regiment had been poisoned. So sentries were posted to warn all soldiers against buying provisions. To keep out the icy wind some men built themselves little huts of corrugated iron, in the construction of which we learn that Kingchurch and Cobb and the brothers Allardice distinguished themselves among one section of B Company. Captain Beresford came to have a look at them, and in notes of that time is the appreciative entry: ‘He is a very pleasant man and always polite to every one of us. He said our tin house was much better than the officers’ tents. He told us also that Lord Roberts had