Though they did not know it at the time, Lumsden’s Horse as a corps had done their last march in the Transvaal, and fired their last shot against the Boers. They had begun to think that others, with less chance of serving the Empire elsewhere and fewer interests calling them home, could very well do all the work that remained to be done in South Africa. Yet up to that time their expressions of a wish to be relieved, as other Volunteer contingents had been, from the fruitless pursuit of guerilla raiders, was productive of no result. It is hardly surprising, therefore, after the miserable experiences of a sweeping movement, by which nothing of any importance had been achieved, and from which nobody suffered much except the troops engaged in it, that a spirit of discontent should have begun to manifest itself among men who knew that every day they remained in South Africa might jeopardise all their future careers. They were running the risk of losing all and gaining no commensurate advantage either for themselves or for the Empire. It is little to be wondered at, therefore, that they should have envied the City Imperial Volunteers, the Canadians, and some other Colonial contingents which had been allowed to leave for home when Lord Roberts declared that regular warfare was at an end. Even the departure of some of their own comrades, whose plea of urgent private affairs had prevailed over military considerations, seemed to some extent a grievance, so that when Thesiger, Townsend-Smith, and Moir-Byres were allowed to go many others regretted that they also had not applied for passages to India instead of England. So far back as October 9, Army Orders had contained the following: COLONIAL CONTINGENTS It has been brought to the notice of the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief that many men of the Colonial contingents made arrangements before leaving their homes for only one year, which has now nearly expired. Though precise date cannot yet be fixed on which all will be free, commanding officers may submit names of any urgent cases at once, and the Field-Marshal hopes that within the next few weeks he may be able to dispense with their services, which have proved invaluable to the Empire. But Lord Roberts, with every wish to meet the convenience of those who had sacrificed much for the sake of serving under him, found himself hampered by unforeseen circumstances, which were fully explained in one of his despatches about this date. ‘There still remained much for the Army in South Africa to do before the country could be said to be completely conquered. Certain Boer leaders, notably De Wet and De la Rey, had still to be dealt with, and the guerilla warfare carried on by them put a stop to.’ This state of affairs made it imperative that the Army should be broken up into several comparatively small columns of increased mobility. Mounted troops were therefore in more demand than ever.