first we thought we should be obliged to send our servants back. Fortunately, however, a grass-cutter is allowed for each horse; and as we have each two horses, we have retained our cooks under the title of grass-cutters for our second horses. We are not singular in our management, and there are very few staff-officers who have not managed in some such manner to retain their servants. The fact is, that a rule of this sort bears very much more hardly upon a staff-officer, or a civilian living as we are, than it does upon a regimental officer. A soldier-servant is allotted to each officer upon application, and regimental officers who pick handy men from their own companies, and who live three in a tent, have their three soldier-servants between them as usual. It is far otherwise with a staff-officer: he may obtain a soldier-servant from a regiment; but that soldier does not know him, and will not work for him as he will for his own officer. In the next place, the soldier has certain regimental work to do, which will take him away from his master’s tent for a considerable portion of the day; and lastly, a staff-officer is liable to be sent away on duty from the camp where the regiment to which his servant belongs is stationed. In our own case a soldier-servant would be useless; we might wish at any moment to push on to the pioneer force, or to accompany the Commander-in-chief upon a short expedition, and we should then be left without any servant whatever. At any rate, the order is generally evaded. Were it not that two months must elapse before a copy of this letter can come out to us, I should not speak so freely upon this point, as we should be having a special committee of officers of the quarter-master-general’s department assembling to consider the question of “evasion of the general order relating to servants by officers and civilians attached to the army.” ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Antalo, March 7th. I am happy to say that Major Minion, of the commissariat, arrived here early this morning with a large convoy, carrying among other stores a large quantity of rum; and it is now finally decided that a certain quantity of both rum and tea shall be served out daily to the troops on the advance. This happy state of things has been principally brought about by the energetic remonstrances of all the medical officers, and by their representation of the disastrous effect which the sudden privation of tea and rum would have upon the health of the troops, especially under the circumstances of the water being so bad. Sir Robert Napier himself was, I know, most averse to so extreme a measure; and nothing but the most urgent feeling of the necessity of pushing on in the lightest and most speedy manner could have induced him to consent to it; and I am sure that he is as pleased as anyone that he is able to continue the issue of what are really essentials to the soldiers.