The proclamation, if a little grandiose in style, is true to the letter. The men have endured privation and toil such as seldom falls to a soldier’s lot, with a good feeling and cheerfulness which has been literally beyond praise. The only occasions throughout this expedition upon which I have heard grumbling has been when the troops have been told by the quartermaster’s department that they were to march a certain distance, and when the march turned out to be half as far again. But this grumbling was not against the distance or the toil, great as both were; it was against the incapacity which had inflicted an unnecessary toil upon them. At any necessary privation, at picket-duty in wet clothes after a hard day’s march, at hunger and thirst, fatigue-duty, wet and cold, I never heard them grumble; and I feel assured that, as the general order says, the people of England will appreciate their toils and services. In one point at least they may be to some extent rewarded. Their pay here is exactly the same as they would have drawn in India; they have no field or other extra allowance whatever. Had the war taken place in India, the army would, most unquestionably, be granted a year’s “batta,” as a reward for their suffering and toil. In the present case the English Government holds the purse-strings, but I trust that this well-earned extra pay will be granted. It would form a comparatively small item in the expenses of the expedition, and the boon would be an act of graceful recognition on the part of the nation to the men who have borne its flag so successfully under the most arduous and trying circumstances.