In fact, he would have saved his pay twenty times over. It is this utter recklessness on the part of the drivers which has contributed largely to the great mortality among the animals. They will work the poor beasts with the most terrific sore backs, until in their agony they can go no further; then they will turn them loose and steal another from the lines, so that the veterinary surgeons only find out that animals are ill when they are utterly beyond work. Were sore backs, lameness, and disease only reported at the right time, a few days’ rest and a little care would set most of the animals up; now, frequently the first intimation is received from someone who, riding along, has seen the poor beast lying down by the roadside dying. There has been great discontent excited among these hard-worked officers of the transport train—some of whom have been at work in Egypt or India since August last; others of whom have borne the brunt of the worst time here—at the introduction of a number of other officers over their heads. The corps was constituted as a corps some months since, and the officers have been placed according to their regimental rank. According to all rule and precedent, every officer gazetted to the corps after that would hold rank—that is, local rank—according to the date of his gazetting into the corps. Instead of this, they have been placed according to their date of commission as captain, consequently the whole of the captains who have been at work here from the landing of the expedition—who have borne the toil and anxiety from the first—find two or three officers placed over their heads, and, in fact, if this procedure continue, will at the end of the campaign be six or seven lower on the list than they were before. This is the more inexcusable, as fourteen divisions were to be formed, and fourteen captains were gazetted, thus making the corps complete; and each man hoped, and had a right to expect, to have a division. Indeed, at first even the authorities recognised this; and these captains, who wished to come out to Abyssinia, but could obtain no other appointment, were gazetted as subalterns in the transport train; and as this was subsequent to the gazette forming the corps, it was naturally supposed by the other officers that they came in as junior of that rank. When, however, the first vacancy occurred in the captains, instead of the senior lieutenant obtaining promotion as he expected, one of these captain-subalterns was promoted to the vacancy; and, as he was an old captain, he actually not only jumped over the heads of all the subalterns, but over those of every captain who was here when he landed, and thus become second in command of the transport train. Since then other appointments have been made, and the original captains at present find themselves going gradually down instead of rising in their corps. This, after such work as they have gone through,