Here the 66th lost their colours, notwithstanding the desperate bravery of the remnant that rallied round them. Olivey and Honeywood carried the colours on that dreadful day, and the latter was heard to cry, as he held the standard on high, “Men, what shall we do to save this?” when he fell dead, as did Sergeant-major Cuphage, who next tried to take it. Colours--the _signa militaria_ still, though not of such importance as a rallying centre in these days of extended order and fire fight, as in the days of line formation and the Brown Bess--lost as these were lost reflect honour, and not discredit, on the history of a regiment. Remarking on the use of colours in the past during battle, Sir Charles Napier writes: “Great is the value of the standard; it is a telegraph in the centre of the battle to speak the changes of the day to the wings. Its importance has therefore been immense in all ages, among all nations, and in all kinds of war. ‘Defend the colours! form upon the colours!’ is the first cry and the first thought of a soldier, when any mischance of battle has produced disorder; then do cries, shouts, firing, blows, and all the combat thicken round the standard; it contains the symbol of the honour of the band, and the brave press round its bearer.” So it has ever been since the standard-bearer of the Tenth Legion threw the honoured insignia of his regiment among the British-Celtic, or Belgic, militia on the Dover coast, when Christianity had not yet dawned. The breech-loader has caused the colours to be omitted in the battle-order paraphernalia of modern war, and, as gunpowder had, in the past, destroyed some of the glory and panoply of the mediæval host, so it has lessened some of the picturesqueness of the line of battle of to-day. Worn-out colours have one of three endings. First, and naturally, in the church of the district whose name the regiment bears, because the consecrated banners find fitting resting-place in consecrated buildings. Next, with the colonels of the regiments, who may be well expected to revere the standards of the battalions which have honoured them by such a gift. And lastly, as the old 50th did when it was made a royal regiment, and when, in place of the black standard, it received one of royal blue; then the silk of the old colours was burned with careful reverence, and the ashes placed in the lid of the regimental snuff-box, made out of the wood of the staff, on which is also engraven the names of those who had borne the colours in the storm of battle. The sentiment that dwells around the regimental colours has been very well expressed by the late Sir Edward Hamley. Speaking of the colours of the 43rd, now resting and rusting peacefully in Monmouth church, he says-- “A moth-eaten rag on a worm-eaten pole, It does not look likely to stir a man’s soul. ’Tis the deeds that were done ’neath the moth-eaten rag, When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a flag.