Next day, the 22nd of June, the column accomplished a long march forward, trekking on from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m., with but one hour halt, and camped, at the end of the day, at the native village of Kangata some twenty-five miles ahead of our last camp. It was a long, hot, trying day, and particularly wearisome when sheer exhaustion laid hold of the heavily burdened soldiers toward the evening of the day. On the march, the column passed through Ssonjo about noon, having travelled easterly across country on a native bush-path until the Handeni-Ssonjo road had been intersected. Our course thenceforth had been due south. The retreating enemy, falling back from Handeni, held up our advance by occasional sharp short-lived rear-guard actions—bursts of firing on the advance guard—and the country, which was bush-grown on either side of the narrow native road, was well suited to their hide, and strike, and run away manœuvres. A number of oxen and horses were left dead on the roadside to-day. No “feed” ration is available for issue to transport animals at present, and this unfortunate state of affairs is telling heavily on the live-stock. Our own rations have been somewhat better during the last three days. [Sidenote: WE MARCH ON LUKIGURA RIVER] On the 23rd of June rations of meat and flour were cooked before the column marched at 4 a.m. We were in for a long trek, and were told to expect a fight at the end of it. Our objective was the bridge-head, and the hills commanding it, where the bush-road crossed the Lukigura River, and where the enemy had dug in. The eastern column was, in conjunction, to advance down the narrow native road, which runs through the bush from Handeni to Makindu at the northern end of the populated Nguru Mountains, while we were to circle away wide to the west and attack at the heart of the hill position. All night we trekked, excepting for one halt at midnight. It was slow, monotonous work for this column, which must have stretched to a sinuous length of miles; for it was necessary, on account of the density of bush and jungle growth, to feel the way along in single file, on a narrow native bush-path over which a native guide was leading us to our goal. Moving, then halting till the kink in the line straightened out, then on again, so dragged the night hours wearily on; and progress was made, though we travelled as sheep in a strange defile, led we knew not where. After midnight bitter cold set in and chilled our scanty shirt-clad bodies, and when dawn broke the red-hot sun was for once welcomed in Africa, as it warmed us to life again. But still, when the day dawned, the trekking column held onwards, and all through the day we marched, until 4.30 p.m.—and then to battle. I have never seen men more utterly tired and woebegone than our men at the time of their approach on Lukigura River. They had been marching twenty-four and a half hours, kit-laden and without substantial food; and yet, when they went