200 Frontier Light Horse; 100 local Volunteers; a body of Boers under Commandant Piet Uys, and 5,000 Swazies. [Illustration: MEDAL FOR ASHANTI, 1900.] [Illustration: MEDAL FOR TIBET, 1903-4.] [Illustration: (Obverse.) (Reverse.) MEDAL AWARDED FOR NATAL NATIVE REBELLION.] On January 22nd a body of about 6,000 Zulus were defeated at Inyezane by Colonel Pearson's force, which then marched on to Ekowe (Etschowe), where a depot was formed without opposition, but on the same day the central column, which had crossed the river at Rorke's Drift, where a detachment of the 24th was left, met with overwhelming disaster at the isolated hill of Isandhlwana. Lord Chelmsford, with Colonel Glyn, had marched out leaving one company of the 2nd 24th, and five companies of the 1st 24th, with 70 artillerymen and 2 guns, mounted police, volunteers, and native friendlies, to defend the unfortified camp, and while he was reconnoitring in the south-west the Zulu impi of 14,000 attacked the camp at Isandhlwana, where the men, standing back to back, faced the fearful odds until almost every white man had fallen where he stood. A Zulu chief afterwards said, "They turned back to back and fought till they died. Not one tried to escape." In this desperate struggle Lieutenants Coghill and Melville made a gallant attempt to save the colours of the 24th, and with their precious charge essayed to swim the Buffalo, but Melville's horse being killed Coghill returned to assist him, and his horse being also shot the colours fell into the river, from which they were rescued ten days later. The brave officers were found dead side by side. For this gallant effort the Victoria Cross was posthumously conferred upon the two officers. Around the fatal hill of Isandhlwana 50 British officers, and over 800 non-commissioned officers and men, met their death; the five entire companies of the 1st 24th were annihilated, and 90 men of the 2nd Battalion killed. =Rorke's Drift.=--Meanwhile on that fatal day the little force which had been left under Lieutenant Bromhead at Rorke's Drift to guard 35 sick men and the stores, had performed prodigies of valour. About 80 men kept at bay 3,000 Zulus from 5 o'clock on the afternoon of the 22nd until 4 a.m. on the 23rd. Again and again the Zulus tried to rush the hastily improvised fort; they set fire to a building which had been converted into a hospital, and forced the devoted band into the inner defences. Half a dozen times they rushed the meagre entrenchments, but were forced back, until at last on the morning of the 23rd they retired, leaving 370 dead around that well-kept post. The gallant men who defied that army lost 17 killed and 2 wounded, 5 of the sick men being burnt to death despite the strenuous efforts of their comrades to rescue them.