repeated orders concerning the embarkation of the women of his harem (a proceeding to which I was opposed), when, at my command, two of my orderlies--Mourad and Mahamet-Chousch--took him by the “scruff” of the neck, before the whole of his staff, and pitched him off the pier into the sea, after his screaming women. Not a man stirred an inch to save him until I gave orders to do so; and the half-drowned Pasha contented himself with writing a long letter of complaint to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who, in reply, said he only got what he deserved. CHAPTER IV. FIRST ATTEMPTS AT DISCIPLINE IN CORPS--PREPARE TO START FOR THE FRONT--DIFFICULTY OF GETTING MEN ON BOARD SHIP--REVIEW AND SHAM FIGHT--FIRST FEATS OF ARMS--EMBARKATION--ARRIVE AT FORT ELIZABETH--ONWARD MARCH TOWARDS GRAHAM’S TOWN--FIRST ENCAMPMENT IN THE BUSH--MUTINY AND PUNISHMENT--FURTHER ADVANCE--PANIC AND FLIGHT. To return to my men at the Cape;--Happy Jack and I, after many a good look at one another, were gradually nearing the point of trying conclusions as to which of the two really commanded the corps. On his part it was one perpetual scene of half-drunken, half-intentional defiance. He rolled about the streets in uniform, followed by besotted comrades, to gain, as he said, by their jolly appearance, fresh adherents. No one, he pretended, could look at their happy condition and refuse to join such companions. The fact is, he did bring in many recruits, and I hardly knew how to get on with or without him. Providence, however, decided in my favour. Colonel Ingleby, commandant of the town and castle, a fine old soldier, and extremely kind to me, sent a small detachment of artillerymen to keep order in the barracks. Happy Jack’s fate was sealed. A picket of regulars sent to scour the public-houses for absentees, brought Jack to barracks in a woful plight. He had had a frog’s march--that is to say, on hands, belly, and knees--almost from one end of the town to the other. Refusing to obey the picket, and march to barracks on his legs, he had been kindly allowed to come on all-fours, held up by the collar of his coat, for fear of stumbling, and the seat of his unmentionables. Poor fellow! he felt sorely his abject degradation in the eyes of his associates, male and female, and kept ever afterwards well in the background. The day now approached for our starting to the front. Captain Hall, who commanded the man-of-war on the station, had prepared to take us all on board, but the difficulty was how to get the men there. Every one knew perfectly well, from their many loud boastings on the point, that they had not the least intention of going; and as no means existed in the town by which forcible coercion could be attempted on so large a body of men with a reasonable chance of success, it did look a very dubious question.