My second lieutenant was named H----d, an enthusiast on the mission of Christianity. He had been lately suffering from brain fever, and with his hair cropped short, tall, gaunt figure, and deep-set, glistening eyes, looked the modern representative of one of Cromwell’s Ironsides. In spirit, he was a man all over; and had he possessed more _physique_ to ballast his mental faculties, would have left no inconsiderable mark in this world. As I pen these lines, I feel he was _un grand homme manqué_, and regret that a word I spoke during the heat of an engagement, and which he misinterpreted, caused him to resign. My third lieutenant, named P----n, was a gentleman by birth, and had been in her Majesty’s service, but had advisedly resigned after having thrown a glass of wine in his superior officer’s face. He was of a tall, lusty figure, full of animal courage, and fond of animal enjoyment. Sergeant-major Herridge I have already described. Sergeant Beaufort had been in the Rifle Brigade: he was the handsomest man I perhaps ever beheld; with short, crisp, light chestnut locks, full, oval countenance, tall stature--six feet two inches--and well-rounded limbs. He looked the picture of what Richard Cœur de Lion might have been. Sergeant Shelley had been in the 60th Rifles: a tall, lank fellow, with arms and legs on the move, like a windmill in a gale of wind--always threatening to fly off at a tangent, but nevertheless fixed to his post. He became very attached to me; and many a time, while thinking myself alone in the bush, Sergeant Shelley would appear at my side, with “All right, captain; here I am;” and all right it was, for the man was a host in himself, through his acuteness, strength, and daring. Another character was Sergeant Dix. He had been a well-to-do confectioner in Cape Town, who had left pastry and the sweets of marriage life to join my corps, owing, it was surmised, to the depredations of an officer on the presiding goddess of his wedding-cake. Poor Dix! he used to make the men suffer to ease his own pains. Up and down the lines he used to _fizz_ with his fat podgy legs, basting the men with the hot drippings of his marital wrath, until at last I was obliged to reduce him to the ranks, and install him as _chef_ in my own cuisine. Such is a faint outline of the corps which I marched through the town, and encamped some three miles on the other side, owing to my well-founded dread of the grog-shops. It was here that I first became acquainted with the shortcomings of the service.