sky-line, and once at the top the whole affair became a slaughter. Climbing this last steep bit as best we could, we reached the flat top quite blown and found it about 300 yards wide with the well-known, cup-shaped hollow, in the centre of which lie our poor fellows buried in a wire enclosure--sad to say twenty-two bluejackets among them, beside Gordons, King's Royal Rifles, and others. An insignificant stone heap marks the place where poor Colley was shot, and on one stone is put in black-lead "Here Colley fell." The sky-line which our men held had only a few small rocks behind which they tried to shelter themselves but no other defence at all in the shape of a wall or trench. All the east and south faces overlooking the nek have now (nineteen years later) been very heavily trenched by the Boers at great expense of labour; they were evidently expecting we should attack and perhaps turn them out of Majuba, although the slope of the hill on the south side is quite too precipitous for such an operation. I picked up some fern and plants near where Colley fell, as a memento. We took an hour and a half to get down again, meeting General Buller and his Staff walking up to inspect the hill, and I rode back ten miles to Volksrust blessed with a headache from the steep climb and strong air. The view from the top of Majuba, showing the Boer trenches on Laing's Nek, was wonderful; well might they think their position impregnable and well might we be satisfied to have marched through Botha's Pass and forced the enemy to evacuate such an impregnable place with so little loss to ourselves. _Sunday, 17th June._--Left Volksrust early to march on Wakkerstroom, news having come in that General Lyttelton was somewhat pressed and was unable to get on. Our march was uneventful, as we only passed the usual farms with white flags and batches of Dutch women--as mischievous as they pretend to be friendly. Bivouacking for one night we got to Wakkerstroom--a march of twenty-eight miles--on the 18th, bivouacking outside the usual style of town, very cold and gray looking, one or two tall buildings, and situated in a treeless valley at the foot of some high hills. Very cold and wet.