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 around us, and we used to wonder then what it was all for. We knew that, being soldiers, we went where we were told, and did what we were told when we got there, but beyond this I do not believe there was a man in the whole of this magnificent force who could have given you any intelligible reason for which we were fighting, if indeed his ingenuity enabled him to give you any reason at all.

And yet there we were, a picked force, armed with every scientific means to effect our end—everything, from an air balloon, with its gas compressed and brought all the way from Chatham, to mule batteries of screw-guns, Gardners, and rockets, and to rifles of the most perfect pattern and greatest rapidity of fire. And all this to war against what? A foe worthy of our steel? Yes, undoubtedly yes. Armed? Yes; but with spears of the rudest make, with swords of the days of the Crusaders, with shields of crocodile skin, and with a certain number of Remington rifles which they scarce knew how to use. A foe fighting with all the wild pluck and determination of their race, and supported by a fanaticism which turned them into men who courted death for two reasons—first, because it transferred them to a happier land; and secondly,