test of loyalty.  Many have failed to stand it.  But the loyalty of those who have not wavered, but have taken up arms for their country in a quarrel like this, is of a sort you can trust to the utmost extremity.  There are no men in the field who feel so deep an animosity towards the Boers, and whom the Boers in their turn hate so much, as the fighting South African Colonials.  As for the Guides, I can assure you that there has not been a single case of any one of our men having been accused of treachery, nor suspected of treachery.  I have made careful inquiries, lest such a case might have occurred without my knowledge, and I am assured by our adjutant (C.H.  Rankin, Captain 7th Hussars) that there has been no such case, and that the slander was without the slightest foundation whatever.

Shortly after Magersfontein the greater part of the Guides turned back to Colesberg, leaving fifteen of us with Methuen, the services of the whole corps not being required, as Methuen’s force was now stationary.  Before it left, Methuen paraded the corps and spoke in the warmest terms of the good work it had done.  Nevertheless it was their turning back, or being sent back, as it was called, that gave a pretext to the slander that was then started.  Later, when his attention was called to the story, Methuen wrote to the Cape Times a most emphatic letter vindicating the corps from the least suspicion, and indignantly denying that the least cause for any had existed.  Lord Roberts himself, who came up soon afterwards, wrote a very handsome and decisive letter to the same paper, and since then I don’t think we have heard anything about it.  The whole story is so ridiculous, considering the way the Guides hate the Boers, and the danger of the services they do, that to any one who knows anything about the corps it is a tale rather to be laughed, at than seriously resented.  I saw the other day a letter from Hunter to Rimington, in which the General speaks of the corps with a kind of weighty deliberation that is very satisfactory, mentioning emphatically its “trustworthiness,” its “bravery,” and its “exceptional and proved value in the field.”

Our casualty list so far is about forty per cent., I believe; but this loss, though not light, does not in a Colonial corps give an adequate idea of the service done.  All the Colonials, so far as I know (the Australians and South Africans certainly), have much the same qualities that make our enemies so formidable.  They have individual intelligence and skill, a faculty for observation, and the habit of thinking for themselves.  They are therefore able to take care of themselves in a way which our regular troops, mostly town-bred men, without independent training, cannot do.