Bacon, milk, fresh bread,
beef, and a quart of beer were served out for each man, and on these men
and officers made a memorable meal; the latter producing the last
bottles of wine and spirits that had been specially sent up to them from
Maritzburg. And on that and the following day there were sports--lemon-
cutting, tent pegging, races for the cavalry; athletic sports, tugs-of-
war, mule and donkey races for the infantry. The drums and fifes played
national airs, and the sailors bore their full share in the fun. As time
went on the preparations for the next move advanced. None were more
pleased at the prospect of active work again than the Colonial
Volunteers, who had several times entreated to be allowed to get out and
drive back the bands of plundering Boers, who were still wasting the
farms and destroying the farmhouses and furniture of the loyalists.
On the 27th a small party of Captain Brookfield's scouts had been sent
out to reconnoitre the windings and turnings of the Tugela to the east,
to ascertain as far as possible what the Boer positions were on that
side, and whether they had placed bodies of skirmishers on the south
side of the river as they did opposite Fort Wylie. Included in the
party, which was a hundred strong, was the Johannesburg section.
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