de
a speech and we gave Her Majesty three cheers from our hearts and
drank her health in the evening.

_Friday, 25th May._--Orders came to get our guns in position to defend
the camp, so off I had to go to do this on one flank and Halsey on the
other; and we lay out all day ready for an attack, with the cattle
grazing just in front of us. To our right about fifty miles off is
Majuba Hill.

_Saturday, 26th May._--We left Dannhauser at daybreak--oh, how
cold--marched with the 10th Brigade, and trekked on to Ingagane,
meeting on the road Lyttelton's Division (the 4th), which was hurrying
to the front. We reached Ingagane at 5 p.m., and met General Buller
and Staff just as we were going into camp for the night. The General
looked well; and the sight of him, somehow, always cheers one up, as
one feels something is going to be done at once.

_Sunday, 27th May._--Up at daybreak and awfully cold. We marched off
to Newcastle, the fine Lancashire Fusiliers, my father's old
regiment, doing rearguard just behind our guns. Met Archie Shee of the
19th Hussars who recognised me from old _Britannia_ days, where he and
I were together. He told me that my cousin Ernest St. Quintin of the
19th had gone home with enteric after the Ladysmith siege. On getting
to the top of the hills overlooking Newcastle we were much struck with
the view and the prettiness of the town which the Boers had hardly
wrecked at all--quite the best I have seen in Natal from a distance.
We went gaily down the hill and over a footbridge into camp where we
found all three Divisions together, barring a Brigade pushed on with
some 5" and 12-pounders to Ingogo. We hear that Lord Roberts is across
the Vaal, and that Hunter is pushing up through the Orange Free State
parallel with us, while the enemy are holding Majuba, Laing's Nek and
tunnel, and Pougwana Hill to the east of the Nek, with 10,000 men.

_Monday, 28th May._--Moved off with the 5th Division under General
Hildyard towards Utrecht. After an eight-mile march we crossed the
bridge over Buffalo River and Drift unopposed by Boers, and entered
the Transvaal at last. We were the first of the Natal force to do so,
so I record it proudly. At 9 p.m.--a very cold night--orders came for
an advance on Utrecht, my guns and some Infantry under Major Lousada
being left to hold the bridge and drift here. I visited all the
salient points of defence and outposts from Buffalo River to
Wakkerstroom Road and carefully selecte