1 68 The Course, the Camp, the Chase 



mules, horses, etc., who had to go by another path, were 

 obliged to swim. When we reached the river Dah, where 

 we halted for the night, the water had risen so high that 

 it reached up to our knees in crossing the bridge, and the 

 natives, who had to carry the loads through the river, 

 were out of their depth in the middle of the river." 



On Thursday, 12 th February, my pony died. It was 

 impossible to feed him during the five days' fighting, and 

 he never recovered the effects of the enforced starvation. 

 He was a great loss to me. As I was adjutant, and 

 entitled to a charger, I applied for compensation for his 

 loss on active service, and was refused, on the ground 

 that he was not shot ! How easily this could have been 

 remedied if only I had known in time. In due time we 

 arrived at Cape Coast Castle with 456 privates instead 

 of 651, with which we started. Several died on their way 

 home, and others during the course of the next twelve 

 months, and in a very few years' time not a single soldier 

 remained in the battalion who went through the hardships 

 of that campaign. Such is the virulence of the West 

 African malarial fever, and so long does it remain in the 

 system that, after fighting against it for ten years, such a 

 severe attack again prostrated me as to compel me to 

 retire from the service, and seek convalescence in the 

 South of France. It was remarkable, too, that during 

 the war and the following summer I never had a single 

 attack of fever, and imagined I had escaped altogether, and 

 even rode the winners of two hurdle-races within one 

 month of the day of landing in England. The poison 

 was there, however, and when once it broke out it was 

 constantly making its unwelcome appearance for years 

 afterwards. 



