100 SPORT AND WAR. chap. xiii. 
stances were reported, all hope of their ever returning 
was abandoned. 
I was at the time a staff officer, and the only one 
acquainted with that part of the country. Happily, 
I never forget a road that I have once been over; and 
if I ride or travel over a country once, and do not 
revisit it for ten years, I remember every hole and in¬ 
equality of the ground as if it were but the day before, 
and the scene comes vividly to my mind as I approach 
the spot, even in the dark. 
It so happened on this occasion, that my local 
knowledge was called into requisition; but, alas! it 
was not in the power of anyone to save the lives of the 
five wanderers. Their absence was reported to the 
General commanding, Sir George Berkeley, and at 
nine o’clock at night he ordered a column of troops to 
march out in search of them. His Excellency accom¬ 
panied this column; and although I had not been over 
the same ground since the previous Kafir war of 1835, 
I was able to lead the troops by a circuitous route 
along a ridge to within a hundred yards of where the 
bodies of these officers were found the next day. I 
remembered the ground perfectly, although I had not 
been there for over ten years. The mountain is sepa¬ 
rated from the winding ridge by what is called a c neck,’ 
that is, a narrow belt of land between two higher or 
falling grounds—in this case it was both ; for this neck 
