Note Footnote 1: — Chapter II

"It commonly happens," says Mr. Kinglake,1 "that incidents occurring in a battle are told by the most truthful bystanders with differences more or less wide." In the attack on the Great Redoubt in the Battle of the Alma, a young officer, Anstruther, rushed forward and planted the colours of the Royal Welsh—but where? Some distinctly remembered seeing him dig the butt-end of the flagstaff into the parapet: others as distinctly remembered seeing him fall several paces before he reached it. Similarly with the incidents of the death of the Prince Imperial near the Italezi Hills in the Zulu War. He was out as a volunteer with a reconnoitring party. They had off-saddled at a kraal and were resting, when a band of Zulus crept up through the long grass, and suddenly opened fire and made a rush forward. Our scouts at once took horse, as a reconnoitring party was bound to do, and scampered off, but the Prince was overtaken and killed. At the Court-Martial which ensued, the five troopers gave the most conflicting accounts of particulars which an unskilled investigator would think could not possibly have been mistaken by eye-witnesses of the same event. One said that the Prince had given the order to mount before the Zulus fired: another that he gave the order directly after: a third was positive that he never gave the order at all, but that it was given after the surprise by the officer in command. One said that he saw the Prince vault into the saddle as he gave the order: another that his horse bolted as he laid hold of the saddle, and that he ran alongside trying to get up.