The distribution of the companies was fixed as follows:—

Companies.

Woolwich 3

Chatham 1

Survey 3

Gibraltar 1

Corfu 1

Bermuda 1

Halifax 1

Cape of Good Hope ½

Mauritius ½

Mauritius ½

____

Total 12

====

The companies at Barbadoes and Quebec, and the second companies at

Gibraltar and Bermuda, were recalled and incorporated with the

newly-constructed companies, or reduced as the circumstances of the

service required. The reduction was a progressive measure, and not

finally effected till the 6th November, 1834.

A party of six rank and file was sent in January to Purfleet; and a

like number continued for more than twenty years to be employed

there in carrying on the current repairs to the departmental

property with advantage to the public service.

In May, sergeant George Derbyshire and five rank and file were

detached under Captain Henderson, of the engineers, on the

trigonometrical survey of the west coast of England. The operations

embraced the triangulation of the Lancashire and Cumberland coasts

with the Isle of Man, and part of the coast of Scotland. The

sergeant and one of the privates were employed as observers; the

remainder assisted in the erection of objects for observation,

stages, &c., and attended to the duties of the camp. The party

quitted the mountains in October and rejoined their several

companies.

In the same month, at the Cape of Good Hope, the detachment was

augmented to half a company of forty-eight of all ranks. The

necessity for this addition had been repeatedly represented by the

commanding royal engineer at the station. Scarcely a bricklayer or

mason could be found in the colony who had served an apprenticeship;

and those who professed these trades were not only unskilful and

indolent, but generally drunken and dissipated. It therefore became

an object of much importance to increase the sappers at the Cape to

a number sufficient to meet the exigencies of the service.

On the 3rd June a company and detachment of the corps were reviewed

at Chatham with the troops in garrison by Lord Hill, who expressed

his approbation of the soldier-like appearance and effective state

of the sappers.

His Majesty, in July, 1832, ordered the motto “Ubique quo fas et

gloria ducunt” to be borne on the appointments of the corps, in

addition to the Royal Arms and Supporters; and this year the

cap-plates and breast-plates were made to accord with the King’s

command. The cap-lines or cords and tassels issued in 1830 were

abolished this year, and the staff-sergeants were permitted to wear,

instead of the forage-cap, a silk oilskin chaco of the same size and

shape as the regimental chaco.

In July a reinforcement of fifteen rank and file landed at the

Mauritius from the ‘Valleyfield’ freightship, increasing the

detachment to a half company of forty-five strong.

On the 16th August the three companies and detachment at Woolwich

were inspected by Major-General Sir Frederic Mulcaster, the

Inspector-General of Fortifications, and the perfect satisfaction he

felt at what he witnessed was made the subject of a general order to

the corps.

For four years the cholera had been prevalent in many parts of Great

Britain and the colonies, but owing to the admirable precautions

adopted, the disease was not only less formidable, but much less

fatal among the military than the civil population. In the royal

sappers and miners the numbers seized with the malady were

comparatively insignificant; and during this period, though the

disease had visited most of the stations where companies of the

corps were quartered, the fatal cases only amounted to sixteen men,

five women, and four children. Those cases occurred at the following

stations:—

Serg. Priv. Wom. Child.

Quebec, in July and September, 1832 .. .. ..

Portsmouth, August, 1833 .. 1 1 2

Gibraltar, July, 1834 1 3 3 3

Halifax, N.S., in August and September, 1834. .. 7 .. ..

At Portsmouth ten men were admitted into hospital with the disease.

The company was consequently removed to Southsea Castle and the

cholera disappeared. At Gibraltar thirty-one men were admitted, and

the deaths were few in proportion to the loss of some regiments in

garrison, the 50th regiment having lost nearly fifty men. Of the

military at the fortress about 140 died of cholera, but the

civilians counted 470 fatal cases. During the raging of the disease,

corporal John Hopkins and lance-corporal William Ritchley were

conspicuous for their zeal and attention to the sick. Their duties

were attended with considerable personal risk; and to the valuable

assistance they rendered to the men in the early stages of the

attack, both by their cheerful exertions and judgment, is attributed

the rapid recovery of many of those who were sent to the hospital.

Corporal Hopkins was promoted to the rank of sergeant in

consequence. At Halifax, Dr. M‘Donald of the ordnance medical

department, gained much credit for his indefatigable attention to

his numerous patients, twenty-six of whom recovered under his

skilful treatment; and his great success in so many cases was lauded

both by the medical chief of his own department, and the

Master-General.

In December the foundation stone of the citadel of La Petite

Montagne, Mauritius, was laid by Major-General Sir William Nicolay,

the governor of the colony, with all the parade and ceremony usual

on such occasions. The company was present, and private William

Reynolds, the most skilful mason in the detachment, had the honour

of assisting his Excellency in the deposition of the stone. In the

evening of the same day to commemorate the event, the detachment

with their wives and families partook of a sumptuous supper

generously furnished by his Excellency.

From June to October, sergeant George Darbyshire and five men were

employed under Captain Henderson, R.E., in the triangulation of the

west coast of Scotland, and were encamped during the operations on

the mountains.

At the Cape of Good Hope the incursions of the Kaffirs brought on a

desultory war this year, and the detachment of the corps in the

colony was scattered in small parties over the frontier. Though much

employed with the advanced forces in superintending the construction

of redoubts and other indispensable defensive works, they were never

called upon to take any particular part in attacking the enemy. The

marching to which they were subjected, through a country of bush and

mountain, was severe, and exposed under canvas or in bivouac to

every variation of the climate, they shared all the trials and

sufferings incident to the troops.

Sir Hussey Vivian, the Master-General, entertained so favourable an

opinion of the corps, that he felt it right, on the 6th October, to

order increased encouragement to be given to non-commissioned

officers of proper attainments and merits, by appointing them

occasionally to be foremen of works in the royal engineer

department. The first appointed under this order was sergeant Henry

French,[281] and at distant intervals the following non-commissioned

officers were promoted to that rank—viz., sergeants Nicolas

Markey,[282] William Spry,[283] John Wood,[284] William Jago,[285]

Hugh Munro,[286] John Hopkins,[287] second-corporal Daniel

Rock,[288] sergeant William Sargent,[289] and quarter-master

sergeant Noah Deary.[290]

-----

Footnote 281:

Had served upwards of twenty-two years in the corps; and was a

shrewd man and a skilful carpenter and overseer. He was appointed

in October, 1836, to Guernsey, where he died in February, 1854.

His eldest son, a very promising young man, is now foreman of

works in the department at the Tower.

Footnote 282:

Joined the corps a lad, and by perseverance made himself competent

for higher duty. To smartness in person he united much activity of

body, and in September, 1843, was advanced to the civil branch,

first to Corfu and then to Gibraltar; where, in the excess of his

zeal on the works, he fell from his horse by a stroke of the sun,

and sustained an injury in the head. He is now at Dublin, a

lunatic, passing away his life on a retirement of 32_l._ a-year.

He served seventeen years in the sappers.

Footnote 283:

Was an excellent mason and very efficient as a foreman. He had

been on a mission to Constantinople, and received from Sultan

Mahmoud II. a gold medal for his services. After a service of

twenty-one years in the corps, he was, in June, 1844, appointed to

Gibraltar, where he fell into habits of excessive intemperance and

committed suicide in 1852.

Footnote 284:

As master mason at Vido he constructed the works with remarkable

ability. He also superintended the erection of the half-moon

battery in the citadel and the defensive buildings at Fort Neuf.

Colonel Hassard said, on his leaving, that he hardly expected a

man of equal talent to fill his place: and it may be observed that

he could speak with fluency the different languages of the civil

workmen at Corfu. By Colonel Hassard he was recommended to visit

Rome and other places for artistic improvement, but the usages of

the service did not permit the concession of this favour. In 1837

he finished the erection of the Longona cistern at Paxo, which

relieved the inhabitants from the necessity of taking long

journeys to procure supplies. The work was very creditable to him,

and gained for him the eulogy and good will of the whole island.

To commemorate its completion a procession of the functionaries

and _élite_ of Paxo took place, and Wood, the great object of

attraction, was warmly greeted by the grateful populace. He became

foreman of works in November, 1844, first at Cephalonia, and next

at Corfu. His service in the corps was over twenty-three years.

Footnote 285:

He gained his promotion very rapidly, for he was in all respects a

very clever artificer and foreman. In the works of the department

at Woolwich he was found a great acquisition, and after serving

for a few years at Bermuda, where his usefulness was greatly

appreciated, he was discharged in May, 1845, and appointed to

Canada. There he passed seven years, and is now serving at

Gibraltar.

Footnote 286:

A good mason, and bore an unblameable character. After twenty

years' service, chiefly at Halifax and Corfu, he was appointed to

Malta in April, 1847, where he is still serving with efficiency

and credit.

Footnote 287:

When he joined the corps a lad, in 1826, he could scarcely write,

but by diligent application he soon exhibited talents which in

after years caused him to be selected for important duties.

Promotion he received rapidly, and for his intelligence and

ingenuity at Sandhurst in 1839 he was honourably noticed in the

‘United Service Journal,’ ii. 1839, p. 420. For many years he

served at Gibraltar and the Cape of Good Hope, became a fair

draftsman and architect, and in July, 1848, after a service of

twenty-two years, was appointed foreman of works, first at the

Cape, and then at Woolwich. He is now clerk of works at

Shoeburyness.

Footnote 288:

Was a superior mason, and trained before enlistment as an

overseer. Most of his military service—nineteen years—was spent on

the surveys of Great Britain and Ireland, in which he had made

himself so proficient a surveyor and mathematician, that he was

one of three non-commissioned officers sent to the royal

observatory at Greenwich to receive instructions in the mode of

making astronomical observations. This was with the view to his

employment on the boundary survey in America, in which he

afterwards served for a season with approbation. Colonel Estcourt

wrote of him,—“He is intelligent, well educated, and efficient for

almost any duty.” These acquirements, coupled with his good

conduct, gained for him the vacant foremancy at Zante, in

September, 1848; but, it must be added, he commenced the duty in

dishonour by unwarrantably drawing a bill on the Assistant

Adjutant-General of the royal engineers, and then having run a

career of dissipation that nothing could check, was justly

dismissed in disgrace in July, 1849.

Footnote 289:

Joined the corps from the military asylum at Chelsea. Until the

Russian war broke out he had not been noticed for any particular

aptitude or efficiency. When at Constantinople, thrown by

circumstances into boundless difficulties consequent on the

frightful pressure for hospital accommodation, his services were

invaluable. “I have no hesitation,” wrote Captain E. C. A. Gordon,

20th August, 1855, “in saying, that I believe the success of the

works that were executed was owing, in a great measure, to his

excessive and untiring zeal and activity.” This recommendation was

the occasion of his appointment at Scutari, from whence, after the

return of peace, he was removed to the engineer department at

Devonport.

Footnote 290:

Entered the corps a boy from Chelsea school. With a fair share of

common sense, he made the best of his chances as a military

foreman at the Cape of Good Hope, where he had served for many

years. The recollection of his usefulness at Natal, and in other

districts of the frontier, led to his being appointed civil

foreman of works in that colony. In 1842, Deary fought in the

actions against the insurgent Boers at Natal.

-----

Quartermaster James Galloway died on the 9th November at Wellesley

House, Shooters' Hill, after an active service of forty-five years,

which he performed with a faithfulness amounting to devotion. Few

officers in the army in passing from the ranks to a commission,

gained higher respect than he did, and in his death few were more

regretted or more honoured.

Sergeant-major James Hilton succeeded to the vacancy—a distinction

he merited by his long services, uniform zeal, and soldier-like

qualities. He was presented on the occasion by the officers of royal

engineers at Woolwich with a sword, and a grant was made to him of

20_l._ to assist him in his outfit.

Sergeant James Forbes was promoted to be sergeant-major by Sir

Hussey Vivian as a reward for his services. For six years he had

been employed, during every spring and autumn, at the royal military

college at Sandhurst, in the instruction of the gentlemen cadets,

and returned to his corps on every occasion with fresh claims to

approbation. Every season at the college was marked by his effecting

some improvement in the course and in rendering some new and

essential service to the institution. Among many minor subjects

necessary to complete the experimental course, he introduced the use

of various mechanical expedients in connexion with purposes of

military science, and the construction of military bridges of

different kinds, from the rudest adaptations of rough timber and

wicker work to the finished formation of a pontoon bridge.[291]

Observing his indefatigable exertions in carrying out his

professional duties at the institution, Sir George Scovell, the

Lieutenant-Governor, was induced to say, that “sergeant Forbes had

laid the college under great obligations to himself and the

admirable corps to which he belonged;” and in acknowledgment of that

obligation, Sir Edward Paget, the Governor, presented him with a

valuable case of drawing instruments. Subsequently he had the high

honour of being admitted to an audience with his Majesty, William

IV.;[292] in which interview the King graciously commended his

conduct, ability, and zeal. Soon afterwards the Master-General, who

frequently wrote in eulogistic terms of his services, promoted him

from the rank of sergeant to be sergeant-major.[293]

-----

Footnote 291:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii. 1834, p. 561, and ii. 1835, p. 277,

278.

Footnote 292:

Forbes’s Pamphlet, ‘National Defences,’ 1852.

Footnote 293:

The father of the sergeant-major, who also held that rank in the

corps, died of fever at Walcheren in 1809, and, as soon as his son

was old enough, he was enlisted into the sappers. His age on

joining was only eight years! For a few years he was stationed at

Dover, but the chief of his career was passed at Chatham, where,

under Sir Charles Pasley, he received that instruction in field

fortification and drawing which made his services at Sandhurst so

important and successful. Here it should also be noticed that he

kept his detachments in the best order; and by their steadiness

and willing exertions, they earned for themselves a character

which has greatly raised the corps in public estimation.

-----

In December, Lieutenant Robert Dashwood, R.E., was appointed

acting-adjutant at head quarters, to assist the brigade-major in the

office and parade duties. This was the first appointment of the kind

in the corps at Woolwich. Smart, strict in discipline, and exact in

the performance of duty, he promised to advance the sappers to the

high development attained in well-disciplined regiments, but his

career of usefulness was suddenly cut short by disease of the heart,

of which he died on the 21st September, 1839.[294]

-----

Footnote 294:

The names of the succeeding acting-adjutants at Woolwich will be

found in the Appendix III.

-----

In the summer of 1834 an expedition under the command of Colonel

Chesney was projected, to ascertain the practicability of the

Euphrates for opening a route by steam navigation to India. A

detachment of the royal artillery and five men of the corps were

appointed to it. One, sergeant Thomas Sim, was a surveyor, and the

rest were smiths, and their qualifications in steam machinery,

surveying, and drawing, had particular reference to the wants of the

enterprise. When selected their names were submitted to the

King.[295] For their military dress was substituted a plain blue

suit, consisting of a slouched cap, frock coat with gilt buttons,

and loose trousers, as more suitable to the climate of the East. The

beard and moustache after the oriental fashion were also worn.

-----

Footnote 295:

Chesney’s ‘Expedition to the Euphrates,’ Pref. x.

-----

In September the party was sent to the factory of Messrs. Laird and

Co., at Birkenhead; and after receiving instructions in riveting and

the management of steam engines, sailed on the 10th February, 1835,

for Syria. Three of the party only landed; the other two having, by

some mismanagement, returned to England from Malta. From the mouth

of the Orontes to Bir, a distance of 145 miles, the three sappers,

as well as the other soldiers and seamen, were employed in

transporting the materials for the construction and armament of two

steamers, across a country of varied and difficult features,

intersected by a lake and two rapid rivers. Boilers of great weight

were forced up hills, inch by inch, by means of screw-jacks; and

through the unflagging exertions of officers and men, and their

patient endurance of suffering and fatigue, was accomplished “one of

the most gigantic operations of modern times.”[296]

-----

Footnote 296:

Chesney’s ‘Observations on Fire-arms,’ p. 197.

-----

While these arduous labours were in operation, two of the three

sappers died—sergeant Sim and lance-corporal Samuel Gidens. For the

most part, the sergeant had been employed with Lieutenant Murphy,

R.E., or alone, in surveying the country from Latakia to the Gulf of

Scanderoon; and in which, from his previous knowledge and

experience, he was found of great use; but while prosecuting this

duty, he frequently slept on the sands or in open boats, and thus

contracted a disease no skill could eradicate. When surveying on

Beilan mountain he suffered much from the keen and penetrating wind

to which he was exposed, and was removed to Antioch for the benefit

of his health. A slight improvement urged him to the field again;

but at Suedia, being thrown from a horse and much injured, he was

again sent in a litter to Antioch, where he breathed his last on the

19th September, 1835.

The corporal died at Fort William on the 3rd August. Up to the date

of his illness he worked most diligently; and to mark the sense

entertained of his services, a gratuity of 100l. was granted by the

Treasury to his bereaved family on the recommendation of Colonel

Chesney, to whose honour it should be recorded that out of his own

purse, he liberally supported the widow and her children, until the

award was made by the Government.

Feeling the want of the two smiths who had been sent home from

Malta, Colonel Chesney applied to have them re-attached to the

expedition. His wish was at once acceded to, and with them sailed

two other privates, on the 3rd January, 1836, for Syria. Arriving at

Malta, they were passed on with all dispatch in the ‘Columbia’ sloop

of war, and reached Antioch late in February, in time to take part

in the final preparations for floating the steamers. This

reinforcement of “promising men, brought the party,” so the Colonel

writes, “to efficiency once more,” and on the 16th March the descent

of the river was commenced. There were now five sappers with the

expedition—one surveyor, and four blacksmiths and millwrights,

including corporal William Black, all valuable as artificers and

engineers. Three were allotted to the ‘Euphrates’ steamer, and two

to the ‘Tigris.’ Civil engineers were also attached to each vessel,

to whom the sapper smiths acted as subordinates, and were styled

assistant engineers.

On the 21st May a calamity occurred which deprived the expedition of

nearly one half of its force. The steamers were descending the river

with success, when they were overtaken by a hurricane of

indescribable violence which placed both vessels in imminent peril.

The storm raged only eight minutes, but during those fearful moments

the ‘Tigris,’ caught up in its furious vortex, was engulfed with

twenty of its officers and men. Corporal Benjamin Fisher and private

Archibald McDonald of the sappers were on board: the former was

dashed on shore and saved, the latter perished; but his comrades had

the satisfaction of recovering and interring his remains on the

banks of the stream, near Anna.

The descent of the “Great River” was accomplished by reaching its

junction with the ‘Tigris’ at Kurnah, on the 18th June, 1836, and

seventy-two guns having been fired the next day in honour of His

Majesty William IV., the steamer crossed the Persian Gulf to

Bushire, to meet expected supplies from Bombay. After three months'

delay at the former port refitting the vessel and completing the

engines with the assistance of the sappers, and a fresh crew having

been obtained from the Indian navy, the steamer re-crossed the

Persian Gulf, and the ascent of the river commenced.

The chief engineer having died the first day of the ascent, the

engines were entrusted to the sole management of corporal Fisher,

who continued to perform this duty most satisfactorily up to the

termination of the service. Corporal Black was the senior

non-commissioned officer of the party, but his health had previously

become so much impaired that he was sent from Bussora to Bombay for

its recovery. Of this non-commissioned officer Colonel Chesney

wrote, that “both as a soldier and a man, in every way, he does

credit to his corps.”

With the highest testimonials the party rejoined the corps at

Woolwich in May, 1837.[297] As engineers they had been found of the

greatest service to the expedition; and for the skilfulness and

efficiency with which the engines were worked, the Government

divided the engineers' pay among them for the period they were so

employed in the following proportions:—corporal Black 13_l._;

lance-corporal B. Fisher 19_l._; lance-corporal T. Edrington 21_l._

-----

Footnote 297:

On the completion of the service, the expedition was favoured with

a few days' location at Damascus, where the party removed their

beards and moustaches, and for the first time since the

commencement of the enterprise, had the advantage of attending

church for religious worship.

-----

Lance-corporal William Greenhill was attached to Lieutenant

Murphy, R.E., and his duties were those which arose out of

surveying and astronomy. In the whole of the survey of the two

rivers and the countries adjacent to their banks, he took an

important part, and after the death of that officer was employed

on the line of levels between the two rivers, with reference to a

canal of intercommunication for commercial purposes. Captain

Estcourt, 43rd regiment, the second in command, in writing of this

non-commissioned officer, says: “A more willing, honest, active

man does not exist, and he is sober and trustworthy in the highest

degree.” “All,” writes the same officer, “are valuable men, and

capable of rendering important services wherever they may be

employed.”

The approbation of the commissioners for the affairs of India was

accompanied with the following gratuities:—to corporal Black 39_l._,

and to each of the other three non-commissioned officers 19_l._

10_s._; and further, Sir Hussey Vivian, the Master-General ordered

the promotion of corporal Black to the rank of sergeant,

second-corporal Fisher to corporal;[298] and lance-corporal William

Greenhill to be second-corporal.[299]

In May the operations for the triangulation of the west coast of

Scotland were resumed, for the third time, under Captain Henderson,

R.E., by six non-commissioned officers and men of the corps, who

were continued on the service till the early winter. They then

returned to Woolwich with a good character for activity and

exertion.

-----

Footnote 298:

Pensioned in May, 1843, and appointed assistant lighthouse keeper

at Europa Point, Gibraltar, under the Trinity Board of London.

-----

Footnote 299:

Greenhill was an intelligent man, pleasantly eccentric, and fond

of antiquities. While with the expedition he made a collection of

silver coins of remote times, which, with laudable feelings of

attachment to his native place, he presented to the Perth Museum.

His hair was as white as silver, but his beard, full and flowing,

was as black as ebony. To the Arabs he was quite a phenomenon, but

the singularity which made him so, did not save him, on one

occasion, from being rudely seized by a horde of banditti, and

plundered, with almost fabulous dexterity, of the gilt buttons on

his frock coat. They had nearly finished their work, when

Greenhill tore himself from their grasp, but finding that a button

still remained on the cuff, he audaciously pulled off the frock

and threw it at them. Suspecting that their work was incomplete

the Arabs pounced on the coat, and tearing off the remaining

button scampered away to the hills again. When, some years later,

the Niger expedition was forming, Greenhill volunteered to

accompany it. He had a notion that the service would be one of

suffering and vicissitude, and the better to inure himself to its

contemplated hardships he submitted his body to rigorous

experiments of exposure and self-denial, which, inducing

erysipelas, caused his premature decease in October, 1840.

-----

At the request of the court of Directors of the East India Company,

seven rank and file were employed at the seminary at Addiscombe, in

throwing up field-works for the instruction of the gentlemen cadets,

during the months of August, September, and October. The corporal in

charge received 2_s._ a-day working pay, and the privates 1_s._

a-day, each. For the two succeeding terms, a similar party was

provided for the seminary, and on each occasion received much credit

for its services. After the third term it was found desirable to

discontinue the detachment, and the Addiscombe authorities drew the

means of instruction from their own resources.

By an order from Lord Palmerston, Lieutenant Edward Vicars, R.E.,

and one sergeant and twelve rank and file, embarked at Woolwich on

the 10th July, in the ‘Pluto,’ steamer, and landed at San Sebastian

on the 19th, taking with them a limited supply of field equipment

and engineer stores. The party was attached to the royal marines,

with the British naval forces under the command of Lord John Hay,

and was intended to take part in any operations deemed necessary to

defend the Queen of Spain against the adherents of Don Carlos. All

the men were volunteers, fully capable of constructing field-works

and military bridges, and qualified, also to direct and take charge

of working parties.

The major part of the detachment were men of notoriously bad

character, appointed to the service to afford them a chance of

reclaiming themselves; but their arrival in Spain was soon marked by

those habits of turbulence and dissipation which rendered them a

burden at home. Without zeal, spirit, or subordination, they were

found almost useless on the works, and to such a pitch was their

misconduct carried, that Lieutenant Vicars contemplated dispensing

with their services as sappers and miners. By the removal, however,

of a few of the grossest offenders, the punishment of others by the

navy, and the infusion of a better class of men among them from

England, the inevitable disgrace of the corps was prevented; and

eventually, with few trifling exceptions, the detachment established

a character for discipline, good conduct, and usefulness.

On landing, the party was removed to the eastern heights of Passages

to complete works for the protection of the shipping in the harbour.

Here the royal marines were employed for a time, as also a force of

about 200 of the auxiliary legion. Late in September, a few of the

party assisted in throwing up a work for the defence of a bridge

leading into San Sebastian, and secured the position held by the

force on the left of Passages. It was now understood that the

Carlists intended to attack General Evans: a redoubt was forthwith

constructed on a commanding hill in front of the enemy, and a

battery for four guns and some breastworks were thrown up on the

extreme left of the position. The legion furnished a working party

of 200 men for these operations. On the 1st October, the enemy

attacked the lines in front of San Sebastian, directing their fire

principally on the picket-house, near which the battery was

progressing. Against this battery, also, another battalion was sent,

and having taken it, the column pressed on to the walls of the

station; but the party within remained firm, and the Carlists were

ultimately driven from the contest with the loss of 1,200 in killed

and wounded. In this action were present four sappers, one of whom

was wounded.

On the 31st October, the detachment in Spain was increased to

twenty-five non-commissioned officers and men, by the arrival of

twelve rank and file from Woolwich, in the ‘Rhadamanthus’ steamer,

who were at once disposed of between San Sebastian and Passages, and

assisted in the completion of the fort and barracks at the latter.

Experiments with the pontoons of Colonel Pasley and Major Blanshard,

took place at Chatham on the 1st July. Sir Hussey Vivian, the

Master-General, was present. For a few years previously, a portion

of the summer of every year had been past in practically testing the

projects of rival competitors for the passage of rivers; but on this

occasion the trial ended in favour of the cylindrical pontoon of

Major Blanshard. In all these trials a detachment of the corps was

employed, and in this, the last experiment, executed under the

disadvantage of extreme heat, Colonel Pasley warmly praised the

party for its zeal and activity in working the two bridges.

With the mission to Turkey under the command of Captain du Plat,

R.E., were embarked on the 15th September, two lance-sergeants of

the corps on board the ‘Astrea,’ which entered the port of

Constantinople on the 31st October. One was a surveyor conversant

with the management of surveying instruments, and the other skilled

in the details of the duties connected with the system of

instruction carried out at Chatham. The mission took stores as

presents to the Sultan. A sergeant of the royal artillery and a

civil mechanic from the royal arsenal with Lieutenant Knowles, R.A.,

accompanied it. At the time of its arrival the plague was prevalent,

and under orders from His Majesty’s ambassador at the Porte, the

mission passed a few months in the ‘Volage’ and ‘Carysfort,’ lying

in the Bosphorus. When the plague abated, the presents were conveyed

to the Sultan—Mahmoud II.; and his Highness as a token of

satisfaction presented each officer and soldier with a gold medal,

and the artizan with a gold snuff-box. The non-commissioned officers

of sappers who had the honour of receiving the distinction, were

William Spry and William Richardson. Each medal bore a gold clasp,

upon which was inscribed the name of the recipient and that of the

Sultan. During their service with the mission each received 1_s._

6_d._ a-day working pay, and on arrival in England in April, 1838, a

gratuity of 10_l._

1837.

Change in the dress—Increase of non-commissioned officers—Services

of the detachment at Ametza Gaña—Oriamendi—Desierto convent

on the Nervion—Fuentarabia—Oyarzun—Aindoin—Miscellaneous

employments of the detachment—Trigonometrical survey west

coast of Scotland—Inspection at Woolwich by Lord Hill

and Sir Hussey Vivian—Staff appointments—Labours of sergeant

Lanyon—Staff-sergeants' accoutrements—Expedition to New

Holland—Corporal Coles selected as the man Friday of his

chief—Exploration from High Bluff Point to Hanover Bay;

difficulties and trials of the trip; great thirst—Exertions

and critical situation of Coles—His courageous bearing—Touching

instance of devotion to his chief—Employments of the

party—Exploration into the interior with Coles and private

Mustard—Hardships in its prosecution—Threatened attack of the

natives; return to the camp.

This year the colour of the coatee was changed from red to

scarlet—Plate XV., and the huge Kilmarnock woven cap was superseded

by a neat superfine blue cloth cap, stiffened, with peak and

chin-strap. The sergeants were distinguished by black oak-leaf bands

and gilt ornaments, comprising a grenade, encircled by a laurel

wreath, and surmounted by a crown and three chevrons. The other

non-commissioned officers wore chevrons according to their ranks.

The oil-skin chaco of the staff-sergeants was put aside for a

forage-cap, with a gold oak-leaf band and gilt ornaments of a crown

within a laurel-leaf.

By a royal warrant dated 24th April, an increase of one

sergeant, one corporal, and one second corporal was made to each

company by reducing five privates per company. Recourse to this

expedient was necessary on account of the control of the

companies being much diminished by the several detached duties

upon which non-commissioned officers were employed, as well as a

number being always required to take charge of the workshops and

working parties. The strength of each company was now fixed at 1

colour-sergeant, 3 sergeants, 4 corporals, 4 second-corporals, 2

buglers, 75 privates; equal 89; which, for 11 companies, gave an

establishment of 977. The Corfu company, paid by the Ionian

government, did not, from its weak numbers, participate in the

alteration. Its strength, therefore 62, with the 3 officers and

4 non-commissioned officers of the staff, made the total

establishment of the corps sanctioned by the warrant reach the

total of 1,048. The number reduced was 22 privates.

In the early months of the year the detachment in Spain was employed

on the eastern heights of Passages in superintending the completion

of the fort and barracks, and also on the island of Santa Clara in

making platforms and repairing batteries.

On the 10th March, seventeen of the party were present in the attack

on Ametza Gaña, and were subsequently employed in strengthening the

redoubt previously occupied by the Carlists on that position.

In the action at Oriamendi on the 15th and 16th March, they also

served. Ten of the number assisted in levelling the enemy’s parapets

and destroying their barricades and works. The other seven, under

Lieutenant Burmester, R.E., did duty with the royal artillery

commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Colquhoun. Their help, readily

afforded at a time when it was of much value, enabled a third gun to

be brought into action; and in cutting fuzes and loading shells,

&c., they were found but little inferior to experienced

artillerymen. Lord John Hay complimented Lieutenant Vicars upon the

good service of this detachment; and the officers of the royal and

marine artillery were loud in their praises of the exertions of the

sappers, and of the efficiency of their assistance at the guns. One

private was wounded.

A brief interval of repose followed, in which the detachment was

occupied in fortifying the eastern entrance of Passages, also in

barricading the advanced picket-house near that point, and in

completing the batteries on Santa Clara. Four men were likewise

detached to the river Nervion, and, with the crews of the ‘Scylla’

and ‘Savage,’ restored the works of the Desierto convent which

protected the communication with Bilbao. On the return of the men,

the commander of the ‘Savage’ brig spoke most favourably of their

conduct.

In the operations of the army under Espartero on the 14th May,

fifteen of the detachment were present and assisted in working the

guns of the royal artillery. On the 17th they embarked to act in an

attack on Fuentarabia, and were present at its capitulation on the

18th May. Here the detachment restored one of the ruined bastions of

the fortress, and, besides making embrasures for two heavy guns,

cleared away the debris from other parts of the defences and placed

them in temporary repair.

At Oyarzun the Carlists were in the habit of creeping up to the town

and annoying the troops. To prevent this, the hill above was crowned

with a square redoubt for two guns. Ten of the detachment

superintended its construction, and the work was executed in so

excellent a manner, that experienced officers spoke of it with

unqualified satisfaction. The working party consisted of peasants

who were skilful in the construction of earth-works, and zealous in

the use of the spade and pickaxe.

At the solicitation of General O’Donnell of the Spanish service,

nineteen of the sappers, under the command of Lieutenant Vicars,

were attached to his force. The party reached Aindoin on the 11th

September, and were set to work with a company of Gastadores under

them, on a height on the extreme left of the position. Very rapidly,

a large hedge surrounding the height was turned into a parapet; and

in places where it was too high to cut down, loopholes were formed.

A dense wood that joined the hedge was partly felled, and from its

ample resources abattis were thrown out in front of the line of

hedge. For three days the work progressed; at intervals under heavy

rain; and on the 13th September a formidable work of more than half

a mile in length was ready to obstruct the advance of the enemy. At

daylight on the 14th the Carlists opened fire on Aindoin, and the

first shot went through the house where the sappers were quartered.

At once they were withdrawn to the church, and ultimately removed to

a circular fort to attend to orders either from Lord John Hay or

General O’Donnell. Scarcely had they commenced the movement before

the enemy approached the church with irresistible impetuosity, and

drove the forces of O’Donnell from the town with signal disaster.

The escape of the detachment of sappers was almost miraculous; a few

moments later would have thrown them wholly into the hands of the

Carlists.

During the later months of the year the detachment repaired Fort

Morales, and the lines on the western heights of Passages. There

also they fitted up barracks for the royal marines, and strengthened

the advanced picket-house. Four of the men superintended a working

party of the royal marines in completing and arming the redoubts

around San Sebastian, in which service much difficulty was

experienced from the want of an adequate working party and

materials. So impoverished were the stores, that to provide planks

and sleepers for the platforms and magazines, recourse was had to

old splintered timbers from ruined sheds and buildings. Among other

services performed by the detachment was the construction of a

redoubt at Cachola on the high road from San Sebastian to Hernani,

to protect that communication.

On the 13th May, six rank and file were attached to Captain A.

Henderson, R.E., and were employed for the fourth summer under his

direction in the trigonometrical survey of the western coast of

Scotland for the Admiralty. The nature of the operations, as on

former occasions, necessitated their encampment on the mountains;

and when the service closed in November, the party returned to

Woolwich.

Lord Hill and Sir Hussey Vivian, the Master-General, inspected the

seventh company and detachment of the corps at Chatham on the 15th

June, and afterwards witnessed the siege operations carried on by

the troops and sappers under Colonel Warre. At the steadiness of the

latter on parade, and the able manner in which the siege details

were executed, his lordship expressed the highest gratification; and

Colonel Warre, in his public orders of 16th June, also eulogised the

corps for the cheerful and indefatigable manner in which they had

worked in the field, adding, “that the construction of the works did

credit to their skill as engineer workmen, and their appearance to

their discipline and efficiency as soldiers.”

Second-Captain Henry Sandham, R.E., by commission dated 1st August,

was appointed adjutant to the corps at Chatham vicê Captain Jebb

promoted. The latter had filled the office with much advantage to

the public service; and his many excellent qualities, as evinced in

the discharge of his duties, commanded the esteem of the corps, and

caused him to be much regretted at his leaving.

Sergeant Hugh Lanyon, after Sergeant-major Forbes’s removal, was

appointed to the charge of the detachment at Sandhurst College, and

carried on the field details in every way to the satisfaction of the

authorities. For many years, as a private and non-commissioned

officer, he worked at the college, and his example had the best

effect on the successive parties with which he served. As a

practical sapper he was one of the ablest and most skilful in the

corps, and in the rapidity with which he threw up earth-works was

unsurpassed. Sir Charles Pasley has done him honour by noticing the

extraordinary labours of the sergeant in his ‘Practical Operations

for a Siege.’[300] His willingness and ability in this respect,

covered, in great measure, his educational deficiencies. In charge

of the detachment he displayed his usual industry and exertion, kept

his men in perfect discipline and order, and the excellent work

resulting from their united efforts elicited an encomium in a

popular periodical very creditable to the sergeant and his

party.[301] Indeed, so effectually were all the instructional

operations carried out, that the governor of the college, with the

sanction of the Master-General, presented him in November with a

case of drawing instruments, bearing an inscription flattering to

his zeal and services.[302]

-----

Footnote 300:

Pages 51 and 57, notes, 1st part, 2nd edit. It may be tolerated to

mention the instances in which Lanyon figured, to deserve the

record. In October, 1828, he finished a parallel in very easy soil

of 262 cubic feet in 2 hours and 41 minutes, whilst an able-bodied

sapper, unskilful at the pickaxe and the shovel, only completed

the same content of excavation in 8 hours and 4 minutes! Thirty

men were employed at the same time at similar tasks, the result of

whose labours showed that for each man, strong and trained, it

required to execute the work an average period of 4 hours and 54

minutes. The other instance refers to his completing the first

task of a parallel, nearly 109 cubic feet, in easy soil in 16

minutes. In the Peninsula sieges, no more than 42 cubic feet of

excavation appears to have been excavated by each individual of

the military working parties as his first night’s work; but at the

rate which rendered Lanyon celebrated, an active workman in these

sieges ought to have finished his first night’s task in seven

minutes! The comparison makes the difference so excessive, that

credulity has scarcely sufficient tension to accredit it; but

coming from an authority so proverbial for his accuracy, there is

no alternative but to wonder at the achievements of the man who so

signalized himself as a sapper; and to add, with the Colonel, the

expression of mortification, “that the exertions of the British

army should have fallen so miserably short of their brilliant

exploits in the field.”

Footnote 301:

‘United Service Journal,’ ii. 1837, p. 279.

Footnote 302:

Lanyon was afterwards promoted to be a colour-sergeant, and passed

a few years in Canada during the revolt. On his return, his

health, shattered by the exertions of his laborious life, caused

him to leave the corps. Obtaining a situation as surveyor on the

Trent and Mersey canal under Mr. Forbes, his former fellow

labourer, he devoted himself to his new duties with his accustomed

zeal: but in a few short months his powerful frame broke up, and

he died at Lawton in Cheshire, in June, 1846. The integrity of his

conduct and the utility of his services induced the directors of

the company to honour his remains by the erection of a tomb to his

memory. Here it would be proper to notice, he was one of those

brave and humane miners who, in the ‘Cambria,’ bound for Vera

Cruz, assisted to rescue the crew and passengers from the burning

‘Kent’ East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay, in February, 1825. The

souls saved were 551, including 301 officers and men, 66 women,

and 45 children of the 31st regiment.

-----

Late in the year the shoulder-belt of the staff-sergeants was

superseded by a buff waist-belt, two inches broad, having carriages

for the sword, with gilt plate, buckles, swivels, and hooks. The

plate bore the royal arms—without supporters—within a wreath, with

the motto “Ubique” at its base, and above, a crown. The sword was

the same as issued in 1824, and as at present worn, but adapted by

rings to be slung to the improved accoutrement.—See Plate XVI.,

1854.

Under orders from Lord Glenelg, the Secretary of State for the

Colonies, corporals John Coles and Richard Auger were attached to

the New Holland expedition under Captain Grey, the object of which

was to gain information as to the real state of the interior and its

resources. On the 5th July, 1837, they sailed in the ‘Beagle’ from

Plymouth, and at the Cape of Good Hope were removed into the

‘Lynher’ schooner. There, private Robert Mustard joined the party,

and all reached Hanover Bay, Western Australia, on the 2nd December.

Captain Grey had early formed a good opinion of corporal Coles and

made him his chief subordinate.[303] He was emphatically his man

Friday, and his conduct in striking instances of suffering and peril

was marked by unfaltering devotion and fortitude, combined with

diligence and humanity. Auger was ‘jack of all trades;’ the mechanic

and architect; equally a tailor and a tinker; the ready mender of

boats, and the efficient millwright and armourer of the party.

-----

Footnote 303:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ 1841, i. p. 35.

-----

On the day of arrival the Captain landed with five persons and three

dogs at High Bluff Point, to explore from thence to Hanover Bay.

Coles was one of the number. The sun was intensely hot. A long

confinement on ship-board had made them unequal to much exertion.

Forward, however, they journeyed, without the advantage of trees or

foliage to screen them from the sun’s burning rays. The country,

too, was rocky; and its surface, jagged and torn into crevices,

being overgrown with spinifex and scrub, they frequently either

slipped or fell into the covered fissures. Soon the party was

overcome by thirst and lassitude. Two pints of water was all that

was brought from the ship, and this, shared with the panting dogs,

left but little for the adventurers. As time wore on, their

weariness, before excessive, became worse, and the dogs falling back

exhausted, were never recovered. Water was at length observed at the

bottom of a ravine, and down its precipitous slopes Coles and others

scrambled, only to mock the thirst they craved to satiate, for the

inlet was salt water! However, after travelling for about another

mile, fortune favoured them with a pool of brackish water, from

which they drank freely.[304]

-----

Footnote 304:

Ibid., 1841, i. p 67-71.

-----

Whilst the party rested by the pool, Captain Grey, accompanied by

Coles, explored the ravine, and then returning, led the party into

the country by a fertile valley surrounded by rocky hills. Not long

after, the thirst and fatigue so dreaded before, recurred in an

aggravated form, and some were almost completely worn out by it. To

march through the night without fresh water was next to impossible;

and as a last effort to obtain relief, the Captain pushed on for the

coast, directing that when he fired, Mr. Lushington with the party

should follow.[305]

-----

Footnote 305:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ 1841, i. p. 71-73.

-----

The arranged signals being given and answered, the party moved on.

Corporal Coles was in the van, and forcing his way over broken rocks

and down steep cliffs, he was the first to reach the Captain. At

this spot he followed the example of his chief, and, plunging into

the sea, refreshed his strength and appeased his thirst. Mr.

Lushington and the sufferers now arrived, and, leaving them to try

the effect of bathing, the Captain and his corporal moved along the

coast to find the ‘Lynher,’ and send a boat to the party. About two

miles they had journeyed when their progress was arrested by an arm

of the sea, about 500 yards across. Coles kept firing his gun in

hopes it might be heard on board. From hill to hill and cliff to

cliff, its report re-echoed, but no answering sound came back. The

Captain now resolved to swim the arm; and as Coles was unskilful in

the water, he was directed to wait until the others came up and

remain with them until the Captain returned. The latter then plunged

into the sea, and left Coles alone in that solitary spot with wild

and rugged cliffs overhanging the shore, and the haunts of savages

in his vicinity.[306]

-----

Footnote 306:

Ibid., i. p. 73-76.

-----

After dark the flashes of the guns had been seen by the schooner,

and a boat was instantly despatched for the party. Coles was the

first found; but fearing, if he then availed himself of the

protection of the boat, he would lose the clue by which to trace the

Captain, he directed the mate to pass on for the others. They were

soon picked up, and returning for Coles, he was found at his

post—one of danger and honour—and taken into the boat with his

companions. The other shore was soon reached and the Captain

found.[307]

-----

Footnote 307:

Ibid., i. p. 79.

-----

“Have you a little water?” he asked, as he entered the boat.

“Plenty, sir!” answered Coles, handing him a little, which the

Captain greedily swallowed. That choice drop of water was all that

was in the boat when Coles was picked up, and although he suffered

severely from thirst, he would not taste it as long as he retained

any hope that his chief might be found and be in want of it.[308]

-----

Footnote 308:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ 1841, i. p. 78.

-----

For several days the sappers and others of the expedition were

employed in searching for water, taking short exploratory trips, and

in removing the live stock and stores from the ‘Lynher’ to the

location fixed upon by Captain Grey. To facilitate the service, a

rude pathway was formed by firing the bush, and removing, with much

toil, the rocks and vegetation. So rough was the track that a

wheelbarrow could not be used upon it, and every burden was,

therefore, necessarily carried on the men’s shoulders. By the 16th

December, the country had been taken possession of, and the

encampment completed.[309]

-----

Footnote 309:

Ibid., i. p. 82-91.

-----

On the following evening, Captain Grey with corporal Coles and

private Mustard, started from the camp to penetrate some distance

into the interior. Confident in the steadiness and courage of his

men he felt no anxiety. Each carried ten days' provisions, a day’s

water, and his arms and ammunition. Thus laden, in a tropical

climate, their progress was slow and laborious. Their route lay

through a region of romantic beauty. Now they were urging their

course through deep ravines alive with the gush of water and the

foaming of cascades; now threading their tiresome way through the

devious forest with its prickly grasses and entangled bush. Again

they were climbing crumbling ranges, scrambling down precipices,

tearing themselves through mangroves and densely-matted

vegetation, traversing some wild broken land, or worming

themselves among lofty and isolated columns of sandstone mantled

with fragrant creepers, which, like the remains of ruined temples

of classic ages, afforded indubitable evidence of the ravages of

time upon rock and range. Wherever they journeyed, they found the

same chaos—beautiful in its wildness and eccentricity—rich in its

luxuriance and picturesqueness.[310]

-----

Footnote 310:

Ibid., i. p. 93-107.

-----

Nearly six days were spent in this march, and the trials endured

were only a prelude to what were to follow. Rice and tea in small

quantities formed the staple of their diet. An occasional slice from

a pheasant’s breast, or a bite from the remains of a crane left by

the rats, gave relish to their repast. The Captain was the game

purveyor to the party and Mustard its Soyer. On the first night they

slept in a bark hut of their own making at the foot of a towering

precipice; the second was passed under some overhanging rocks. On

the other three nights they bivouacked on the slopes of the glens

under the lightning’s vivid flash, exposed to the rains of violent

thunderstorms. Early in the journey Mustard became ill, but he was

soon sufficiently recovered to sustain the toils and privations of

discovery and the discomfort of unsheltered sleep. Dripping wet,

tired, weary and hungry, these brave men carried out the purposes of

their mission, and, with unwavering faithfulness and zeal,

penetrated wherever their chief desired. “Three of us,” writes the

Captain, “slept in the open air without any covering or warm clothes

for five successive nights, during three of which we had constant

showers of heavy rain, and yet did not in any way suffer from this

exposure.”[311]

-----

Footnote 311:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ 1841, i. p. 248.

-----

Want of food at length compelled the adventurers to return. Having

gained the summit of a range, the rain began to fall in torrents. To

escape it they retired to a detached group of rocks. A party of

fourteen savages now appeared, brandishing their spears, bounding

from rock to rock, and making the wilderness ring with their war

cry. This was answered by a party coming over the high rock in rear

of the travellers. In this critical situation a hostile attitude was

at once taken up. There was a natural opening like an embrasure

between the blocks of the rock, through which they could level their

pieces, and each gallant fellow took his station, with orders to

fire one by one if the command were given. The Captain fired over

their heads; but this one report was quite enough, for the savages

fled on all sides, and the party thus left to itself, hurried home

through a tempest of rain and reached the cantonment before

nightfall on the 22nd December.[312]

-----

Footnote 312:

Ibid., i. p. 93-107.

-----

1838.

Services of party in New Holland—Start for the interior—Labours of

the expedition; corporal Auger—Captain Grey and corporal Coles

expect an attack—Attitude of private Auger at the camp against the

menace of the natives—Captain Grey and Coles attacked;

their critical situation; the chief wounded; devotion of

Coles—Usefulness of Auger—Renew the march; Auger finds a singular

ford—Discovers a cave with a sculptured face in it—Mustard traces

the spoor of a quadruped still unseen in New Holland—A sleep in

the trees—Trials of the party—Primitive washing—Auger the van of

the adventurers—Humane attention of the Captain to Mustard; reach

Hanover Bay; arrive at the Mauritius—Detachment in Spain—Attack on

Orio—Usurvil; Oyarzun—Miscellaneous employments of the

party—Reinforcement to it; Casa Aquirre—Orio—Secret mission to

Muñagorri—Second visit to the same chief—Notice of corporal John

Down—Bidassoa—Triangulation of north of Scotland—Also of the Frith

of the Clyde—Insurrection in Canada; guard of honour to Lord

Durham—Company inspected by the Governor-General on the

plains of Abraham—Inspection at Niagara by Sir George

Arthur—Services and movements of the company in Canada;

attack at Beauharnois—Submarine demolition of wrecks near

Gravesend—Expedient to prevent accidents by vessels fouling the

diving-bell lighter—Conduct of the sappers in the operations;

exertions of sergeant-major Jones—Fatal accident to a

diver—Intrepidity of sergeants Ross and Young—Blasting the bow of

the brig ‘William,’ by sergeant-major Jones—Withdrawal of the

sappers from the canal at Hythe.

Some weeks of the early year were spent by Captain Grey and his men

in a variety of occupations preparatory to a long journey into the

interior. Sheds were built for the stores, pack-saddles made by

corporal Auger for the Timour horses, and short excursions through

wood and wilderness undertaken. Pathways were also constructed for

the horses in forest and glen, without which it would have been

impracticable to pursue their course. These were formed by burning

the bush, and removing, by manual strength and dexterity, huge

boulders and fallen trees levelled by age and storm, that everywhere

intercepted the track.

On the 3rd February the expedition was in motion. Twenty-six wild

ponies were attached to the party. Each man had three or four of

these giddy unbroken animals in charge, fastened together by ropes.

From the ponies straying in different directions, and getting

frequently entangled with rocks and trees, the difficult nature of

the service was greatly increased. As beasts of burden they were of

little use. In steep ravines or in rugged country, the stores were

almost wholly carried by the adventurers; and this, coupled with the

task of guiding the untamed horses and the hard travelling in a

rocky country abounding with clefts, thick bush, and forest, made

the route one of unmitigated toil and fatigue. In these duties

corporal Auger particularly distinguished himself; for, “possessing

the power of carrying on his back very heavy burdens, he took every

occasion of exercising it in such a way as to stimulate the others

and very much to accelerate the movements of the expedition.”[313]

-----

Footnote 313:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 121-139.

-----

With corporal Coles the captain started on the 6th February to

explore the country in his front. Coming to a deep ravine with a

body of water at its base, he wished to find a passage out of it.

Both searched for many hours until after sunset, but without avail.

The ravine was bounded by inaccessible cliffs with other ravines

branching into it, which “invariably terminated in precipitous

cascades.” A great portion of the exploration was spent in wading

the flooded valley up to their bellies in water. On their return

homewards they came upon a large party of natives, and Coles

followed the captain up the northern slope of the ravine ready for

an attack; but the savages moved on without molesting the weary

travelers.[314]

-----

Footnote 314:

Ibid., i. p. 136-138.

-----

Five days afterwards corporal Auger and two men were left at the

camp, while the rest of the expedition were detached. About two

hundred of the natives assembled across a stream at the foot of a

hill near to them. They were armed. At the time of their appearance

Auger was quietly seated on the ground cleaning Lieutenant

Lushington’s double-barrelled gun, with its springs, screws, and

cramps lying around him. Seeing his comrades nervously perturbed, he

coolly refixed one of the barrels, and mounting the lock, loaded the

gun with some loose powder. Meanwhile the two men turned out with

their muskets, and the trio posting themselves on the brow of the

hill, motioned the savages away. They answered by a shout, and

retired a little; when Auger and the party now took counsel, and

agreeing that it would be imprudent with their small number to hold

intercourse with so large a force of natives, they resolved not to

allow them to approach beyond a point which they considered safe;

“and in the event of any armed portion passing the stream towards

the tents in defiance of their signals, to fire on them one by one.”

These cautious resolves, however, it was unnecessary to enforce, as

the savages, after Auger had given them a blank discharge, hurried

off in the direction of Captain Grey.[315]

-----

Footnote 315:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 144.

-----

The Captain, accompanied by Coles and a Cape man, had been out since

the morning examining the country to choose a route for the next

day’s march, and were working with all their energies at a road for

the horses, when the savages from the camp poured into the forest.

The Cape man, who was in the rear, first saw them; and instead of

calling to Coles or the Captain for assistance, took to his heels,

pursued by the natives. The three were now engaged for their lives,

and taking up a position behind some rocks, the men were directed to

fire separately. Coles was armed with the Captain’s rifle, but it

was covered with a cloth case for protection against the rain. This

becoming entangled with the lock, his services at a critical moment

were lost. The Captain now gave Coles his gun to complete the

reloading, and taking the rifle, tore off the cover and stept from

behind the rocks. In an instant three spears pierced his body, but a

deadly shot from the rifle slew the principal antagonist. The combat

at once ceased; but, though it had only lasted a few seconds, the

spears and weapons strewn in such abundance about that wild position

gave proof of its severity. Neither Coles nor the Cape man was

injured, but the Captain was badly wounded. Coles bound up the

Captain’s hip wound as well as he could, and supporting him with his

arm, assisted him homewards. Some hours were spent in the journey.

The track was lost, and the Captain, leaning more and more heavily

on Coles, showed signs of increasing weakness. A beaten route at

last was gained and a stream in its vicinity crossed; but the

Captain, in the effort, strained his wounded hip and fell on the

opposite shore unable to rise. Coles, with his usual devotion,

volunteered to go alone to the party and send assistance. This he

did, bounding over rock and cliff, through wood and scrub, jumping

gaping rifts, and fording streams with the natives on his trail. In

a short hour, through his unflinching ardour and daring, the surgeon

and Mr. Lushington were ministering to the wants of the wounded

chief.[316] The only drawback to this day’s steadiness and fidelity

was the loss, by Coles, of the Captain’s valuable note-book.[317]

The nipple of the rifle injured by Coles in his eagerness to remove

the case, was taken out by Auger; but lacking proper tools, several

days were spent in niggling perseverance, to drill it out with a

bradawl.

-----

Footnote 316:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 154.

Footnote 317:

Ibid., i. p. 153.

-----

The expedition was now delayed for a time; and corporal Auger, whose

ingenuity and skill as a carpenter had frequently been of service,

made the Captain a low stretcher to lie upon, which gave him a

little more ease.[318] To relieve him, moreover, from unnecessary

discomfort and pain, Auger, with feeling solicitude, carried the

chief in his arms at times when he seemed to need it, to convenient

distances in the vicinity of the tent. Athletic and careful, he was

not a bad substitute for a sedan.

-----

Footnote 318:

Ibid., i. p. 158.

-----

On the 27th February the party was again in motion, but their

progress was slow. Much time was spent in constructing pathways in

ravines and clefty land otherwise inaccessible, and in finding fords

over streams, and passages across swamps. To one ford Captain Grey

particularly alludes. On the 27th March, he and his party sought for

a ford across a river about a hundred yards wide in S. Lat. 15° 49´,

E. Long. 125° 6´, but their efforts were fruitless. It therefore

appeared inevitable that the winding of the river should be

followed, or the party branched off in another direction to find an

open route in advance. This surmise was not very agreeable. Auger

pondered a little over this aspect of the journey, and soon resolved

to make a survey of the stream untrammelled by the presence of any

one. Accordingly, disposing of a hasty breakfast, he started alone

to the river, and returned in about an hour reporting he had found

one. The ponies were at once moved on, and as they wound through it

following a circuitous course, it was nowhere less than knee deep,

but on each side, at times, the water was dangerously high. “I could

not,” writes the Captain, “but admire the perseverance of Auger, in

having discovered so intricate a ford as this was.”[319]

-----

Footnote 319:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 209.

-----

Two or three nights before finding this ford he tied himself among

the branches of a stunted acacia-tree, and shaken by the wind slept

as soundly as in a cradle rocked by an attentive nurse. He did this

to escape the wet and chills of the stony ground on which the

travellers bivouacked and rested during the darkness.

Much labour was given in tracing the courses of rivers, the

direction of mountain ranges, and acquiring information of the

physical features of the country, and of its natural history.[320]

All these services were not accomplished without much exertion and

diligence. To scale the mountain side, to creep down the perilous

declivity, to wade the morass, to traverse a wild country torn into

fissures, and encumbered by rocks and scrubs and a dense vegetation,

were but their common daily task; but when to these exertions are

added the trials arising from privation, constant exposure to the

sun and the storm, the bare shelter by night of some overhanging

cliff or frail tent, with the discomfort of being, for days

together, unable to undress or wash themselves, a faint glimpse only

is caught of the harassing and difficult nature of their duties,

their weariness, their sufferings and hardships.

-----

Footnote 320:

Auger accompanied Captain Grey on one occasion to examine a

sandstone ridge in the hope of finding egress from it. After

proceeding some distance the corporal discovered a cave, in which

was an intaglio face and head cut in the rock, of rather superior

workmanship for an untutored savage; and Captain Grey has

distinguished the work by giving a drawing of it in his Travels.

Vol. i. p. 206.

Private Mustard, who had been at the Cape of Good Hope, brought

his experience to bear upon the present service. He discovered the

spoor of a large quadruped with a divided hoof. He had seen like

impressions at the Cape. Captain Grey conceiving that Mustard had

made some mistake, paid no attention to his report, until he

afterwards saw traces of the animal himself. On one occasion the

Captain followed its track for a mile and a half, when it was lost

in rocky ground. The footmarks were larger than those of a

buffalo, and it was apparently more bulky, for where it had passed

through the brushwood, shrubs in its way of considerable size, had

been crushed aside or broken down. The animal has not yet been

seen. Its existence is, however, asserted, from the peculiarity of

the spoor. Vol. i. p. 242, ‘Grey’s Travels.’

-----

The mode of refreshing themselves by washing was as primitive as

inconvenient, but the trying nature of the service led them to find

contentment in the roughest resources. Full dressed, they often

plunged into the lakes to scrape and wash away the accumulations of

days from their persons and clothes; and on emerging from the

waters, bearing their dripping suits on their backs, they ran about

to prevent colds or rheumatic seizures, while the sun steamed off

the moisture from their threadbare garments.

Corporal Auger in these wanderings was the chief dependent.

Uncompromising, he was straightforward in his duties; enterprising,

he feared nothing. On most occasions he was sent ahead of the party

to pace the distance, to find the track through regions of country

covered with rank grass more than fourteen feet high, and to

discover fords to assist the progress of the wayfarers and thus

prevent depressing and harassing detours or returns. The moral

courage of that man must indeed have been great, who was the first

to penetrate a shrouded and unbroken stretch of solitude, unaware of

the dangers in which his every step might suddenly have involved

him.

The expedition had now penetrated two rivers beyond the Glenelg and

Prince Regent, and then turned towards Hanover Bay. On 1st April

they started, encountering difficulties of a character similar to

those already borne with such cheerfulness and fortitude. Seven days

of their journey found private Mustard crippled from falling into a

crevice in the rock. Here the Captain, though suffering himself from

the wound in his hip, yielded his horse for Mustard’s convenience.

On the 15th April, the party reached Hanover Bay, having lost nearly

all their live stock and fifteen of their ponies. A few more days

were occupied in collecting the stores and shipping them, when the

expedition sailed for the Isle of France and arrived on the 17th

May. The three sappers were landed in a very sickly and emaciated

state, and during their stay at the Mauritius were under medical

treatment in hospital.

On the 27th January, nineteen non-commissioned officers and privates

of the detachment serving with the naval force under the command of

Lord John Hay at San Sebastian, were present with General

O’Donnell’s army in an attack on the village of Orio, and burnt and

sank several flat-bottomed boats under the fire of musketry from the

opposite side of the river.

On the following day, at the request of the Spanish general, the

same sappers were despatched to Usurvil to intrench and fortify a

large garden at the outskirts of the village. The work was instantly

commenced; but when the party was about to destroy the bridge which

had been partially broken, General O’Donnell changed his intention

and the sappers returned to San Sebastian. Shortly after, the

detachment marched with the marine battalion to Oyarzun to cover the

operations of General O’Donnell at Bera.

About this period the available men of the party fitted up the

‘Columbia’ steamer for the accommodation of troops, and a storehouse

for the use of the squadron. At Passages, also, the carpenters

converted the church into a commissariat depôt for stores and

provisions, and strengthened and improved the fortifications around

San Sebastian and the heights. All the works were carried out with

difficulty; for the Spanish authorities could scarcely command the

use of a plank or even a nail for their purposes, and it was only by

the force of habitual and urgent requisitions, that they could be

induced to press for any materials for the service of the

department.

By the ‘Alonzo’ transport a reinforcement of eleven rank and file

arrived in May, increasing the detachment to thirty-one of all

ranks. Late in the month, these men, with others of the party, were,

at the recommendation of General O’Donnell, detached to Casa Aquirre

on the left of Venta, to render it sufficiently defensive to receive

the garrison of Astigaraga in the event of its being compelled to

retire. The working party consisted of a company of the Spanish

marine battalion of seventy soldiers and twenty peasants, and the

position was completed with the necessary works by March, 1839.

On the 24th June, twenty-five of the detachment moved with a part of

the army to the river Orio, and, under fire, levelled the parapets

and works of the Carlists.

In October, four men of the party in plain clothes under orders of

secrecy, accompanied Colonel Colquhoun of the royal artillery, and

Lieutenant Vicars of the engineers, to the headquarters of

Muñagorri, to assist in putting him in motion and to secure his

position. The mission reached Sara on the 17th, then passed to a

hill to the east of La Rune mountain, about four miles from the

village, where the chief was posted, and afterwards to St. Jean Pied

de Port; but owing to the opposition of Aquirre, the commandant of

Valcarlos, who would not allow the pacificators to take up quarters

in his neighbourhood, the expedition, unable from this cause to

assist the Fuerist chief, returned to San Sebastian on the 24th

October.

The same sappers, in plain clothes as before,[321] accompanied the

above-named officers on a second mission to Muñagorri in November.

The party reached St. Jean Pied de Port viâ Bayonne on the 5th.

Aquirre, acting under the orders of Espartero, was firm in his

resolution to resist the pacificators in the occupation of

Valcarlos; and as he would not yield a pass to the force of

Muñagorri, the project of entering Spain at Valcarlos was

necessarily abandoned, and the expedition once more retraced its

steps to San Sebastian, where it arrived on the 16th.

-----

Footnote 321:

The senior of whom was second-corporal John Down, afterwards

sergeant. In September, 1835, while pontooning in the Medway

at Halling, he plunged into the river and saved from drowning,

by means of an oar, private F. Adams of the corps. He also

relieved from a very precarious situation lance-corporal

Woodhead, of the Honourable East India Company’s sappers, who

had jumped in to assist private Adams. For his courage and

humanity the Royal Humane Society granted Down a pecuniary

reward, and his officers gave him a military hold-all,

containing the usual articles, chiefly of silver, bearing on a

silver plate this inscription—“Presented by his officers to

private John Down for his gallant conduct in rescuing a

comrade from drowning.” This non-commissioned officer served

two stations at Gibraltar and Bermuda, and being pensioned at

1_s._ 9_d._ in October, 1849, retired to Chatham, where he is

now filling the humble but sufficient situation of pump-master

to the Barracks at Brompton.

-----

Late in the same month, twelve men of the detachment were sent to

the Bidassoa to fortify the position taken up by the Fuerist chief.

A fatality attended all his movements and projects. St. Marcial had

been fixed upon by him to establish his force there; but before the

operation could be effected, the Queen’s troops under General

O’Donnell were already in possession of it, and the approach of

Muñagorri was therefore interdicted. Another position, however, was

soon selected near the Bidassoa, and a redoubt forthwith commenced.

Sixty peasants from San Sebastian and a small force from the ranks

of the Fuerists formed the working party. The latter were indolent

to the last degree, and even the presence of Muñagorri and Jarregui

failed to inspire them with the necessary energy. The sappers worked

from morning till nightfall, and often remained on duty the entire

day, exposed the whole time to the drenching storm. All the works

were marked out, and every detail for the defence was conducted by

the sappers under the direction of Lieutenant Vicars, and their zeal

and usefulness were noticed in commendatory terms. After completing

the defences, the party rejoined Lord John Hay’s force early in

January, 1839.

In May one sergeant and twelve privates were detached to the north

of Scotland, and employed on the trigonometrical survey of that part

of the country until December under the direction of Lieutenant

Robinson, royal engineers. This mountain detachment endured much

fatigue in carrying out the service, and for their diligence and

exertion in conducting the operation, received a high character.

Six rank and file were employed on a similar duty at the Frith of

the Clyde under Captain A. Henderson, R.E., and rejoined the corps

on the 24th October. The men were selected on account of their

physical strength, and were in every respect found equal to the

arduous requirements of the service.

The insurrection in the Canadas, headed by Papineau, induced the

Government to send a company to that colony. Captain Colin Mackenzie

with one sergeant and thirty-seven rank and file went out in the

‘Hastings,’ seventy-four, as a guard of honour to Lord Durham when

his lordship was appointed Governor-General in Canada. The

remainder, three sergeants and forty-five rank and file, sailed in

the steamer ‘Dee.’ The guard of honour landed at Quebec on the 29th

May, and the ‘Dee’ detachment on the 14th June. A proportionate

quantity of intrenching tools and engineer stores were landed with

the company.

At the celebration of Her Majesty’s coronation on the plains of

Abraham in June, 1838, the Earl of Durham minutely inspected the

company, and in the presence of several general officers, noticed

the steadiness with which the company marched past. This expression

the Governor-General repeated at the chateau of St. Louis on the

28th June, and added, that the soldier-like appearance of the

sappers and their steadiness under arms exceeded his expectations.

The good conduct of the company also elicited his lordship’s

approbation.

While at Niagara, on the 11th September, the company was reviewed by

Major-General Sir George Arthur, with the King’s dragoon guards and

43rd regiment, and his Excellency spoke in praise of the appearance

of the company, its marching and manœuvring.

Soon after, the head-quarters of the company were removed to the

Niagara frontier to place it in a state of defence. The work of

reparation commenced with Fort Mississaqua. About this time twelve

non-commissioned officers and men were removed, for engineer

services, to Amherstburg, and another party of twenty-two of all

ranks was detached to Montreal. The latter was detained at Cornwall

for a few days by Major Phillpotts of the corps, and, under

Lieutenant Roberts, formed the advanced guard with a detachment of

the 71st light infantry, in a successful attack on the rebels at

Beauharnois on the 10th November, 1838. The good conduct of this

party was acknowledged by Colonel Carmichael who commanded the

attack.

A novel duty now devolved upon the corps in the subaqueous

destruction of the brig ‘William,’ sunk off Tilbury Fort in May,

1837, and the schooner ‘Glenmorgan,’ wrecked in Gravesend Reach

several years before. The wrecks were impediments to navigation; and

the Lord Mayor, after consulting Colonel Pasley, determined to have

the vessels destroyed by gunpowder. Operations commenced on the 19th

May by a detachment of thirty non-commissioned officers and men of

the 8th company, under the direction of Captain Yule, royal

engineers, and in a few days the wrecks were blown to pieces by two

great charges of gunpowder of 2340 lbs. each. The object desired was

thus satisfactorily attained. The sappers executed all the minor

fitments not requiring the skill of shipwrights. They also descended

in the diving-bell and diving-helmet, managed the movements of the

former, and besides preparing and executing the mining details of

the operation, assisted the seamen and the riggers in the naval

arrangements.[322] The men in the diving-bell were exposed to great

danger from the violent action, on two occasions, of the ebb and

flood tides, and had they not been very resolute men, would have

given up the attempt.

-----

Footnote 322:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii. 1838, p. 45, 274.

-----

During the service, a vessel ran foul of the diving-bell lighter,

and carried it above a quarter of a mile up the river, disconnecting

the great cylinder containing the charge. The next day,

sergeant-major Jones, acting with the leading rigger, “got the

lighter very nearly back into her former place over the wreck, and

recovered the cylinder and leaden pipe from the bottom of the

river.” To prevent the recurrence of a similar accident, the guard

of the detachment on board, kept up a brisk fire of blank cartridges

when any vessel approached them in the night, which had the desired

effect.[323]

-----

Footnote 323:

Ibid., iii. p. 41, 42.

-----

Of the “indefatigable exertions of the sappers,” Colonel Pasley made

particular mention in his official report, and added, “it was a

pleasure to see them, and the seamen and riggers, working so

cheerfully together.” “Sergeant-major Jones,” writes the Colonel,

“who is equally skilful and active as a miner and a pontoneer, was

quite in his element.”[324]

-----

Footnote 324:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii. 1838, p. 45.

The operations did not terminate without the occurrence of a

melancholy accident. On the 21st of May, Corporal Henry Mitchell,

who had been practised as a diver for a short time in the Medway,

was sent down in a diving-helmet to fix a couple of eye-bolts to

the side of the ‘William,’ preparatory to the first explosion.

“After examining the wreck, he came up and gave a favourable

account of his prospects,” and then “took his tools and descended

again; but owing to a rope fixed round him having become entangled

in the wreck, the signals usually made by pulling this rope could

not be distinguished;” nor could he be drawn to the surface of the

water. On Colonel Pasley reaching the wreck, and as soon as the

necessary arrangements could be completed, sergeants John Ross and

James Young with two privates, voluntarily descended a second time

in the diving-bell, and after a few minutes' careful exertion,

succeeded in finding their comrade; but he was quite dead, having

been at the bottom upwards of twelve hours. The intrepid conduct

of these non-commissioned officers was much applauded.[325]

-----

Footnote 325:

Ibid., iii. p. 40, 41.

-----

The great explosions above referred to, had not, it was ascertained,

touched the bow of the brig ‘William;’ and in August operations were

resumed to destroy it. The entire service, except the duty of

diving, devolved on the sappers. A leaden cylinder, to hold a charge

of 315 lbs. of gunpowder, was made by some artificers of the corps

at Chatham; but it failed on application, and tin oil bottles,

containing small charges prepared by the sappers, were found to

answer the purpose. These were taken to the wreck every morning by

sergeant-major Jones and another non-commissioned officer, and being

properly fixed by the divers and fired by the sergeant-major, the

remaining fragments of the wreck were so broken and dispersed, as to

render the anchorage perfectly safe for the shipping. Fifteen of

such charges were fired against the ‘William,’ and two more, to make

‘assurance doubly sure,’ were also exploded among the scattered

timbers of the ‘Glenmorgan.’ Sergeant-major Jones was the executive

on this service under the direction of Colonel Pasley.[326]

Under the authority of the Act of 1st Vict. cap. 20, the Ordnance

received in charge the royal military canal at Hythe. With a view to

a more economical expenditure in its control and repair, the company

of the royal staff corps in charge of it, was disbanded in

July,[327] and a detachment of two sergeants and forty-two rank and

file of the royal sappers and miners succeeded to the duty. Of this

detachment, one sergeant and twenty rank and file had been detached

to the canal early in April, and the remainder, to the above total,

was completed by an incorporation of several men from the staff

corps company, and six non-commissioned officers and gunners

acquainted with the care and management of horses from the royal

artillery. The principal duties of the detachment consisted in

taking charge of the locks and sluices, collecting tolls, repairing

the drains, fences, &c., and in the execution of various laborious

services in mud and water. A careful review of this arrangement, and

of the receipts and expenses of the canal, however, induced Sir

Hussey Vivian, the Master-General, to supersede the employment of

sappers by pensioners from the ordnance corps at very reduced wages;

and accordingly in December, 1840, the detachment was reduced to

thirty-two of all ranks; in May, 1841, to seven; and in the

following month, to one sergeant, who continued on duty at Hythe

till October, 1842.

-----

Footnote 326:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii. 1838, p. 271-274.

Footnote 327:

The disbandment of this company was the last in the annihilation

of the corps. In that month it disappeared from the muster-rolls

of the army.

-----

1839.

Expedition to Western Australia under Captain Grey—Excursion with

Auger to the north of Perth—Search for Mr. Ellis—Exploration of

shores from Freemantle—Bernier and Dorre Islands; want of

water; trials of the party—Water allowance reduced—A lagoon

discovered—Privations and hardships of the party—Return to Bernier

Island for stores—Its altered appearance—Destruction of the depôt

of provisions—Consternation of Coles—Auger’s example under the

circumstances—Expedition makes for Swan River—Perilous landing at

Gantheaume Bay—Overland journey to Perth; straits of the

adventurers—Auger searching for a missing man—Coles observes the

natives; arrangements to meet them—Water found by Auger—A spring

discovered by Coles at Water Peak—Disaffection about long marches;

forced journeys determined upon; the two sappers and a few others

accompany the Captain—Desperate hardships and fatigues; the last

revolting resource of thirst—Extraordinary exertions of the

travellers; their sufferings from thirst; water found—Appalling

bivouac—Coles’s agony and fortitude—Struggles of the adventurers;

they at last reach Perth—Auger joins two expeditions in search of

the slow walkers—Disposal of Coles and Auger.

Captain Grey of the 83rd regiment, undertook a second expedition;

this time to Western Australia. As soon as the sappers had recovered

from the hardships and privations to which they had been subjected

in New Holland, they volunteered again to accompany him. Private R.

Mustard, too much shaken by the injury he had sustained on the

former expedition, was unfit to proceed, and was left with the

company of the corps at the Mauritius. On the 21st of August, 1838,

the party embarked at Port Louis; and, on the 18th of September,

arrived at Perth, Western Australia.

Delays prevented the Captain immediately pursuing his object, but to

turn the interval to profit, he made a short excursion to the north

of Perth with Mr. Frederick Smith and Corporal Auger. The

exploration continued from the 30th November to the 8th of December,

and was marked by incidents of a pacific character. None of the

difficulties which clogged their previous exertions were experienced

on this trip, and, coupled with the variety and beauty of the

scenery, but little enthusiasm was needed to make the travellers

feel an interest in the service.[328]

-----

Footnote 328:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 292-309.

-----

The year opened with Captain Grey and four adventurers, including

his two sappers, travelling into the interior in search of Mr.

George Ellis and his two companions, who, having left the Williams'

River for the Leschenault on the coast, had been out for several

days beyond the period it was expected they would reach their

destination, and fears were entertained for their safety. Captain

Grey and his men steadily pursued their object, till the missing

travellers, alive and in tolerable health, turned up to their

exertions at Augusta. After twenty-two days' bush-ranging, the

Captain and his party re-entered Perth on the 31st of January. This

episodical service was one of fatigue, particularly in crossing the

Darling range and in pushing their route through forests and over

wild and rugged ground. In some districts, the want of water was

severely felt by them, and for eleven hours in one day, they

journeyed onwards under a sultry sun, suffering from excessive

thirst.[329]

-----

Footnote 329:

Ibid., i. p. 310-328.

-----

On the 17th of February, the expedition of twelve persons sailed

from Fremantle to examine the shores of Shark’s Bay and the country

behind it, taking with them three whale-boats for future use. On the

25th, they landed at Bernier Island, discovering, when too late,

that the keg of tobacco which was to have constituted their chief

consolation in hardship, was left on board. After landing the

provisions, the greater part of them were buried for security, but

the want of water drove the expedition to Dorre Island on the 28th

of February, where their persevering search was equally unavailing,

for the little that was obtained was extracted by suction from small

holes in the rock. Already the party had had one of its boats

knocked to pieces, and its stores lost, whilst the other two boats

in a hurricane were much injured. For three days the sappers were

engaged in their repair, and on the 3rd of March, the travellers,

oppressed with thirst, wearied by fatigue, and exposed to the full

blaze of a powerful sun, sailed for the main.[330]

-----

Footnote 330:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 329-344.

-----

Reaching a sand-bank, the boats were tracked and pulled onwards,

through deep mud and weeds, into a dense mangrove creek, to land;

and, in accomplishing this service, severe trials were encountered,

the difficulties of which were increased by the exhaustion which

labour and the want of water induced. In fifteen days, the allowance

had been reduced from two and a half pints to half a pint a

day.[331]

-----

Footnote 331:

Ibid., i. p. 345-351.

-----

Pursuing their journey, a lagoon of fresh water was soon found, and

all bent the knee to take their fill of the luxury. A black line

round the countenance showed how deeply each had regaled himself.

Next day, the two sappers and some of the party visited the lagoon

again, and in the evening returned loaded to the boats.[332]

-----

Footnote 332:

Ibid., i. p. 351-353.

-----

Several days had been spent in exploration and adventure, during

which the river Gascoyne had been discovered, and a few objects of

geographical interest named. On one occasion, a storm having

overtaken the wayfarers, their boats, which were swamped, were

dragged amid much danger to shore; and their flour, saturated with

salt water, was now quite spoilt. Nevertheless, unwholesome as it

was, they were forced to use it, as they had nothing else to eat.

Illness now began to appear among the party, and as there was

neither food nor medicine to give them, their situation was

deplorable. While in this helpless state, they were attacked by a

body of about thirty natives near Kolaina plains; but fortunately,

they succeeded in pushing off their boats without any serious

accident occurring.[333] Auger at the time was in the head of the

boat, soldering up the breaches in an old kettle, valuable in its

way, for the expedition had none other for its cooking purposes,

when a spear, thrown by a savage, whizzed past the industrious

tinker, and struck the seaman Ruston.

-----

Footnote 333:

Ibid., i. p. 351-379.

-----

After a period of intense desolation and gloom, in which the

expedition was exposed to the fury of angry storms, and the pinching

calls of want, the boats put to sea; and surrounded by perils both

from surf and squall, the adventurers returned to the Gascoyne.

Launching or beaching their boats on the rocky coast was a service

of hazard and difficulty. On the 20th of March the provisions were

nearly expended, and to replenish their stores, the boats made for

Bernier Island. A gale of wind caught them on the passage, and they

only made good the landing by almost superhuman exertion. Here a

store of provisions had been buried, when the expedition first made

the island, but from its very altered appearance, caused by the

ravages of recent hurricanes, Captain Grey doubted whether the depôt

could be found. Fearing some disaster had befallen the stores, he

considered it unadvisable that the “discovery should be made in the

presence of too many persons, as future discipline would depend on

the first impression that was given.” He therefore selected Mr.

Smith and corporal Coles, in whose courage, disinterestedness, and

self-possession, he placed great confidence, to accompany him to the

depôt. The corporal took a spade with him.[334]

-----

Footnote 334:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 379-391.

-----

Before they had gone far, they observed staves of flour casks

scattered about amongst the rocks and high up on the sand hills.

Coles, taking a rapid glance of the ground, “persisted, they were so

far inland, that they could only have come from the flour casks

which the expedition had emptied before starting.” Moving on in

their anxious survey, they “next came to a cask of salt provisions

washed high and dry at least twenty feet above the usual high-water

mark; the sea had evidently not been near the spot for a long

period, as it was half covered with drift sand, which must have

taken some time to accumulate. This Coles again easily accounted

for; it was merely the cask which had been lost from the wreck of

the 'Paul Pry.'” The Captain thought otherwise, but made no remark.

At length they reached the depôt. “So changed was it, that both Mr.

Smith and Coles persisted it was not the place: but on going to the

shore, there were some very remarkable rocks, on the top of which

lay a flour cask more than half empty, with the head knocked out,

but not otherwise injured. This was also washed up at least twenty

feet of perpendicular elevation beyond high water mark. The dreadful

certainty now flashed on the minds of Mr. Smith and corporal Coles;”

but poor Coles, usually so imperturbable in character, and so ready

to find reasons for the alarming appearances which had met his gaze

at every step, did not bear the surprise as well as had been

expected. He dashed the spade upon the ground with almost ferocious

violence, and looking up to Captain Grey, said, “All lost, sir! We

are all lost.” A few rallying words from the Captain, however, made

him “perfectly cool and collected, and he promised to make light of

the misfortune to the rest, and to observe the strictest

discipline.” Coles with eager economy now collected every particle

of the precious flour, discoloured as it was, that was left in the

barrel and strewn on the rocks, and with another bag of spoiled

flour found among the sea-weeds, the adventurers returned to the

party. Their tale of distress was soon told, and all heard it with

dismay. “Mr. Walker and corporal Auger set an excellent example to

the others. Two seamen named Woods, indisposed to bear, in common

with the adventurers, the sacrifices that impended, seized the first

opportunity of endeavouring to appropriate to themselves the

miserable remnant of damper belonging to the party; but their

unmanly intention being observed, a sentry was placed in charge of

the scanty store of provisions, which only amounted to about nine

lbs. of salt meat, and about sixty lbs. of tolerably good

flour.”[335]

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Footnote 335:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 391-396.

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