rigade was to guard the stores and
materials left behind.

The 21st Lancers scouted ahead of the British brigades, to discover if
any foe were lurking behind Surgham Hill. When about half a mile south
of the hill, they saw a small party of Dervish cavalry and some
infantry, who were hiding in what looked like a shallow water course.
The four squadrons rode forward at a gallop. A sharp musketry fire
opened upon them, but without hesitation they dashed headlong at the
Dervishes, when they found that, instead of a hundred and fifty foemen
as they had supposed, some fifteen hundred Dervishes were lying
concealed in the water course.

It was too late to draw rein, and with a cheer the cavalry rode down
into the midst of the foe. There was a wild, fierce fight, lance
against spear, sabre against sword, the butt-end of a rifle or the
deadly knife. Some cut their way through unscathed. Others were
surrounded and cut off. Splendid feats of heroism were performed. Many
of those who got over returned to rescue officers or comrades, until at
last all the survivors climbed the bank.

The brunt of the fighting fell upon the two central squadrons. Not only
were the enemy thickest where they charged, but the opposite bank of
the deep nullah was composed of rough boulders, almost impassable by
horses. These squadrons lost sixteen killed and nineteen wounded.
Altogether, twenty-two officers and men were killed, and fifty wounded;
and there were one hundred and nineteen casualties among the horses.

Once across, the survivors gathered at a point where their fire
commanded the water course; and, dismounting, speedily drove the
Dervishes from it. On examining it afterwards, it was found that sixty
dead Dervishes lay where the central squadrons had cut their way
through.

The charge, in its daring and heroism, resembled that of the 23rd Light
Dragoons at Talavera. The fall into the ravine, on that occasion, was
much deeper than that into which the Lancers dashed; but it was not
occupied by a desperate force, and although many were injured by the
fall, it was in their subsequent charge, against a whole French
division, that they were almost annihilated.

Both incidents were, like the Balaclava charge, magnificent; but they
were not war. A desperate charge, to cover the retreat of a defeated
army, is legitimate and worthy of all praise, even if the gallant men
who make it are annihilated; but this was not the case at Talavera, nor
at O