Mr. Prevost Battersby, writing to the Morning Post of Tuesday
from Germiston, describes a picturesque incident that occurred on the eve of the occupation of that town at the end of May. In the course of an isolated attempt by a. body of Mounted Infantry to enter the town two troopers were shot, one fatally, as the men were cantering back to cover. The horse of the other stopped for a while by its master, then walked over and took a look at the dead man, and then went back to the other, rubbing him with its nose, and pretending to go away without him. Finally, as though realising the wounded man's helpless condition, it knelt down beside him, the trooper making several ineffectual attempts to scramble into the saddle. Meantime the enemy had begun to fire on the horse, which scampered off, while the trooper—a Colonial —managed to stagger, a few yards at a time, to the shelter of the railway. "There, raising himself on one arm, be waved the other to his horse, which cantered back at the signal to the rest of the troop." It is interesting to know that the horse can thus be disciplined to the display of a sagacity almost as great as that of a collie.
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