Finding the colour.

hi all, the following is from ZULU WAR JOURNAL, COL. HENRY HARFORD. C.B. edited by DAPHNE CHILD.
' scarcely had we taken a few steps than i stumbled on the colour case mixed up with aheap of other things, picking it up i said to HARBER, who was closest, look here, .heres the case! the colours cant be far off!. we all three then had a look at it, put it on a conspicuous boulder, and went on. then, as HARBER was returning to his position, i noticed a straight piece of stick projecting out of the water in the middle of the river, almost in a line with us, and said to him, do you see that straight piece of stick sticking up in the water opposite to you ?. it looks uncommonly like a colour pole. he waded straight in, up to his middle, and got hold of it. on lifting it out he brought up the colour still adhering to it, and on getting out of the water handed the standard to me, and as he did so the gold-embroided centre scroll dropped out, the silk having more or less rotted from the long immersion in the water. our cheers soon brought major BLACK tearing down the krantz as fast as precipitous rocks, boulders, thorn bush would allow him, and in the meanwhile we continued our search in the hope of dropping across the other colour, as two others had been lost, but without luck..... HARFORD must be referring here to the 2nd batt colours,both of which were lost at ISANDLWANA..... cheers 90th

90th
I thought the Regimental Colours of 2nd/24th were left at Rorkes Drift.

hi 24th,, the last line from my post was written by DAPHNE CHILD the editor of HARFORDS journal, so i assume she is correct, i thought they had been left behind, hope someone can clear it up for us. cheers 90th.

90th wrote:

.... HARFORD must be referring here to the 2nd batt colours,both of which were lost at ISANDLWANA..... cheers 90th

I had a section of Zulu History e-mailed to me by a friend who's is now on Holiday for three weeks. While reading it. I came across this. I have made bold the bit relating to finding the colours mentioned by 90th. Could this be of value to the missing colour.


"As the sun soared high over Isandlwana, it glistened white on the tents of an army, and white on the faces and helmets of six
hundred dead. The impis had swept the tents clean. Some of them had donned red coats and helmets, like monkeys.

The dead they had stabbed over and over again, as is their wont, and then to the chanting of songs of victory the army swept southward, southward towards Rorke's Drift.

But men had been before them, men who had lain dead, so the Zulus thought, under a tangle of others.

Amidst the looting of the tents, amidst the drinking of what there was to drink, a Lieutenant of the Rifles and a Colonel of the Staff had crawled on hands and knees from beneath their heavy burdens, and lying flat almost amidst what cover there was, had worked their way out over the veldt into a friendly kloof.

Around the waist of one was tied a regi- mental Jack. When at last under cover these men had run, run bare of foot and bare of head, as men never ran before, run as a Beauchamp was said never to have run from an enemy, run lest Rorke's Drift should share the fate of Isandlwana."