SYDNEY LANCERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 1 April 1899, Page 5 (Supplement)

SYDNEY LANCERS.

BOUND FOR ENGLAND

The White Star liner Nineveh, with her graceful clipper bow and green painted hull, looked quite warlike alongside the Port Melbourne Railway pier. Forth from the gangway streamed the detachment of New South Wales Lancers bound for England for the purpose of being attached to the Imperial forces at AlderBhot for six months drill and instruction. The morning was a typical Australian one, the sun's rays glinting through the early haze and tipping the lance heads •with points of light. Cocks-feather plumes rustled in the light breeze, lance pennons fluttered, and silver ornaments sparkled; in fact, our visitors en passant were a goodly show. The neat brown uniform—brown, mind, not kharkee—with red braid, and silver badges and stripes, ■with the double red stripes down the pantaloons, and the long boots of yellow leather look well, though the plumage is perhaps a wee bit foreign. Along the pier they tramped,' and across by evil-smelling paths at .the rear of those dreadful mansions which ornament the shore between Port Melbourne and Fisherman's Bend, to aw open sandy plain o* moderate dimensions, there to drill and perspire, for by this time the sun was asserting himself, and there*is not an abundance of shade in that precise locality. They went through the figures of the Lancers—or, rather, the dismounted drill of mounted men, in most creditable style, and they had that high-stepping, prancing walk peculiar to the horse-soldier on a foot parade by which he asserts that he Is not on his natural pigskin, and that he is not as common 'grabbles' are; a trifle suggestive of an obstacle race, but impressive That oft-used phrase, 'very fine body of men,' can with justice be applied, to Sydney's lancers; at any rate, to the present detachment, which numbers 102 noncommissioned officers,, rank and file, and three officers, Captain C. F. Cox being in command, with Lieutenants Osborne and Bundle as subalterns. Only eight men and Captain Cox formed: part of the Jubilee detachment two years ago, and they, of course, wear the ribbon of the Jubilee medal.