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Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 297, 23 May 1879, Page 3

By the last mail, the Bendigo Advertiser says, a lady residing in Sandhurst, who is a relative by marriage of Lieut. Melville, the gallant young officer who sacrificed his life whilst protecting the colors of his regiment in the disastrous engagement which took place between a small force of British troops and an overwhelming number of Zulus a short time back, received a letter in which reference is made to the death of the hero of the occasion. We have been furnished with the following extract :—" I am dreadfully grieved about poor young Melvilje, the adjutant of the 24th Regiment. He married just three years ago, at the Cape, E.s fa\orite si. ter, and came home last year to the staff College at Aldershott, with his wife and a little boy a year old. He had not been in England a week when he was ordered to rejoin his regiment at the Cape, as this dreadful Zulu war broke out; so he left his wife and child at home with his family in Cornwall, where she has been ever since, and now, poor girl, she is left a widow, and has another little son only two months old. She is not yet 21. One consolation to her will be the noble way in which he died,, as he was fortunate enough to escape the battle of Isandula, but was last seen cutting his way through over 100 Natives, cutting them down like grass with his Bword, as he was determined to save the colors of the regiment, which had fallen into the hands of the enemy. After being mortally wounded in seven places he rescued the colors, which he had tied around him, and swam the river in time to lay down and die, knowing, as the papers say, that he had saved the honor of his country and regiment. A more noble or glorious death, of course, no soldier could possibly die. He is quite the hero of tho day ; the papers are full of his wonderful bravery, and he was mentioned in Parliament. The Queen is to present his two little boys with the Victoria Cross in admiration of their father's singular bravery in saving her colors at the cost of his own life, and is also going to give them a commission in the army when they grow tip."