- £1200.00
1879 envelope to Axminster with a 6d cancelled by a barred ‘1’ of Pietermaritzburg with a G.P.O. NATAL 7 4 1879 cancel on the back. Exeter and Axminster MY 15 79 transit and arrival cancels are also on the back of the cover. The letter was sent by Lt. Walsh, serving under Capt. Woodgate in the 13th Light Infantry. In the lower left corner it has been endorsed by him, as being ‘on active service’. The cover was sent immediately after the Battle of Khambula that took place on 29 March when a Zulu Army attacked the British Camp at Khambula, having routed the element of the British force at the Battle of Hlobane the day before. The Battle of Khambula was a decisive defeat for the Zulus. Khambula is north of Vryheid and one would have expected this cover to have gone into the postal system at Utrecht, not Pietermaritzburg, as it would have taken at least five days to get there. Fine and very uncommon.
