We watered and grazed near an outlying picket, and saw many prisoners coming in in twos and threes, and giving up their rifles. What will they do with them? They are nominally rebels since the 15th of June; but I doubt if a tenth of them ever heard of Roberts's proclamation. Communications are few in this big, wild country; and their leaders systematically deceive them. Besides, to call the country conquered when Bloemfontein was taken, is absurd. The real fighting had not begun then, and whole districts such as this were unaffected. It seems to me that morally, if not legally, these people are fair-and-square civilized belligerents, who have fought honestly for their homes, and treated our prisoners humanely. Deportation over-sea and confiscation of farms seem hard measures, and I hope more lenience will be shown.

In the evening Doctor Moon, of the Hampshire Yeomanry, a great friend of Williams, turned up, and had supper with us. We had no fatted calf to kill; but fortunately could show a tolerable menu, including beef and marmalade.

I was on picket this night. About midnight a lot of Boer prisoners, and a long train of their ox-waggons, began coming in. It was very dark, and they blundered along, knocking down telegraph posts, and invading regimental lines, amidst a frightful din from the black drivers, and a profane antiphony between two officers, of the camp and the convoy respectively.

In my second watch, in the small hours, a Tommy with a water-cart strayed into our lines, asking for the Boer prisoners, for whom he had been sent to get water. He swore copiously at the nature of his job in particular, and at war in general. I showed him the way, and consoled him with tobacco.

August 1.—Grazing and harness-cleaning all day. More prisoners came in, and also our old friends the Munsters, and General Paget. Rumours galore. We are going to Cape Town with the prisoners; to Harrismith; to Winberg; to the Transvaal on another campaign, etc. Definite orders came to move the next morning. In the evening an unusual flood of odds and ends of rations was poured on us; flour, a little biscuit, a little fat for cooking, diminutive hot potatoes, a taste of goose, commandeered the same day by the mounted gunners, a little butter from the same source, besides the usual sugar, cooked meat, and tea. Drawing from this cornucopia was a hard evening's work. We also got hold of some dried fruit-chips, and as a desperate experiment tried to make a fruit pudding, wrapping the fruit in a jacket of dough and baking it in fat in our pot. The result, seen in the dark, was a formless black mass, very doughy and fatty; but with oases of palatable matter.



CHAPTER IX.

TO PRETORIA.

August 2.—Reveille at six. Harnessed up, and started out to join the brigade and its long column of prisoners, mounted on their ponies, and each leading another with a pack on it. We only went about seven miles (back towards the Nek), and camped at midday. I had been suffering from toothache for some days, and was goaded into asking the doctor to remove the offender. He borrowed a forceps from the R.A.M.C. and had it out in a minute. The most simple and satisfactory visit to the dentist I have ever had. No gloomy fingering of the illustrated papers, while you wait your turn with the other doomed wretches, no horrible accessories of padded chair and ominous professional plant; just the open sunny veldt, and a waggon pole to sit on! In the evening I got some 38th fellows to cook us some chupatties of our flour. They treated me to fried liver over their fire, and we had a jolly talk. It is said that we are to take the prisoners to Winberg, and then go to the Transvaal. Cold night; hard frost.

August 3.—Reveille at six. Sunrise this day was peculiarly beautiful; a milky-blue haze lay in festoons along the hills, and through this the sun shot a delicate flush on the rocks and grassy slopes, till the farther side of the valley looked unreal as a dream.

Started at nine; marched as far as the inward end of the Nek, and camped. I got a splendid wash, almost a bath, in a large pond, in the company of many Boer prisoners, who, I am bound to say, seemed as anxious for cleanliness as we were. I talked to two most charming young men, who discussed the war with me with perfect freedom and urbanity. They dated their debacle from Roberts's arrival, and the use of flanking movements with large numbers of mounted men. They made very light of lyddite, and laughed at the legend that the fumes are dangerous. In action they leave all their horses in the rear, unwatched, or with a man or two. (Our mounted infantry leave a man to every four horses.) I asked if a small boy, who was sitting near, fought. They said, "Yes: a very small stone suffices to shelter him." They talked very good English.

The right section have turned up and, I hear, are camped about two miles away. They have been a fortnight away doing convoy work, to Senekal, Winberg, and back. They brought us no mails, to our great disappointment. We have had no letters now since June 15th. Strange rumours come in about 40,000 troops going to China. A very cold night; I should say 15 degrees of frost.

August 4.—Did a rapid five hours' march through the Nek, and back to Bultfontein, as part of the advance-guard. On the way we picked up the right section, and exchanged our experiences. They had had no fighting, but a very good time. They had distractingly luscious stones of duff, rum, and jam at Winberg, and all looked very fat and well. We camped, unharnessed, and watered at the same old muddy pool, muddier than ever. I visited an interesting trio of guns which were near us, in charge of Brabant's Horse; one was German, one French, one British. The German was a Boer gun captured the other day, a 9-pr. Krupp, whose bark we have often heard. It has a very long range, 8000 yards, but otherwise seemed clumsy compared with ours, with a cumbersome breech action and elevating gear. The French one was a Hotchkiss, made by the French company, belonging to Brabant's Horse—a smart little weapon, but not so handy, I should say, as ours. The British one was a 15-pr. field gun, of the 77th Field Battery, lost at Stormberg and recaptured the other day. It had evidently had hard and incessant use, and was much worn. Brabant's Horse were our escort to-day, a fine, seasoned body of rough, wild-looking fellows, wearing a very noticeable red puggaree round their slouch hats. They are fine scouts, and accomplished marauders, for which the Boers hate them. Jam for tea, and milk in the tea—long unknown luxuries, which the right section brought with them. In the evening I went to a sing-song the 38th gave round their camp fire. It was very pleasant, and they were most hospitable to us.

August 5.—Reveille at five. Harnessed up; but some hitch ahead occurred, and we unhooked, watered, and grazed. Finally started about 8.30, and made a rapid march as advance guard, of about fourteen miles, with only momentary halts. Country very hilly; steep, squat, flat-topped kopjes and several bad drifts. We camped about 1.30 near five small houses in a row, with the novel accessory of some big trees—probably a town in large letters on the map. It appears the convoy has halted some way back for the four midday hours dear to the oxen. The rest of the column came in at dusk. A warm night. Every night in camp you may hear deep-throated choruses swelling up from the prisoners' laager. The first time I heard it I was puzzled to know what they were singing; the tune was strangely familiar, but I could not fix it. It was not till the third night that I recognized the tune of "O God, our help," but chanted so slowly as to be difficult to catch, with long, luxurious rests on the high notes, and mighty, booming crescendos. Coming from hundreds of voices, the effect was sometimes very fine. At other times smaller groups sang independently, and the result was a hideous noise. I wonder if the words correspond to our tune. If so, every night these prisoners, who have staked and lost all in a hopeless struggle, sing, "O God, our help in ages past." This is faith indeed.

August 6.—Bank Holiday.—At 6.45 we started as advance-guard again, and marched for five and a half hours, with only a halt or two of a few minutes, to Senekal. The country gradually became flatter, the kopjes fewer and lower, till at last it was a great stretch of arid, dusty plain. It seemed quite strange to be driving on level ground, after endless hills and precipitous drifts. We and Brabant's Horse were advance guard, and clattered down in a pall of blinding white dust into a substantial little tin-roofed town, many stores open, and people walking about in peace (the ladies all in black). Full of soldiers, of course, but still it was our first hint for months of peace and civilization, and seemed home-like. One of the first things I saw was a jar of Osborne biscuits in a window, and it gave me a strange thrill! The convoy and prisoners follow this evening. The column is miles long, as besides our own transport, there are all the Boer waggons, long red ones, each with some prisoners on it and a soldier. Also scores of Cape carts, with a fat farmer in each. There was a wild rush for provisions in the town by our orderlies and Brabant's. They got bread, and I bought some eggs and jam on commission. After camping and unharnessing, I had a good wash in the river, an orange-coloured puddle. I wonder how it is that by some fatality there is always a dead quadruped, mule, horse, or bullock, near our washing places. We don't mind them on the march; they are dotted along every road in South Africa now, I should think; but when making a refreshing toilette they jar painfully. Kipling somewhere describes a subtle and complex odour, which, he says, is the smell of the great Indian Empire. That of the great African Empire in this year of grace is the direct and simple one which I have indicated. In the evening we had a grand supper of fried eggs, jam, chupatties, and cocoa. This meal immediately followed tea. We made our fire in the best place for one, an ant-hill, about two feet high. The plan is to hack two holes, one in the top, another on the windward side, and to connect the two passages. There is then a fine draught, and you can cook both on the top and at the side. Inside, the substance of the hill itself gets red-hot and keeps a sustained heat.

Recipe for jam chupatties.—Take some suet and melt rapidly in a mess-tin, over a quick fire (because you are hungry and can't wait); meanwhile make a tough dry dough of flour and water and salt; cut into rounds to fit the mess-tin, spread with jam, double over and place in the boiling fat; turn them frequently. Cook for about ten minutes. A residual product of this dish is a sort of hard-bake toffee, formed by the leakage of jam from the chupatties.

Brabant's Horse left in the night.

August 7.—A bitterly cold, windy day. Marched for several hours over a yellow, undulating plain and camped, near nothing, about 12.30. After dinner I walked over to a Kaffir kraal and bought fuel, and two infants' copper bangles. I was done over the bangles, so I made it up over the fuel (hard round cakes of prepared cow's dung), filling a sack brim-full, in spite of the loud expostulations of the black lady. They were a most amusing crowd, and the children quite pretty. I also tasted Kaffir beer for the first, and last, time. Kaffir bangles abound in the Battery. In fact, you will scarcely see a soldier anywhere without them. The fashion is to wear them on the wrist as bracelets. They are of copper and brass, and often of beautiful workmanship. The difficulty about collecting curios is that there is nowhere to carry them, though some fellows have a genius for finding room for several heavy bits of shell, etc. Empty pom-pom shells, which are small and portable, are much sought after; and our own brass cartridge, if one could take an old one along, would make a beautiful lamp-stand at home. Rum to-night.

August 8.—Reveille at six. Off at 7.30. Another march over the same bare, undulating plain. About eleven we passed a spruit where there was a camp of infantry and the 9th Field Battery, who told us they came out when we did, but had only fired four rounds since! Near here there was a pathetic incident. A number of Boer women met us on the road, all wearing big white linen hoods; they stood in sad groups, or walked up and down, scanning the faces of the prisoners (we were with the main body today) for husbands, brothers, sweethearts. Many must have looked in vain. The Boers have systematically concealed losses even from the relatives themselves; and one of the saddest things in this war must be the long torture of uncertainty suffered by the womenfolk at home.

We camped at twelve near a big dam, and unharnessed, but only for a rest, resuming the march at about three, and halting for the night about ten miles farther on. A profligate issue of rations—five biscuits, four ounces of sugar (instead of two or three), duff and rum again. A lovely, frosty night, the moon full, delicate mists wreathing the veldt, hundreds of twinkling camp-fires, and the sound of psalms from the prisoners' laager.

August 9.—In to-day's march the character of the country changed, with long, low, flat-topped kopjes on either side of us, and the road in a sharp-cut hollow between them, covered with loose round stones—a parched and desolate scene. After about ten miles we descended through a long ravine into Winberg, with its red-brick, tin-roofed houses baking in the sun. We skirted the town, passing through long lines of soldiers come to see the prisoners arrive, and out about a mile on to a dusty, dreary plain, where we camped. We were all thrilling with hopes of letters. (Winberg is at the end of a branch of railway, and we are now in touch with the world again.) Soon bags of letters arrived, but not nearly all we expected. I only got those of one mail, but they numbered thirteen, besides three numbers of the Weekly Times, and a delightful parcel from home. I sat by my harness in the sun, and read letters luxuriously. It was strange to get news again, and strike suddenly into this extraordinary Chinese imbroglio. It appears the war is still going on in the Transvaal, and the rumour is that we shall be sent there straight. Among other news it seems that the H.A.C. are sending the Battery a draft of twenty men from home, to bring us up to strength. I heard from my brother at Standerton, dated July 21. He was with Buller; had not done much fighting yet; was fit and well. There was a disturbance just at dusk, caused by a big drove of Boer ponies, which were being driven into town, getting out of hand and running amok in the lines of the 38th. Wrote a letter home by moonlight. Very cold, after a hot day. I should think the temperature often varies fifty degrees in the twenty-four hours. Some clothing served out; I got breeches and boots. I wish I could get into the town. There are several things I badly want, though, as usual, the home parcel supplied some.

August 10.—We were rather surprised to hear we might move that day, and must hold ourselves in readiness. We all much wanted to buy things, but there was no help for it. Had a field-day at button-sewing and letter-writing. At eleven there was harness-cleaning, and I was sadly regarding a small remnant of dubbin and my dusty girths and leathers, when the order came for "boot and saddle," and that little job was off. In the end we did not start till three, and marched with the whole brigade nine miles, with one five-minute halt, through easy country, with an unusual number of clumps of trees, and camped just at dusk, near a pool, unharnessed and watered. There was a curious and beautiful sight just before, the sun sinking red into the veldt straight ahead, and the moon rising golden out of it straight behind us. It seems we are bound to Smalldeel, a station on the main line, now eleven miles off. We left all the prisoners at Winberg. Some chaps bought schamboks, saddle-bags, and spurs from them, but being stableman, I hadn't time. I write this by moonlight, crouching close to a fine wood fire, 10 P.M. Well, I shall turn in now.

August 11.—Reveille at 5.45. We started at eight, and marched the remaining eleven miles in a blinding dust-storm, blown by a gale of cutting wind right in our faces. My eyes were sometimes so bunged up that I couldn't see at all, and thanked my stars I was not driving leads. The worst march we have had yet. About 11.30 we came to the railway, and groped through a dreary little tin village round a station, built on dust, and surrounded by bare, dusty veldt. This was Smalldeel. There was a general rush to the stores after dinner, as we hear we are to entrain for Pretoria to-morrow. To-day we revolutionized our harness by giving up our off-saddles, our kit to be carried on a waggon. Some time before centre and lead horses had been relieved of breeching and breast-strap, which of course are only needed for wheelers. In the ordinary way all artillery horses are so harnessed that they can be used as wheelers at any moment. The off horse is now very light therefore, having only collar, traces, and crupper, with an improvised strap across the back to support the traces. Of course there are always "spare wheelers," ready-harnessed, following each subdivision in case of casualties. As far back as Bethlehem we discarded big bits also and side-reins, which are quite useless, and waste time in taking in and out when you want to water rapidly, or graze for a few moments. The harness is much simplified now, and takes half the time to put on. The mystery is why it is ever considered necessary to have so much on active service, or even at home, unless to keep drivers from getting too much leisure. Several houses in this place have been wrecked, and many fellows slept under the shells. In one of them a man was selling hot coffee in the evening, at 6d. a cup. It was a striking scene, which I shall always remember—a large building, floorless and gutted inside, and full of heaps of rubble, very dimly lit by a couple of lanterns, in the light of which cloaked and helmeted figures moved. I thought of sleeping in a house, for it was the coldest night I remember; but habit prevailed, and I turned in as usual by my harness. The horses have got a head-rope-eating epidemic, and seemed to be loose all night.

August 12.—Sunday.—Reveille at six. Harnessed up, and waited for orders to entrain for Pretoria. The 38th Battery have gone already, and the Wilts Yeomanry. A draft of twenty new men from England came in by train. They looked strangely pale and clean and tidy beside our patched and soiled and sunburnt selves. Marched down to station, and were entraining guns, waggons, horses, etc., till about four. The usual exciting scenes with mules, but it all seems routine now. Our subdivision of thirty men were packed like herrings into an open truck, also occupied by a gun and limber.

August 13.—I write sitting wedged among my comrades on the floor of the truck, warm sun bathing us after an Arctic night, and up to my knees in kit, letters, newspapers, parcels, boxes of cigarettes, chocolate, etc., for all our over-due mails have been caught up in a lump somewhere, and the result of months of affection and thoughtful care in distant England are heaped on us all at once. I have about thirty letters. It is an orgie, and I feel drunk with pleasure. All the time the train rolls through the wilderness, with its myriad ant-hills, its ribbon of empty biscuit tins and dead horses, its broken bridges, its tiny outpost camps, like frail islands in the ocean, its lonely stations of three tin houses, and nothing else beyond, no trees, fields, houses, cattle, signs of human life. We stopped all last night at Zand River. All trains stop at night now, for the ubiquitous De Wet is a terror on the line. To-day we passed the charred and twisted remains of another train he had burnt; graves, in a row, close to it. Williams and I slept on the ground outside the truck, after feeding and watering horses and having tea. It was an uneasy slumber, on dust and rubble, interrupted once by the train quietly steaming away from beside us. But it came back. We were off again at 4.30 A.M., a merry crowd heaped together under blankets on the floor of the truck. We ground slowly on all day, and halted for the night at Viljoen's Drift, the frontier station.

August 14.—Sleepy heads rose from a sea of blankets, and blinked out to see the crossing of the Vaal river, and a thin, sleepy cheer hailed this event; then we relapsed and waited for the sun. When it came, and we thawed and looked about, we saw an entire change of country; hills on both sides, trees here and there, and many farms. Soon the upper works of a mine showed, and then more, and all at once we were in a great industrial district. At Elandsfontein, the junction for Johannesburg, we had a long halt, and a good breakfast, getting free coffee from a huge boiling vat.

(9 P.M.)—We reached Pretoria just at dusk, the last five miles or so being a very pretty run through a beautiful pass, with woods and real green fields in the valley, a refreshing contrast to the outside veldt. We detrained by electric light, and bivouacked in an open place just outside the station. I write this in the station bar, where some of us have been having a cup of tea. Paget's Brigade are all here, and I hear Roberts is to review us to-morrow. A Dublin Fusilier, who had been a prisoner since the armoured-train affair at Estcourt until Roberts reached Pretoria, told us we "had a good name here," for Bethlehem, etc. He vaguely talked of Botha and Delarey "dodging round" near here. We have heard nothing of the outside world for a long time, and as far as I can make out, the Transvaal has still to be conquered, just as the Free State has had to be, long after the capture of both capitals.

August 15.—I had gone to sleep in splendid isolation under the verandah of an empty house, but awoke among some Munsters, who greeted dawn with ribald songs. Harnessed up after breakfast, and marched off through the town, past the head-quarters, where Roberts reviewed us and the 38th. He was standing with a large Staff at the foot of the steps. The order "eyes right" gave us a good view of him, and very small, fit, and alert he looked.

"'E's little, but 'e's wise, 'E's a terror for 'is size."

I liked what we saw of the town, broad boulevards edged with trees, and houses set back deep in gardens; the men all in khaki uniforms, or niggers, but a good many English ladies and nurses. We marched to a camp on the top of a hill outside the town, and joined the rest of the brigade. A lovely view of the town from here, in a hollow of encircling hills, half-buried in trees, looking something like Florence in the distance. I can hardly believe we are really here when I think of the hopeless depression of June and May at Bloemfontein. Much to our disgust, we weren't allowed to go down to the town in the afternoon. However, we visited a reservoir instead, where a pipe took away the overflow, and here we got a real cold bath in limpid water, on a shingly bottom, a delicious experience. After evening stables Williams and I got leave to go down to town. We passed through broad tree-bordered streets, the central ones having fine shops and buildings, but all looking dark and dead, and came to the Central Square, where we made for the Grand Hotel, and soon found ourselves dining like gentlemen at tables with table-cloths and glasses and forks, and clean plates for every course. The complexity of civilized paraphernalia after the simplicity of a pocket-knife and mess-tin, was quite bewildering. The room was full of men in khaki. Heavens! how hungry that dinner made me! We ordered a bottle of claret, the cheapest being seven shillings. The waiter when he brought it up paused mysteriously, and then, in a discreet whisper to Williams, said he supposed we were sergeant-majors, as none under that rank could be served with wine. Gunner Williams smilingly reassured him, and Driver Childers did his best to look like a sergeant-major, with, I fear, indifferent success. Anyway the waiter was easily satisfied, and left us the claret, which, as there were three officers at the table, was creditable to him. We walked home about 8.30, the streets all silent as death, till we were challenged by a sentry near the outskirts of the town, and asked for the countersign, which we didn't know. There were muttered objections, into which a bottle of whisky mysteriously entered, and we bluffed it out. I have never found ignorance of a countersign a serious obstacle.

August 16.—Grazing most of the morning, during which I have managed to get some letters written, but I have great arrears to make up. Several orders countermanding one another have been coming in, to the general effect that we are probably to start somewhere to-day. The usual crop of diverse rumours as to our future. One says we go to Middelberg, another Lydenberg, another Petersberg. There seem to be several forces of Boers still about, and De Wet, who ought to become historic as a guerilla warrior, is still at large, nobody knows where. I only trust our ammunition-supply will be better managed this time. Anyway, we are all fit and well, and ready for anything, and the horses in first-class order. I forgot to say that I had to part with one of my pair, the riding-horse, a few days before we reached Smalldeel. He was taken for a wheeler in our team. I now ride the mare and lead my new horse, which is my old friend the Argentine, whose acquaintance I first made at Capetown. Hard work has knocked most of the vice out of her, though she still is a terror to the other horses in the lines. She looks ridiculously small in artillery harness, but works her hardest, and is very fit, though she declines to oats unless I mix them with mealies, which I can't always do.



CHAPTER X.

WARMBAD.[A]

[Footnote A: In this new campaign Paget's Brigade was, in conjunction with the forces of Baden-Powell, Plumer, and Hickman, to scour the district whose backbone is the railway line running due north from Pretoria to Petersberg. He was to occupy strategic points, isolate and round up stray commandos, and generally to engage the attention of the enemy here, while the grand advance under Roberts and Buller was taking place eastward.]

August 16, continued.—We started at 4 P.M., and had a most tedious march for about four miles only, with incessant checks, owing to the badness of the ground, so that we arrived long after dark at the camping-ground in indifferent humour. We had followed a narrow valley in a northerly direction. Most of the transport waggons, including our own, stuck in a drift some way back, so that we had no tea, and the drivers no blankets to sleep in (gunners carry their kit on the gun-carriages and limbers and ammunition-waggons). However, I got up at midnight and found the kit-waggon had arrived, and got mine; also some tea from a friendly cook of the 38th, so I did well.

August 17.—Reveille at 4.15. Started at five, and to our surprise marched back about a mile and a half. Picked up the rest of our buck waggons on the way, and halted for a hurried breakfast at dawn. Then marched through what I hear is called Wonderboom Port, a narrow nek between two hills, leading due north, to judge by the sun. We forded a girth-deep river on the way. The nek led out on to a long, broad valley, about six miles in width, bordered on the Pretoria side with a line of steep kopjes, and on the north by low brown hills. Long yellow grass, low scrub, and thorny trees, about the size of hawthorns; no road, and the ground very heavy.

(2 P.M.)—We are halted to feed. There is some firing on the left front. Had a good sleep for an hour. Later on we went into action, but never fired, and in the evening marched away behind a hill and camped. The Wilts and Montgomery Yeomanry are with us, and at the common watering-place, a villainous little pool, with a steep, slippery descent to it, I recognized Alexander Lafone, of the latter corps. I walked to their lines after tea, found him sergeant of the guard, and we talked over a fire. We had last seen one another as actors in some amateur theatricals in a country town at home. They had been in action for the first time that day, and had reported 500 Boers close by. A warm night. Quite a change of season has set in.

August 18.—A big gun was booming not far off, during breakfast. A hot, cloudless day. Started about 8.30, and marched till twelve, crossing the valley diagonally, till we reached some kopjes on the other side. A pom-pom of ours is now popping away just ahead, and there is a good deal of rifle-fire.

(3.15.)—The old music has begun, a shell coming screeching overhead and bursting behind us. We and the convoy were at once moved to a position close under a kopje between us and the enemy. Shells are coming over pretty fast, but I don't see how they can reach us here. A most curious one has just come sailing very slowly overhead, and growling and hiccoughing in the strangest way. I believe it was a ricochet, having first hit the top of the kopje. When it fell there was a rush of gunners to pick up the fragments. I secured one, and it turned out to be part of a huge forty-pounder siege-gun shell. Such a gun would far out-range ours, and I believe the scouts have not located it yet, which explains our inactivity.

(3.30.)—Our right section has gone into action, and is firing now. Some wounded Yeomen just brought in. One of them, I'm sorry to say, is Lafone, with a glancing wound under the eye, sight uninjured. We camped at five, and unharnessed. It seems the Yeomanry lost ten men prisoners, but the Boers released them after taking their rifles.

August 19.—Sunday.—Reveille at four. Some days are very irritating to the soldier, and this was a typical one. We harnessed up and stood about waiting for orders for five hours. At last we moved off, only to return again immediately; again moved off, and after a few minutes halted; finally got more or less started, and marched five or six miles, with incessant short halts, at each of which the order is to unbuckle wither-straps and let horses graze. This sounds simple, but is a horrible nuisance, as the team soon gets all over the place, feet over traces, collars over ears, and so on, if not continually watched and pulled about. When it is very hot and you are tired, it is very trying to the temper. At one halt you think you will lunch. You get out a Maconochie, open it, and take a spoonful, when you find the centres tying themselves up in a knot with the leaders. Up you get, straighten them out, and sit down again. After two more spoonfuls, you find the wheelers playing cat's-cradle with the centres' traces. Perhaps the wheel-driver is asleep, and you get up and put them right. Then the grazing operations of the leaders bring them round in a circle to the wheelers. Up you get, and finally, as the fifth spoonful is comforting a very empty stomach, you hear, "Stand to your horses!" "Mount!" You hurriedly stuff the tin into a muzzle hanging from the saddle, where you have leisure to observe its fragrant juices trickling out, stick the spoon under a wallet-strap, buckle up wither-straps, and mount. At the next halt you begin again, and the same thing happens. It is a positive relief to hear the shriek of a shell, and have something definite to do or interest you. About two the 38th fired a few shots at some Boers on the sky-line, and then we came to Waterval, where we camped and watered. The Petersberg railway runs up here, and this was a station on it, with a few houses besides. Its only interest is the cage in which several thousand English prisoners were kept, till released by Roberts' arrival. I visited it on the way to a delicious bathe in the river after tea. It is a large enclosure, full of the remains of mud huts, and fitted with close rows of tall iron posts for the electric light, which must have turned night into day. It is surrounded by an elaborate barbed-wire entanglement. In one place was a tunnel made by some prisoners to escape by. It began at a hole inside a hut, and ran underground for quite forty yards, to a point about five yards outside the enclosure. Some of our chaps passed through it. In a large tin shed near the enclosure was a fine electric-lighting plant for lighting this strange prison on the open veldt.

This morning the Captain came back, to our great delight. He had been away since Winberg, getting stores for us at Bloemfontein. He brought a waggon full of clothing and tobacco, which was distributed after we had come in. There were thick corduroy uniforms for winter use. If they had reached us in the cold weather they would have been more useful. It is hot weather now; but a light drill tunic was also served out, and a sign of the times was stewed dry fruit for tea. The ration now is five biscuits (the full ration) and a Maconochie, or bully beef. Only extreme hunger can make me stomach Maconochies now. They are quite sound and good, but one gets to taste nothing but the chemical preservative, whatever it is. We have had no fresh meat for a long time back, but one manages with an occasional change of bully beef or a commandeered chicken.

The camp is a big one, for infantry reinforcements have come in, and two cow-guns.

August 20.—There was no hour appointed for reveille overnight, but we were wakened by the pickets at 2.30 A.M. At once harnessed up, and marched off without breakfast. Went north still, as yesterday, following the railway. Dawn came slow, silent, and majestic into the cloudless sky, where a thin sickle of waning moon hung. It was a typical African dawn, and I watched every phase of it to-day with care. Its chief feature is its gentle unobtrusiveness. About an hour before sunrise, the east grows faintly luminous; then just one arc of it gradually and imperceptibly turns to faint yellow, and then delicate green; but just before the sun tops the veldt there is a curious moment, when all colour fades out except the steel blue of a twilight sky, and the whole firmament is equally lighted, so that it would be hard to say where the sun was going to rise. The next moment, a sharp rim of dazzling gold cuts the veldt, and in an instant it is broad day. The same applies to sunset. There are no "fine sunsets" here, worthy of Ruskinian rhapsodies; they are just exquisitely subtle transitions from day to night. But, of course, directly the sun is below the horizon, night follows quickly, as in all countries in these latitudes. There is very little twilight.

(9.30 A.M.)—The country we cross is studded thickly with small trees. About 6.30 the enemy's rifle-fire began on our front. Our side at first answered with pom-poms, Maxims, and rifle-fire, but our guns have just come into action. The enemy's position appears to be a low ridge ahead covered with bush.—I fancy they were only a skirmishing rear-guard, for after a bit of shrapnel-practice we moved on, and had a long, tiring day of slow marching and halting, with scattered firing going on in front and on the flanks. The country must demand great caution, for the bush is thick now, and whole commandos might be concealed anywhere. The Wilts Regiment (some companies of which are brigaded with us) lost several men and an officer. We camped on an open space just at dark. Watering was a long, tiresome business, from buckets, at a deep, rocky pool. There were snipers about, and a shot now and then during the evening.

August 21.—We harnessed up at four; but waited till seven to move off. This is always tiresome, as drivers have to stay by their horses all the time; but of course it is necessary that in such a camp, with the enemy in the bush near, all the force should be ready to move at an early hour. The nights are warm now, but there is a very chilly time in the small hours. We marched through the same undulating, wooded country, crossing a brute of a drift over a river, where we hooked in an extra pair of horses to our team. In the summer this must be a lovely region, when the trees and grass are green; very like the New Forest, I should think. We had a long halt in the middle of the day, and then marched on till five, when we camped. We waited till eight for tea, as the buck-waggons had stuck somewhere; but I made some cocoa on a fire of mealy-stalks. I forgot to say that Baden-Powell has joined the column with a mounted force and the Elswick Battery, and is now pushing on ahead. I hear that Paget's object is to prevent De Wet from joining Botha, and that Baden-Powell has seized some drift ahead over which he must pass. Fancy De Wet up here! An alternative to Maconochie was issued to-day, in the shape of an excellent brand of pressed beef.

August 22.—Reveille at 3 A.M. for the right section, who moved off at once, and at 3.45 for my section. We started at 5.30, and marched pretty quickly all the morning to Pynaar's River, which consists of a station on the railway, and a few gutted houses. A fine iron bridge over the river had been blown up, and was lying with its back broken in the water. We camped here about one, and thought we were in for a decent rest, after several very short nights. I ate something, and was soon fast asleep by my saddle; but at three "harness up" was ordered, and off we went, but only for a few hundred yards, when the column halted, and after wasting two hours in the same place, moved back to camp again. One would like to know the Staff secrets now and then in contretemps like this; but no doubt one cause is the thick bush, which makes the enemy's movements difficult to follow. Rum to-night. We went to bed without any orders for reveille, which came with vexatious suddenness at 10.45 P.M. I had had about two hours' sleep. Up we got, harnessed up, hooked in, and groped in the worst of tempers to where the column was collecting, wondering what was up now. We soon started—no moon and very dark—on a road composed of fine, deep dust, which raised a kind of fog all round, through which I could barely see the lead-driver's back. The order was no talking, no smoking, no lights, and we moved silently along under the stars, wrapped in darkness and dust. Happily the road was level, but night marching is always rather trying work for a driver. One's nerves are continually on edge with the constant little checks that occur. The pair in front of you seem to swim as you strain your eyes to watch the traces, and keep the team in even draught; but, do what you can, there is a good deal of jerking into the collar, and narrow shades of getting legs over traces. Once I saw the General's white horse come glimmering by and melt into the darkness. About 3.30 A.M. lights and fires appeared ahead, and we came on the camp of some other force of ours, all ready to start; soldiers' figures seen silhouetted against the dancing light of camp fires, and teams of oxen in the gloom beyond. A little farther on the column stopped, and we were told we should be there two hours. We fed the horses, and then lit fires of mealy-stalks, and cooked cocoa, and drowsed. At six our transport-waggons came up, and we got our regular breakfast. Then we rode to water, and now (August 23) I am sitting in the dust by the team, writing this. There was a stir and general move just now. I got up and looked where all eyes were looking, and saw a solitary Boer horseman issuing from the bush, holding a white flag. An orderly galloped up to him, and the two went into a hut where the General is. The rumour is that a thousand Boers want to surrender.—Rumour reduces number to one Boer.

In the end we stopped here all day, and what in the world our forced march was for, is one of the inexplicable things that so often confront the tired unit, and which he doesn't attempt to solve.

The camp was the most unpleasant I ever remember, on a deep layer of fine dust, of a dark, dirty colour. A high wind rose, and eyes, ears, mouth, food, and kit, were soon full of it. Roasting hot too. There was a long ride to water, and then I got some sleep behind my upturned saddle, waking with my eyes glued up. To watering again and evening stables. The wind went down about six and things were better. None of us drivers had blankets, though, for the kit-waggon had for some reason been left at Pynaar's River. However, I shared a bed with another chap, and was all right.

August 24.—I am now cursing my luck in an ambulance waggon. For several days I have had a nasty place coming on the sole of my foot, a veldt-sore, as it is called. To-day the doctor said I must go off duty, and I was told to ride on one of our transport-waggons. This sounds simple; but I knew better, and made up my mind for some few migrations, before I found a resting place. With the help of Williams I first put myself and my kit on one of our waggons. Then the Major came up, and was very sympathetic, but said he was sending back one waggon to Pynaar's River, and I had better go on that, and not follow the Battery. So I migrated there and waited for the next move. It came in a general order from the Staff that nothing was to go back. I was to seek an asylum in an R.A.M.C. ambulance waggon. So we trudged over to an officer, who looked at my foot and said it was all very well, but he had no rations for me. However, rations were sent for, and I got into a covered waggon, with seats to hold about eight men, sat down with six others, Munsters and Wilts men, and am now waiting for the next move. It is 11 A.M. and we have not inspanned yet, though the battery and most of the brigade have started. I hear the whole column is to go to Warm Baths, sixteen miles farther on.

We didn't start till 1.30, and halted about five. They are very pleasant chaps in the waggon, and we had great yarns about our experiences. They were in a thorough "grousing" mood. To "grouse" is soldiers' slang for to "complain." They were down on their scanty rations, their hot brown water, miscalled coffee, their incessant marching, the futility of chasing De Wet, everything. Most soldiers out here are like that. To the men-calculators and battle-thinkers it doesn't matter very much, for Tommy is tough, patient, and plucky. He may "grouse," but he is dependable. It came out accidentally that they had been on half-rations of biscuit for the last two days, and that day had had no meat issued to them, and only a biscuit and a half. By a most lucky hap, Williams and I had the night before bought a leg of fresh pig from a Yeomanry chap, and had it cooked by a nigger. In the morning, when we separated, I had hastily hacked off a chunk for him, and kept the rest, and we now had a merry meal over the national animal of the Munsters. It was pleasant to hear the rich Cork brogue in the air. It seems impossible to believe that these are the men whom Irish patriots incite to mutiny. They are loyal, keen, and simple soldiers, as proud of the flag as any Britisher. At five we outspanned, with orders to trek again at the uncomfortable hour of 1 A.M. The Orderly-corporal left me and a Sergeant Smith of the Munsters to sleep on the floor of the waggon, and the rest slept in a tent. They gave us tea, and later beef-tea. The sergeant and I sat up till late, yarning. He is a married reservist with two children, and is more than sick of the war. They gave us three blankets between us, and we lay on the cushions placed on the floor, and used the rugs to cover us both. After some months of mother earth this unusual bed gave me a nightmare, and I woke the sergeant to tell him that the mules were trampling on us, which much amused him. These worthy but tactless animals were tethered to the waggon, and pulling and straining on it all the time, which I suppose accounted for my delusion.

August 25.—Saturday.—At 1 A.M. the rest tumbled in on us, and we started off for the most abominable jolt over the country. For a wonder it was a very cold night, and of course we were all sitting up, so there was no more sleep to be got. At sunrise we arrived at Warm Baths, which turns out to be really a health-resort with hot springs. The chief feature in this peculiar place is a long row of tin houses, containing baths, I hear; also an hotel and a railway station, then the bush-covered veldt, abrupt and limitless. Baden-Powell and his troops are here, and I believe the Boers are behind some low hills which lie north of us, and run east and west. Our cart halted by a stream of water, which I washed in, and found quite warm. Coffee and biscuits were served out. A lovely day, hot, but still, so no dust. The column stops here a day or so, I hear. We have been transferred to a marquee tent, where fifteen of us lie pretty close. The Battery is quite near, and Williams has been round bringing my blankets, for it appears the drivers' kits have come on from Pynaar's River. Several fellows came round to see me, and Williams brought some duff, and Ramsey some light literature; Williams also brought a Times, in which I read about the massacre in China. I'm afraid the polyglot avengers will quarrel among themselves. Restless night. I believe I shall never sleep well under a roof again. A roof in London will be a bit smutty, though.

August 26.—Breakfast at seven. Told we were going to shift. Packed up and shifted camp about a mile to some trees; the other site was horribly smelly. Installed again in a tent. I have a hardened old shell-back of a Tommy (Yorkshire Light Infantry) on my right, and a very nice sergeant of the Wilts Regiment on my left. Some of the former's yarns are very entertaining, but too richly encrusted with words not in the dictionary to reproduce. How Kipling does it I can't think. The sergeant is a fine type of the best sort of reservist. He astonished me by telling me he had been a deserter, long ago, when a lad, after two years in the Rifle Brigade, where he was sickened by tyranny of some sort. He confessed, after re-enlistment, and was pardoned. He had been fourteen years in his present corps, and had got on well. Opposite is a young scamp of Roberts's Horse. Looks eighteen, but calls it twenty-two: his career being that he was put in the Navy, ran away, was apprenticed to the merchant service, ran away (so forfeiting the premium his parents had paid), shipped to the Cape, and joined Roberts's Horse. I asked him what he would do next. "Go home," he said, "and do nothing." If I were his father I'd kick him out. He's a nice boy, though. There are several Munsters, jolly chaps, and a Tasmanian of the Bush contingent, tall, hollow-eyed, sallow-faced fellow, with dysentery—a gentleman, and an interesting one. Williams has been here a good deal. He made some tea for the two of us in the evening, and we talked till late. I am on ordinary "camp diet," which means tea, biscuit, and bully-beef or stew. They give us tea at four, and nothing after, so one gets pretty hungry. Some men are on milk diet.

August 27.—Monday.—My foot gets on very slowly. Veldt-sores, as they are called, are very common out here, as though you may be perfectly well, as I am, the absence of fresh food makes any scratch fester. Most entertaining talks with the other chaps in the tent. The Captain has been several times, and brought papers.

August 28.—This is a very free-and-easy field hospital; no irksome regulations, and restrictions, and inspections. A doctor comes round in the morning and looks at each of us. The dressings are done once in twenty-four hours by an orderly. He is a very good chap, but you have to keep a watchful eye on him, and see that he doesn't put the same piece of lint on twice; yet you must be very tactful in suggestions, for an orderly is independent, and has the whip-hand. An officer walks round again in the evening, pretty late, and says he supposes each of us feels better. This very much amused me at first, but, after all, it roughly hit off the truth. We are nearly all slight cases. Meals come three times a day, and otherwise we are left to ourselves. The food might, I think, be better and more plentiful. I have had the privilege of hearing Tommy's opinions on R.A.M.C. orderlies, and also those of an R.A.M.C. orderly on Tommy, or perhaps rather on his own status and grievances in general. Inside the tent Tommy was free and unequivocal about the whole tribe of orderlies, the criticism culminating in a ghoulish story from my right-hand neighbour, told in broadest Yorkshire, about one in Malta, "who stole the —— boots off the —— corpse in the —— dead-'ouse." Outside the tent a communicative orderly poured into my ear the tale of Paardeberg, and its unspeakable horrors, the overwork and exhaustion of a short-handed medical corps, the disease and death in the corps itself, etc. I conclude that in such times of stress the orderly has a very bad time, but that with a column having few casualties and little enteric, like this, he is uncommonly well off. His class has done some splendid work, which Tommy sometimes forgets, but it must be remembered that it had to be suddenly and hurriedly recruited with untrained men from many outside sources, some of them not too suitable. My impression is that they want more supervision by the officers. The latter, in this hospital, are, when we see them, very kind, and certainly show the utmost indulgence in keeping off duty men who are not feeling fit for work.



CHAPTER XI.

HOSPITAL.

August 29.—Suddenly told we were all to go to Pretoria by train, railway being just open, it seems. I am disgusted with the slowness of my foot, and at being separated from the Battery. It goes to-morrow back to Pynaar's River, and then joins a flying column of some sort.

August 30.—I write lying luxuriously on a real spring-mattress bed, between real sheets, having just had my fill of real bread and real butter, besides every comfort, in a large marquee tent, with a wooden floor, belonging to the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital, Pretoria. I landed in this haven at four o'clock this morning, after a nightmare of a journey from Warm Baths. We left there about 2.30 P.M. yesterday, after long delays, and then a sudden rush. Williams came over to say good-bye, and the Captain, Lieutenant Bailey and Dr. Thorne; also other fellows with letters, and four of our empty cartridges as presents for officers of the Irish Hospital in Pretoria. We were put into a truck already full of miscellaneous baggage, and wedged ourselves into crannies. It was rather a lively scene, as the General was going down by the same train, and also Baden-Powell on his way home to England. The latter first had a farewell muster of his men, and we heard their cheers. Then he came up to the officers' carriage with the General. I had not seen him before, and was chiefly struck by his walk, which had a sort of boyish devil-may-care swing in it, while in dress he looked like an ordinary trooper, a homely-looking service jersey showing below his tunic. As the train steamed out we passed his troops, drawn up in three sides of a square facing inwards, in their shirt-sleeves. They sent up cheer after cheer, waving their hats to Baden-Powell standing on the gangway. Then the train glided past camps and piles of stores, till the last little outpost with its wood fire was past, and on into the lonely bush. It was dark soon, and I lay on my back among sacks, rifles, kit-bags, etc., looking at the stars, and wondering how long this new move would keep me from the front. We stopped many times, and at Hamman's Kraal took aboard some companies of infantry. At intervals down the line we passed little posts of a few men, sentries moving up and down, and a figure or two poring over a pot on a fire. About midnight, after a rather uneasy slumber, I woke in Pretoria. Raining. With the patient, sheep-like passivity that the private soldier learns, we dragged ourselves and our kit from place to place according to successive orders. A friendly corporal carried my kit-sack, and being very slow on my feet, we finally got lost, and found ourselves sitting forlornly on our belongings in the middle of an empty, silent square outside the station (just where we bivouacked a fortnight ago). However, the corporal made a reconnaissance, while I smoked philosophical cigarettes. He found the rest in a house near by, and soon we were sitting on the floor of a room, in a dense crowd, drinking hot milk, and in our right minds; sick or wounded men of many regiments talking, sleeping, smoking, sighing, and all waiting passively. A benevolent little Scotch officer, with a shrewd, inscrutable face, and smoking endless cigarettes, moved quietly about, counting us reflectively, as though we were a valuable flock of sheep. We sat here till about 2.30 A.M., when several waggons drove up, into which we crowded, among a jumble of kit and things. We drove about three miles, and were turned out at last on a road-side, where lanterns and some red-shawled phantoms were glimmering about. We sat in rows for some time, while officers took our names, and sorted us into medical and surgical classes. Then a friendly orderly shouldered my kit and led me into this tent. Here I stripped off everything, packed all my kit in a bundle, washed, put on a clean suit of pyjamas, and at about 4 A.M. was lying in this delicious bed, dead-beat, but blissfully comfortable. Oddly, I couldn't sleep, but lay in a dreamy trance, smoking cigarettes, with a beatific red-caped vision hovering about in the half light. Dawn and the morning stir came, with fat soft slices of fresh bread and butter and tea. I have been reading and writing all day with every comfort. The utter relaxation of mind and limb is a strange sensation, after roughing it on the veldt and being tied eternally to two horses.

There are twelve beds in this tent, and many regiments are represented among the patients; there is an Imperial Light Horse man, who has been in most of the big fights, a mercurial Argyll and Sutherland Highlander, with a witty and voluble tongue; men of the Wilts, Berks, and Yorks regiments, and in the next bed a trooper of the 18th Hussars, who was captured at Talana Hill in the first fight of the war, had spent seven months at Waterval in the barbed-wire cage which we saw, and two since at the front. It was under his bed that the escape-tunnel was started. He gave me an enthusiastic account of the one "crowded hour of glorious life" his squadron had had before they were captured. They got fairly home with the steel among a party of Boers in the hills at the back of Dundee, and had a grand time; but soon after found themselves surrounded, and after a desperate fight against heavy odds the survivors had to surrender.

September 2.—Getting very hot. Foot slow. The reaction has run its course, and I am getting bored.

September 4.—Monday.—In the evening got a cable from "London," apparently meant for Henry (my brother), saying "How are you?" and addressed to "Hospital, Pretoria." Is he really here, sick or wounded? Or is it a mistake for me, my name having been seen in a newspaper and mistaken for his? I have heard nothing from him lately, but gather that his corps, Strathcona's Horse, is having a good deal to do in the pursuit of Botha, Belfast way.

September 5.—Got the mounted orderly to try and find out about Henry from the other hospitals (there are many here), but, after saying he would, he has never turned up and can't be found. There are moments when one is exasperated by one's helplessness as a private soldier, dependent on the good-nature of an orderly for a thing like this.

September 6.—Wednesday.—A man came in yesterday who had been a prisoner of De Wet for seven weeks, having been released at Warm Baths the day I left. He said De Wet had left that force a week before, taking three hundred men, and had gone south for his latest raid. He thought that De Wet himself was a man of fair ability, but that the soul of all his daring enterprises was a foreigner named Theron. This man has a picked body of thirty skilled scouts, riding on picked horses, armed only with revolvers, and ranging seven or eight miles from the main body. De Wet always rode a white horse, and wore a covert coat. By his side rode ex-President Steyn, unarmed. The prisoners were fed as well as the Boers themselves, but that was badly, for they were nearly always short of food, and generally had only Kaffir corn, with occasional meat. One day a prisoner asked a field-cornet when they were going to get something to eat. "I don't care if you're a brass band," he said, "but give us some food." "Well, I'm very sorry," was the apologetic reply, "we've been trying for a week to get one of your convoys; it will be all right when we get it." De Wet himself was very pleasant to them, and took good care they got their proper rations. They rode always on waggons, and he spoke feelingly of the horrible monotony of the jolt, jolt, jolt, from morning to night. They nearly always had a British force close on their heels, and no sooner had they outspanned for a rest than it would be "Inspan—trek." "Up you get, Khakis; the British are coming!" Then pom-pom-pom, whew-w-w-w, as shells came singing over the rear-guard. At these interesting moments they used to put the prisoners in the extreme rear, so that the British if they saw them, could not fire. He accounted for the superior speed of the Boers by their skill in managing their convoy; every Boer is a born driver (in fact, most of their black drivers had deserted), and they take waggons over ground we should shudder at, leaving the roads if need be, and surmounting impossible ascents. Again they confine their transport to the limits of strict necessity, and are not cumbered with all the waggon-loads of officers' kit which our generals choose to allow. Their rapidity in inspanning is marvellous; all the cattle may be scattered about grazing, but in five minutes from the word "Trek!" they are inspanned and ready. Their horses, he said, were wretched, and many rode donkeys; how they managed to get about so well he never could understand, but supposed the secret of their success was this body of well-mounted, reliable scouts, who saved all unnecessary travelling to the main body. A very large proportion of the Boer force were foreigners—French, Germans, Dutch, Russians, Norwegians.

The soul of this tent is Jock, an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander. He was wounded at Modder River, and is now nominally suffering from the old wound, but there is nothing really the matter with him; and as soon as the Sister's back is turned, he turns catherine wheels up the ward on his hands. His great topic is the glory and valour of the Highland Brigade, discoursing on which he becomes in his enthusiasm unintelligibly Scotch. It is the great amusement of the rest of us to get rises out of him on the subject, and furious arguments rage on the merits of various regiments. He is as simple as a child, and really seems to believe that the Highland Brigade has won the war single-handed. He is no hand at argument, and gets crushing controversial defeats from the others, especially some Berks men, but he always takes refuge at last "in the thun rred line," as his last entrenchment. "Had ye ever a thun rred line?" he asks, and they quail. The matter came to a crisis yesterday, when one of them produced a handbook on British regiments and their histories. The number of "honours" owned by each regiment had been a hotly contested point, and they now sat down and counted them. The Royal Berks had so many—Minden, Waterloo, Salamanca, Vittoria, Sevastopol, etc. In breathless silence those accredited to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were counted. There were fewer, and Jock was stunned at first. "Ah, but ye ha' not counted the thun rred line," he shouted. "Ga'rn, what battle's that?" they scoffed. "The battle of the thun rred line," he persisted. Balaclava was on his list, but he didn't even know it was there that his gallant regiment formed the thin red line. Yet he had his revenge, for, by a laborious calculation, lasting several hours, it was found that the united honours of the Scotch regiments were greater than the united English or Irish.

September 6.—Thursday.—I am allowed to go to a chair outside the tent, a long, luxurious canvas lounge. In the valley below and to the right lies Pretoria, half buried in trees, and looking very pretty. Behind it rises a range of hills, with a couple of forts on the sky-line. Across the valley lies quite a town of tents, mostly hospitals. We all of us live in pyjamas; some wear also a long coat of bright blue. Sisters flit about, dressed in light blue, with white aprons and veils, and brilliant scarlet capes, so that there is no lack of vivid colour. A road runs in front of the tent; an occasional orderly gallops past, or a carriage passes with officers.

September 7.—To my delight this afternoon, I heard a voice at my tent door, saying, "Is Childers here?" It turned out to be Bagenal, one of the released Irish Yeomanry, and a friend of Henry's, who had come from him to look for me. Henry is wounded in the foot, but now "right as rain." He is in the Convalescent Camp, which is plainly visible from here, about a mile off. It seems that by another lucky coincidence he received letters meant for me, and so knew I was in Pretoria. The whole affair abounds in coincidences, for had I answered the cable home I should have said "foot slight," or something like it, and he would have said the same. It would have done for either. We are lucky to have found one another, for the Secretary's inquiries led to nothing.

I have been reading in the Bloemfontein Post a report of the Hospital Commission. I have no experience of General Hospitals, but some of the evidence brings out a point which is heightened by contrast with a hospital like this, and that is the importance of close supervision of orderlies, on whom most of the comfort of a patient depends. To take one instance only; if a man here is ordered port wine, it is given him personally by the Sister. To give orderlies control of wine and spirits is tempting them most unfairly. On the whole, I should say this hospital was pretty well perfect. The Sisters are kindness itself. The orderlies are well-trained, obliging, and strictly supervised. The Civil Surgeon, Dr. Williams, is both skilful and warm-hearted. There is plenty of everything, and absolute cleanliness and order.

The Strange Story of the Occupation and Surrender of Klerksdorp, as told by a Trooper of the Kimberley Light Horse, taken Prisoner about July 10, by De Wet, released at Warm Baths on August 28, and now in this ward.

Early in June, twenty-one men and four officers of the Kimberley Light Horse rode out thirty miles from Potchefstroom, and summoned the town of Klerksdorp to surrender. It is a town of fair size, predominantly Dutch, of course, but with a minority of English residents. The audacious demand of the Liliputian force was acceded to. They rode in, and the British flag was hoisted. With charming effrontery it was represented that the twenty-one were only the forerunners of an overwhelming force, and that resistance was useless. The Dutch were cowed or acquiescent, and a splendid reception was given to the army of occupation; cheering, flag-waving, and refreshments galore. Their commanding officer mounts the Town Hall steps, and addresses the townspeople, congratulating them on their loyalty, announcing the speedy end of the war, hinting at the hosts of British soon to be expected, and praising the Mayor, a brother of General Cronje, for his wise foresight in submitting; in return for which he said he would try to obtain the release of the General from Lord Roberts. The troop is then escorted by a frantic populace to their camping ground; willing hands off-saddle the horses, while others ply the tired heroes with refreshments. The town is in transports of joy. Days pass. The news spreads, and burghers come in from all sides to deliver up their arms to the Captain. He soon has no fewer than twelve hundred rifles, of which he makes a glorious bonfire, thus disarming at one stroke a number of Boers fifty times greater than his own force. There is no sign of the overwhelming forces of the British, but their early arrival is daily predicted, and the delay explained away. Meanwhile, the twenty-one live in clover, eating and drinking the best of everything, and overwhelmed with offers of marriage from adoring maidens. Luxury threatens to sap their manhood. Guards and patrols are unsteady in their gait; vigilance slackens. A grand concert is given one night, during which the whole army of occupation is inside one room. Two guards are outside, but these are Dutch police. At this moment a handful of determined enemies could have ended the occupation, and re-hoisted the Boer flag. Weeks pass, still the British do not come, but the twenty-one hold sway, no doubt by virtue of the moral superiority of the dominant race.

But at last their whole edifice of empire tumbles into ruin with the same dramatic suddenness with which it rose. The ubiquitous De Wet marches up and surrounds the town with an overwhelming force; the inevitable surrender is made, and the Boer flag flies again over Klerksdorp after six glorious weeks of British rule by a score or so of audacious troopers.

September 8.—Henry turned up in a carriage and pair, and we spent all the afternoon together. It is a strange place to meet in after seventeen months, he coming from British Columbia, I from London. A fancy strikes me that it is symbolic of the way in which the whole empire has rallied together for a common end on African soil. He is still very lame, though called convalescent, and we are trying to work his transfer over here. The day-sister has very kindly written a letter to the commanding officer at his camp about it. We compared notes, and found we had enough money to luxuriously watch his carriage standing outside at five shillings an hour. It cost a pound, but it was worth it. We had so much to talk about, that we didn't know where to begin. A band was playing all the afternoon, and a tea-party going on somewhere, to which Miss Roberts came. She came round the tents also and talked to the men. It turns out that Henry and I both came down from the front on the same day from widely different places, for he was wounded at Belfast, under Buller.

September 9.—Jock gave us a complete concert last night, songs, interspersed with the maddest, most whimsical patter, step-dances, ventriloquism, recitations. He kept us in roars for a long time. Blended with the simplicity of a baby, he has the wisdom of the serpent, and has the knack of getting hold of odd delicacies, with which he regales the ward. He is perfectly well, by the way, but when the doctor comes round he assumes a convincing air of semi-convalescence, and refers darkly to his old wound. The doctor is not in the least taken in, but is indulgent, and not too curious. As soon as his back is turned, Jock is executing a reel in the middle of the ward.

The I.L.H. man is very interesting. Like most of his corps, which was recruited from the Rand, he has a position on a mine there, and must be well over forty. He had been through the Zulu war too. His squadron was with Buller all through the terrible struggle from Colenso to Ladysmith, which they were the first to enter. They were shipped off to the Cape and sent up to relieve Mafeking with Mahon. He has been in scores of fights without a scratch, but now has veldt sores. He says Colenso was by far the worst battle, and the last fortnight before the relief of Ladysmith was a terrible strain. But he spoke very highly of the way Buller fed his men. The harder work they did, the better they fared. (The converse is usually the case.) I have heard the same thing from other fellows; there seem to have been very good commissariat arrangements on that side of the country. From first to last all men who served under Buller seemed to have liked and trusted him. Curiously enough, he says that Ladysmith was in far worse case than Mafeking when relieved. The latter could have held out months longer, he thinks, and they all looked well. In Ladysmith you could have blown any of them over with a puff of air, and the defence was nearly broken down.

Judging from this casual intercourse, he represents a type very common among colonial volunteers, but not encouraged by our own military system—I mean that of the independent, intelligent, resourceful unit. If there are many like him in his corps, it accounts amply for the splendid work they have done. He told me that not one of them had been taken prisoner, which, looking at the history of the war, and at the kind of work such a corps has to do, speaks volumes for the standard of ability in all ranks. But what I don't like, and can't altogether understand, is the intense and implacable bitterness against the Boers, which all South Africans such as him show. Nothing is too bad for the Boers. "Boiling oil" is far too good. Deportation to Ceylon is pitiful leniency. Any suggestion that the civilized customs of war should be kept up with such an enemy, is scouted. Making all allowances for the natural resentment of those who have known what it is to be an Uitlander, allowing too for "white flag" episodes and so on, I yet fail to understand this excess of animosity, which goes out of its way even to deny any ability to Boer statesmen and soldiers, regardless of the slur such a denial casts on British arms and statesmanship. After all, we have lost ten thousand or more prisoners to the Boers, and, for my part, the fact that I have never heard a complaint of bad treatment (unnecessarily bad, I mean) from an ex-prisoner, tells more strongly than anything with me in forming a friendly impression of the enemy we are fighting. Many a hot argument have we had about Boer and Briton; and I'm afraid he thinks me but a knock-kneed imperialist.

September 10.—Monday.—To my great delight, Henry turned up as an inmate here, the commanding officer at the convalescent camp having most kindly managed his transference, with some difficulty. The state of his foot didn't enter into the question at all, but official "etiquette" was in danger of being outraged. The commanding officer was a very good chap, though, and Henry seems to have escaped somehow in the tumult, unpursued. He had to walk over here.

A wounded man from Warm Baths came in to-day, and said they had had two days' fighting there; camp heavily shelled by Grobelaar.

September 13.—Thursday.—Foot nearly well, but am not allowed to walk, and very jealous of Henry, who has been given a crutch, and makes rapid kangaroo-like progress with it. There are a good many in his case, and we think of getting up a cripples' race, which Henry would certainly win.

Letters from Williams and Ramsey at the front. It seems Warm Baths is evacuated, and the Brigade has returned to Waterval. Why? However, it's nearer here, and will give me a chance of rejoining earlier.

A splendid parcel arrived from home. A Jaeger coat, chocolate, ginger, plums, cigarettes. Old Daddy opposite revels in the ginger; he is the father of the ward, being forty-seven, a pathetic, time-worn, veldt-worn old reservist, utterly done up by the fatigues of the campaign. He has had a bad operation, and suffers a lot, but he is always "first-rate, couldn't be more comfortable," when the Sisters or doctors ask him; "as long as I never cross that there veldt no more," he adds.

A locust-storm passed over the hospital to-day—a cloud of fluttering insects, with dull red bodies and khaki wings.

September 15.—Saturday.—My foot is well, at any rate for moderate use, and I am to go out on Monday. What I should like, would be to rejoin at once, but unfortunately one has first to go through the intermediate stages of the Convalescent camp, and the Rest camp, where "details" collect, to be forwarded to their regiments. I don't look forward to being a detail at all. Henry's foot is much better, and he is to go out on Monday too. He is still rather lame, though. It has been most delightful having him here.

The evenings are deliciously cool, and you can sit outside in pyjamas till 8.30, when you are turned in. We sat out for long last night, talking over plans. A staff officer has twice been in here, and seemed much amused by us two brothers having fore-gathered. I asked him about Paget's brigade, and he seemed to think they were still at or near Waterval.

September 16.—Sunday.—We went to church in the evening; a tent pleasantly filled up, a Sister at the harmonium, hymns, a few prayers, the Psalms, and a short sermon; a strange parti-coloured congregation we were, in pyjamas, slippers and blue coats, some on crutches; Sisters in their bright uniforms. Chairs were scarce, and Henry and I sat on the floor. It was dark before the end, and in the dim light of two candles at the harmonium we looked a motley throng.

Both bound for the Convalescent camp tomorrow.

September 17.—Monday.—What we actually did to-day, seeing the commandant, regaining our kit, drawing new kit, might have been done in half an hour; but we took from nine till three doing it, most of which time we were standing waiting. However, about three we found ourselves in a covered cart with five others and our kits, bound for the Convalescent camp. We had said good-bye to the Sisters and our mates. Old Daddy, I am glad to say, had "worked it," as they say, and was radiant, having been marked up for home. No more of "that there veldt" for him. Jock had already been sent out and given a post as hospital orderly, and was now spreading the fame of the Highland Brigade in new fields. We both felt, on the whole, that we had been looked after very well in a very good hospital.

The mules jolted us across the valley, and landed us at a big block of tents, and we took places in one; mother earth again. Tea, the milkless variety again, at 4.30, and then we went to Henry's old tent in the General Hospital, which adjoins this camp, and talked to a friend of his there, a man in the Rifle Brigade, with a bad splintered knee. He was shot about the same time as Henry in a fine charge made by his battalion, which I remember reading about.

Both much depressed to-night; the atmosphere of this camp is like a convict settlement. The food and arrangements are all right, but nobody knows any one else; all are casual details from every possible regiment and volunteer corps in the Empire. Nearly all are "fed up;" nearly all want to get home. A vein of bitter pessimism runs through all conversations; there is a general air of languor and depression. Fatigues are the only occupation. I should go melancholy mad here, if I stayed; but I shall apply to return to the Battery. Even then there is another stage—the Rest camp—to be gone through. We sat up late this night outside the lines, talking of this strange coincidence of our meeting, and trying to plan future ones. He feels the same about this place, but is still too lame to rejoin his corps.

September 18.—We washed in a stream some distance off, and then had breakfast. Then general parade. There must be some two or three hundred of us, and a wretched, slipshod lot we looked. A voice said, "Those who want to rejoin their regiments, two paces to the front." A few accepted the invitation. I gave in my name, and was told to parade again at two, with kit packed. The next moment we were being split up into fatigue parties. Fatigues are always a nuisance, but I don't mind them under my own folk, with a definite necessary job to be done. A fatigue under strange masters and with strange mates is very irksome, especially when, as in this case, there is little really to be done, but they don't want to leave you idle. This was a typical case. I and a dozen others slouched off under a corporal, who showed us to a sergeant, who gave us to a sergeant-major, who pointed to a line of tents (Langman's Hospital), and bade us clean up the lines. To the ordinary eye there was nothing to clean up, but to the trained eye there were some minute fragments of paper and cigarette ends. Now the great thing in a fatigue of this kind is: (1) To make it last. No good hurrying, as fresh futilities will be devised for you. (2) To appear to be doing something at all costs. (3) To escape unobtrusively at the first opportunity. There are some past-masters in the theory and practice of fatigues who will disregard No. 1, and carry on No. 2 till the golden moment when, with inspired audacity, they achieve No. 3, and vanish from the scene. This requires genius. The less confident ploddingly fulfil Nos. 1 and 2, and don't attempt No. 3. Well, we loitered up and down, and collected a few handfuls, and when we had eked out the job to the uttermost, stood together in a listless knot and waited. "What shall we do?" we asked the corporal. "Do any —— thing," he despairingly cried, "but do some —— thing!" By this time the sergeant-major too was at his wits' end as he looked round his spotless lines. But you can't easily baffle a sergeant-major. There was a pump, with a big tub by it, to catch the waste, I suppose. The artistic possibilities of these simple objects flashed across him. In his mind's eye he saw this prosaic tub sublimed into a romantic pool, and girdled by a rockery, in whose mossy crannies errant trickles of water might lose themselves, and perhaps fertilize exotic flora yet unborn. At this moment I espied a wheelbarrow in the distance, and went for it with that purposeful briskness, which may sometimes be used in fatigues of this sort to disguise your real intentions. For it is of the greatest importance in a fatigue to have an implement; it is the outward symbol of labour; if observation falls on you, you can wipe your brow and lean on it; you can even use it for a few minutes if necessary. Without some stage property of this sort only a consummate actor can seem to be busy. Well, I got to the barrow just in time. There were two; a Grenadier Guardsman got the other, and amid envious looks we wheeled them off towards a heap of rubble in the offing, "conveniently low." Then, with a simultaneous sigh of relief, we mechanically produced our pipes and tobacco, found comfortable seats against the pile of rubble, and had a good chat, lazily watching the genesis of the naiad's grotto in the distance. When we had had a good smoke, and fought our battles over again, we got up and saw signs that the fatigue was guttering out; so we put a few stones in each of the barrows, and, well content, journeyed back to the scene of operations, and laid our stones round the base of the tub, more because we knew nowhere else to lay them than for any other reason, for the sergeant-major had apparently forgotten his grandiose designs in other schemes, and had disappeared. The fatigue party was thinning. The corporal said what may be freely translated as "disappear quietly," and we made off to our camp, where I found Henry, who had doctor's leave to be excused fatigues, being lame.



CHAPTER XII.

A DETAIL.

September 18, continued.—At two we paraded again with our kits, and about a dozen of us marched off to the Rest camp, which is the next stage. Everything was very hurried, but Henry had just time to tell me that he was ordered to Bloemfontein, when I had to start. We said good-bye, and I don't suppose will meet again till London. The Rest camp was about four miles off, on the other side of Pretoria. Arrived very hot and dusty. Waited some time, and then was told that I must go to the Artillery Barracks, another two miles in quite a different direction. I might just as well have gone there direct. However, I was lucky enough to get a lift for my kit and myself most of the way, and landed about 5.30 at a collection of big, red-brick buildings outside the town, was handed from person to person for some time, and finally found a resting-place on the floor of a huge bare room in a sort of a tin outbuilding, where some 150 R.A. men of all batteries were sitting or lying on their kit round the walls and down the centre; like lost souls, I pictured them, sitting round one of Dante's purgatorial retreats. I felt exactly like going to school again for the first time, though, of course, I soon found them all very friendly. I learned that there was no food to be got till to-morrow, but I foraged about till I found a sort of canteen-tent, where they sold buns, and, having some tea of my own, got water boiled over a friendly fire, and now feel happier; but I fervently hope I shall get back to the Battery soon. When I heard last from Williams, they had returned to Waterval after some hard forced marching.

September 19.—Loafed away last evening somehow. A wan electric light half lit the room after dark; the souls "twittered" like Homer's in dejected knots. "Fatigues all day, and a pass into town once a week," seem to be the prospect. Reveille to-day at six. At parade, after breakfast, I was told off to act as an office orderly to Captain Davies, the Inspector of Ordnance, an all-day job, but otherwise with possibilities in it, I judged. Found the office, swept it out, and dusted and tidied things. Parlour-maid's work is nearly new to me (I have only cleaned windows before, in barracks at St. John's Wood), and I found myself trying to remember what I used to see Mary doing in the flat. I fancy my predecessor must have been a "slattern," for everything was thick with dust. I wish the Captain would leave his matches behind; there is not a match to be got in Pretoria now for the ordinary mortal. I'm afraid there are no perquisites in this situation. Also I wish he would get a waste-paper basket. I have made a humane resolve never to be without one myself, at home. Captain rode up about 9.30; I tied up his pony, and then sat on a stone step outside, feeling rather like a corner-boy trying to pick up a job. Found a friendly collar-maker in a room near. He also is a "detail," or "excess number," but a philosopher withal. He told me that from his observation I had a "soft job."—Nothing happened, so I have adjourned to some tarpaulins in the back yard. A shout of "Ord'ly" from the office interrupted me, and I was sent with a blue letter to the Chief Ordnance Officer in a camp about a mile away. Again to the same place in the afternoon, and one or two other little errands, but between whiles I had plenty of time to write. The Captain rode off about five, and I somehow got attached to the collar-maker, who was extremely friendly, and we spent the evening together. Looked in at a S.C.A. tent, and found a service going on. The Chaplain of the Bushmen was speaking.

September 20.—I got a pass and walked to Pretoria in the evening; saw the place by daylight, and was rather disillusioned. The good buildings and the best shops are in a very small compass, and are nothing much at the best, though the Palace of Justice and the Government buildings are tolerably dignified. All this part seems quite new. There is very little to be bought. Indeed, the wonder is that there is anything, for no trade supplies have come in since the war began. By way of testing prices, I took a cup of tea and some cake in a pleasant little shop; half a crown; worth it though, for the tea had fresh milk in it. Groceries seem unobtainable, but I made a valuable haul at a chemist's, in the shape of tea-tablets, which I think are the most useful things one can have out here. Matches can't be bought at all, but if you buy other things, and then are very polite, they will throw in a box for love; at least, a tobacconist did so for me. They used to be a shilling a box, but the authorities limited the price to a penny, a futile proceeding.

The charm of Pretoria lies in its outlying roads, with its cool little villas peeping out of green. The place is very quiet, and every one is in khaki.

September 12.—Can't get sent to the Battery yet. Our tin room grows fuller. At night it is much too crowded, and is horribly stuffy; for the nights are very hot. But I am quite at home now, and enjoy the society, mixed though it is. I have literary arguments with a field-battery bombardier. We both rather pity one another, for he can't appreciate Thackeray and I can't understand Marie Corelli, whose works, with their deep spiritual meaning, he speaks of reverently. He hopes to educate me up to "Ardath," and I have offered him the reversion of "Esmond," which I bought yesterday.

Went down to town in the evening and visited the Irish Hospital, which has commandeered the Palace of Justice, and turned it to better uses than Kruger's venial judges ever put it to. The patients dwell "in marble halls," spacious, lofty rooms. Had a pleasant chat with Dr. Stokes. (The I.H. were shipmates of ours on the Montfort.) Also, to my great delight, found two men of our Battery there; it was a great treat to see familiar faces again. They said the Battery or part of it was at Waterval. I don't see why I shouldn't rejoin at once if they will only let me. I joined them in an excellent tea. They spoke most highly of the hospital. I had no pass to get back with, and didn't know the countersign, but I bluffed through all right.

September 22.—No prospect of getting away, though I apply daily to rejoin. Sent down to Pretoria with a letter in the middle of the day, so took the opportunity of visiting the Soldiers' Home, where you can get mild drinks, read the papers, and write. Visited the Battery chaps again in the evening. I have grown quite reckless about the lack of a pass; "Orderly to Captain Davies," said in a very off-hand tone I found an excellent form of reply to sentries. I have an "Esmond," and am enjoying it for about the fiftieth time. It serves to pass away the late evenings. A great amusement in the barrack-room after dark is gambling. The amounts won and lost rather astonish me. Happily it is done in silence, with grim intensity. But I have only an inch of candle, and can't buy any more. Next me on the floor is a gunner of the 14th Battery, which lost its guns at Colenso. He has just given me a graphic account of that disastrous day, and how they fought the guns till ammunition failed and then sat (what was left of them) in a donga close behind, with no teams with which to get more ammunition or retire the guns. I have also had the story of Sanna's Post from a U Battery man who was captured there. He described how they were marching through a drift one morning, with no thought of Boers in their heads, when they suddenly attacked at close range, and were helpless. I may mention a thing that strikes me about all such stories (and one hears a good many out here) from soldiers who have been "given away" by bad leadership. There is criticism, jesting and satirical generally, but very little bitterness. Bravery is always admired, but it is so universal as to be taken for granted. The popularity of officers depends far more on the interest they show in the daily welfare of the men, in personal good-fellowship, in consideration for them in times of privation and exhaustion, when a physical strain which tells heavily on the man may tell lightly on the officers. It is a big subject and a delicate one, but rightly or wrongly, I have got the impression that more might be done in the army to lower the rigid caste-barrier which separates the ranks. No doubt it is inevitable and harmless at home, but in the bloody, toilsome business of war it is apt to have bad results. Of course is only part of the larger question of our general military system, deep-rooted as that is in our whole national life, and now placed, with all its defects and advantages, in vivid contrast with an almost exactly opposite system.

September 23.—Sunday.—Ammunition fatigue for most of us, while I attended as office-boy as usual, and was walking about with letters most of the day. There are farriers and wheelers also at work in this yard, so that one can always light one's pipe or make a cup of tea at the forge fire. Just outside are ranged a row of antiquated Boer guns of obsolete types; I expect they are the lot they used to show to our diplomatic representative when he asked vexatious questions about the "increasing armaments." I believe the Boers also left quantities of good stores here when Pretoria was abandoned. These are fine new barracks scarcely finished. They enclose a big quadrangle. Three or four batteries, horse and field, are quartered in them now. Tried to get to Pretoria after hours, but was stopped by a conscientious sentry, who wanted my pass. I wished to get to the station, with a vague idea of finding when there would be a train to Waterval, and then running away.

September 24.—Worried the Sergeant-Major again, and was told that I might get away to-morrow. Meanwhile, I am getting deeper in the toils.

I was sitting on my tarpaulins writing, and feeling rather grateful for the "softness" of my job, when a shout of "Ord'ly!" sent me into the office. The Captain, who is a good-natured, pleasant chap, asked me if I could do clerk's work. I said I was a clerk at home, and thought I could. He said he thought I must find it irksome and lonely to be sitting outside, and I might just as well pass the time between errands in writing up ledgers inside. I was soon being initiated into Ordnance accounts, which are things of the most diabolical complexity. Ordnance comprises practically everything; from a gun-carriage to a nail; from a tent, a waggon, a binocular, a blanket, a saddle, to an ounce of grease and all the thousand constituents which go to make up everything. These are tabulated in a book which is a nightmare of subsections, and makes you dizzy to peruse. But no human brain can tabulate Ordnance exhaustively, so half the book is blank columns, in which you for ever multiply new subsections, new atoms of Ordnance which nobody has thought of before. The task has a certain morbid fascination about it, which I believe would become a disease if you pursued it long enough, and leave you an analyticomaniac, or some such horror. Myriad bits of ordnance are continually pouring in and pouring out, and the object is to track them, and balance them, and pursue every elusive atom from start to finish. It may be expendible, like paint, or non-expendible, like an anvil. You feel despairingly that a pound of paint, born at Kimberley, and now at Mafeking, is disappearing somewhere and somehow; but you have to endow it with a fictitious immortality. An anvil you feel safer about, but then you have to use it somewhere, and account for its surplus, if there is any. Any one with a turn for metaphysics would be at home in Ordnance; Aristotle would have revelled in it.

It has just struck me that 1s. 5d. a day for a charwoman, a messenger and an accountant, to say nothing of a metaphysician, all rolled into one, is low pay. In London you would have to give such a being at least a pound a week.

September 25.—Ledgers, vouchers, errands, most of the day. Melting hot, with a hot wind. Good news from the Sergeant-major that he is putting in an application for a railway pass for me to Waterval, without waiting for the other formalities.

September 26.—Wednesday.—Hopes dashed to the ground. Commandant won't sign the application till some other officer does something or other, which there seems little chance of his doing.



CHAPTER XIII.

SOUTH AGAIN.

Ordered home—Back to the Battery—Good-bye to the horses—The charm of the veldt—Recent work of the Battery—Paget's farewell speech— Hard-won curios—The last bivouac—Roberts's farewell—The southward train—De Wet?—Mirages—A glimpse of Piquetberg road—The Aurania— Embarkation scenes—The last of Africa—A pleasant night.