Of all wars, civil wars are the most inexpressibly saddening; and this terrible struggle was largely of that type. Neighbours who had known each other intimately for years, members of the same church, and even of the same family, found themselves ranged on opposite sides in this awful fray. When Boer and Briton came to blows it was a brother-bond that was broken, in sight of the awestruck natives. It was once again even as in the days of old when Ephraim envied Judah and Judah vexed Ephraim! Nevertheless, times without number, a concert in the midst of strife, such as that described above, sufficed to draw together all classes in friendliest possible intercourse, and seemed a tuneful prophecy of the better days that are destined yet to dawn.

[Sidenote: More good work on our right flank.]

We can only linger to take one more glance at this type of service by this type of worker before we proceed with our story of the Guards' advance. Winburg, like Heilbron, lay on our right flank, and was occupied by the troops about the same time as we entered Kroonstad. The Wesleyan clergyman was the only representative of the Churches left in the place; and the story of his devotion is outlined in the following memorandum to the D.A.A.G. with the official reply thereto:—

WINBURG, O. R. C. Dec. 21, 1900.

To MAJOR GOUGH, D.A.A.G.,

Kindly allow me to state a few facts in order to show the exceptional character of my position and work, both before and since the time of my appointment.

1. Previous to the occupation of Winburg by the British troops, I was employed in attending to the sick and wounded English soldiers who were brought here as prisoners of war by the Dutch Forces.

2. During a period of at least five months—as no other chaplain or clergyman was living within a distance of about fifty miles—I was the only one available for religious services, either parade or voluntary, for hospital visitation and burial duties, which were then so urgently and frequently needed. We had six hospitals, and occasionally as many as three funerals on the same day.

3. From the date of the British occupation, May 5th, my knowledge of the country and people—acquired during twenty-five years' residence in various parts of the O. R. C.—has been at the disposal of the military authorities. I have often acted as interpreter and translator, and as such accompanied the Commandant of Winburg when, a few weeks ago, he went to meet the leader of the Boer forces near their laager in this district.

4. As almost all the English population left the town before the war, our nearly empty church was then, and still remains, available for the garrison troops. About nine-tenths of both my Sunday and week-day congregations are soldiers, for whom all the seats are free.

5. Immediately after the arrival of the British forces, our church was utilised for an entirely undenominational Soldiers' Home, and books for the emergency were supplied from my library. Colonel Napier, who was then C.O. of Winburg, expressed his appreciation of this part of our garrison work, and assisted in its development. By his direction, the Home was removed to the premises it now occupies. It consists of separate rooms for reading, writing and refreshments; also rooms and kitchen for the manageress. It is still under my superintendence.—Yours, C. HARMON.

(Copy.) Colonel Napier's Recommendation.

To STAFF OFFICER, Bloemfontein.

I strongly recommend that the Rev. C. Harmon be retained as an acting chaplain to the troops. I can fully endorse all the reverend gentleman has stated in the above memorandum. He has been most useful to the Garrison and Military Authorities at Winburg, and his thorough knowledge of the Dutch language makes his services among the refugees and natives indispensable.

JOHN SCOTT NAPIER, Col.

WINBURG, Jan. 3, 1901.

It is a supreme satisfaction to know that our men were thus in so many ways well served by the local clergy of South Africa, to whom our warmest thanks are due.



CHAPTER VIII

GETTING TO THE GOLDEN CITY

So utter, and for the time being so ludicrously complete, was the collapse of our adversaries' defence, that on that first night within the Transvaal border we lay down to rest on the open veldt without any slightest shelter, but also without any slightest fear, save only the fear of catching cold; and slept as undisturbed as though we had been slumbering amid hoar-frost and heather on the famous Fox Hills near Aldershot. On that particular Sunday night our tentless camp was visited by ten or twelve degrees of frost, so that when the morning dawned my wraps were as hoary as the hair of their owner is ever likely to become.

[Sidenote: An elaborate night toilet.]

But then as the night, so must the nightdress be; and my personal toilet was arranged in the following tasteful fashion. Every garment worn during the heat of the day was of course worn throughout the chilly night, including boots; for at that season of the year we regularly went to bed with our boots on. Indeed the often footsore men were expressly forbidden to take them off at night, lest a possible night attack should find them in that important respect unready. Over the tunic was put a sweater, and over that a greatcoat, with a hideous woollen helmet as a crown of glory for the head, and a regulation blanket wrapped round the waist and legs. Then on the least rugged bit of ground within reach a waterproof sheet was spread, and on that was planted the "bag blanket," into which I carefully crept, having first thrown over it an old mackintosh as some small protection from the heavy evening dew and the early morning frost. So whether the ground proved rough as a nutmeg-grater or ribbed like a gridiron, I soon said good-night to the blushing stars above me and to the acres of slumbering soldiers all around. After that, few of us were in fit condition to judge whether there were ten degrees of frost or twelve till five o'clock next morning, when we sat on the whitened ground to breakfast by starlight. At that unkindly hour the least acute observer of Nature's varying moods could not fail to note that a midwinter dawn five thousand feet above the sea-level can even in South Africa be bitingly severe.

[Sidenote: Capturing Clapham Junction.]

After two more days of heavy marching we found abundant and beautiful spar stones springing up out of the barren veldt, as in my native Cornwall; and we needed no seer to assure us that the vast and invaluable mining area of Johannesburg was close at hand. Presently we passed one big set of mining machinery after another, each with its huge heap of mine refuse. If only some clotted cream had been purchasable at one of the wayside houses, or a dainty pasty had anywhere appeared in sight, I could almost have fancied myself close to Camborne.

Instead, however, of marching straight towards Johannesburg, we suddenly pounced on Elandsfontein, the most supremely important railway junction in all South Africa—its Clapham Junction—and following swiftly in the footsteps of Henry's mounted infantry took its defenders delightfully by surprise. The Gordons on our far left had about a hundred casualties, and the C.I.V.'s on our right, fighting valiantly, were also hard hit, but the Guards escaped unscathed. Shots enough, however, were fired to lead us to expect a serious fight, and to necessitate a further exhausting march of five or six miles, out and back, amid the mine heaps lying just beyond the junction. Fortunately, the fight proved no fight, but only a further flight; though the end of a specially heavy day's task brought with it, none the less, an abounding recompense. Whilst most of the Boers precipitately vanished, those unable to get away gave themselves up as prisoners of war, and thus without further effort we secured a position of vast strategic importance, including the terminus of the railway line leading to Natal; but it was also the terminus of the long line from Johannesburg and the regions beyond; so that there was now no way of escape for any of the rolling stock thereon. It might peradventure be destroyed before the troops could rescue it, but got away for the further service of the Boers it could not be. Among other acquisitions we captured at Elandsfontein a capitally equipped hospital train, hundreds of railway trucks laden more or less with valuable stores, and half a dozen locomotives with full head of steam on; so that had we arrived a little less suddenly, locomotives, trains and empty trucks would all have eluded our grasp and got safely to Pretoria. It was indeed an invaluable haul, especially for haulage purposes, and we had tramped 130 miles in the course of a single week to secure it!

[Sidenote: Dear diet and dangerous.]

Long after dark, weary and footsore and famished, we stumbled back three miles to our chosen camping ground. Since the previous evening some of the Scots Guards had managed to secure only a hasty drink of coffee, so they told me, as their sole rations for the four-and-twenty hours; but they seemed as happy as they were hungry, like men proudly conscious that they had done a good day's work that brought them, so they fondly supposed, perceptibly nearer home. Assisted by many an undesirable expletive, they staggered and darkly groped their way over some of the very roughest ground we had thus far been required to traverse; they got repeatedly entangled in a profusion of barbed wire; scrambled into deep railway ditches, then scrambled out again; till at last they reached their appointed resting-place, and in dead darkness proceeded as best they could to cook their dinners.

Greatly to our surprise the people, who seemed mostly Dutch or of Dutch relationship, received us like those in the Orange Free State towns, with demonstrative kindness; and in many a case brought out their last loaf as a most welcome gift to the just then almost ravenous soldiery. Every scrap of available provisions was eagerly bought up, and here as elsewhere honestly paid for, often at prices that seemed far from honest. Months after at this very place I learned that eggs were being sold at from ten to fifteen shillings a dozen, and fowls at seven shillings a-piece!

An Australian correspondent of the London Times declares that as it was with us, so was it with the troops that he accompanied. About the very time we reached this Germiston Junction, his men, he says, were practically starving; and any other army in the world would have commandeered whatever food came in its way. He was with Rundle's Brigade, "the starving Eighth" as they were well called, seeing that for a while they were rationed on one and a half biscuits a day. Yet they gave Mr Stead's "ill-treated women" two shillings a loaf for bread that sixpence would have well paid for, and no one was allowed to bring foodstuffs away from any farmhouse without getting a written receipt from the vendor. If the military police caught a ragged Leinster packing a chicken down his trouser leg through a big hole in the seat, and he could not show a receipt for the bird, away went the man's purchase to the nearest Field Hospital. To this same representative of the Press the wife of a farmer still out fighting our troops naively said, "For goodness sake do keep those wicked Colonials away; I am terrified of them" (he was himself a Colonial)—"but I am so glad when the English come; they pay me so well." That was the experience of almost all who had anything to sell, alike in town and country; and this particular Frau confessed to having made a profit of ten clear pounds in a single week out of the bread sold to the British soldiers. It is said, however, that in some cases when they asked for bread our men got a bullet. Around many a farmstead there hovered far worse dangers than the danger of being fleeced.

[Sidenote: No wages but the Sjambok.]

At Elandsfontein an almost frantic welcome was awarded us by the crowds of Kaffirs that eagerly watched our coming. As we marched through their Location almost the only darkie I spoke to happened to be a well-dressed intelligent Wesleyan, who said to me, "Good Boss, we are truly glad that you have come; for the last seven months the Boers have made us work without any wages except the sjambok across our backs." It is only fair to add that the burghers on commando during those same seven months were supposed to receive no wages; and the Kaffirs, who were commandeered for various kinds of service in connection with the war, could scarcely expect the Boer Government to deal more generously with them. From the very beginning, however, the Kaffirs in the Transvaal were often made to feel that their condition was near akin to that of slaves. The clauses in the Sand River Convention which were intended to be the Magna Charta of their liberties proved a delusion and a snare. Recent years, however, have effected immense improvements in their relative position and importance. Since the mines were opened their labour has been keenly competed for, and a more considerate feeling concerning them pervades all classes; but they are still regarded by many of their masters as having no actual rights either in Church or State. So when a victorious English army appeared upon the scene they fondly thought the day of their full emancipation had dawned, and in wildly excited accents they shouted as we passed, "Victoria! Victoria!" Whereupon our scarcely less excited lads in responsive shouts replied, "Pretoria! Pretoria!"

Surely never was the inner meaning and significance of a great historic event more aptly voiced. The natives beheld in the advent of English rule the promise of ampler liberty and enlightenment under Victoria the Good; but the hearts of the soldiers were set on the speedy capture of Pretoria, as the crowning outcome of all their toil, and their probable turning-point towards home. Well said both! Pretoria! Victoria!

[Sidenote: The Gold Mines.]

Lord Roberts' rapid march rescued from impending destruction the costly machinery and shafting of the Witwaterrand gold mines, in which capital to the extent of many millions had been sunk, and out of which many hundreds of millions are likely to be dug. By some strange freak of nature this lofty ridge, lying about 6000 feet above the sea level, and forming a narrow gold-bearing bed over a hundred miles long, is by universal confession the richest treasure-house the ransackers of the whole earth have yet brought to light. "The wealth of Ormuz or of Ind," immortalised by Milton's most majestic epic, the wealth of the Rand completely eclipses, and nothing imagined in the glowing pages of the "Arabian Nights" rivals in solid worth the sober realities now being unearthed along this uninviting ridge. It fortunately was not in the power of the Boer Government to carry off this as yet ungarnered treasure, or it would certainly have shared the fate of the cart-loads of gold in bar and coin with which President Kruger decamped from Pretoria; but it is beyond all controversy that many of that Government's officials favoured the proposal to wreck, as far as dynamite could, both the machinery and mines in mere wanton revenge on the hated Outlanders that mainly owned them. That policy was thwarted by the swiftfootedness of the troops, and by the tactfulness of Commandant Krause, through whose arranging Johannesburg was peacefully surrendered; but who now, by some strange irony of fate, lies a felon in an English jail!

Nevertheless, later on enough mischief of this type was done to demonstrate how deadly a blow a few desperate men might have dealt at the chief industry of South Africa; and concerning it Sir Alfred Milner wrote as follows:—

Fortunately the damage done to the mines has not been large relatively to the vast total amount of the fixed capital sunk in them. The mining area is excessively difficult to guard against purely predatory attacks having no military purpose, because it is, so to speak, "all length and no breadth," one long thin line stretching across the country from east to west for many miles. Still, garrisoned as Johannesburg now is, it is only possible successfully to attack a few points in it. Of the raids hitherto made, and they have been fairly numerous, only one resulted in any serious damage. In that instance the injury done to the single mine attacked amounted to L200,000, and it is estimated that the mine is put out of working for two years. This mine is only one out of a hundred, and is not by any means one of the most important. These facts may afford some indication of the ruin which might have been inflicted, not only on the Transvaal and all South Africa, but on many European interests, if that general destruction of mine works which was contemplated just before our occupation of Johannesburg had been carried out. However serious in some respects may have been the military consequences of our rapid advance to Johannesburg, South Africa owes more than is commonly recognised to that brilliant dash put forward by which the vast mining apparatus, the foundation of all her wealth, was saved from the ruin threatening it.

That this wonderful discovery of wealth was indirectly the main cause of the war is undeniable. But for the gold the children of "Oden the Goer," whose ever restless spirit has sent them round the globe, would never have found their way in any large numbers to the Transvaal. There would have been no overmastering Outlander element, no incurable race competitions and quarrels, no unendurable wrongs to redress; the Boer Republic might again have become bankrupt, or broken up into rival chieftaincies as of old, but it could not have become a menace to Great Britain, and would never have rallied the whole Empire to repel its assault on the Empire. It is too usually with blood that gold is bought!

[Sidenote: The Soldiers' share.]

The war was practically the purchase price of this prodigious wealth, but it effected no transfer in the ownership. It may have in part to provide for the expenses of the war, but it is not claimed by the British Government as part of the spoils of war; and when Local Government is granted it will still be included in local assets. The capitalists, colonists and Kaffirs who live and thrive through the mines will thrive yet more as the result of juster laws, ample security, and a more honest administration; but the soldiers whose heroism brought to pass the change profit nothing by it. The niggers driving our carts were paid L4 a month, while the khaki men who did the actual fighting were required to content themselves with anything over about fifteen pence a day.

When Cortez, with his accompanying Spaniards, discovered Mexico, he sent word to its ruler, Montezuma, that his men were suffering from a peculiar form of heart disease which only gold could cure; so he desired him of his royal bounty to send them gold and still more gold. In the end those Spanish leeches drained the country dry; though when convoying their treasure across the sea no small portion of it was seized by English warships, and shared as loot among the captors. After the treasure ship Hermione had thus been secured off Cadiz by the Actaean and the Favorite, each captain received L65,000 as prize-money (so Fitchett tells us); each lieutenant, L13,000; each petty officer, L2000; and each seaman, L500. Our fighting men and officers found in the Transvaal vastly ampler wealth, but no such luck and no such loot. Well would it be, however, if these mining Directorates when about to declare their next dividends should bethink them generously of the widows and orphans of those whose valour and strong-footedness rescued their mines from imminent plunder and destruction.

[Sidenote: The Golden City.]

Johannesburg, which we entered unopposed on May 31st, though it covers an enormous area and contains several fine buildings, is only fourteen years old, and consequently is still very largely in the corrugated iron stage of development which is always unlovely, and in this case proved specially so. Many of the houses were deserted, most of the stores were roughly barricaded, and there were signs not a few of recent violence and wholesale theft, at which none need wonder. Long before the war broke out there was presented to President Kruger and his Raad a petition for redress of grievances signed, as already stated, by adult male Outlanders that are said to have outnumbered the total Boer male population at that time of the whole Transvaal. Most of those who signed were resident on the Rand; and as soon as war hove in sight these "undesirables" were hurried across the border, leaving behind them in many cases well-furnished houses and well-stocked shops. More than ten thousand of them took up arms in defence of the Empire, and what befell their property is best told by the one Wesleyan minister who was privileged to remain all the time in the town, was the first to greet me when with the Guards I marched into the Market Square, and soon after established our first Wesleyan Soldiers' Home in the Transvaal. He, the Rev. S. L. Morris, on that point writes as follows:—

President Kruger proclaimed Sunday, May 27th, and the two following days, as days of humiliation and prayer. Notices to this effect were sent to officials and ministers, and doubtless there were many who devoutly followed the directions. The conduct of one large section of the Dutch people of Johannesburg was, however, very strange. In Johannesburg, as in Pretoria, the last ten years have seen the development of special locations where the lowest class of Dutch people reside. For the most part these are the families of landless Boers. Until recent years they lived as squatters on the farms of their more thrifty compatriots. Their life then was one of progressive degradation. Under the Kruger policy hundreds of such families were encouraged to settle in the neighbourhood of the towns. Plots of ground were given them, and there they built rough shanties, and formed communities which were a South African counterpart to the submerged tenth of England. There was this difference, that these bywoners became a great strength to the Kruger party. The males of sixteen years of age and upwards had all the privileges which were denied to the most influential of the Uitlanders. It was the votes of Vrededorp, the poor Dutch quarter, that decided the representation of Johannesburg in the Volksraad. On the days of humiliation and prayer, when the army under Lord Roberts was within twenty miles of Johannesburg, the families of these poor burghers broke into the commissariat stores of their own Government, into the food depots from which doles had been distributed, and into private stores; taking away to their homes, goods, clothing and provisions of all sorts. Those who witnessed the invasion of the great goods sheds where the Republican commissariat had its headquarters say that the people defied the officials, daring them to shoot them. I met many of these people returning to their homes laden with spoils. Sometimes there was a wheelbarrow heaped up with sacks of flour, or tins of biscuits, or preserved meat. Men, women, children and Kaffir "boys" trudged along with similar articles, or with bundles of boots and clothing. Dr Krause, the commandant, did his best to secure order and to repress looting, but he lacked the reliable agents who alone could have controlled the people. This sort of thing was going on on Monday and Tuesday, May 28th and 29th. But for the astonishing marches by which Lord Roberts paralysed opposition, and which enabled him to summon the town to surrender on the Wednesday morning, it is hard to say what limit could have been put to the disorder. In all probability the dangerous section of the large Continental element in the population would have broken out into crime. Looting had hitherto been confined to the property which was left unprotected, and few unoccupied houses had not been ransacked; but had the British occupation been delayed a few days the consequences would have been disastrous.

[Sidenote: Astonishing the Natives.]

As on that Thursday morning we tramped steadily from Germiston to Johannesburg we were greatly surprised to find near each successive mine crowds of natives all with apparently well oiled faces that literally shone in the sunlight; but natives of every conceivable shade of sableness, and in some cases of almost every permissible approach to nudity. They were for the most part what are called "raw Kaffirs"; and as we were astonished at their numbers after so many months of war and consequent stoppage of work, so were they also astonished at our numbers, and confided to our native minister their wonder at finding there were so many Englishmen in all the world as they that day saw upon the Rand. It was a vitally important object lesson that by this time has made its beneficent influence felt among all the tribes of the South African sub-continent.

About noon, so Mr Morris told me, a company of Lancers came into the open space in front of the Court-house, and formed a hollow square around the flagstaff. Not long after Lord Roberts with his Staff, and Commandant Krause, rode into the square; then the Vierkleur slid down the staff, and instantly after up went Lady Roberts' little silken Union Jack. The British flag floated at last over this essentially British town, the sure pledge as we hope of honest government and of equal rights alike for Briton and for Boer. It was two o'clock before the Guards' Brigade reached this saluting point, but till nearly midnight one continuous stream of men and horses, of guns and ambulances, passed through the streets to their respective camping grounds. These well fagged troops by their fitness, even more than by their numbers, astonished many an onlooker who was by no means a "raw Kaffir"; and one old Dutchman expressed the thought of many minds when he said, "You seem able to turn out soldiers by machinery, all of the same age!"

My excellent host of that red-letter day adds: "It is intensely gratifying to be able, after the lapse of more than nine months, to give our soldiers the same good name that was so well deserved then. To deny that there had been any offences would be ridiculous; but the absence of serious crime, and more particularly of gross offences, must be acknowledged to confer upon our South African army a unique distinction." That witness is true!



CHAPTER IX

PRETORIA THE CITY OF ROSES

War and worship live only on barest speaking terms, and to the latter the former makes few concessions; so it came to pass that Whitsunday, like so many another Sunday spent in South Africa, found us again upon the march, with the inevitable result that no parade service could possibly be held. Everybody, however, seemed full of confident expectation that the next day we should reach Pretoria, and perhaps take possession of it.

[Sidenote: Whit-Monday and Wet Tuesday.]

"If we take Pretoria on Whit-Monday," said one of the Guardsmen, "they will get the news in England next day, and then that will be Wet Tuesday"; which was a prophecy that seemed not in the least unlikely to be fulfilled, inasmuch as an Englishman's favourite way of showing his supreme delight is by accepting an extra drink, or offering one. Others were of opinion that, with a ring of forts around Pretoria on which hundreds of thousands of pounds had been expended, the Boer commanders would make a desperate stand in defence of their much loved capital, and so keep us at bay for many a day. But nothing daunted by such uncertainties as to what might be awaiting them, our men were on the march towards those famous forts early on Monday morning, and we soon found a lively Bank Holiday was in store for us. Shortly after noon, General French's cavalry having worked round to the north of the town, General Pole Carew prepared to attack on the south and our bombardment of the forts began, but drew from them no reply. All the Boer guns were elsewhere; and a little way behind our own busy naval guns, though hidden by the crest of the hill, lay the Grenadier Guards awaiting orders to take their place and part in the fray.

Presently a sharp succession of Boer shells, intended for the aforesaid naval guns, came flying over our heads, and dropping among our men. One hit a horse, which no man will ride again; one struck an ambulance waggon, and scared its solitary fever patient almost out of his senses; one dropped close to where a group of generals had just before met in consultation; but only one of these Boer Whitsuntide presents burst, and even that, strange to tell, caused no casualties, though it drove a few kilted heroes to run for refuge into a deepish pit, near which I sat upon the ground, and watching, wondered where the next shell would burst. When a little later the Guards moved further to the right to take up a position still nearer to the town, Boer bullets came flying over that same ridge and planted themselves among our left flank men; but when we tried to pick up some of these leaden treasures to keep as curios, so deeply imbedded were they in the soil they could not be removed. Yet they were playfully spoken of as spent bullets.

[Sidenote: "Light after dark."]

This grim music of gun and rifle was maintained almost till sunset, and then died away, leaving us in doubt whether the next day would witness a renewal of the fight, or whether, as on so many former occasions, the Boers under cover of the darkness would execute yet another strategic movement to the rear. That night we slept once more on the open veldt, made black by the vast sweep of recent grass fires; and next morning, after a starlight breakfast, I as usual retired to kneel in humble prayer, imploring the Divine guardianship and guidance for all in the midst of whom I dwelt. Presently I was startled by an outburst of wildest cheering from one group; and a moment after from a second; so springing to my feet I found our lads hurling their helmets in the air, and shouting like men demented. Not for the chaplains only that glad hour turned prayer to praise, and thrilled all hearts with patriotic if not pious pride.

An officer was riding post-haste from point to point where our men were massed, bearing the delicious tidings that Pretoria too had unconditionally surrendered. The news swiftly sped from battalion to battery, and from battery to battalion. First here, then there, then far away yonder, the cheering rang out clear and loud as a trumpet call. Comrade congratulated comrade, while Christian men, with tear-filled eyes, reverently looked up and rendered thanks to Him of whom it is written, "Thine is the victory."

[Sidenote: Why the surrender?]

Remembering how feeble Mafeking was held for months by the merest handful of men pitted against a host, it is not easy to understand why this city of roses, so pretty, and of which the Boers were all so proud, was opened to its captors after only the merest pretence at opposition. Lord Roberts is reported to have said that in his opinion it occupied the strongest position he had yet seen in all South Africa; and to my non-professional mind it instantly brought to remembrance the familiar lines which tell how round about Jerusalem the hilly bulwarks rise. The surrender of such a centre of their national life must have been to the burghers like the plucking out of a right eye, or the cutting off of a right hand. How came it to pass, without an effort to hinder it?

The German expert, Count Sternberg, who accompanied the Boers throughout the war, declared that though considered from the continental standpoint they are bad soldiers; in their own country, in ambushes or stratagems, which constitute their favourite type of warfare, "they are simply superb." He adds they would have achieved much greater success if they had not abandoned all idea of taking the offensive. "For that they lack courage; and to that lack of courage they owe their destruction."

But their flight, like their long after continuance in guerilla types of warfare, points to quite another cause than this lack of courage. The Boer is proverbially a lover of his own; and so, though with liberal hand he laid waste bridge and culvert and plant, as he retreated along the railway line through the Orange River Colony, which was not his own, he became quite miserly in his use of dynamite when the Transvaal was reached, which was his own, and which would infallibly be restored to him, so he reckoned, when the war was over. So was it to be with Pretoria too! To the very last the fighting Boer believed that whatever his fate in the field of battle, if he were only dogged enough, and in any fashion prolonged the strife sufficiently, British patience would tire, as it had tired before; British plans and purposes and pledges would all be abandoned as aforetime they had been abandoned, and he would thus secure, even in the face of defeat, the fruits of victory. The importunate widow is the one New Testament character "the brother" implicitly believes in and imitates. Her tactics were his before the war, in the matter of the Conventions; and the wasteful prolonging of the war was a part of the same policy. Great Britain was to be forced by sheer weariness to give back to the Transvaal in some form its coveted independence, and with it, of course, Pretoria also. So he would on no account consent to let the city be bombarded. Our peaceful occupation was the best possible protection for property that would presently be again his own; and while he still went on with his desultory fighting we were quite welcome, at our own expense, to feed every Boer family we could find.

Thus, like our own hunted Pretender, he held that however long delayed, the end was bound to restore to him his own; and he had not far to look for what justified the fallacy. In 1881, for instance, as one among many illustrations, an English general at Standerton formally assured the Boers that the Vaal would flow backward through the Drakenberg Hills before the British would withdraw from the Transvaal. Three successive Secretaries of State, three successive High Commissioners, and two successive Houses of Commons deliberately endorsed that official assurance; yet though the Vaal turned not back Great Britain did; and to that magnanimous forgetting of the nation's oft-repeated pledge was due in part this new war and its intolerable prolonging. It does not pay thus to say and then unsay. Thereby all confidence, all sense of finality, is killed.

[Sidenote: Taking possession.]

"Take your Grenadiers and open the ball," said Sir John Moore, as he appointed to his men their various positions in the famous fight at Corunna; and on this memorable 5th of June when the British finally took possession of Pretoria the Guards as at Belmont were again privileged to "open the ball." But whilst they were busy seizing the railway station and stock, with other points of strategic importance, I took my first hasty stroll through the city; and among the earliest objects of interest I came upon was the pedestal of a monument, with the scaffolding still around it, but quite complete, except that the actual statue which was to crown and constitute the summit was not there.

"Whose monument is that?" I meekly asked. "Paul Kruger's," was the prompt reply; "but the statue, made in Rome, has not yet arrived, being detained at Delagoa Bay."

That statue now probably never will arrive, and possibly enough some other figure,—perchance that of Victoria the Good,—will ultimately be placed on that expectant pedestal, so making the monument complete. "Which thing," as St Paul would say, "is an allegory!" That monument in its present form is a precise epitome of the man it was meant to honour. It is most complete by reason of its very incompleteness. The chief feature in this essentially strong man's career, as also in his monument, has reference to the foundation work he wrought. It was the finish that was a failure, and in much more important matters than this pile of chiselled granite, the work the late President commenced in the Transvaal its new rulers must make it their business to carry on, and, in worthier fashion, complete. We cannot begin de novo. For better for worse, on foundations laid by Boers, Britons must be content to build.

Close by, forming the main feature on one side of the city Square, stood a remarkably fine building, intended to serve as a palace of justice, but, like the monument in front of it, it was still unfinished. In the Transvaal there was as yet no counterpart to that most important clause in our own Magna Charta, which says "We will not sell justice to any man." Corruption and coercion were familiar forces alike in the making and the administration of its laws. In more senses than one the Transvaal Government had not yet opened its courts of justice. They mutely awaited the coming of the new regime.

In one of the main streets leading out of the Square stood the President's private residence; a gift-house, so it is said, accepted by him as a recompense for favours received. Compared with the Residency at Bloemfontein it is a singularly unpretentious dwelling and was in keeping rather with the economic habits, than with the private wealth, or official status, of its chief occupant. British sentinels had already been posted all about the place, and on the verandah sat a British officer with a long row of mausers lying at his feet. There too, one on each side of the main entrance, crouched Kruger's famous marble lions, silently watching that day's novel proceedings. Not even the presence of those men in khaki, nor that sad array of surrendered rifles, sufficed to draw from those stony guardians of their master's home so much as a muffled growl. They are believed to be of British origin, and I suspect that, so far as their nature permits, they cherish British sympathies; for they certainly showed no signs of lamenting over the ignoble departure of their lord. All regardless of the griefs of his deserted lady, they still placidly licked their paws; and as I cast on them a parting glance they gave to me, or seemed to, a knowing wink!



Precisely opposite the Residency is the handsome Dopper Church, wherein the President regularly worshipped, and not infrequently himself ministered in holy things. The church is nearly new, and like much else in Pretoria is still unfinished. The four dials have indeed been duly placed on the four faces of the clock tower; but in that tower there is as yet no clock; and round those clock dials there move no clock hands. No wonder Pretoria with its dominant Dopper Church, and its still more decidedly dominant Dopper President, mistook the true hour of its destiny, and madly made war precisely when peace was easiest of attainment. Kruger, dim-eyed and old, lived face to face continually with clock dials that betokened no progress, but, merely mocked the enquiring gaze. Which thing, the Chelsea Sage would say, was symbolical and significant of much!

[Sidenote: "Resurgam."]

In the centre of the before-mentioned Square is the large and usually crowded Dutch Reformed Church, doomed long ago, we were told, to be removed because of its exceeding unsightliness. Throughout the Transvaal in every town and hamlet, the House of God is invariably the central building, as also it is the centre of the most potent influence. In both Republics the minister was emphatically "a Master in Israel"; and in the welcome shadows of this great church I waited to witness one of the most interesting events of the century—the proclaiming of Pretoria a British city by the official hoisting in it, as earlier in Bloemfontein, of the British flag; and by the stately "march past" of the British troops.

Facing me, on the side of the Square opposite to that occupied by the Palace of Justice, were the creditably designed Government Buildings, including the Raadsaal, which was surmounted by a golden figure of Liberty bearing in her hand a battle-axe and flag. On the forefront of the building in bold lettering there was graven the favourite Transvaal watchword,

EENDRACT MAAKT MAGT,

which, being interpreted means, "Right makes Might"; and that motto, as every Britisher could see, precisely explained our presence there that day. Inside there still remained, in its accustomed place, the state chair of the departed President, in which, later on, I ventured to sit; and all around were ranged the, to me, eloquent seats of his departed senators. In that very hall, just nine months before, those senators, in secret session, had resolved to hurl defiance at the might of Britain; and so precipitated a war by which two sister Republics were, as such, hurried out of existence. Now the very corridors by which I approached that hall were crowded with Boers wearied with the fruitless fight, and eager to hand in their weapons.

In the waiting crowd outside I found a friend who courteously supplied me with a copy of a quite unique photograph—the only photograph taken of the solemn burial, a few hundred yards from where I stood, of a Union Jack, when that flag was hauled down in the Transvaal, and the British troops ingloriously retired. As shown in the photograph, over the grave was erected a slab, and on that slab was this most notable inscription:—

IN MEMORY OF THE BRITISH FLAG in the Transvaal; which departed this life August 2nd, 1881. Aged 4 years.

In other lands none knew thee But to love thee.

RESURGAM.

No such burial had the world seen before, and few bolder prophecies than that "I shall rise again," can be found in the history of any land; but a few minutes it became my memorable privilege to witness the actual fulfilment of that patriotic prediction. As in Johannesburg, so here, it was Lady Roberts' pocket edition of the Union Jack that was used; and we looked on excitedly; but the Statue of Liberty looked down benignly, while that tiny flag crept up nearer and nearer to its golden feet. Liberty has never anything to fear from the approach of that flag!

While in Pretoria the following story was told me by the soldier to whom it chiefly refers:—

[Sidenote: A Striking Incident.]

At the Orange River a corporal of the Yorkshire Light Infantry received a pocket copy of the New Testament from a Christian worker, and placed it in his tunic by the side of his "field dressing." A godless man, who had been driven into the army by heavy drinking, he merely glanced at a verse or two, and then forgot its very presence in his pocket till he reached the battlefield of Graspan a few days later on. Then a Boer bullet passed right through the Testament and the dressing that lay beside it, was thereby deflected from its otherwise fatal course, and finally made a long surface wound on his right thigh. That wound he at once bound up with one of his putties, but for two hours was unable to stir from the place where he fell.

Then he managed to limp back to his battalion, and piteously begged his adjutant not to let his name be put down on the casualty list, for, said he, "my mother is in feeble health, and if she saw my name in the papers among the wounded she would worry herself almost to death, as years ago when she heard of my being hit in Tirah." That brave request was granted, and he remained in the ranks marching as one unwounded.

Yet neither this Providential deliverance nor the terrors that soon followed at Modder River sufficed to lure to either prayer or praise this godless, but surely not graceless, corporal. On the 27th of August, however, which happened to be his thirtieth birthday, a devout sergeant had the joy of winning him to Christian decision; and that day, as he told me in Pretoria, he resolved to find out for himself whether after thirty years of misery the mercy of the Lord could provide for him thirty years of happiness.

[Sidenote: No canteens and no crime.]

On board the Nubia, amid piles of literature put on board for the amusement of the troops during the voyage, I discovered a quantity of pamphlets entitled "Beer Cellars and Beer Sellers," the purpose of which was to prove that the beer sellers were England's most indispensable patriots; that the beer cellars were England's best citadels; and that the beer trade in general was the very backbone of England's stability. It was horribly tantalising to the men in face of such teaching to find that there had been placed on board for them not so much as a solitary barrel of this much belauded beverage. Through all the voyage every man remained perforce a total abstainer. Yet there was not a single death among those sixteen hundred, nor a solitary instance of serious sickness. What does Burton say to that?

As at sea, so on land, the authorities seemed more afraid of the beloved beer barrel than of the bullets of the Boers; and for the most part no countersign sufficed to secure for it admittance to our camps. An occasional tot of rum was distributed among the men; but even that seemed to be rather to satisfy a sentiment than to serve any really useful purpose. At any rate, some of the men, like myself, tramped all the way to Koomati Poort, often in the worst of weather, without taking a single tot, and were none the worse for so refraining, but rather so much the better.

The effect on the character of the men was still more remarkable; and while in Pretoria I was repeatedly assured that some who had been a perpetual worry to their officers in beer-ridden England, on the beerless veldt, or in the liquorless towns of the Transvaal, speedily took rank among the most reliable men in all their regiment. To my colleague, the Rev. W. Burgess, a major of the Yorkshires, said "Nineteen-twentieths of the crime in the British army is due to drink. As a proof I have been at this outpost with 150 men for six weeks, where we have absolutely no drink, and there have been only two minor cases brought before me. There is no insubordination whatever, and if you do away with drink you have in the British army an ideal army. Whether or not men can be made sober by Act of Parliament, clearly they can by martial law!"

With the men so sober, with a field-marshal so God-fearing, the constant outrages ascribed to them by slander-loving Englishmen at home, become a moral impossibility; and to that fact, after we had been long in possession of Pretoria, the principal minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Transvaal bore ready witness in the following letter sent by him to the Military Governor of Pretoria:—

Not a single instance of criminal assault or rape by non-commissioned officers or men of the British army on Boer women has come to my knowledge. I have asked several gentlemen and their testimony is the same.... The discipline and general moral conduct of His Majesty's troops in Pretoria is, under the circumstances, better than I ever expected it would or could be. There have certainly been cases of immoral conduct, but in no single instance, so far as I know, has force been used. They only go where they are invited and where they are welcome.

(Signed) H. S. BOSMAN.

When such is the testimony of our adversaries, we need not hesitate to accept the similar tribute paid by Sir Redvers Buller to his army of abstainers in Natal:—"I am filled with admiration for the British soldiers," said he; "really the manner in which they have worked, fought, and endured during the last fortnight has been something more than human. Broiled in a burning sun by day, drenched in rain by night, lying but three hundred yards off an enemy, who shoots you if you show so much as a finger, they could hardly eat or drink by day; and as they were usually attacked by night, they got but little sleep; yet through it all they were as cheery and as willing as could be."

Men so devoted when on duty, don't transform themselves, the drink being absent, into incarnate demons when off duty; and no dominion, therefore, has more cause to be proud of its defenders than our own!



CHAPTER X

PRETORIAN INCIDENTS AND IMPRESSIONS

Pretoria is manifestly a city in process of being made, and has probably in store a magnificent future, though at present the shanty and the palace stand "cheek by jowl." Even the main roads leading into the town seemed atrociously bad as judged by English standards, and the paving of the principal streets was of a correspondingly perilous type. Yet the public buildings already referred to were not the only ones that claimed our commendation as signs of a progressive spirit. The Government Printing Works are remarkably handsome and complete; and while for educational purposes there is in Pretoria nothing quite comparable to Grey College at Bloemfontein, the secondary education of the late Republic's metropolis was well housed.

[Sidenote: The State's Model School.]

There is, however, one building provided for that purpose which has acquired an enduring interest of quite another kind, and which I visited, when it became a hospital, with very mingled emotions. The State's Model School, during the early stages of the war, was utilised as a prison for the British officers captured by the Boers. How keenly these brave men felt and secretly resented their ill-fortune they were too proud to tell, but one of the noblest of them had become, through the terrors of a disastrous fight, so piteously demented for a while that he actually wore hanging from his neck a piece of cardboard announcing that it was he who lost the guns at Colenso. Some of them would rather have lost their lives than in such fashion have lost their liberty, and the story which tells how three of them regained that liberty by escaping from this very prison is one of the most thrilling among all the records of the war. Most noted of the three is Winston Churchill, whose own graphic pen has told how he eluded the most vigilant search and finally reached the sea. But the adventures of Captain Haldane and his non-commissioned companion reveal yet more of daring and endurance. Captured at the same time as Churchill, and through the same cause—the disaster on November 13th to the armoured train at Chieveley—these two effected their escape long after the hue and cry on the heels of Churchill had died away. Within what was supposed to be a day or two of the removal of all the officers to a more secure "birdcage" outside the town, those two gentlemen vanished under the floor of their room, through a kind of tiny trap-door that I have often seen, but which was then partly concealed by a bed, and was apparently never noticed by their Boer custodians. In this prison beneath a prison, damp and dark and dismal beyond all describing, and where there was no room to stand erect, these two officers found themselves doomed to dwell, not for days merely, but for weeks. They were of course hunted for high and low, and sought in every conceivable place except the right place. Food was guardedly passed down to them by two or three brother officers who shared their secret, and at last, more dead than alive, they emerged from their dungeon the moment they discovered the building was deserted, and then daringly faced the almost hopeless, yet successful, endeavour to smuggle themselves to far-distant Delagoa Bay. Evidently the element of romance has not yet died out of this prosaic age!

[Sidenote: Rev. Adrian Hoffmeyer.]

Strangely sharing the fate of these British prisoners in this Model School was a godly and gifted minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. A Boer among Boers. He was never told why he was arrested by his brother Boers, and though kept under lock and key for months, he was never introduced to judge or jury. An advocate of peace, he was suspected of British leanings, and so almost before the war commenced rough hands were laid upon him. There was in the Transvaal a reign of terror. Secret service men were everywhere, and no one's reputation was safe, no one's position secure. In this land of newly-discovered gold men were driven to discover that the most golden thing of all was discreet silence on the part of those who differed from "the powers that be." So he who simply sought to avert war was suspected of British sympathies, and to his unutterable surprise presently found himself the fellow prisoner of many a still more unfortunate British officer.

Of those officers, their character and intellectual attainments, he speaks in terms of highest praise. Their enforced leisure they devoted to various artistic and intellectual pursuits, and I have myself seen an admirably elaborate and accurate map of the Republics, covering the whole of a large classroom wall, drawn presumably from joint memory by these officers, who by its aid were able to trace the progress of the war as tidings filtered through to them by an ingenious system of signalling practised by sympathetic friends outside.

By those same officers this Dutchman was invited to become their unofficial chaplain, and he writes of the devotional services consequently arranged as among the chief delights of his life, the favourite hymn he says being the following:—

Holy Father, in Thy mercy Hear our anxious prayer. Keep our loved ones, now far absent, 'Neath Thy care.

Jesus, Saviour, let Thy presence Be their light and pride. Keep, Oh keep them, in their weakness, Near Thy side.

Holy Spirit, let Thy teaching Sanctify their life. Send Thy grace that they may conquer In all strife.

It was to this much respected and much reviled predikant a Pretorian high official said: "We were determined to let it drift to a rupture with England, for then our dream would be realised of a Republic reaching to Table Mountain"; but surely such a song and such a scene in the State's Model School was a thing of which no man dreamed!

[Sidenote: The Waterfall prisoners.]

The private soldiers who like these, their officers, had become prisoners of war, were for greater security removed from their racecourse camp to a huge prison-pen at the Waterfall, some ten or twelve miles up the Pietersburg line. They numbered in all about three thousand eight hundred, and for a while fared badly at their captors' hands. But ultimately a small committee was formed in Pretoria and L5000 subscribed, to be spent in mitigating their lot and ministering in many ways to their comfort. In these ministrations of mercy the Wesleyan minister, whose grateful guest I for a while became, as afterwards of the genial host and hostess at the Silverton Mission Parsonage, took a prominent and much appreciated part as the following letter abundantly proves:—

To the Rev. F. W. MACDONALD, President, Wesleyan Church, London.

PRETORIA, 4th July 1900.

SIR,—As chairman of a committee formed in January last for the purpose of assisting the British prisoners of war, I have been requested to bring officially to your notice the splendid work done by the Rev. H. W. Goodwin. From my position I have been thrown into intimate relationship with Mr Goodwin, and it is a great pleasure to me to testify to his invaluable services. I am not a member of your church, nor are my colleagues, but there is a unanimous desire among the British subjects that were permitted to remain in Pretoria, and who are therefore cognisant of Mr Goodwin's work, to place his record before you. It is our united hope that Mr Goodwin will receive some substantial mark of appreciation from the Church of which he is so fine a representative. I know of none finer in the highest sense in the Church which knows no distinction of forms or creeds.—I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,

(Sd.) J. LEIGH WOOD.

On my arrival in Pretoria Mr Goodwin was at my request at once appointed as Acting Army Chaplain, and shortly after received the following most gratifying communication:—

BRITISH AGENCY, PRETORIA, 9th June 1900.

DEAR SIR,—If you could kindly call on Lord Roberts some time to-day or to-morrow, it would give him great pleasure to meet one who has done so much for our prisoners of war.—Yours faithfully,

(Sd.) H. V. CONAN, The Rev. Goodwin. Lt.-Col., Mil. Sec.

When Mr Goodwin accordingly called nothing could well exceed the warmth of the welcome and of the thanks the field-marshal graciously accorded him.

Among the prisoners at the Waterfall was a well-known Wesleyan sergeant of the 18th Hussars, who rallied around him all such as were of a devout spirit and became the recognised leader of the religious life of the prison camp. I therefore requested him to supply me with a brief statement of what in this respect had been done by the prisoners for the prisoners. He accordingly sent me the following letter:—

PRETORIA, 7th July 1900.

REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—Long before you asked me to write an account of the Christian work which was carried on from the 22nd of October 1899 to the 6th of June 1900, among the British prisoners of war at the Pretoria Racecourse, and afterwards at Waterfall, it had occurred to me that for the encouragement of other Christian workers particularly, and the members of the Church of Christ generally, some record should be made of the wonderful way in which God blessed us, and it is with the greatest pleasure that I accede to your request.

I was one of the 160 who were taken prisoners after the battle of Talana Hill (Dundee), and a few days after arriving at our destination (Pretoria Racecourse) we heard some of our guard singing psalms and we immediately decided to ask the commandant for a tent for devotional purposes. It was given, and after the first few nights, till we were released by our own forces seven months afterwards, it was filled to overflowing nightly. On our being removed to Waterfall, we enlarged our tent to three times its original size, and later on we begged building material from the commandant, and built a very nice hall with a platform and seating accommodation for over 240. At last this became too small and we went into the open air twice a week, when no less than 500 to 700 congregated to hear the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

When we asked for the small tent we had no idea of the work growing as it did. We used to meet together every night, a simple gathering together of God's children, four in number, which increased to one hundred, with the Lord Himself as teacher. Then our comrades began to attend and we commenced to hold evangelistic services, which were continued to the end.

When we got to Waterfall we started a Bible-class and a prayer meeting, held alternately. The work was helped a great deal by other Christian brothers, without whose services, co-operation, fellowship and sympathy the work could hardly have been continued for any length of time. But, after all, speaking after the manner of men, our dear friend and pastor, the Rev. H. W. Goodwin, was the one who really enabled us to carry on the work. As the transport and commissariat are to any army, so Mr Goodwin was to us.

On our application, the Boer Government consented to allow the ministers of the various churches in Pretoria to visit us once a month for the purpose of conducting divine service. Of course such a privilege as this was greatly appreciated by the men, and one cannot help wondering why such restrictions were placed upon the ministers.

We had many cherished plans and bright hopes with regard to the war, and when we were captured we found it hard to recognise the ordering of the Lord in our new conditions and unaccustomed circumstances; but we were taught some grand lessons, and we soon found that even imprisonment has its compensations; and we have to confess that His Presence makes the prison a palace. I have heard many thank God for bringing them to Waterfall gaol.

During the months we spent together we realised that God was blessing us in a most remarkable manner, and we may truly say that our fellowship was with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. Many backsliders were taught the folly of remaining away from the Father, and many were turned from darkness unto light. To Him be the glory.

On hearing of the near approach of our deliverers, and knowing that soon we should all part, we had a farewell meeting and many promised to write to me.

I received a number of letters ere we actually parted, but with the injunction "not to be opened till separated," and from these I intend making a few extracts which lead me like the Psalmist to say "Because Thou hast been my help therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice."

Of the extracts to which the sergeant refers it is impossible to give here more than a few brief samples; but even these may suffice to prove that our soldiers are by no means all, or mostly, sons of Belial, as their recent slanderers would have us believe.

A Bombardier of the 10th Mountain Battery writes—"I was brought to God on the 4th of February. I had often stood outside the tent and listened to the services, and one evening I went into the after-meeting and came away without Christ; but God was striving with me, and a few nights afterwards I realised that I was a hell-deserving sinner, and I cried unto God and He heard me; and that night I came away with Christ."

A Sergeant-major of Roberts' Horse says—"I am indeed grateful to God for the loving-kindness He has bestowed on me since my coming here as a prisoner of war. The meetings have been a great success and of the most orderly character."

A Sergeant of the Royal Irish Rifles adds—"Thanks be unto God, He opened my eyes on the night of the 21st of January 1900; and He has kept me ever since."

A Corporal of the Wilts, after telling of his capture at Rensberg, and his arrival at Waterfall, goes on to say—"I heard about the Gospel Tent from one of the Boer sentries, and I cannot express the happy feelings that passed through me when I saw the Christian band gathered together with one accord."

A Private of the Glosters relates the story of his own conversion, and then proceeds to say he shall never forget the meetings which were conducted by the Rev. H. W. Goodwin, especially the one in which he administered to them the blessed Sacrament. It was a Pentecostal time, and it pleased the Lord to add unto them eight souls that same night, and six the night following.

[Sidenote: A Soldier's Hymn.]

As the day of release drew near with all its inevitable excitement and unrest, certain British officers, themselves prisoners, were requested by the Boers to reside among these men at the Waterfall to ensure to the very last the maintenance of discipline; and the sanction of the Baptist minister who once conducted their parade service was sought by them for the singing of the following most touchingly appropriate hymn:—

Lord a nation humbly kneeling For her soldiers cries to Thee; Strong in faith and hope, appealing That triumphant they may be. Waking, sleeping, 'Neath Thy keeping, Lead our troops to victory.

Of our sins we make confession, Wealth and arrogance and pride; But our hosts, against oppression, March with Freedom's flowing tide. Father, speed them, Keep them, lead them, God of armies, be their guide.

Man of Sorrows! Thou hast sounded Every depth of human grief. By Thy wounds, Oh, heal our wounded. Give the fever's fire relief. Hear us crying For our dying, Of consolers be Thou chief.

Take the souls that die for duty In Thy tender pierced hand; Crown the faulty lives with beauty, Offered for their Fatherland. All forgiving, With the living May they in Thy kingdom stand.

And if Victory should crown us, May we take it as from Thee As Thy nation deign to own us; Merciful and strong and free. Endless praising To Thee raising, Ever Thine may England be!

Say their critics what they may, soldiers who compose such songs, and pen such testimonies, and conduct such services among themselves, seem scarcely the sort to "let hell loose in South Africa!"

[Sidenote: A big supper party.]

Of the prisoners of war thus long detained in durance vile nearly a thousand were decoyed into a special train the night before the Guards' Brigade reached Pretoria. These deluded captives in their simplicity supposed they were being taken into the town to be there set at liberty; but instead of that they were hurried by, and, with the panic-stricken Boers, away and yet away, into their remotest eastern fastnesses, there presumably to be retained as long as possible as a sort of guarantee that the vastly larger number of Boers we held prisoners should be still generously treated by us. They might also prove useful in many ways if terms of peace came to be negotiated. So vanished for months their visions of speedy freedom!

The rest who still remained within the prison fence, and were, of course, still unarmed, three days later were cruelly and treacherously shelled by a Boer commando on a distant hill. The Boer guards detailed for duty at the prison had deserted their posts, and under the cover of the white flag, gone into Pretoria to surrender. Our men, therefore, who were practically free, awaiting orders, when thus unceremoniously shelled, at once stampeded; and late on Thursday night about nine hundred of them, footsore and famished, arrived at Mr Goodwin's house seeking shelter. He was apparently the only friend they knew in Pretoria, and to have a friend yet not to use him is, of course, absurd! So to his door they came in crowds, dragging with them the Boer Maxim gun, by which they had so long been overawed. While tea and coffee for all this host were being hurriedly prepared by their slightly embarrassed host, I sought permission from a staff officer to house the men for the night in our Wesleyan schoolrooms, and in the huge Caledonian Hall adjoining, which was at once commandeered for the purpose. I also requested that a supply of rations might at utmost speed be provided for them. Accordingly, not long before midnight a waggon arrived bringing by some fortunate misreading of my information, provisions, not for nine hundred hungry men, but for the whole three thousand prisoners whom we were supposed to have welcomed as our guests. It may seem incredible, but men who at that late hour had fallen fast asleep upon the floor, at the sound of that waggon's wheels suddenly awoke; and still more wonderful to tell, when morning came those nine hundred men, of the rations for three thousand, had left untouched only a few paltry boxes of biscuits. A hospital patient recently recovered from fever once said to me, "I haven't an appetite for two, sir; I have an appetite for ten!" And these released prisoners had evidently for that particular occasion borrowed the appetite of that particular patient!

[Sidenote: The Soldiers' Home.]

The Caledonian Hall above referred to is a specially commodious building, and could not have been more admirably adapted for use as a Soldiers' Home if expressly erected for that purpose. It was accordingly commandeered by the military governor to be so used, and for months it was the most popular establishment in town or camp. At Johannesburg a Wesleyan and an Anglican Home were opened, both rendering excellent service; but as this was run on undenominational lines, it was left without a rival. It is a most powerful sign of the times that our military chiefs now unhesitatingly interest themselves in the moral and spiritual welfare of the men under their command. Some time before this Boer war commenced, on April 28, 1898, there was issued by the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army a memorandum which would have done no discredit to the Religious Tract Society if published as one of their multitudinous leaflets. A copy was supplied presumably to every soldier sent to Africa; and the first few sentences which refer to what may happily be regarded as steadily diminishing evils, read as follows:—

It will be the duty of company officers to point out to the men under their control, and particularly to young soldiers, the

disastrous effect of giving way

to habits of intemperance and immorality. The excessive use of intoxicating liquors unfits the soldier for active work, blunts his intelligence, and is a fruitful source of military crime. The man who leads a vicious life

enfeebles his constitution

and exposes himself to the risk of contracting a disease of a kind which has of late made terrible ravages in the British army. Many men spend a great deal of the short time of their service in the military hospitals, the wards of which are crowded with patients, a large number of whom are permanently disfigured and incapacitated from earning a livelihood in or out of the army. Men tainted with this disease are

useless while in the army

and a burden to their friends after they have left it. Even those who do not altogether break down are unfit for service in the field, and would certainly be a source of weakness to their regiments, and a discredit to their comrades if employed in war.



As one of the most effectual ways of combating these evils, and of providing an answer to the oft-repeated prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," Soldiers' Homes are now being so freely multiplied, that the Wesleyan Church has itself established over thirty, at a total cost of more than L50,000.

[Sidenote: Mr and Mrs Osborn Howe.]

Some of those engaged in similar Christian work among the soldiers were gentlemen of ample private means who defrayed all their own expenses. Mr Anderson was thus attached to the Northumberland Fusiliers, and soon became a power for good among them. Mr and Mrs Osborn Howe did a really remarkable work in providing Soldiers' Homes, which followed the men from place to place over almost the entire field covered by our military operations, including Pretoria, and though they received quite a long list of subscriptions their own private resources have for years been freely placed at the Master's service, whether for work among soldiers or civilians.

When late on in the campaign it was intimated by certain officials that Lord Kitchener was not in sympathy with such work and would not grant such facilities for its prosecution as Lord Roberts had done, Mr Osborn Howe received the following reply to a letter of enquiry on that point:—

[Sidenote: A letter from Lord Kitchener.]

I am directed by Lord Kitchener to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of January 3rd. His Lordship much regrets that you should have been led to imagine that his attitude towards your work differs from that of Lord Roberts, and I am to inform you that so far from that being the case, he is very deeply impressed by the value of your work, and hopes that it may long continue and increase.

Yours faithfully, (Signed) W. H. CONGREVE, Major, Private Secretary.

Still more notable in this same connection is the fact that soon after Lord Roberts reached Cape Town to take supreme command, he caused to be issued the following most remarkable letter, which certainly marks a new departure in the usages of modern warfare, and carries us back in thought and spirit to the camps of Cromwell and his psalm-singing Ironsides, or to the times when Scotland's Covenanters were busy guarding for us the religious light and liberty which are to-day our goodliest heritage.

[Sidenote: Also from Lord Roberts.]

ARMY HEADQUARTERS, CAPE TOWN, January 23rd.

DEAR SIR,—I am desired by Lord Roberts to ask you to be so kind as to distribute to all ranks under your command the "Short Prayer for the use of Soldiers in the Field," by the Primate of Ireland, copies of which I now forward. His Lordship earnestly hopes that it may be helpful to all of Her Majesty's soldiers who are now serving in South Africa.

Yours faithfully, (Signed) NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN, Colonel, Private Secretary.

To the Commanding Officer.

*The Prayer.*

ALMIGHTY FATHER, I have often sinned against Thee. O wash me in the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Fill me with Thy Holy Spirit, that I may lead a new life. Spare me to see again those whom I love at home, or fit me for Thy presence in peace.

Strengthen us to quit ourselves like men in our right and just cause. Keep us faithful unto death, calm in danger, patient in suffering, merciful as well as brave, true to our Queen, our country, and our colours.

If it be Thy will, enable us to win victory for England, and above all grant us the better victory over temptation and sin, over life and death, that we may be more than conquerors through Him who loved us, and laid down His life for us, Jesus our Saviour, the Captain of the Army of God. Amen.

The general who officially invited all his troops to use such a prayer could not fail to prove a warm friend and patron of Soldiers' Homes; and to the Pretoria Home he came, not merely formally to declare it open, but to attend one of the many concerts given there, thus encouraging by his example both the workers and those for whom they worked. A supremely busy and burdened man, that he made a part of his business; and surely he was wise, for one sober soldier is any day worth more than a dozen drunken ones.

The general who thus deliberately encouraged his troops to live devoutly, instead of being deemed by them on that account unsoldierly or fanatic, secured such a place in their confidence and affection as few even of the most magnetic leaders among men ever managed to obtain. The pet name by which they always spoke of him implied no approach to unseemly familiarity, but betokened the same kind of attachment as the veteran hosts of Napoleon the Great intended to express when they admiringly called their dread master "The Little Corporal." He amply justified their confidence in him, and they amply justified his confidence in them; and so on resigning his command in South Africa he spoke of these "my comrades," as he called them, in terms as gratifying as they are uncommon:—

I am very proud that I am able to record, with the most absolute truth, that the conduct of this army from first to last has been exemplary. Not one single case of serious crime has been brought to my notice—indeed, nothing that deserves the name of crime. There has been no necessity for appeals or orders to the men to behave properly. I have trusted implicitly to their own soldierly feeling and good sense, and I have not trusted in vain. They bore themselves like heroes on the battlefield, and like gentlemen on all other occasions.

[Sidenote: A song in praise of De Wet.]

Lord Lytton tells us that in the days of Edward the Confessor the rage for psalm singing was at its height in England so that sacred song excluded almost every other description of vocal music: but though in South Africa a similar trend revealed itself among the troops, their camp fire concerts, and the concerts in the Pretoria Soldiers' Home, were of an exclusively secular type. At one which it was my privilege to attend, Lady Roberts and her daughters were present as well as the general, who generously arranged for a cigar to be given to every man in the densely crowded hall when the concert closed. All the songs were by members of the general's staff, and were excellent; but one, composed presumably by the singer, was topical and sensational in a high degree. It was entitled: "Long as the world goes round"; and one verse assured us concerning "Brother Boer," with only too near an approach to truth,

He'll bury his mauser, And break all his vows, sir, Long as the world goes round!

Another verse reminded us of a still more melancholy fact which yet awakened no little mirth. It was in praise of De Wet, who in spite of his blue spectacles, seemed by far the most clear-sighted of all the Boer generals, and who, notwithstanding his illiteracy, was beyond all others well versed in the bewildering ways of the veldt. He apparently had no skill for the conducting of set battles, but for ambushing convoys, for capturing isolated detachments, for wrecking trains, and for himself eluding capture when fairly ringed round with keen pursuers beyond all counting, few could rival him. Like hunted Hereward, he seemed able to escape through a rat hole, and by his persistence in guerilla tactics not only seriously prolonged the war and enormously increased its cost, but also went far to make the desolation of his pet Republic complete. So there Lord Roberts sat and heard this sung by one of his staff:—

Of all the Boers we have come across yet, None can compare with this Christian De Wet; For him we seem quite unable to get— (Though Hildyard and Broadwood, And our Soudanese Lord should)— Long as the world goes round!

They should have got him, and they would have got him, if they could; but when Lord Roberts, long months after, set sail for home, he left De Wet still in the saddle. Then Kitchener, our Soudanese Lord, took up the running, and called on the Guards to aid him, but even they proved unequal to the hopeless task. "One pair of heels," they said, "can never overtake two pair of hoofs." Then our picked mounted men monopolised the "tally-ho" to little better purpose. De Wet's guns were captured, his convoys cut off, but him no man caught, and possibly to this very day he is still complacently humming "Tommies may come and Tommies may go, but I trot on for ever."

[Sidenote: Cordua and his Conspiracy.]

The last verse of this sensational song had reference to yet another celebrity, but of a far more unsatisfactory type. All the earlier part of that Thursday I had spent in the second Raadsaal, attending a court-martial on one of our prisoners of war, Lieutenant Hans Cordua, late of the Transvaal State Artillery, who, having surrendered, was suffered to be at large on parole. In my presence he pleaded guilty, first to having broken his parole in violation of his solemn oath; secondly, to having attempted to break through the British lines disguised in British khaki, in order to communicate treasonably with Botha; and thirdly, to having conspired with sundry others to set fire to a certain portion of Pretoria with a view to facilitating a simultaneous attempt to kidnap Lord Roberts and all his staff. Cordua was with difficulty persuaded to withdraw the plea of guilty, so that he might have the benefit of any possible flaw his counsel could detect in the evidence; but in the end the death sentence was pronounced, confirmed, and duly executed in the garden of Pretoria Gaol on August 24th. It was from that court-martial I came to the Soldiers' Home Concert, sat close behind Lord Roberts, and listened to this song:—

Though the Boer some say is a practised thief, Yet it certainly beggars all belief, That he slimly should try to steal our Chief. But no Hollander mobs Shall kidnap our Bobs Long as the world goes round!

[Sidenote: Hospital Work in Pretoria.]

Historians tell us that the hospital arrangements in some of our former wars were by no means free from fault. Hence Steevens in his "Crimean Campaign" asserts that while the camp hospitals absolutely lacked not only candles, but medicines, wooden legs were supplied to them from England so freely that there were finally four such legs for every man in hospital. Clearly those wooden legs were consigned by wooden heads. Even in this much better managed war the fever epidemic at Bloemfontein, combined with a month of almost incessant rain, overtaxed for a while, as we have seen, the resources and strength and organizing skill of a most willing and fairly competent medical staff.

But Pretoria was plagued with no corresponding epidemic, and possessed incomparably ampler supplies, which were drawn on without stint. In addition to the Welsh, the Yeomanry, and other canvas hospitals planted in the suburbs, the splendid Palace of Justice was requisitioned for the use of the Irish hospital, which, like several others, was fitted out and furnished by private munificence. The principal school buildings were also placed at the disposal of the medical authorities, and were promptly made serviceable with whatever requisites the town could supply. To find suitable bedding, however, for so vast a number of patients was a specially difficult task. All the rugs and tablecloths the stores of the town contained were requisitioned for this purpose; green baize and crimson baize, repp curtains and plush, anything, everything remotely suitable, was claimed and cut up to serve as quilts and counterpanes, with the result that the beds looked picturesquely, if not grotesquely, gay. One ward, into which I walked, was playfully called "The Menagerie" by the men that occupied it, for on every bed was a showy rug, and on the face of every rug was woven the figure of some fearsome beast, Bengal tigers and British lions being predominant. It was in appearance a veritable lion's den, where our men dwelt in peace like so many modern Daniels, and found not harm but health and healing there.

[Sidenote: The wear and tear of War.]

In this campaign the loss of life and vigour caused by sickness was enormously larger than that accounted for by bullet wounds and bayonets. At the Orange River, just before the Guards set out on their long march, thirty Grenadier officers stretched their legs under their genial colonel's "mahogany," which consisted of rough planks supported on biscuit boxes. Of those only nine were still with us when we reached Pretoria, and of the nine several had been temporarily disabled by sickness or wounds. The battalion at starting was about a thousand strong, and afterwards received various drafts amounting to about four hundred more; but only eight hundred marched into Pretoria. The Scots Guards, however, were so singularly fortunate as not to lose a single officer during the whole campaign.

The non-combatants in this respect were scarcely less unfortunate than the bulk of their fighting comrades. A band of workers in the service of the Soldiers' Christian Association set out together from London for South Africa. There were six of them, but before the campaign was really half over only one still remained at his post. My faithful friend and helper, whom I left as army scripture reader at Orange River, after some months of devoted work was compelled to hasten home. A similar fate befell my Canadian, my Welsh, and one of my Australian colleagues. The highly esteemed Anglican chaplain to the Guards, who steadily tramped with them all the way to Pretoria and well earned his D.S.O., was forbidden by his medical advisers to proceed any further, and his successor, Canon Knox Little, whose praise as a preacher is in all the churches, found on reaching Koomati Poort that his strength was being overstrained, and so at once returned to the sacred duties of his English Canonry. Thus to many a non-combatant the medical staff was called to minister, and the veldt to provide a grave.

[Sidenote: The Nursing Sisters.]

The presence of skilled lady-nurses in these Hospitals was of immense service, not merely as an aid to healing, but also as a refining and restraining influence among the men. In this direction they habitually achieved what even the appearing of a chaplain did not invariably suffice to accomplish. It was the cheering experience of Florence Nightingale repeated on a yet wider scale. In her army days oaths were greatly in fashion. The expletives of one of even the Crimean generals became the jest of the camp; and when later in his career he took over the Aldershot Command, it was laughingly said "he swore himself in"; which doubtless he did in a double sense. Yet men trained in habits so evil when they came into the Scutari Hospital ceased to swear and forgot to grumble. Said "The Lady with the Lamp," "Never came from one of them any word, or any look, which a gentleman would not have used, and the tears came into my eyes as I think how amid scenes of loathsome disease and death, there rose above it all the innate dignity, gentleness and chivalry of the men."

Now as then there are other ministries than those of the pulpit; and hospitals in which such influences exert themselves, may well prove, in more directions than one, veritable "Houses of Healing."

[Sidenote: A Surprise Packet.]

As illustrating how gratefully these men appreciate any slightest manifestation of interest in their welfare, mention may here be made of what I regard as the crowning surprise of my life. At the close of an open air parade service in Pretoria a sergeant of the Grenadiers stepped forward, and in the name of the non-commissioned officers and men of that battalion presented to me, in token of their goodwill, a silver pencil case and a gold watch. I could but reply that the goodwill of my comrades was to me beyond all price, and that this golden manifestation of it, this gift coming from such a source, I should treasure as a victorious fighting man would treasure a V.C.

[Sidenote: Soldierly Gratitude.]

The kindnesses lavished on our soldiers, as far as circumstances would permit, throughout the whole course of this campaign, by civilian friends at home, in the Colonies, and in the conquered territories, defy all counting and all description. In some cases, indeed, valuable consignments intended for their comfort seem never to have reached their destination, but the knowledge that they were thus thought of and cared for had upon the men an immeasurable influence for good. Later on, even the people of Delagoa Bay sent a handsome Christmas hamper to every blockhouse between the frontier and Barberton, while at the same time the King of Portugal presented a superb white buck, wearing a suitably inscribed silver collar, to the Cornwalls who were doing garrison duty at Koomati Poort. But in Pretoria, where among other considerations my Wesleyan friends regularly provided a Saturday "Pleasant Hour," the soldiers in return invited the whole congregation to a "social," on which they lavished many a pound, and which they made a brilliant success. It was a startling instance of soldierly gratitude; and illustrates excellently the friendly attitude of the military and of the local civilians towards each other.

[Sidenote: The Ladysmith Lyre.]

It sometimes happened among these much enduring men that the greater their misery the greater their mirth. Thus our captured officers, close guarded in the Pretoria Model School, and carefully cut off from all the news of the day, amused themselves by framing parodies on the absurd military intelligence published in the local Boer papers; whereof let the following verse serve as a sample:—

Twelve thousand British were laid low; One Boer was wounded in the toe. Such is the news we get to know In prison.

About this time there came into my hands a sample copy of The Ladysmith Lyre; but clearly though the last word in its title was perfectly correct as a matter of pronunciation the spelling was obviously inaccurate. It was a merry invention of news during the siege by men who were hemmed in from all other news; and so the grosser the falseness the greater the fun.

* * * * *

In my own particular copy I found the following dialogue between two Irish soldiers:—

First Private—"The captain told me to keep away from the enemy's foire!"

Second Private—"What did you tell the Captain?"

First Private—"I told him the Boers were so busy shelling they hadn't made any foire!"

That is scarcely a brilliant jest; but then it was begotten amid the agonies of the siege.

One of the poems published in this same copy of The Ladysmith Lyre has in it more of melancholy than of mirth. It tells of the hope deferred that maketh the heart sick; and gives us a more vivid idea than anything else yet printed of the secret distress of the men who saved Natal—a distress which we also shared. It is entitled—

"AFTER EDGAR ALLAN POE."

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over all the quaint and curious yarns we've heard about the war, Suddenly there came a rumour—(we can always take a few more) Started by some chap who knows more than—the others knew before— "We shall see the reinforcements in another—month or more!" Only this and nothing more!

But we're waiting still for Clery, waiting, waiting, sick and weary Of the strange and silly rumours we have often heard before. And we now begin to fancy there's a touch of necromancy, Something almost too uncanny, in the unregenerate Boer— Only this and nothing more!

Though our hopes are undiminished that the war will soon be finished, We would be a little happier if we knew a little more. If we had a little fuller information about Buller; News about Sir Redvers Buller, and his famous Army Corps; Information of the General and his fighting Army Corps. Only this and nothing more!

And the midnight shells uncertain, whistling through the night's black curtain, Thrill us, fill us with a touch of horror never felt before. So to still the beating of our hearts, we kept repeating "Some late visitor entreating entrance at the chamber door, This it is; and nothing more!"

Oh how slow the shells come dropping, sometimes bursting, sometimes stopping, As though themselves were weary of this very languid war. How distinctly we'll remember all the weary dull November; And it seems as if December will have little else in store; And our Christmas dinner will be bully beef and plain stickfast. Only this and nothing more!

Letham, Letham, tell us truly if there's any news come newly; Not the old fantastic rumours we have often heard before:— Desolate yet all undaunted! Is the town by Boers still haunted? This is all the news that's wanted—tell us truly we implore— Is there, is there a relief force? Tell us, tell us, we implore! Only this and nothing more.

For we're waiting rather weary! Is there such a man as Clery? Shall we ever see our wives and mothers, or our sisters and our brothers? Shall we ever see those others, who went southwards long before? Shall we ever taste fresh butter? Tell us, tell us, we implore! We are answered—nevermore!

When twenty months later the Scots Guards again found themselves in Pretoria they too began dolorously to enquire, "Shall we ever see our wives and mothers, or our sisters and our brothers?" But meanwhile much occurred of which the following chapters are a brief record.



CHAPTER XI

FROM PRETORIA TO BELFAST

On reaching Pretoria, almost unopposed, our Guardsmen jumped to the hasty and quite unjustifiable conclusion that the campaign was closing, and that in the course of about another fortnight some of us would be on our homeward way. They forgot that after a candle has burned down into its socket it may still flare and flicker wearisomely long before it finally goes out. War lights just such a candle, and no extinguisher has yet been patented for the instant quenching of its flame just when our personal convenience chances to clamour for such quenching. Indeed, the "flare and flicker" period sometimes proves, where war is concerned, scarcely less prolonged, and much more harassing, than the period of the full-fed flame. So Norman William found after the battle of Hastings. So Cromwell proved when the fight at Worcester was over. So the Americans discovered when they had captured Manila. Our occupation of Bloemfontein by no means made us instant masters of the whole Free State, and our presence in Pretoria we had yet to learn was not at all the same thing as the undisputed possession of the entire Transvaal. Indeed, the period that actually interposed between the two, proved the longest "fortnight" ever recorded.

[Sidenote: Lord Milner's explanation.]

How that came about, however, is made quite clear by the following extract from the High Commissioner's despatches:—

If it had been possible for us to screen those portions of the conquered territory, which were fast returning to peaceful pursuits, from the incursions of the enemy still in the field, a great deal of what is now most deplorable in the condition of South Africa would never have been experienced. The vast extent of the country, the necessity of concentrating our forces for the long advance, first to Pretoria and then to Koomati Poort, resulted in the country already occupied being left open to raids, constantly growing in audacity, and fed by small successes, on the part of a few bold and skilful guerilla leaders who had nailed their colours to the mast.

The reappearance of these disturbers of the peace, first in the south-east of the Orange River Colony, then in the south-west of the Transvaal, and finally in every portion of the conquered territory, placed those of the inhabitants who wanted to settle down in a position of great difficulty. Instead of being made prisoners of war, they had been allowed to remain on their farms on taking the oath of neutrality, and many of them were really anxious to keep it. But they had not the strength of mind, nor from want of education, a sufficient appreciation of the sacredness of the obligation which they had undertaken, to resist the pressure of their old companions in arms when these reappeared among them appealing to their patriotism and to their fears. In a few weeks or months the very men whom we had spared and treated with exceptional leniency were up in arms again, justifying their breach of faith in many cases by the extraordinary argument that we had not preserved them from the temptation to commit it.

[Sidenote: The Boer way of saying "Bosh".]

Early in the long halt near Pretoria, at Silverton Camp, the Guards' Brigade was formally assembled to hear read a telegram from H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, congratulating them on the practical termination of the war; whereupon as though by positive prearrangement the Boers plumped a protesting shell in startlingly close proximity to where our cheering ranks not long before had stood. It was the Boer way of saying "bosh" to our ill-timed boast that the war was over.

Botha and his irreconcilables were at this time occupying a formidable position, with a frontage of fifteen miles, near Pienaar's Poort, where the Delagoa line runs through a gap in the hills, fifteen miles east of Pretoria; and this position Lord Roberts found it essential to attack with 17,000 men and seventy guns on Monday, June 11th, that is just a week after the neighbouring capital had surrendered. The fighting extended over three days; French attacking on our left, Hamilton on our right, and Pole Carew in the centre keenly watching the development of these flanking movements. In the course of this stubborn contest the invisible Boers did for one brief while become visible, as they galloped into the open in hope of capturing the Q Battery, which had already won for itself renown by redeeming Sanna's Post from complete disaster. Then it was Hamilton ordered the memorable cavalry charge of the 12th Lancers, which saved the guns, and scattered the Boers, but cost us the life of its gallant and God-fearing Colonel Lord Airlie, who before the war greatly helped me in my work at Aldershot. The death of such a man made the battle of Diamond Hill a mournfully memorable one; for Lord Airlie combined in his own martial character the hardness of the diamond with its lustrous pureness; and his last words just before the fatal bullet pierced his heart, were said to be a characteristic rebuke of an excited and perhaps profane sergeant: "Pray, moderate your language!" Wholesome advice, none too often given, and much too seldom heeded!

[Sidenote: News from a far Country.]

As the inevitable result of this further fighting, the men who had fondly hoped to be shortly on their way to Hyde Park Corner, suffered just then from a severe attack of heart-sickness, which was none other than a passing spasm of home-sickness! "Home, sweet home" sighed they, "and we never knew how sweet till now"! Meanwhile, however, we were wonderfully well supplied with home news, for within a single fortnight no less than 360 sacks of letters and various postal packets reached the Guards' Brigade, in spite of whole mails being captured by the Boers, and hosts of individual letters or parcels having gone hopelessly astray. Official reports declare that a weekly average of nearly 750,000 postal items were sent from England to the army in South Africa throughout the whole period covered by the war, so that it is quite clear we were not forgotten by loved ones far away, and the knowledge of that fact afforded solace, if not actual healing, even for those whose heart-sickness was most acute.