This short history is an amplification of a diary kept by the author during the late war, which amplification, through the courtesy of the editor, was published as a series of papers in 'Blackwood's Magazine.' The author is well aware of the shortcomings of his work, which he presents to the public in all humility, after asking pardon from such of the performers on his stage as may see through the slight veil of anonymity in which it has been attempted to enshroud them. If any should think the f

"De Aar," and the Africander guard flung himself out of his brake-van. De Aar! After forty-eight hours of semi-starvation in a brake-van, the name of the junction, in spite of the ill-natured tones which gave voice to it, sounded sweeter than the chimes of bells. It meant relief from confinement in a few square feet of board; relief from a semi-putrid atmosphere—oil, unwashed men, and stale tobacco-smoke; relief from the delicate attentions of a surly Africander guard, who resented the overcrowd

The driver leaned out of the cab of his engine and gave the brigadier a little of his mind. "Look here, I am a civilian; I know my duties. I had my eight bogies on, and by the rights of things I had no business to take on your beastly truck—and now I tell you that the line is not safe, and here I stay for the night. Bear in mind that you are now dealing with civilian driver John Brown, and he knows his duties." "My hearty fellow!" answered the brigadier, who had commanded a Colonial corps too lo

"Not bad for a green crush." The brigadier sat down on the edge of a great slab of rock to watch the baggage over the nek. It was a typical South African nek. An execrable path winding over the saddle of a low range of tumbled ironstone. Just one of those ranges which force themselves with sheer effrontery out from the level of the plain. Loose sugar-loaf excrescences which stud the sea of prairie with a thousand flat-topped islets, and weave the monotony of landscape peculiar to this great cont

The first lesson brought home to the Englishman in South Africa is, that he must not judge the country by any European standard, for as long as he continues so to do he will find himself at sea. To show surprise is to declare ignorance—and the British and Dutch South Africans, after the manner of all superlatively ignorant races, have the profoundest contempt for those in whom they themselves can discern ignorance. Thus when the kindly eminence of a hill gives you a ten-mile view of some tiny to

For the moment the Intelligence officer could ill disguise his astonishment. Here, standing in front of him, was the girl who had taught him his first lesson in staff jurisprudence. The memory of the incidents at the farmhouse, her petulance with the Tiger, her tears for her lover, had been almost effaced by the vicissitudes of the last forty-eight hours. If he had ever thought of the girl at all, it had been in the same spirit as a mariner recalls a passing ship, whose shapely lines were barely

"There will be no surprise of Hertzog at Houwater to-day." The Rimington captain had summed up the results consequent upon the night-attack with considerable accuracy, and as his party, in obedience to orders, worked down the banks of the Ongers River covering the right of the combined advance upon Houwater, there was abundance of evidence to show that Hertzog and Company had little intention of becoming enmeshed by the ponderous strategy set in motion against them. Nor was the weather favourabl

"Well, if that place is held, it would take Lord Bobs and the 'Grand Army' three days to turn it," and the brigadier dropped his glasses to the full length of their lanyard. The brigade, doing advance-guard to the whole concentration, had crossed the great prairie which lies north of Houwater, and the covering cloud of mounted éclaireurs was already disappearing into the shade of the mountain fastness in front of us. The giant outcrop of volcanic rock which is known as Minie Kloof rises, with th

To the delight of the men and disgust of the brigadier, day broke without bringing any further orders to the New Cavalry Brigade. So it remained halted in the great open prairie which fringes the Beer Vlei. It may also be conjectured that De Wet and his following, as they were stripping the adjacent little township of Strydenburg, learned with satisfaction that the British columns, which lay round him like the spokes of a wheel to the axle, were as immobile as usual—Plumer from the force of circ

The cyclists of the Mount Nelson Light Horse trundled out of camp with some show of bravery. They had left Cape Town 100 strong. The journey from Hanover Road to Britstown had reduced their numbers by fifty per cent. The bare fifty still with the brigade were the survival of the fittest after a week of rain at Hanover and another week of struggling with Karoo tracks ankle-deep in dust. But the men tried to show something of a front as they pedalled out of camp. Their captain was an enthusiast. H

True to that instinct which finds the Boer the most insanitary race laying claim to a civilisation of any standard, the squatters who settled upon Hopetown as a site suitable for a village chose a situation as insalubrious as any to be found on the fringe of the Karoo. In a cup-valley of mean dimensions, the little collection of shanties which group round the church and town-hall lay tucked away in the folds of the bare dusty hills, so that if tracks did not converge upon the village with consis

Luckhoff, in normal circumstances, has little to distinguish it from the many rural villages scattered over the South African veldt. If anything, it is more squalid than the general run of fourth-rate hamlets. But when the New Cavalry Brigade went into billet there, it was more or less a deserted and plundered village. The inhabitants may have totalled a hundred souls, the large majority of whom were women and children; and we should not have found these in possession if our Intelligence guide h

With the crossing of the Riet the history of this De Wet hunt ceases, for everything came to pass precisely as the brigadier had foreseen. The brigade arrived at Kalabas bridge before daybreak, prepared, if a tangible enemy was still in front, to take up the running again and pursue the line to an end, no matter the cost. [42] But the soft ground on the far side of the river gave evidence of thirty trails. The commando had scattered to the winds, and as, with cunning foresight, De Wet and his fo

Typographical errors corrected in text: On page 321, the word battue is not a typographical error. A battue is a hunt in which beaters force the game to flee in the direction of the hunter.  ...