WITH RIMINGTON

BY

L. MARCH PHILLIPPS

LATE CAPTAIN IN RIMINGTON'S GUIDES

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1902
All rights reserved

This book is dedicated to the memory of my friend Lieutenant Gustavus Coulson, D.S.O., of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, who fell at Lambrechtfontein on May 19, 1901.

The Colonel in command writes that in that action Lieutenant Coulson rallied some men and saved a gun from falling into the enemy's hands. He lost his life in bringing off a wounded man from under the enemy's fire. For this deed, the last of many deeds as brave, he was recommended for the Victoria Cross.

I knew him from his childhood, and on the march from Lindley to Pretoria, and thence far south to Basutoland, we often rode together, and talked of West Country sport and his Devonshire home and faces that we both knew and loved there.

A keen soldier, a cheery comrade, and a brave and kindly English gentleman, he stands, it seems to me, the very type of those gallant boys who in this South African war have died for England.

These letters were written without any idea of publication, and it was not until I had been home some months that suggestions from one or two sources caused me to think of printing them. They appear much as they were written, except that sometimes several letters dealing with the same event have been thrown into one; and occasionally a few words have been added to fill up gaps. In no case have I been wise after the event, or put in prophecies which had already come off.

The parts in inverted commas are extracts from note-books which I used to carry about in my pocket, and these passages I have left just as they were jotted down, thinking that such snap-shots of passing scenes might have an interest of their own.

Such as they are, however, these letters contain a quite faithful account of things that happened under my own eyes throughout the chief stages of the western campaign. During the early part of the war many things happened that were splendid to see and that it gave me great pleasure to write about. During the later stages nothing particularly splendid occurred, though the patience and endurance of our men were in their way fine; but some things happened which were, as we say, regrettable; and these things also are in their turn briefly described.

L.M.P.

15 BURY STREET,
ST. JAMES'S, S.W.

ORANGE RIVER CAMP

ORANGE RIVER, November 18, 1899.

The sun is just rising on Orange River Camp. Our tents are pitched on the slopes of white sand, soft and deep, into which you sink at every step, that stretch down to the river, dotted with a few scraggy thorn-trees. There are men round me, sleeping about on the sand, rolled in their dark brown blankets, like corpses laid out, covered from head to foot, with the tight folds drawn over their feet and over their heads. A few bestir themselves, roll, and stretch, and draw back the covering from their sleepy, dusty faces. The first sunbeams begin to creep along the ground and turn the cold sand yellow.

Our camp grows larger and rapidly accumulates, like water behind a dam, as reinforcements muster for the attack. Methuen commands. We must be about 8000 strong now, and are expecting almost hourly the order to advance. Below us De Aar hums like a hive. From a deserted little wayside junction, such as I knew it first, it has blossomed suddenly into a huge depôt of all kinds of stores, provisions, fodder, ammunition, and all sorts of material for an important campaign. Trains keep steaming up with more supplies or trucks crowded with khaki-clad soldiers, or guns, khaki painted too, and the huge artillery horses that the Colonials admire so prodigiously. Life is at high pressure. Men talk sharp and quick, and come to the point at once. Foreheads are knit and lips set with attention. Every one you see walks fast, or, if riding, canters. There is no noise or confusion, but all is strenuous, rapid preparation.

This is the type that you would probably notice most. The Stock Exchange of Johannesburg is their hatching-place and hot-bed; but from there they overflow freely among the seaside towns, and are usually to be found in the big hotels and the places you would be most likely to go to. Cape Town at the present moment is flooded with them. But these are only the mere froth of the South African Colonial breed. The real mass and body of them consists (besides tradesmen, &c., of towns) of the miners of the Rand, and, more intrinsically still, of the working men and the farmers of English breed all over the Colony. It is from these that the fighting men in this quarrel are drawn. It is from these that our corps, for instance, has been by the Major individually and carefully recruited; and I don't think you could wish for better material, or that a body of keener, more loyal, and more efficient men could easily be brought together.

Your first march with such a band is an episode that impresses itself. We were called up a few days ago at dead of night from De Aar to relieve an outlying picket reported hard pressed. In great haste we saddled by moonlight, and in a long line went winding away past the artillery lines and the white, ghostly tents of the Yorkshires. The hills in the still, sparkling moonlight looked as if chiselled out of iron, and the veldt lay spread out all white and misty; but what one thought most of was the presence of these dark-faced, slouch-hatted irregulars, sitting free and easy in their saddles, with the light gleaming dully on revolver and carbine barrel. A fine thing is your first ride with a troop of fighting men.

One word about the country and I have done. What strikes one about all South African scenery, north and south, is the simplicity of it; so very few forms are employed, and they are employed over and over again. The constant recurrence of these few grave and simple features gives to the country a singularly childish look. Egyptian art, with its mechanical repetitions, unchanged and unvaried, has just the same character. Both are intensely pre-Raphaelite.

Most strange and weird is this extraordinary regularity. It seems to mean something, to be arranged on some plan and for some humanly intelligible purpose. In the evenings and early mornings especially, when these oft-repeated shapes stand solemnly round the horizon, cut hard and blue against the sky like the mighty pylons and propylons of Egyptian temples, the architectural character of the scenery and its definite meaning and purpose strike one most inevitably. So solemn and sad it looks; the endless plains bare and vacant, and the groups of pure cut battlements and towers. As if some colossals here inhabited at one time and built these remains among which we now creep ignorant of their true character. The scenery really needs such a race of Titans to match it. In these spaces we little fellows are lost.

Well, farewell. My next will be after some sort of a contest. There has been a touch or two; enough to show they are waiting for us. A corporal of ours was shot through the arm yesterday and struggled back to camp on another man's horse. The dark-soaked sleeve (war's colour for the first time of seeing!) was the object, you may guess, of particular attention.

BELMONT

BELMONT SIDING.

It is to be called Belmont, I believe, from the little siding on the railway near which it was fought. On the other hand it may be called after the farm which it was fought on. Who decides these things? I have never had dealings with a battle in its callow and unbaptized days before, and it had never occurred to me that they did not come into the world ready christened. Will Methuen decide the point, or the war correspondents, or will they hold a cabinet council about it? Anyhow Belmont will do for the present.

Our mounted men, Guides, 9th Lancers, and a few Mounted Infantry, marched out an hour before dawn. A line of kopjes stood up before us, rising out of the bare plain like islands out of the sea, and as we rounded the point and opened up the inner semicircle of hills, we could distinguish the white waggon tops of the Boer laager in a deep niche in the hillside, and see the men collecting and mounting and galloping about. By-and-by, as we advanced, there came a singing noise, and suddenly a great pillar of red dust shot up out of the ground a little to our left. "That's a most extraordinary thing," thinks I, deeply interested, "what land whale of these plains blows sand up in that fashion?" Then I saw several heads turned in that direction, and heard some one say something about a shell, and finally I succeeded in grasping, not without a thrill, the meaning of the phenomenon.

The fire did not last long, though in the short time it did terrible damage, and men of the Northumberlands and Grenadiers and Coldstreams were dropping fast as they clambered up the rocky hillside. But that brief burst of firing was the battle of Belmont. In that little space of time the position had been lost and won, and we had paid our price for it. During the march across the flat, as I have been told since, our loss was comparatively light; but when the climbing of the hill began, numbers of Boers who had been waiting ready poured in their fire. All along the ridge, from behind every rock and stone, the smokeless Mausers cracked (it was then the fire rose to that rippling noise we were listening to on the other side of the range), and the sleet of bullets, slanting down the hill, swept our fellows down by scores. But there was never any faltering. They had been told to take the hill. Two hundred and fifty stopped on the way through no fault of theirs. The rest went on and took it. That's the way our British infantry put a job through.

Various little incidents occurred. This one amused me at the moment. We had captured a herd of cattle from some niggers who had been sent by the Boers to drive them in, and I was conveying them to the rear. From a group of staff officers a boy came across the veldt to me, and presently I heard, as I was "shooing" on my bullocks, a very dejected voice exclaim, "How confoundedly disappointing." I looked round and saw a lad gazing ruefully at me, with a new revolver tied to a bright yellow lanyard ready in his hand. "I thought you were a Boer," he said, "and I was going to shoot you. I've got leave to shoot you," he added, as though he were in two minds about doing the job anyway. I looked at him for a long while in silence, there seemed nothing to say, and then, still ruefully, he rode away. This, you will understand, was right up our end of the valley, and I was driving cattle on to our ground, only I had a soft hat on.

Later a troop of us penetrated into the deep recess among the hills where they had their laager. It seemed evident, from the number of waggons and the amount of clothing and stores left behind and littered in every direction, that the Boers had not expected to be shifted nearly so suddenly as they were. There were heaps of provisions, quantities of coffee tied up in small bags, sugar, rice, biltong, i.e. dried strips of flesh, a sort of bread biscuit much used by them on the march, and made at the farms, and other things. All were done up in small quantities in such a way that individual men could carry it. There were waggons loaded, or half loaded, with old chests and boxes, and many heaped about the ground. Most contained clothes, and the place was strewn in all directions with blankets, greatcoats, and garments of all sorts, colours, and sizes. I annexed a very excellent black mackintosh, quite new and splendidly lined with red; a very martial and imposing garment.

Before going we collected all the ammunition and heaped it together and made a pile of wood round it which we set ablaze and then drew out into the plain and reined in and looked back. Never shall I forget the view. The hills, those hills the English infantry had carried so splendidly, were between us and the now setting sun, and though so close were almost black with clean-hacked edges against the sunset side of the sky. To eastward the endless grassy sea went whitening to the horizon, crossed in the distance with the horizontal lines of rich brown and yellow and pure blue, which at sunrise and sunset give such marvellous colouring to the veldt. The air here is exactly like the desert air, very exhilarating to breathe and giving to everything it touches that wonderful clearness and refinement which people who have been brought up in a damp climate and among smudged outlines so often mistake for hardness. Our great ammunition fire in the hollow of the hill burned merrily, and by-and-by a furious splutter of Mauser cartridges began, with every now and then the louder report of shells and great smoke balls hanging in the air. But sheer above all, above yellow veldt and ruined Boer laager, rose the hill, the position we had carried, grim and rigid against the sunset and all black. And, with the sudden sense of seeing that comes to one now and then, I stared at it for a while and said out loud "Belmont!" And in that aspect it remains photographed in my memory.

GRASPAN

November 26, 1899.

We marched out from our Orange River Camp on November 22nd, and fought at Belmont on the 23rd. On the 24th we marched north again, and on the 25th (yesterday) fought another action at Graspan, or, as some call it, Enslin—there is still the difficulty about names. March a day and fight a day seems the rule so far.

Yesterday in the early morning we found ourselves emerging from some stony hills with a great plain before us about four miles wide, I should think, with an ugly-looking range of hills bounding it on the north and the railway running north and south on our left. This we had every reason to believe was the enemy's position; toll-gate No. 2 on the Kimberley road. We went on to reconnoitre. Rimington led us straight towards the hills in open order, and when we were somewhere about rifle range from them, we right turned and galloped in line along their front; but no gun or rifle spoke. When we reached the eastern point of the range, we turned it and rode on with the hills on our left; and now, with the Lancers a little farther out on our right, we offered too good a shot for the enemy to resist. They opened on us with, as I thought three, but others think two, guns, and put in some quick and well-directed shots, of which the first one or two fell short and the rest went screaming over our heads and fell among the Lancers.

I usually carry a note-book and pencil in my pocket, partly to jot down any information one may pick up at farms from Kaffirs, &c., and partly to make notes in of the things I see. Here is a note from the kraal.

This is our first sight of an infantry attack, and it doesn't impress me at first at all. Its cold-bloodedness, the absence of all excitement, make it so different from one's usual notions of a battle. It is really difficult to believe that those little, sauntering figures are "delivering an attack." They don't look a bit as if they were going to fight. The fact is, they have a long distance to cover before reaching the hills, and must go fairly slow. Accordingly, you see them strolling leisurely along as if nothing particular were happening; while the hills themselves, except for the occasional puffs of smoke, look; quite bare and empty; ridges of stone and rock, interspersed with grass tussocks, heaped up against the hot, blue sky.

MODDER RIVER

MODDER RIVER CAMP,

December 1, 1899.

We had a great old fight here two days ago, and suffered another crushing victory; but though I saw it all, I daresay you know more about the whole thing by this time than I do.

This is Modder River, deep and still, just beneath my feet. It is a lovely, cloudless morning, and going to be a very hot day. I am writing my letter on the banks of the river in the shade of green trees and shrubs, with birds singing and twittering, and building their nests round me; it is spring-time here, you know, or early summer. Here and there, sauntering or sitting, are groups of our khaki soldiers enjoying mightily a good rest after the hard work, marching and fighting, of the last ten days. From the river-bed come voices calling and talking, sounds of laughing, and now and then a plunge. Heads bob about and splash in the mud-coloured water, and white figures run down the bank and stand a moment, poised for a plunge. Three stiff fights in seven days doesn't seem to have taken much of the spring out of them.

The action itself was mainly an infantry one. Here are one or two jottings taken that day:—

"November 26th, 7.30 A.M.—We left camp, six miles south of Modder River, a little before daylight and marched north. The country is like what one imagines a North American prairie to be, a sea of whitish, coarse grass, with here and there a low clump of bushes (behind one of which we are halted as I write this). One can see a vast distance over the surface. Along the north horizon there is a ripple of small hills and kopjes, looking blue, with the white grass-land running up to them. It is a comparatively cool morning with a few light clouds in the sky and a pleasant breeze. On our left is the railway, and all along on our right, extending far in front and far behind, advances the army."

"It is a half-hour later as the great guns begin their booming; that solemn, deep-toned sound like the striking of a great cathedral clock. We moved forward to the top of a rise overlooking the distant river and village."

"A dead level stretches below us to the river, marked by some bush tufts and the few roofs of Modder River village. The Naval Brigade have got their four guns in the plain just near the foot of our hill. They are hard at work now bombarding the enemy's big gun by the river. This, after a while, is almost silenced. Each time it speaks again the deadly naval guns are on to it. At last, when it does fire, it shows by its erratic aim that its best gunners are out of action."

"10 A.M.—Both sides are sticking to the business desperately. The rattle of rifle-fire is one low roar. The air shudders and vibrates under it. Now the naval guns draw towards the river again; so do the rest of our batteries. Things can't stand at this tension. The big gun speaks again, but wildly; its shell bursts far out on the plain."

"11 A.M.—The fight is dogged as ever but slower. There are cessations of firing altogether, and it is comparatively slow when continued. The stubbornness of the enemies' resistance to our attack and to the fearful shelling they have had is calling forth expressions of astonishment and admiration from the onlooking officers on the hill."

"As the circle narrowed and our attack concentrated on the village and bridge, we all thought that the end was coming, and, on a lull of the firing about 11.30 the Major even exclaimed, 'There, I think that's the end, and I can only say thank God for it.' But he was wrong. He had scarcely said it when that indomitable heavy gun of theirs, re-supplied with gunners, began again; again the Naval guns, on a tested range, crack their shrapnel right in its face; the batteries all open and soon the whole orchestra is thundering again. That dreadful muttering, the 'rub-a-dub, a-dub-a-dub, a-dub-a-dub' (say it as fast as you can) of the rifles keeps on; through all the noise of fire, the sharp, quick bark of the Boer Maxim-Nordenfelt sounds at intervals and the mingled smoke and dust lies in a haze along the river."

THE FOUR POINT SEVEN

MODDER RIVER CAMP,

December 1899.

A few days ago we welcomed a distinguished stranger here in the shape of a long 4.7 naval gun. They set him up in the road just outside the station, with his flat-hatted sailors in zealous attendance, where he held a day-long levée. The gun is a remarkable object among the rest of our artillery. Its barrel, immensely long but very slender, has a well-bred, aristocratic look compared with the thick noses of our field-guns. It drives its forty-five pound shell about seven miles, and shoots, I am told, with perfect accuracy. It is an enlarged edition of the beautiful little twelve-pounders which we have hitherto been using, and which exceed the range of our fifteen-pounder field-guns by about a half. Why should naval guns be so vastly superior to land ones?

This morning, well before light, we took out our gentleman, dragged by an immense string of oxen, to introduce him to his future victims and whet his appetite by a taste. The Boer position lies some six miles to the north of the river. The most conspicuous feature of it is a hill projecting towards us like a ship's ram and dipping sharply to the plain. Magersfontein, they call it. The railway going north leaves it to the right, but other hills and kopjes carry on the position westward across the railway, barring an advance. It is evident that we shall have to take the place in front, as we are not strong enough nor mobile enough to go round.

We have a few reinforcements, notably the Highland Brigade, also the 12th Lancers under Airlie, and some Horse Artillery pop-guns.

In the thick bush on the eastern plain, as we lay one morning at daybreak, we could hear the shouts of men and catch glimpses of them here and there riding about and urging their cattle on. Some passed not far from where we lay crouched (we had left our ponies on the outskirts of the bush). It seemed funny to watch them riding to and fro, unconscious of our presence and calling to each other. It reminded me of some boy's game of hide-and-seek or Tom Tiddler's ground. We have had two or three casualties, and lost two prisoners, and we have bagged several of them. The army is resting.

Well, this morning, as I was saying, we take our Long Tom (Joey, as he is now called, out of compliment to Chamberlain) out for a shot. Here is a note about it:—

"It is worth getting up at this time to enjoy the delicious, pure, and fresh air. The glow of sunrise is in the sky, but not yet the sun. There are some long streaks and films of rosy cloud along the east. Already, after five shots, the whole kopje is enveloped in dust and reddish smoke from the bursting lyddite, but elsewhere between us and the sunrise the hills are a perfect dark blue, pure blocks of the colour. The Lancers on their horses show black against the sky as they canter, scattering through the underwood with graceful slanting lances. At slow deliberate intervals the long gun tolls. Dead silence is the only reply. The sun rises and glares on the rocky hills. Not a living thing is to be seen."

MAGERSFONTEIN

MODDER RIVER CAMP,

December 13, 1899.

When we were camped a day's march south of this, two Boers brought in a wounded man of ours in a Cape cart. "You will never get to Kimberley," they said to us. "It will take better men than you to stop us," said we. "Not a bit of it," said they, and off they drove. As it turns out, they were nearer the mark than we were.

While I write this, early on the morning of the 13th, you at home may just be reading in the papers the accounts of our last two days' disastrous fighting. It was a defeat, but yet it was a defeat which was not felt nor realised by the bulk of the army. It was a blow that fell entirely on one brigade, and the greater part of our force was still awaiting the order to advance, and expecting to engage the enemy when already the attack, unknown to us, had been delivered and repulsed.

"5 P.M.—The hill is all one heavy dull hue in the sombre evening light, and against it the sharp glints of fire as the shrapnel bursts, and the round puff-balls of white smoke show vividly. Every now and then a great curtain of murky vapour goes up to show where the old lyddite-slinger in the rear is depositing his contributions. We had three field-batteries engaged, the naval twelve-pounders, Joey, and the pop-guns; about thirty guns altogether."

I find myself dwelling on the words as we move off. Can there be such a land? Can there be so blessed a place?

We reach the ganger's hut, and the light spreads and rests on the hills. Immediately we are deafened by a shattering report close behind us, and starting round, find the long nose of Joey projecting almost over our heads, while the scream of the shell dies away in the distance as it speeds towards the Boer hill. One of the naval officers gives me a first hint of the truth. There has certainly been an attack, he says, but he fears unsuccessful.

Later in the day "Joey" and I got quite thick. There is a double kopje, detached from the main Boer position on our side, known as the Dumbell Kopje. From our left-front place we could see a lot of Boers clustered under the hill, pasted, like swarming bees, up against the lee of it, while the naval gun's shells—for he evidently had a nonchalant idea that there was some one about there—went flying overhead and bursting beyond. This was very irritating to watch, and I was glad to be sent back to "whisper a word in his ear." Making a hasty sketch of the hill, I galloped back and presented it to the captain with explanation, and had the satisfaction of seeing 300 yards knocked off "Joey's" next shot, which was, I should judge, a very hot one. "Stay and have some grub," said the jolly naval captain. We sat on the ground eating and drinking, while "Joey" peppered the Dutchmen.

I am writing this on the day after the action in my favourite lurking-place by the side of the river under the evergreens and big weeping willows that overhang the sluggish water. Our own small camp is close to the stream, and here every morning the Highlanders are in the habit of turning up, usually with much laughing and shouting, to bathing parade. There is no laughing this morning, only sad, sullen faces, silence and downcast looks. Still they are glad to talk of it. A few come under the shade of my tree, and sit about and tell me the little bit that each saw or heard. You only get a general impression of chaos. Some tried to push on, some tried to extend, some lay down, and some ran back out of close range and took up such cover as they could get. This was, luckily, pretty good, there being a lot of bush and rocks about, and here they gradually crawled together and got into some sort of order, and kept up a counter fire at the Boer position. The Brigade, however, had been badly shaken, and as hour after hour passed all through the blazing day, and they were kept lying there under the fire of an entrenched enemy, exhausted and parched with thirst, their patience gradually failed, and they made another rush back, but were rallied and led up again to where the Mausers might play on them. They were not allowed to retire till after five, when all the troops were withdrawn—that is, until they had been shot over at close range for about fourteen mortal hours.

One thing that added to the panic was that none, at least among the men and junior officers, knew anything at all about the trench. They thought they were going to storm the hill. So that things were so contrived that the bewilderment of a surprise should be added to the terrors of the volley. You will scarcely believe this perhaps. I have just come from having tea with the Argyle and Sutherland. Of the eight or ten officers there, not one had heard of the trench. Here, by the river, I have talked to a score of Highlanders, and not one had heard of it either. They "didn't know what the hell was up" when the volley came. We could scarcely have provided all the elements of a panic more carefully.

As for our own little army, we have been digging ourselves in here, and are perfectly secure, and I daresay we shall be able to keep open the line all right. As to relieving Kimberley, that is another thing. Cronjé evidently doesn't think we can, for he has just sent us in a message offering us twenty-four hours to clear out in. He is a bit of a wag is old Cronjé.

RECONNAISSANCE

BIVOUAC ON THE MODDER,

January 15, 1900.

At Modder River camp the dust lies thick and heavy. Every breeze that blows lifts clouds of it, that hang in the air like a dense London fog, and mark the site of the camp miles and miles away. The river, more muddy than ever, moves languidly in its deep channel. There is a Boer laager some miles above the camp, the scourings of which—horrid thought!—are constantly brought down to us. The soldiers eye the infected current askance and call it Boervril. Its effect is seen in the sickness that is steadily increasing.

One of the little pictures I shall remember belonging to Modder camp is the sight of the soldiers at early mass. You can picture to yourself a wide, flat dusty plain held in the bent arm of the river, with not a tree or bush on it; flat as a table, ankle-deep in grey dust, and with a glaring, blazing sun looking down on it. The dust is so hot and deep that it reminds one more of the ashes on the top of Vesuvius—you remember that night climb of ours?—than of anything else.

Laid out in very formal and precise squares are the camps of the various brigades, the sharp-pointed tents ranged in exact order and looking from far off like symmetrical little flower-beds pricked out on the sombre plain.

SCOUTING ON THE MODDER

THORNHILL FARM, January 30, 1900.

It was out on this western side, where we were feeling for the enemy's right flank, some twenty miles from camp, in a niche half way up the mountain, that we spent our last Christmas. We rather expected an attack, as a Kaffir of ours had been taken by them, and might be expected to reveal our movements. After dark we climbed the hill, dragging our ponies over the boulders and scratching our way through the thorns.

Above all others does this scouting life develop your faculties, sharpen your senses of hearing and of seeing, and, in practical ways, of thinking too; of noting signs and little portents and drawing conclusions from them; of observing things. You feel more alive than you ever felt before. Every day you are more or less dependent on your own faculties. Not only for food and drink for yourself and your pony, but for your life itself. And your faculties respond to the call. Your glance, as it scans the rocks and the plain, is more wary and more vigilant; your ears, as you lie in the scrub, prick themselves at a sound like a Red Indian's, and the least movement among cattle or game or Kaffirs, or the least sign that occurs within range of your glasses, is noticed and questioned in an instant.

This Christmas patrol of ours was of use in touching the southernmost and westernmost limits of the Boer position. It has shown that the enveloping movement of which so much has been said, and which has been pressed now and then on the east side, has not made much progress on the west.

I am turning over my diary with the idea of giving you a notion of the sort of life we lead, but find nothing remarkable.

"I have seen prints in shop windows of farms and soldiers, bits of country life and war mixed, a party of Lancers or Uhlans calling at some old homestead, watering their horses or bivouacking in the garden. Often what I see now makes me think of these subjects. A large camp is hideous and depressing; dirty and worn, the ground trampled deep in dust; filth and refuse lying about; the entrails and skins of animals, flies, beastly smells, and no excitement or animation. But these outlying scenes, scouts, pickets, &c., have a peculiar interest. This garden, for instance, is itself pretty and wild, with its tangle of figs, its avenue of quinces (great golden fruit hanging), its aloes all down the side, with heavy, blue spikes and dead stems sticking thirty feet in air, branching and blackened like fire-scorched fir-trees, and its dark green oranges and other fruit and flower-trees all mixed in a kind of wilderness; and behind this the steep kopjes, with black boulders heaped to the sky, and soft grey mimosas in between. It is a pretty spot in itself, but what a different, strange interest is brought in by the two or three carbines leaning against the wall, the ponies, ready saddled, tethered at the corner, the hint of camp-fire smoke climbing up through a clump of trees, and now and then a khaki-clad figure or two passing between the trunks or lying under them asleep."

"The night was dark as pitch, and very windy, just what we wanted. After missing our way several times, whispering, consulting, and feeling about in the dark, we came on the wattle fence and beehive huts of a Kaffir kraal. Up to this we crept, and Vice dived into the hole of an entrance, and after some underground rumblings emerged with an old nigger as you draw a badger from his earth. The old man was soon persuaded by a moderate bribe to be our guide to the spot we wished to reconnoitre. He told us that parties of Boers were pretty often round that way, and that one had passed the previous night at the kraal. Dunkley agreed to stay with the horses, and Vice and I went on with the Kaffir. The country was grassy, with plentiful belts and clumps of silvery bush. After a while the moon shone out and the clouds dispersed, which made us feel disagreeably conspicuous in the white patches between the bush."

The results of these exciting little prowls, when worth while, are sent in to the General, and from the mass of evidence thus placed before him he is supposed to be able to define the enemy's position and movements.

Chester Master and our little body were paid a pretty compliment by the General the other day; for the Major having written to ask if we might join him, Methuen replied that he was sorry to have to refuse, but that we were doing invaluable work, and he really couldn't spare us.

Well, fare you well. We hear of heavy reinforcements arriving. They will be very welcome. Magersfontein, Colenso, Stormberg; we could do with a change. But what a revelation, is it not? Are these the prisoners that we played at dice for? One thing in it all pleases me, and that is the temper and attitude of England. I like the gravity, the quiet, dogged rolling up of the shirt-sleeves much better than the blustering, wipe-something-off-a-slate style which the papers made so familiar to us at the beginning.

THE ADVANCE

MODDER RIVER CAMP,

February 13, 1900.

We are back in the old camp, but only for a few hours. This afternoon we march. Yesterday, crossing the line, we had a glimpse of Rimington and the rest of the corps. They have come up with French, and are off eastward on the flank march. We shall be after them hotfoot before dark. Things begin to shape themselves. We are going to bring our right arm round, leaving Magersfontein untouched, and relieve Kimberley by a flank march in force. Methuen stays here. Poor fellow! I wish him joy of it. Bobs and Kitchener direct the advance; French heads it. They say we shall march 50,000 strong. The line is choked with troop trains, batteries, siege guns, naval guns, and endless truckloads of stores and provisions. At last! is every one's feelings. The long waited for moment has come. You know a hawk's hover? Body steady, wings beating, and then the rushing swoop. So with the army. We have hovered steady here these two months with our wings stretched. Now we swoop.

And then the secret bivouacs and lurking-places along the river or in among the deserted hills. The lookout from the tall pyramid, where I have kept watch so many hours day and night, in heat of sun or with stars glittering overhead.

We were told afterwards that the plan on this side was to draw the Boers south of the hills, so as to give the cavalry, which was to move westward just north of the range, a chance of cutting them off. The cavalry, however, didn't turn up. No one seemed to know what had become of them, and I daresay they were saying the same of us. The advice not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing is sometimes rather too literally followed in these manoeuvres, I think. Meantime the Boers have driven off all old Cook's cattle and all Mrs. Dugmore's too; and as we were sent out with the express object of "reassuring the farmers," the result is not entirely satisfactory.

No matter; this was all a side issue; now for a larger stage and more important operations. Blow trumpets and sound drums. Enter Lord Roberts and the main army.

RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY

KIMBERLEY CLUB, February 18.

It is with feelings of the deepest satisfaction that I look at the address at the head of this notepaper. Indeed for the last five minutes I have been staring at it dreamily without putting pen to paper, repeating "Kimberley Club, Kimberley," to myself, vaguely thinking of all it portends; the varied fortunes of the last three months; the cheery setting out; the first battles, that already seem so long ago; the repulse, and long, dreary wait by Modder; the gradual reconstruction of the whole plan of attack, and now the final achievement. Christian and I have been sharing a pint of champagne in the club bar. It was not till I heard the bottle pop that I realised, as by a sudden inspiration, that the British army had really attained its object at last. Very gravely we gave each other luck, and gravely drank our wine. Both of us, I am glad to be able to tell you, rose to the occasion, and as we looked across the bubbles, no foolish chaff or laughter marred the moment.

The thing began at grey dawn. Chester Master and two or three Guides were sent forward to reconnoitre a kopje where the Boers the day before had had a gun. We found the gun gone. Some marks of blood, a half-dug grave, and two dead horses, showed that the fire of our long naval gun had been more or less effective. We then rode on, the column we were guiding getting gradually into formation, and we were just mounting the next ridge, when down in the valley beneath we saw a long line of waggons, stretching away eastward for miles, dragged by huge bullock teams. They were making the best of their way forward, each with a party of mounted men riding at the side, and at the first glance, so close to our army and camp were they, I almost fancied it must be a convoy of our own. However, we realised what was up pretty quickly. The Boers, hearing of French's flank march, and fearing they would be cut off if they remained, were abandoning their position in the hills about Magersfontein, which they had intrenched so strongly, and were quietly and promptly moving off towards Bloemfontein. The rearguard of their line was at that moment just opposite to us.

Orders meantime come thick and fast from the grim watcher on the rocks above, and troop after troop of Mounted Infantry go scouring away to the attack. It is a running fight. Kopje after kopje, as the Boers push on, breaks into fire and is left extinct behind. But still they keep their flank unbroken and their convoy intact. For the hundredth time I admire their dogged courage under these, the most trying of all circumstances, the protection of a slow retreat.

So it goes on through the day, and I have great fun galloping about on my own account, looking into things here and there, and watching the general progress of events. I meet Chester Master again about 5 P.M., and he asks me to ride forthwith to Kimberley with him if Flops can stand it. All the Boer force has cleared from Magersfontein (our information was all right) and is in retreat on Bloemfontein, and Kitchener is sending word by Chester Master to French, bidding him right turn and march to head off the Boer retreat, while he (Kitchener) hangs on their tail.

Six or seven miles out from Kimberley my pony gives out, and Chester Master and May on fresh horses ride on, leaving me the boy. We plod on, an interesting, delicious ride. I get off and walk. A little wind rustles over the dry earth and bushes, but otherwise there is not a whisper of sound. The landscape at one moment lies white before us as if it had been washed in milk, and the next is blotted out with clouds. Now and again we pause to listen, and the boy stands like a bronze image of Attention with bent head and held breath, the whites only of his eyes moving as he rolls them from one object to another. At last from a low kopje top by the path comes the first loud and welcome "Halt! Who goes there?" of an English picket. Another two or three miles brings me to an outpost of the town, and there, dead tired and Flops the same, I fling myself on the ground, after hearty greetings and a word or two of talk with the guard, and do a three hours' sleep till the dawn of the 17th.

PAARDEBERG—THE BOMBARDMENT

February 24, 1900.

We are once more upon the Modder. I should think the amount of blood, Dutch and English, this river has drunk in the last few months will give it a bad name for ever. There is something deadly about that word Modder. Say it over to yourself. Pah! It leaves a taste of blood in the mouth.

We have been fighting in a desultory kind of way for the last week here. Coming from Kimberley, where we had gone to holloa back French (you could follow him by scent all the way from the dead horses), we made a forced march and rejoined him here by the river, where he is busily engaged, with Kitchener at the other end, in bombarding old Cronjé in the middle. They have fairly got the old man. Kitchener had stuck to him pretty tight, it seems, after we left them that evening at Klip Drift. French has nicked in ahead. Macdonald has arrived, I believe, or is arriving, and there are various other brigades and divisions casting up from different quarters, all concentrating on unhappy Cronjé. Lord Roberts, I suppose, will get the credit, but part of it, one would think, belongs to Kitchener, who planned the movement and put it in train before Lord Roberts arrived.

Never tell me these Boers aren't brave. What manner of life, think you, is in yonder ditch? Our artillery rains down its cross fire of shells perpetually. The great ox-waggons are almost totally destroyed or burnt. The ammunition in the carts keeps blowing up as the fire reaches it. The beasts, horses and oxen, are strewn about, dead and putrid, and deserters say that the stench from their rotting carcasses is unbearable. Night and day they have to be prepared for infantry attacks, and yet, to the amazement of all of us, they still hold out.

Meantime we can make out in our break-of-day scoutings up the river that bodies of men are approaching from the east. They have made a laager about ten miles up, and evidently mean to dispute our passage to the capital. The longer old Cronjé holds out, the more men from Colesberg and Natal will come up, the more entrenchments will be cut, and the harder will be our way to Bloemfontein. 'Tis the only way he sees to save the town, for we should march straight in else. Perhaps, too, he cherishes some hope of being relieved himself; of a determined attack from without, which might enable him, by a sudden sally, to break through; though, for dismounted men (and their horses are all dead by this time), the chances of ultimate escape in a country like this must be very small, one would think. Anyhow, he sticks to his work like a glutton. The shells burst over them. The lyddite blows them up in smoke and dust, the sun grills, the dead bodies reek, our infantry creep on them day and night; foul food, putrid water, death above and around, they grin and bear it day after day to gain the precious hours. And all the time we on our side know perfectly well that no relief they could possibly bring up would serve our army for rations for a day.

PAARDEBERG—THE SURRENDER

March 5, 1900.

Well, that is over, and I hope you are satisfied. We have got Cronjé. His victories are o'er. We have also got Mrs. Cronjé, which was a bit more than we bargained for. They cut her an extra deep hole, I hear, to be out of shell-fire, and she sat at the bottom all day long, receiving occasional visits from Cronjé, and having her meals handed down to her. One can fancy her blinking up at her "Man," whom she always, I am told, accompanies on his campaigns, and shaking her head sorrowfully over the situation. There is nothing very spirit-stirring about a mud hole and an old woman sitting at the bottom of it, but the danger and the terrible hardships were real enough. That is always the way with these Dutch. They have all the harsh realities and none of the glamour and romance. Athens, with their history and record, would have made the whole world ring for ever. But they are dumb. It seems such a waste.

Albrecht too is among the prisoners, the famous German "expert," who designs their works for them and manages their artillery; and we have taken 4000 prisoners, and several guns and one detested "pompon." Come, now, here is a little bit of all right at last.

I wandered about alone a long time, looking at the dismal, curious scene where so much had been endured. White flags, tied to poles or stripped branches, fluttered from waggon tops. Our ambulance carts came along, and the Tommies, stripping to the waist, proceeded to carry, one by one, the Dutch wounded through the ford on stretchers.

The enemy are all about the place, and we interview them every morning at daybreak, sometimes exchanging shots, sometimes not. We lay little traps for each other, and vary our manoeuvres with intent to deceive. This advance guard business (we are dealing here with the relief parties of Boers that have come up between us and Bloemfontein) always reminds me of two boxers sparring for an opening. A feint, a tap, a leap back, both sides desperately on the alert and wary.

We lost poor Christian yesterday in one of these little encounters. He was mortally wounded in stopping at short range to pick up a friend whose horse had been shot. I have mentioned him, I think, to you in my letters. There was no one in the corps more popular. "Tell the old dad I died game," was what he said when the Major, coming up with supports, knelt down to speak to him.

We shall be able to post letters to-day, and the reason this one is so extremely dirty is that I am finishing it in a drizzling rain, being on picket guard a couple of miles up the river, not far from the scene of yesterday's shooting. The Boers are on the bustle this morning. One can see them cantering about on the plain just across the river, where thousands of their cattle are grazing. In front the big-gun hill glimmers blue in the mist. Two or three of the enemy have crept up the woody river-course and tried a shot at us; some close; the bullets making a low, quick whistle as they flit overhead. My two companions—there are three of us—are still blazing an indignant reply at the distant bushes. By the amount of fire tap, tap, tapping like an old woodpecker all round the horizon, it seems that there is a sudden wish for a closer acquaintanceship among the pickets generally this morning. Those fellows in the river are at it again!

POPLAR GROVE

March 8, 1900.

We left our camp on Modder River at midnight of the 6th. The night was clear and starlit, but without moon. Moving down the river to take up our position in the flank march, we passed battalion after battalion of infantry moving steadily up to carry the position in front. The plan is this. The infantry advance up the river as if to deliver a frontal attack; but meanwhile the mounted troops, which have started during the night, are to make a wide detour to the right and get round at the back of the Boer position, so as to hem them in. The idea sounds a very good one, but our plans were upset by the Boers not waiting to be hemmed in. However, it is certain that if they had waited we should have hemmed them in. You must remember that.

The guns go rumbling past in the darkness. We are on the right of the column. Along our left we can just distinguish a long, black river of figures moving solidly on. It flows without break or gap. Now and then a jar or clank, the snort of a horse, the rattle of chains, rises above the murmur, but underneath all sounds the deep-toned rumbling of the wheels as the English guns go by.

As soon as we can see distinctly we make out that we have got to the south of the enemy's hills, and are marching along their flanks. They look like a group of solid indigo pyramids against the sunrise. Are those kopjes out of range? is a question that suggests itself as we draw alongside, leaving them wide on our port beam. Yes, no! No! a lock of smoke, white as snow, lies suddenly on the dark hillside, followed by fifteen seconds of dead silence. Then comes the hollow boom of the report, and immediately afterwards the first whimper, passing rapidly into an angry roar of the approaching shell, which bursts close alongside the Lancers. "D——d good shot," grunts the next man to me, with sleepy approval, as indeed it is.

The order to extend is given, but before the Lancers can carry it out the smoke curl shows again, and this time the shell comes with a yell of triumph slosh into the thickest group of them, and explodes on the ground. There is a flutter of lances for an instant round the spot, and the head and mane of a shot horse seen through the smoke as it rears up, but the column moves steadily on, taking no notice, only now it inclines a little to the right to get away from that long-range gun.

A charge at this time would have scattered the Boers instantly (they were very weak) and saved both time and lives. Instead of this, however, it is thought more advisable to keep every one standing still in order to afford a more satisfactory test of Boer marksmanship. It is very irksome. The air seems full of the little shrill-voiced messengers. Our ponies wince and shiver; they know perfectly well what the sound means. At last the fact that the hills are held is revealed to the sagacity of our commanders, and we are moved aside and the guns once more come into action.

BLOEMFONTEIN

My last letter was written after Poplar Grove, and we marched in here six days later on the 13th. Of the fighting on the way I can give you no account, as I was knocked up with a bad chill and had to go with the ambulance. Unluckily we had two nights of pouring rain, and as I had left behind my blanket and had only my Boer mackintosh (with the red lining), I fared very badly and got drenched both nights and very cold. This brought on something which the doctor described as "not real dysentery." However, whatever it was (or wasn't), it made me as weak as a baby, and I was transferred to our ambulance, in which I lay, comfortable enough, but only vaguely conscious of my surroundings.

The next day, the 10th, they fought the battle of Spytfontein. All I remember of it was some shells of the Boers falling into the long river of convoy which stretched in front of me in an endless line, and the huge bullock and mule waggons wheeling left and right and coming back across the veldt, with long bamboo whips swaying and niggers uttering diabolical screams and yells. We lost a good many men, but did fairly well in the end, as our infantry got into the enemy among some hills, where there were not supposed to be any enemy at all, and cut them up a good deal.

Bloemfontein is a pretty little place, but it takes you by surprise. The country round is, for endless leagues, so barren, a mere grassy, undulating expanse of prairie land, with a few farms at ten-mile intervals, that the appearance of a town seems incongruous. All of a sudden you come to a crowd of low bungalow-like roofs under the shadow of some flat-topped kopjes and realise the presence in this void of the Free State capital.

We were by way also of endeavouring to cut off any stray parties of Boers who might be making their way north from Colesberg and that neighbourhood. Broadwood was in command of us. There was a stray party, sure enough, but it was 7000 strong. It passed across our bows, fifteen miles east of us, and we let it severely alone.

Meantime there is a general lull. In the midst of war we are in peace. I am going off to-morrow to our old original Modder River camp (having ridden in from Thaba Nchu yesterday), that cockpit where so much fighting was done and where we spent so many weary weeks watching the heights of Magersfontein, to get luggage and things left behind. It will be strange to see the old place deserted and to ride near the hills without being shot at. Buller is peacefully sleeping at or near Ladysmith; the sound of his snoring faintly reaches us along the wires. Gatacre slumbers at Colesberg. Kitchener has disappeared, no one knows exactly where; and Little Bobs has curled himself up at Government House here, and given orders that he is not to be called for a fortnight. What news can you expect in such times? There is positively none.

MODDER REVISITED

BLOEMFONTEIN, April 9, 1900.

All the way from Modder River down the Kimberley line and up the central one from Naauwpoort, the most dismal rumours reached me at all stations, growing more definite as I neared Bloemfontein. Sanna's Post and Reddersberg! You have heard all about them by now. Nearly 1000 casualties and seven guns taken.

You remember I told you in my last letter that a big body of Boers marched north across our bows. Pilcher was out on that side and drew back. The Boers got wind of him, and wheeled west in pursuit. Broadwood, not strong enough to hold Thaba Nchu, moved in on Bloemfontein, the Boers after him.

It is no fun describing things one has not seen. The ground I know. It is a flat plain the whole way, but down the middle of it is a deep sluit or watercourse, some thirty feet deep, with steep, sudden banks, and through this the road dips down and passes. Broadwood halted on the east side of it, thus leaving it between himself and home. In doing this he gave a chance to an enemy who never throws a chance away. The Boer leader was Christian De Wet.

Hornby dealt the first counter-blow. With the five manageable guns he galloped back a bit and brought them into action at 1000 yards. He showed first that it was going to be a fight and not a stampede. "Steady and hit back," said Q Battery. You should hear the men talk of that battery. It lost almost every man, killed or wounded, but it was the chief means in restoring some sort of order to the retreat. But the disaster was past retrieving. In killed, wounded, and prisoners we lost a third of our force, the whole convoy, and seven guns out of twelve. I can see the question you are dying to ask. Why on earth did Broadwood camp the wrong side of that ditch? That is exactly the sort of question that a "blooming civilian" would ask. And then came Reddersberg and the loss of another five hundred. Christian De Wet again! And all this within hearing, as you may say, of the main British army.

My visit to old Modder River was very interesting. It was quite deserted; only a few odds and ends of militia, where, when I remember it last, there were stately great squares of ordered tents and long lines of guns and limbers and picketed horses, and the whole place crawled with khaki, and one felt around one all the bustle and energy of a huge camp. I felt quite melancholy, as when one revisits some scene of childhood changed beyond recall. Trains were running regularly up to Kimberley and ordinary citizens were travelling up and down. It seemed the war was forgotten. To me, who had been living in the head and front of a big army for seven months, all these old signs of peace and a quiet life seemed strange enough. There were some children going up with their papas and mamas. As we came one after another to the lines of hills at Belmont and Graspan they pointed and crowded to the windows, and papa began to explain that the great fights had been here, and to tell all about them, quite wrong.

The hills look peaceful enough now. The children press their noses and little india-rubber fingers against the glass, and chatter and laugh and bob up and down—

And I sit back in my corner ashamed of my dirty old tunic and the holes in it, and peer between two small flaxen heads at hills I last saw alive with bursting shell.

The "disappearing guns," in the same way, were not disappearing at all. They simply had strong redoubts of sandbags built round them, the opening in front being partly concealed by bushes. On each side of the gun, inside the redoubt, was a pit, with a little side passage or tunnel, where two or three gunners could lie in perfect security, and yet be ready at an instant's notice to serve their gun. As for the kopjes themselves, every rock and stone there was split with shell and starred with bullet marks. The reverse side of the slopes were steepened with stone walls here and there, as a protection against shrapnel, and sangars and lookout places were built at points of vantage. Altogether, though not so elaborate as one had been led to believe, the defences struck one as extremely practical and business-like.

I must add a word to tell you that the boxes have arrived! I only wish you could have been here to see the contents distributed. First (this was about a week ago) came a huge box full of good things to eat, raisins, figs, a great many tins of cocoa and milk, chocolate, and other things. We spread them all out on sheets in the verandah of the farm in little heaps, and very pretty and tempting they looked, the white sheets down the shady verandah, and little piles of sweetmeats and things dotted all over them. Each man drew a ticket and chose his eatable, some putting it carefully away, others bolting it immediately. One can get absolutely nothing in Bloemfontein, and the men were as keen as school children. It was an excellent idea sending such a lot of figs and raisins. They are soon gone, but they are so immensely appreciated while they last; they give the men the badly wanted holiday feeling. I almost think that, in the way of provisions, delicacies are more liked by men on service, and really do them more good than the more practically useful things.

We are only about a hundred strong now, and there were enough things to go round several times. If you had foreseen and planned the date of their arrival they could not have reached us at a more opportune moment. The men have scarcely anything to wear, for all our kit and clothes, everything we possess, was lost at the Sanna Post surprise party. I assure you they are grateful. I read them the names of the subscribers, and they all send their best thanks. Several came up to me and asked that their thanks might be sent to you for your trouble in getting the subscriptions, &c. No money that could have been expended in any charity could have been better spent than this. The men have done fearfully hard work, and were many of them literally in rags. It has been the greatest help. The Major has sent you a few words of thanks, but has asked me to write more particularly. You will let those know who have helped, will you not, how this Colonial corps of ours has appreciated your English present.

And now, farewell. They say we move forward in a week. I hope it may be true. They also say we shall finish the campaign in a couple of months. Fiddle-de-dee! is what I say. Tell H. to educate little S. as a scout among the Devonshire hedges, and give him a bit of practical training against the time he will be old enough to come out. There will be Boers to take him on.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE WAR

BLOEMFONTEIN, April, 1900.

It is bad enough when any naturally separate State shows the retrograde temper and an inability to profit by its own resources, but when that State is an integral part of one great and young continent, then its action becomes intolerable. I think it is not only the people in a country that have claims, but the country itself that has a claim. If you want South Africa to ripen ultimately into a great first-class world Power (and that is its claim), instead of a bunch of fifth-rate antagonistic States, the first thing to do is to range the country under one Government, and as a British Government will be progressive, and a Dutch one will certainly be retrograde, you must put it under a British one. That is the first essential, and if any genuinely patriotic instincts are overridden in the process, it is very sad, but it cannot be helped. Better this than that the whole country should miss its destiny.

No; but the Uitlanders the world has heard of were not these, but the Stock Exchange operators, manipulators of the money market, company floaters and gamblers generally, a large percentage of them Jews. They voiced Johannesburg, had the press in their hands, worked the wires, and controlled and arranged what sort of information should reach England. As for the grievances, they were a most useful invention, and have had a hand in the making of many fortunes. It was by these that a feeling of insecurity was introduced into the market which would otherwise have remained always steady; it was by these that the necessary and periodic slump was brought about. When the proper time came, "grievances," such as would arrest England's attention and catch the ear of the people, were deliberately invented; stories again were deliberately invented of the excitement, panic, and incipient revolution of Johannesburg, and by these means was introduced that feeling of insecurity I have spoken of, which was necessary to lower prices.

Doesn't it sometimes occur to you that, when his own interests are concerned, the Boer is a tolerably wide-awake gentleman, and that he knows how to look after those interests of his almost as well as we can teach him? Are you prepared to believe of him: first, that he laid down and organised this vast conspiracy; second, that he deliberately armed himself to the teeth with a view of carrying it out; third, that he chose his own time for war and declared it when he thought the moment was ripe; fourth, that he gained advantages to begin with, and had the Colony at his feet; and fifth, that he was seized with a sudden paralysis at the last moment, and found himself unable to march ahead and gather in the recruits who were on tip-toe to join him? No, no. If the plot existed, why didn't the plot work? It had every chance.

It is curious to notice how the several sections of the Dutch were picked up just as they were laid down. The most determined spirits of all, the most bitter against English rule, the irreconcilables, had fought their way farthest north, and formed the Transvaal. South of them came the Orange Free State, just across the Colony border—independent, but not so bitter; while in the Colony itself remained all those weaker brethren whose hearts had failed them in the Great Trek days, and who had remained under our government.

Therefore, I put aside utterly, so far as I am concerned, the Uitlander and Dutch conspiracy arguments, of which one hears so much, as things which, though they may occupy the attention of leading article writers in London, yet are not convincing, and have no smack of reality to any one who knows something about the Uitlanders from personal observation, and something about the Boers and Boer life from personal observation. I put these aside and come back to the only argument that will really wash, that has no clap-trap in it. And that is South Africa under one Government, and under a strong and progressive Government. Human nature is pretty much the same all the world over, and if the Boers have been to blame in the past, no doubt the Britons have been just as much to blame. Anyway, it is impossible and would be useless to strike a balance between them now. The fact that stands out salient and that has to be dealt with in the present is that South Africa is divided against itself; that it never can and never will step up into its proper place until it is united, and that, therefore, to fight for a united South Africa is to fight on the right side and in a good cause.

THE MARCH NORTH

NEAR JOHANNESBURG, May 31, 1900.

"May 1st, 1900.—The long-looked, long-waited for moment has come at last. We march from Bloemfontein on a glorious autumn morning, in fresh cool air and the sky cloudless. Forty miles off Thaba Nchu, that hill of ill omen, might be ten, so bold and clear it stands up above the lower ranges. The level plain between the island hills is streaked with gauzy mist.

"North of Bloemfontein we get into a pretty, uneven country with several level-topped kopjes set end to end like dominoes, and thickets of grey mimosas clustering in the hollows. The great column is moving forward on our left. Big ambulance waggons, with huge white covers nodding one behind the other, high above the press; the naval twelve-pounders, with ten-oxen teams and sailors swinging merrily alongside; infantry marching with the indescribable regular undulation of masses of drilled men, reminding one of the ripple of a centipede's legs; field artillery, horse artillery, transport waggons, more infantry, more guns—they stretch in a long, dark river right across the plain.

That was written the day we left Bloemfontein, just a month ago, and 250 miles away. We have come along well, have we not?

Brandfort is a little town on the railway some forty miles north of Bloemfontein, overlooked by a big rocky kopje on the north. Here we find our dear friends once more assembled to meet us after this long interval, and we have a little battle with them, of which I will spare you the description. An incident of some interest was the appearance of the "Irish Brigade" from the Natal side, who held the hill above the town. Rimington got leave from Hutton to turn them out, which he did so cleverly, and taking us at them at such a pace that we did the business without loss, except, indeed, in horses, of which several were hit. I don't know if the two or three prisoners we took (and that we had some thought of shooting out of hand) were a fair sample of the brigade, but fouler-mouthed scoundrels I think I never set eyes on.

"May 5th, 12.30.—We have just got to the big slopes overlooking Vet River. The enemy is in a strong position along the river-bed, which is thickly wooded, and in the hills beyond. Our left has touched them, and as I write this our pompon on that side has a couple of goes. Kaffirs tell us that the valley is full of Boers. Boers everywhere; in the river-bed, in the sluits on the far side, in the hills; and that they have plenty of guns. It is something like the Modder River position, but stronger, inasmuch as there are ranges of hills on the far side of and overlooking the river; so that they have two lines of defence, the second commanding the first. An excellent arrangement. Walking forward to the brow, a few of us had the whole panorama at our feet. We had no idea it was so strong, and you might notice a thoughtful look on more than one face as we walked back to our men behind the hill.

"3 P.M.—Our guns are blazing away merrily now. The Boers, if they have guns, are very reticent. They have sent us a few shells, which have done no harm, mostly falling short. Hamilton is said to be at or near Winburg. If this is so, he will be threatening the retreat of the Boers here soon. Meantime a huge column, miles long, is crawling in the distance across the flattish grass sweeps far to the east. This is the main column, under Lord Roberts."

It is the convoy that always hampers our movements so, that dictates the formation of an advance and makes us almost a passive target to attack. Our convoy with Ian Hamilton must have been seven or eight miles long, and was often delayed for hours at fords and creeks, where scenes of wild confusion took place and you were deafened with yelling Kaffirs and cracking whips. This convoy has of course to be guarded throughout, which means a very attenuated and consequently weakened force, an attack on one part of which might be carried on without the knowledge of the rest of the column, or the possibility of its giving much help anyway. When we left Lindley we had a sharp rearguard action, and the Boers pushed their attack very vigorously. They did the same on the right flank, and the advance guard also had some fighting. Neither of these parties knew that the others were engaged at all, and probably the bulk of the main column were quite ignorant that a shot had been fired anywhere.

There are long slanting hills that rise above the village on its south side, the crests of which were occupied by our pickets. As the pickets were withdrawn, the Boers rapidly followed them up, occupied the crest in turn, and began to put in a heavy fire and press hard on our retreating men.

On the right flank they were more successful, pressing home a heavy attack on the Mounted Infantry on that side. A squadron got cut off and rushed by the enemy, who rode in to it shooting at pistol-shot distance, and shouting "Hands up!" We lost pretty heavily in casualties, besides about fifty prisoners. These small mishaps are of no great importance in themselves, but they encourage the enemy no doubt to go on fighting. The story as it goes round the farms will lose nothing in the telling. Probably in a very short time it will amount to the rout of Hamilton's column, and the captured troopers will lend a colour to the yarn. Burghers who have taken the oath of allegiance will be readier than ever to break it. However, time no doubt will balance the account all right in the long-run.

Next morning at dawn, escorting the cow-guns, I came to where the Boers had held out so long among the scattered rocks. The Gordons were burying some of the Boer dead. There were several quite youngsters among them. One was a boy of not more than fourteen, I should think, like an English schoolboy. One of the Gordons there told me he saw him, during the advance, kneeling behind a stone and firing. He was shot through the forehead. There is something pathetic and infinitely disagreeable in finding these mere children opposed to one.

PRETORIA

PRETORIA, June 6, 1900.

It is generally considered rather a coup in war, I believe, to take the enemy's capital, isn't it? like taking a queen at chess. We keep on taking capitals, but I can't say it seems to make much difference. The Boers set no store by them apparently; neither Bloemfontein nor Pretoria have been seriously defended, and they go on fighting after their loss just as if nothing had happened.

For months Pretoria has been our beacon, and at first it seemed quite an impossibly long way off. Looked at from Bloemfontein, across 300 miles of dreary veldt and rugged kopjes and steep-banked rivers, and allowing for the machinations and devilments of ten or fifteen thousand Boers, our arrival here did seem a vague, indefinite, and far-off prospect. And yet in a day or two over the month here we are. Lord Roberts has brought us up in the most masterly way. He has moved with a big central column on the railway, while at the same time other columns, stretched far to right and left, moved parallel and threatened to outflank and enclose the enemy at every stand. So with wings beating and body steadily advancing, like some great kite or bird of prey, we have flapped our way northward.

The day after the fight we made a triumphal procession through Pretoria, and marched past Lord Roberts and his staff, and all his generals and their staffs, assembled in the big square facing the Parliament House. We came along a long, straight street, with verandahed houses standing back in gardens, and trees partly shading the road, a ceaseless, slow, living river of khaki; solid blocks of infantry, with measured, even tread, the rifle barrels lightly rising and falling with the elastic, easy motion that sways them altogether as the men keep time; cavalry, regular and irregular, and, two by two, the rumbling guns. Mile after mile of this steady, deliberate, muddy tide that has crept so far, creeps on now through the Dutch capital. Look at the men! Through long exposure and the weeding out of the weak ones, they are now all picked men. The campaign has sorted them out, and every battalion is so much solid gristle and sinew. They show their condition in their lean, darkly-tanned faces; in the sinewy, blackened hands that grasp the rifle butts; in the way they carry themselves, with shoulders well back and heads erect, and in the easy, vigorous swing of their step.

They are not, to begin with, a bit like the description I sometimes read of them in newspapers. In one of Kipling's books there is a description of a painting of a soldier in action; realistic and true to life; dirty and grimed and foul, with an assegai wound across the ankle, and the terror of death in his face. The dealer who took the picture made the artist alter it; had the uniform cleaned and the straps pipe-clayed, and the face smoothed and composed, and the ferocity and despair toned down to a plump and well-fed complacency, and made, in fact, all those alterations which were supposed to suit it to the public taste.

This is about as much like our dear, old, real Tommy Atkins as Kipling's portrait was. Such a likeness does no honour to the man. It is simply lifeless. Whatever Tommy is, he is a man; not a round-eyed, pink-cheeked waxwork stuffed with bran. The truth is coarse and strong, but he can stand having the truth told about him.

These are roughish traits, are they not? Sit down by this group of Tommies by the water-hole in the mid-day halt. They are filthy dirty, poor fellows. Their thin, khaki, sweat-stained uniforms are rotting on them. They have taken off tunics and shirts, and among the rags of flannel are searching for the lice which pester and annoy them. Here is a bit of raw humanity for you to study, a sample of the old Anglo-Saxon breed; what do you make of it? Are thieving, and lying, and looting, and bestial talk very bad things? If they are, Tommy is a bad man. But for some reason or other, since I got to know him, I have thought rather less of the iniquity of these things than I did before.

In the crowds of his mates in the East End, in crowds of the unemployed and the like, you see the same temper—a sort of rough, good spirits, an indomitable, incorrigible cheerfulness that nothing, no outward misery, seems able to damp. In West End crowds (Hyde Park, for instance) you don't get this. There are smiles and laughs, as you look about at the faces, but they seem merely individual—one here, another there. In the crowd of roughs—though goodness knows there is little cause for merriment, so far as one can see—there is a quite different, deeper, and more universal feeling of bluff cheeriness, not put on, but unconscious, as though, in spite of present misery, things were going right for them somehow. I should say an East End crowd gave one a far deeper impression of animal spirits, of hope and cheeriness, than a West End one. And it is the same with soldiers. The officers are fine fellows, but in this point they yield to the soldiers.

What I think about our soldiers' courage is that it is of such a sort that it takes very little out of them. One of the foreign officers on Lord Roberts' staff, in a criticism in one of his own papers, has written that the English infantry, more than any he knows, has the knack of fighting and marching and keeping on at it, day after day, without getting stale or suffering from any reaction. The fact is, our Tommies go into a fight with much the same indifferent good-humour that they do everything else with. Towards the end of each day's march the soldiers all begin to look out for firewood, and if at that time you knock up against the enemy, you may see our infantry advancing to the attack with big logs tied to their backs and sticking up over their heads. Though it encumbers and bothers them and makes them much more conspicuous, not a Tommy will abandon his wood. Supper is a reality. The thought of being shot does not bother him. Men who fight like this can fight every day.

I have told you what I could about him, because he is a man you have never seen, and will probably never have a chance of seeing. For no one who has not seen Tommy in the field has seen him at all. If you love England, you must love the army. If you are a patriot, not merely a Jingo, the sight of these ragged battalions passing will give you such a thrill as only very fine and splendid things do give; and very proud you will feel if ever you have had a hand in sharing their work and been admitted to some sort of fellowship with them.

As for Pretoria itself, it is a pretty and well-wooded little place, with pink and white oleander trees in blossom, fir-trees, gums, and weeping-willows along the streams and round the little bungalow houses. The shady gardens and cool verandahs give these houses a very inviting air in this land of blazing sun. They have a comfortable, and at the same time sociable, look, the houses being near by each other, but each with a pretty garden and trees overhanging. Like all the works of these very practical people, the place is designed for convenience and comfort and not a bit for beauty. But the first two give it the last to some extent, give it a sort of simple and homely beauty of its own which is pleasing as far as it goes.

Talking of soldiers, here is a soldier's story for you—

Officer (to distracted Tommy, fleeing for his life under shower of bullets): "Dash you! what the dash are you running for?"

Tommy, tearing on: "'Cause I ain't got no b——y wings."

Here's another—

First Tommy: "And the bullets was comin' that thick——"

Second Tommy: "Well, but 'adn't you got no ant'ills?"

First Tommy: "Ant'ills! Why, there wasn't ant'ills 'nough for the orficers."

THE MARCH SOUTH

BETHLEHEM, July 14, 1900.

Whenever in this campaign we have dealt the enemy what looked like a crushing blow, he has always hit back instantly at us. When Methuen reached the limit of his advance at the Modder River victory, the Boers were round immediately threatening us from behind. When we took Bloemfontein they at once swarmed round to the east and south, and dealt us two nasty blows at Sanna's Post and Reddersberg; and no sooner had we taken Pretoria than the same activity was displayed again.

Their position could scarcely have been stronger if nature had designed it for the purpose. A low range of hills gives admittance on the west side to a long wide valley, and on the east side of this a steep rocky range rises boldly up, showing in the sky a level outline like a rampart fringed with wall-like slabs of rock or detached masses, giving excellent cover from shrapnel. But besides this higher and last line of defence, there are some lower hills and slopes which project from the main rampart and command the valley, while they are in turn commanded by the heights. It is a two-step position, in fact. You carry the lower step first, and immediately come under the fire of the upper. The General told me next day that he thought it as strong as anything he had seen on the Natal side, and Winston Churchill set the matter at rest by pronouncing it stronger in point of formation than Spion Kop.

By a small farm, where the General lodges, blazes a huge fire. Round it gather some staff officers, and among them, recognised from afar, are the welcome tiger-skins of the Guides' officers. The Major sits by the blaze in that familiar attitude of his, like a witch in "Macbeth," with a wolf-skin karross drawn over his shoulders, and the firelight on his swarthy face as he turns it up with a grim laugh to chaff the others standing round. But there is rather a gloom on the party to-night. News has just come in that poor Airlie, charging at the head of his Lancers, has been killed. Many here knew him, and every one who knew him seems to have been fond of him.

A little way out from Pretoria there are some very smart-looking new houses, what they call "villa residences" in England, built in the style, a sort of mild and tepid Gothic (what I call grocer's Gothic, for it always reminds me of brown sugar and arrowroot), common around watering-places; small gables sticking out everywhere, till it looks like a cluster of dog-kennels; walls faced with ornamental tiles and lath and plaster; small shrubberies round, and a name on the gate. There were two especially beautiful ones. The General had one and we had the other. Ours was quite new. There was no furniture in it; but this, as we had been so long without it, we did not miss. But everything we really needed—gorgeous wall-papers, and dados, and polished floors, and electric-bells, and stained-glass windows—was there. We had hot baths at the Grand Hotel, and we dined at the club, and we forgot all about the war, and the veldt, and the dust, and the long marches, and the Boer lurking in ambush, and the whispering bullet from the hill. This went on for two days, and then we marched again, and we have been marching ever since.

Hunter is looking after us now. Poor Ian Hamilton, as you will know, had an accident at Heidelberg. His horse put a foot in an antbear's hole, just in front of me as it happened, and came down, flinging the general forward over his head. I thought he was killed, he lay so still, but it was only his collar-bone and a bad shaking. He is in the field again now.

Hunter has a great reputation as a fighter, which is rather alarming, especially when we are confronted with such a poisonous country as the one before us now; a medley of big mountain ranges, fantastically heaped, stretching thirty miles south to Basutoland, and forming part of the great mountain formation that reaches to and culminates in the Drakensberg range. These hills are garrisoned by about 7000 Boers with several guns, and De Wet to lead them; altogether a formidable force. There is a saying, that you should not bite off more than you can chew. I hope we have not done that. Hunter looks as if he could chew a good lot, I think. Still the job is likely to be a difficult one to handle, and if he asks my advice I shall tell him to leave it to Rundle.

During all this time we have been wandering like an army in a dream over the unlimited surface of the veldt. The same programme is repeated day by day. A little before dawn you hear through your blanket-folds the first unwelcome "Saddle up," and the muttered curses in reply. You unwind yourself with groans. A white-frost fog blots out everything at fifty yards, and a white sugary frost encrusts the grass. These first hours are piercingly cold, for it is now mid-winter with us. A cup of water left overnight is frozen solid. You dress by simply drawing your revolver-strap over your shoulder, and flinging your blanket round you, make your way to where a couple of black boys are bending over the beginnings of a fire, and to which several other blanketed and shivering figures are converging with the same thought—coffee—in every mind.

Left and right of you, your two or three flankers, half a mile off, have halted, in obedience to your halting, and are standing by their horses' heads scanning the country. Under the kopje your main body are sitting about, while their ponies, with bridles thrown over their heads, graze. Far back, two or three miles, the bits of dark kilt showing behind their khaki aprons, a company of the Camerons comes into view, the brown colour so exactly matching the plain that they are first visible only by their motion. Here come the flank guards, sprinkled far out over the country. And now, at the point where the distant kopjes slope to the plain, the air grows heavy with dust-wreaths, rising like steam from a cauldron, and underneath, slowly emerging, comes something dark and solid. It is the head of the column. The great caterpillar is crawling forward. You must push on—"Stand to your horses!"

PRINSLOO'S SURRENDER—I

CAMP, NEAR FOURIESBERG, July 26, 1900.

We have a whole day of peace and rest before us—very welcome after the hard fighting we have been doing lately. This lull is to allow Bruce-Hamilton and Macdonald to stop the exits at the eastern end of the valley. We don't want to push the enemy east till we are sure the passes in that direction have been secured. Some of us are annoyed at the delay. We were in touch with the enemy this morning, our scouts and advance guard exchanging shots with their rearguard. We could see them prancing about on the bare hills east of Fouriesberg, and making off in a leisurely way up the eastern valley, and most of us were quite expecting that we should give chase immediately.

Hunter rode forward to have a look. He watched the tiny horsemen hovering on the hills or cantering away; then back he came with a quiet smile on his face, and instead of ordering the advance, as the impetuous ones expected, he led his column back over the way we had come for several miles, and then camped.

On the morning of the 23rd we struck our camp a few miles north of the Nek, and advanced to find out whether the enemy were in position here or not. We started before daylight. The night had been intensely cold and very wet. On the high mountains snow had fallen. The sky was heavily clouded, and about sunrise-time dense masses of mist rose and clung about the hills, sometimes closing in the view at fifty yards and then drifting off and leaving it clear again. Our scouts advanced steadily, reconnoitring hill after hill and ridge after ridge, but still there was no sound of firing, and we began to think that the enemy had abandoned the place altogether. This preliminary scouting work, poking about in the hills with a handful of men to find the enemy, always reminds me of tufting for deer in the Exmoor woods before the pack is laid on.

Then there came a few shots from our extreme right, from the hills on the right of the valley's nose, sounding very muffled and dull in the mist, and we, out on the left, advanced with the more caution. It was my chance to come upon the enemy first on this side, and as it will give you a fair notion of the usual risks of scouting, I will tell you how it happened!

Damant, our captain, coolest and bravest of officers, now joined me, and with two or three men we pushed cautiously on towards some loose rocks, which, from the top of the rise, seemed to command a view of the valley beneath. We had advanced to within eighty yards of the rocks, in open order, when we thought we heard voices talking, and immediately afterwards some one said loudly in Dutch, "Who rides there?" And then another voice more to the right exclaimed, "Here they are!" At the same instant one caught a motion as of heads and shoulders cuddling down and adjusting themselves in a disagreeable way. There they were and no mistake, all tucked in among the rocks like wood-lice.

Our position then was a curious one, for we had actually walked quite in the open up to within speaking distance of the main Boer position, a position that was to defy our army for a day and a half.

Shortly after Magersfontein the greater part of the Guides turned back to Colesberg, leaving fifteen of us with Methuen, the services of the whole corps not being required, as Methuen's force was now stationary. Before it left, Methuen paraded the corps and spoke in the warmest terms of the good work it had done. Nevertheless it was their turning back, or being sent back, as it was called, that gave a pretext to the slander that was then started. Later, when his attention was called to the story, Methuen wrote to the Cape Times a most emphatic letter vindicating the corps from the least suspicion, and indignantly denying that the least cause for any had existed. Lord Roberts himself, who came up soon afterwards, wrote a very handsome and decisive letter to the same paper, and since then I don't think we have heard anything about it. The whole story is so ridiculous, considering the way the Guides hate the Boers, and the danger of the services they do, that to any one who knows anything about the corps it is a tale rather to be laughed, at than seriously resented. I saw the other day a letter from Hunter to Rimington, in which the General speaks of the corps with a kind of weighty deliberation that is very satisfactory, mentioning emphatically its "trustworthiness," its "bravery," and its "exceptional and proved value in the field."

PRINSLOO'S SURRENDER—II

August 4th.

We have been up the valley and back again, and I write this once more from Fouriesberg. We passed through here, joining Rundle, as I told you a week ago, and pushed on eastward in the direction of Naawpoort Nek and the Golden Gate. Six miles out from here, passing through a very rugged country, we came on their outposts. These we shelled and drove back. They then retired to some hills not very high, but with perpendicular sides of low white cliffs commanding the approach across the plain. These they held till nightfall. We shelled them a good deal and knocked out the only gun they had, and the infantry pushed forward in front and we took a hill on the right, but the attack was not pressed home, as it would have cost too many lives. The infantry took the hill during the night, but found it evacuated, the Boers having retired as soon as it got dark.

It was a moment of infinite expectation. Bets were laid on the amount of our bag. The general impression was that we should get some of them, but that the main body would, somehow or other, escape. We had so often toiled and taken nothing, that this sudden miraculous draught quite flabbergasted us. And what must have been the feelings of the poor Boers? They tried Naawpoort Nek: no exit. They knocked at the Golden Gate: it was locked. Then back they turned and met Hunter sauntering up the valley, and we gave them the time of day with our cow-guns, and told them how glad we were to see them. "Fancy meeting you, of all people in the world!" And so they chucked it. It was a complete checkmate.

R. and I rode eastward through the hills in the Golden Gate direction, meeting parties of Boers, waggons, Cape-carts, &c., coming straggling in. It reminded me of the road to Epsom on a Derby morning. There is some pleasure in meeting Boers on these terms. "Good morning. How are you? A pleasant morning for a ride, is it not?" "Good morning, sir; it is fine now, but I think we shall have rain later." That's what I like. There's nothing like a little urbanity.

FIGHTING AND TREKKING

HEILBRON, August 17.

From this point we sent our prisoners in, viá Winberg, to the railway, the Major and most of the corps going with them as part of the escort; while I with twenty men, consisting partly of Guides and partly of Lovat's Scouts, was detached to continue as bodyguard to Hunter. He, with the main column (we reunited at Bethlehem), marched to Lindley and then here to Heilbron.

He has a way of looking at you, no matter who you are, Tommy or officer or what not, with a wonderfully kind expression, as if he felt the most friendly interest in you. And so he does; it is not a bit put on. He does not seem to think about himself, but about the people and things round him. Every morning he finds time to stop and ask after the horses and men of our little body, and to exchange a word with one or two of the men whom he has had occasion to notice. Not a grain of condescension is there in him; not even a thought that he is giving them pleasure. It is a natural impulse with him, the result of the real regard and interest he feels in every soldier that marches under him. In action his manner, always calm, is just as calm as at any other time. He says little; observing the most important developments or listening to the reports of orderlies from various parts of the field, more often than not without any comment at all. Yet nothing escapes him.

Through a weary land we have come marching north these ten days. The veldt is at its worst, parched and dry and dead. Our column trekking raises a huge cloud of reddish dust that hangs still in the air, and marks for miles back the way we have come. The whole expanse is quite colourless—almost white, or a dirty grey. All day long the blue sky is unvaried, and the sun glares down unobscured by a cloud; sky and earth emphasising each other's dull monotony. Only at sunrise and late evening some richer and purer lines of colour lie across the distant plain, and the air is fresh and keen. Round about the town, which, like all these Boer towns, stuck down in the middle of the veldt, reminds one of some moonstruck flotilla becalmed on a distant sea, the grass is all worn and eaten to the very dust. Whiffs of horrid smell from dead carcases of horses and cattle taint the air. All the water consists of a feeble stream, stagnant now and reduced to a line of muddy pools, some reserved for horses, some for washing, and some for drinking, but all of the same mud colour.

WRITTEN FROM HOSPITAL

HOSPITAL, KRONSTADT, September 6, 1900.

It is only a bad attack of influenza. I lie here in a dim, brown holland coloured twilight. A large marquee of double folded canvas keeps out the sun; a few shafts of light twinkle through here and there. Through three entrance gaps I catch glimpses, crossed by a web of tent ropes, of other surrounding tents, each neatly enclosed by a border of whitened stones, the purpose of which is to prevent people at night from tripping over the ropes. Everything is scrupulously neat and clean. Orderlies run from tent to tent minding their patients. Every now and then a pretty little nursing sister, with white cuffs and scarlet pelisse, trips across the open spaces between the straight lines of marquees, or stops to have a moment's chat and a little quiet bit of a flirt (they can always find time for that, I notice) with one of the officers or doctors. I watch with faint interest and a feeling of vague recollection. She looks up sideways and shades the sun off her eyes with her fingers. They keep it up still then!

It has been the only glimpse of absolute peace and rest I have had this eleven months. Every one is kind and sympathetic; a cool breeze blows through the looped-up tents; it is all very luxurious and pleasant for wearied-out soldiers. I like to lie and watch the little pictures through the tent openings of low blue veldt hills in the distance (which somehow remind one of the background glimpses in old Italian pictures), and dream over things one has seen and done, many of which seem already such ages ago, and listen to the bugle calls that sound at intervals in the camp. I have managed to buy some pyjamas. Probably you would see something very ludicrous in the way in which, after an elaborate hot-bath and hair-cutting, dressed out in one's clean pyjamas and lying between clean sheets, one rolls one's eyes with unutterable complacency on one's surroundings. All our comforts are attended to. We have a shell-proof shelter in a ravine close by, handy in case of visits from De Wet; and the two great cow-guns, like guardian angels, doze on the top of the hill behind the hospital. Under the shadow of their wing I always feel perfectly safe.

I give you this as a sample of what is going on pretty generally. Our troops are everywhere at work burning and laying waste, and enormous reserves of famine and misery are being laid up for these countries in the future.

How far do you mean to go in this? Are you going to burn down every house, and turn the whole country into a desert? I don't think it can be done. You can't carry out the Cromwellian method in the nineteenth century. Too many people know what is going on, and consciences are too tender. On the other hand, nothing is so disastrous as that method half carried out. We can't exterminate the Dutch or seriously reduce their numbers. We can do enough to make hatred of England and thirst for revenge the first duty of every Dutchman, and we can't effectively reduce the numbers of the men who will carry that duty out. Of course it is not a question of the war only. It is a question of governing the country afterwards.

There is a delightful feeling of spring in the air. We have had some warm, heavy rains lately. The veldt grass, till now dry and dusty and almost white, is beginning to push up tiny green blades, and the green colour is beginning to spread almost imperceptibly over the distant hills. I begin to feel a sort of kindred impulse in myself. The old lethargy, bred of the dull, monotonous marches over the dreary plains, is passing, and I begin to cock an attentive eye at the signs of awakening, and feel that I am waking up myself. If you could see the view from here, the barren expanse of veldt stretching miles away, the cluster of tin roofs and the few leafless thorn-trees beyond, I have no doubt you would laugh at this fancy of a spring day. And yet I am sure I can feel it; there is a change in the air. It has grown elastic and feels alive, and there is a smell in it to my mind of earth and vegetables. Yesterday, when I toddled in as far as the village, I saw a little fruit tree in a garden that carried white starry blossoms at the ends of its black twigs. It gave me quite a thrill. Oh, to be in England now that April—Dear me! I was forgetting 'tis autumn, and partridges and stubble fields with you.

It is no fun fighting for you people at home, because you don't know when to clap. The English papers' account of Prinsloo's surrender have just come in. By Jupiter, for all the notice you take of it, it might be the capture of a Boer picket and a dozen men. Here have we been marching and fighting and freezing and sweating and climbing up great Alpine mountains in the snow for weeks, and captured 4000 great ugly live Boers and all their guns and baggage, and by the god of war, you hardly take the trouble to say thank you. This sort of thing will just suit Hunter, because his idea of bliss is to do the work and run the risk, and then somehow to evade the praise. But he ought not to be allowed to evade it. It is true we had no war correspondents with us, but I should have thought the bare facts would have spoken for themselves. It was the first thing of the war and our one really big score off the Boers. However, I shall not discuss it any more. I am disgusted with you. Mafeking day is about your form.

FIGHTING AND FARM-BURNING

Frankfort, November 23, 1900.

Frankfort is one of our small garrison towns. It exists in a perpetual state of siege, like Heilbron, Lindley, Ladybrand, Winberg, Bethlehem, and a dozen others in this neighbourhood; in fact, like all the towns held by us not on the railway. At intervals of a month or two a column comes along bringing supplies and news from the outside world; mails, papers, parcels, clothes and kit, great quantities of regular rations, ammunition, &c., &c. You can imagine how eagerly the little garrison, stranded for months in this aching desolation, looks for the column's coming. Then arise other questions. Sometimes a part of the garrison is relieved and receives orders to join the column, while some of the troops forming the column are left behind in their place. Of course every one in the town is longing to get away, and every one in the column is dreading having to stay, and there is an interval of ghastly expectation while contradictory rumours go hurtling from village to camp and back again; and men look at each other like cannibals, every one hoping the doom will fall on some one else. We in our corps are spared all this anxiety, and can lie on our backs and look on and condole with the unlucky ones. We never get left anywhere.

Driscoll, of Driscoll's Scouts, is a thick-set, sinewy man, rather short than tall. He is of an absolute sooty blackness. Hair and moustache coal-black, and complexion so scorched and swarthy that at a little distance you might almost take him for a nigger. There is about his face a look of unmistakable determination amounting to ferocity in moments of excitement. He looks and is a born fighter, but is apt to be over headlong in action. His scouts are part of our 250 mounted men under Rimington.

He ought to have lived five hundred years ago and dressed in chain-mail and led out his lances to plunder and foray. As it is he does his best even in the nineteenth century. Picturesque is the word that best describes him. He makes every one else look hopelessly commonplace. His men admire him immensely, like him a good deal, and fear him a little. Generals in command sometimes find him, I fancy, a bit of a handful, that is, if their policy is at all a backward one. But most people watch him and talk of him with a certain interest, and whatever their opinions or ideas of him may be, one feels sure that none who have once met will easily forget him.

Kronstadt, Lindley, Heilbron, Frankfort, has been our round so far. We now turn westward along the south of the Vaal. Farm burning goes merrily on, and our course through the country is marked as in prehistoric ages, by pillars of smoke by day and fire by night. We usually burn from six to a dozen farms a day; these being about all that in this sparsely-inhabited country we encounter. I do not gather that any special reason or cause is alleged or proved against the farms burnt. If Boers have used the farm; if the owner is on commando; if the line within a certain distance has been blown up; or even if there are Boers in the neighbourhood who persist in fighting—these are some of the reasons. Of course the people living in the farms have no say in these matters, and are quite powerless to interfere with the plans of the fighting Boers. Anyway we find that one reason or other generally covers pretty nearly every farm we come to, and so to save trouble we burn the lot without inquiry; unless, indeed, which sometimes happens, some names are given in before marching in the morning of farms to be spared.

It is time to bring this long letter to an end. I wish I could see an end to the campaign. When I come home "an old, old, aged and infirm old man," I mean to pass the evening of my days in a quiet cottage with its full allowance of honeysuckle and roses. There I shall grow sweet williams and, if I can stand the extra excitement, perhaps keep a pig. They tell me the Times has pronounced the war over. I would be glad to pay £5 out of my own pocket to have the man who wrote that out here on the veldt with us for a week. We have just heard that Dewetsdorp has fallen, and that there is a rising in the Colony near Aliwal North. Vogue la galère!

THE SITUATION

CAMP ON THE VAAL,
NEAR KLERKSDORP,
December 23, 1900.

We are encamped close to the Vaal, which is here a fine stream, as wide as the Thames at Richmond. I have just been bathing in it. It is early morning, and I am sitting under a thicket of great weeping willows by the river. The banks slope down and make a trough for the stream a good deal below the level of the plain, and in this hollow, hidden till you are close to it, congregates all the verdure there is for miles, especially a quantity of willow trees, with gnarled black trunks leaning down to the stream, sometimes bending over and burying themselves in the ground and then shooting up again, making arches and long vistas, with green grass below and silvery foliage waving above. After our long marches on the veldt, the contrast here is wonderfully refreshing. One seems to drink in the coolness and greenness of the scene with eyes that have grown thirsty for such things. The trees straddling down the bank are rather like figures of men, giants that have flung themselves down, resting on hands and elbows, delighted, one would think, as I am, to come and rest near water again.

We have been on the trek now for about six weeks with Bruce-Hamilton, and though we have not so far been seriously engaged, there has been almost daily fighting round the fringes and skirts of the column ("skirt-fighting," you may call it).

"November 17.—Left Lindley. This neighbourhood quite as disturbed as ever. Shooting.

"November 18.—More shooting. Boers in all hills.

"November 19.—More shooting and galloping about. Reached Heilbron.

"November 20.—Left for Frankfort. Boers in attendance as usual. Our two guns and pompom very useful."

You at home will probably be annoyed to find the war dragging on so. About election time the papers were announcing that it was over. It had been a hard job, they said, but it was finished at last. A good deal was occurring out here which did not quite tally with that theory, but those things were ignored or very slightly referred to, so that we on the spot wondered to see the war drop out of sight, and were puzzled to read in the Times that only a few desperadoes remained in the field just at the time that two commandoes were invading the Colony, another raiding Natal, a garrison and two guns captured at Dewetsdorp, and the line blown up in ten different places. The continuance of the war must strike you as a renewal, but there was never a lull really.

Yet we certainly inflict a great deal. Boer families usually average up to a dozen. They stick together, and grow up on their farms, which are of enormous extent, and which they get to love with the instinctive force of people who have never seen any other place. Love of family and love of home are their two ruling affections. The household life of a big family on a 20,000 acre farm—three and often four generations represented—is usually uninterrupted for weeks at a time by the sight of a strange face or a bit of outside news. Their lives are altogether bound up, in their serene and stolid way, with each other and with their homes. Anything that breaks up a family is felt by them more grievously than would be the case with most people; and, in the same way, anything that severs them from "the land" would be more profoundly felt too. It amounts to an entire dislocation of their ideas of life.

All this should be enough to break Boer hearts, and there is no doubt they feel it very much. I can recall many scenes and incidents which show that—scenes which, if you saw them out of your peaceful, natural life, you would perhaps be never able to forget. But yet, in spite of all they have to suffer, their determination remains just the same. Anything like loud lamentations or complaints are almost unheard. They rise to the occasion, and though naturally a very simple people, who express openly what they feel, they act now in this crisis with a constant composure which I have often thought most remarkable.

The Boers have now to watch a slow, implacable, methodical devastation of their country, tract by tract. Day by day they fight, and one by one they fall. Comrades and friends drop at each other's sides; sons drop by fathers, and brothers by brothers. The smoke rises in the valley, and the home is blotted out. All that makes life worth living goes, then life itself. What sterner test can a nation be put to than this? It is a torture long and slow; the agony and bloody sweat. I know well that if my own country were invaded I should, or hope I should, behave exactly as these men are doing; and as I should call it patriotism in my own case, I cannot refuse to call it the same in theirs. You see bribery and coercion are not adequate motives, and do not explain the facts; only, unfortunately, a lot of people would rather hunt up any base motive, however inadequate, than take the obvious one if it did their enemy any credit.

As for the fighting itself, you must make great allowance for our difficulties. So long as we had big commandoes with guns, convoys, &c., to deal with, there was a definite object to hit at. It was possible to deal a blow that took effect. Now we are fighting shadows. Our columns march through the country and see no enemy, or at most only a few small parties hovering on the sky-line. Scouts and patrols are often engaged, and no one can wander out of sight of the column but the ugly voice of a Mauser will warn him back. Invisible eyes watch us all the time, ready to take advantage of detached parties or unprotected convoys. We are teased and annoyed, but never definitely engaged. We are like the traveller and the gnats—

All this is very sad and lugubrious, is it not? and I daresay you think me a croaker; but there is a melancholy satisfaction in trying to see things as they are, and I believe what I have told you is nearer the truth than what you get from the papers. I only hope I may turn out to be wrong.

I add a note (January 12th) from Ventersberg, where we have just arrived. This has been our last trek, we believe. Rimington takes command of his regiment, and the corps, like the rest of the Colonial Division, will be paid off. I have a vision of a great blue steamer with a bow like a cliff bursting her way through the seas on her homeward voyage. And yet I can scarcely believe it.

PLAIN MISTER!

Cape Town.

I am trying to din the fact into my head that I am a civilian again and not a soldier any more. It is difficult. I find myself looking questioningly at my suit of grey flannel. It feels like a disguise. No soldiers' hands as I pass them rise in salute now, though my own involuntarily half rises in answer They look at me and take no notice. A recruiting sergeant tried to induce me this morning to join an irregular corps. He told me I should get five shillings a day, and that it was a fine life and a beautiful country.

There was a heavy gloom on the last days of my soldiering. It was at Naauwpoort that I first joined the Guides. We stopped there coming down. There was the waiting-room, the very table I had slept on; the sun-baked flat where first I met the Major; the slopes where our tents were pitched—Lord! how the sight of the place brings it all back, and how different everything has turned out from what we expected; it was there that I joined, and it was there, travelling down with our time-expired men, that we first heard the news of the Queen's death. You at home will feel this deeply—of course every one must—but I can't help thinking that out here, far away from home and fighting, one feels it even more. I am almost surprised at minding so much. There is an irksome sense at the back of one's mind, even when one is thinking of other things—of loss, of something wanting. England seems less England to me than it did and I less of an Englishman. It gives a faint satisfaction to have been one of her soldiers at the end.

The sea was the thing that beat all—"the great sea perfect as a flower,"—the sight of it was a stab. There are great four-masted barques and full-rigged ships lying at the wharfs and outside—double t'gallant yarders, my boy; I yelled at them by way of greeting down across the tree-tops.

Nearer in lies a long black steamer, a transport. She is an ugly looking old tub, but in my eyes perfect. Handsome is as handsome does. She takes us home to-morrow, my pony and me.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of With Rimington, by L. March Phillipps

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH RIMINGTON ***

***** This file should be named 15131-h.htm or 15131-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/1/3/15131/

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Garrett Alley, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.


Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
https://gutenberg.org/license).


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at https://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     gbnewby@pglaf.org


Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit https://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.


Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.


Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     https://www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.