h more animation than ever; but it was only
occasionally that I caught a word I could understand; the sentence "twee
tozen Engelman dood"[32] recurred with distressing frequency, and
enabled me to grasp their conversation was entirely about the war. I
meanwhile studied the room and its furniture, which was of the poorest
description; the chairs mostly lacked legs or backs, and the floor was
of mud, which perhaps was just as well, as they all spat on it in the
intervals of talk, and emptied on to it the remains of whatever they
were drinking. After a short time a black girl came in with a basin of
water, with which she proceeded to plentifully sprinkle the floor,
utterly disregarding our dresses and feet. Seeing all the women tuck
their feet under their knees, I followed their example, until this
improvised water-cart had finished its work. The grown-up daughter had a
baby in her arms, as uncared for as the other children, all of whom
looked as if soap and water never came their way. The men were fine,
strong-looking individuals, and all were very affable to me, or meant to
be so, if I could but have understood them. Finally four or five more
women came into this tiny overcrowded room, evidently visitors. This was
the finishing stroke, and I decided that, rested or not, the mules must
be inspanned, that I might leave this depressing house. One of the young
burghers brought me the pass to General Snyman, the caligraphy of which
he was evidently very proud of; and having taken leave of all the ladies
and men in the same peculiar stiff manner as that in which I had greeted
them, I drove off, devoutly thankful to be so far on my journey. About
four in the afternoon we came to a rise, and, looking over it, saw the
white roofs of Mafeking lying about five miles away in the glaring
sunlight. Then we arrived at the spot where General Cronje's laager had
been before he trekked South, marked by the grass being worn away for
nearly a square mile, by broken-down waggons, and by sundry aas-vogels
(the scavengers of South Africa) hovering over carcasses of horses or
cattle. Mafeking was now only three miles distant, and, seeing not a
solitary soul on the flat grass plains, I felt very much tempted to
drive in to the native stadt; but the black boys resolutely declined to
attempt it, as they feared being shot, and they assured me that many
Boer sharpshooters lay hidden in the scrub. Thinking discretion the
better part of valour, I regret