ter purchasing a few stores, joined
them where they were camped near the now historic Racecourse. I omitted
to mention above that as we lay in our comfortable beds that eventful
Saturday night, we heard the rain pouring in torrents upon the
galvanised iron roof above our heads, and grimly smiled as we thought of
the other less fortunate officers, non-commissioned officers and men of
the I.Y., lying out in the open, vainly trying to get shelter and
protection under narrow waterproof sheets. Alas, we only had the laugh
of them that night--I am writing on Friday, June 22nd--for since then we
have had rain every night, and a fair amount in the daytime as well, and
when it rains out here there is no compromise about it. Without tents we
have had a "dooce" of a time. Of course, we have to improvise shelters
with our blankets. Our place is known as "The Moated Grange,"--a trench
having been dug round it for reasons not wholly connected with _Jupiter
Pluvius_. Others are, or would be, known to the postman, did he but come
our way ("he cometh not") as "No. 1 Park Mansions," "The Manor House,"
"Balmoral," "Belle Vue," "Buckingham Palace," and "The Lodge." _Apropos_
of something which concerns a lot of A.M.B.'s, the following may not be
devoid of interest:

_Scene_: Any chemist's shop in Pretoria. Enter gentleman in khaki
shrugging himself. With a scratch at his chest and side.

"Er--have you any--er--Keating's powder?"

_Chemist_: "No, zaar, de Englis' soldiers haf bought it all. It is
finish." (Exit gentleman in khaki, scratching himself desperately.)

Our numbers are now considerably reduced, over half of the Battalion
have joined the Military Police, others having taken over civil
employment in the Post Office and Government buildings. Many who were
not desirous of joining the Police have finally done so, thanks to the
innumerable fatigues, pickets on the surrounding kopjes, and the
crowning discomforts of the rainy nights (now over, I am happy to say,
Sunday, June, 24th). At present our particular, or unparticular,
company, numbers twenty-one men, with five troop horses and some
officers' chargers, all that is left of the hundred and twenty mounted
men that left Maitland Camp in May. Does this sound Utopian? Those men
who are anxious to obtain civil employment are allowed (or persuaded) to
join the Police, while the authorities are exerting themselves to obtain
berths for them at salaries ranging from L300 to L500 or more