eral 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.

We left Pretoria on June 19th, and, taking it easy, reached Bethlehem on
July 9th, doing a bit under 200 miles in the twenty days. The meaning of
the new scheme begins to dawn on us. Clements and Paget have come up
from the west; Rundle is down south-west, near Ficksburg; the Basuto
border runs up from there south and south-east, and within the ground
thus enclosed we have penned a very considerable force of the enemy,
among whom is that Jack-in-the-box, Christian De Wet. We know they are
there, and indeed we have little fights with their scouts every day. The
question is, how are we to collar them? The country is very broken and
hilly and very extensive.

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.

I should think a life of this sort would be likely to have s