cantering on ahead. They pass the pickets on the hill, who promptly
shoulder blankets and turn back to camp, and break into extended order,
and throw out little feelers of their own in front and to the sides as
they enter an unexplored country. Following them come several companies
of infantry, a block of solid strength, marching at the top of the
column, and a battery or section of guns. Then comes the long line of
convoy waggons, piled high with provisions, fodder, and kit,
strengthened and protected at intervals by companies of infantry
marching at ease, with the two great cow-guns somewhere about the
middle. The tail of the column, like the head, is strengthened by a
considerable force of infantry, followed at an interval of a mile or so
by the mounted rearguard, which has scattered its scouts far and wide
across the track of the column, and withdraws them from point to point
as we advance. Likewise to left and right, far out on the plain, the
horsemen of the flank guards are scattered in little bands of twos and
threes, cantering along or stopping and spying, sniffing cautiously
round kopjes or peeping into farms, and by-and-by you will probably hear
from one direction or other a few scattered single shots, and yonder two
scouts in the distance, lately advancing so quietly, are now seen to be
turned and galloping back as hard as they can split, while two or three
Mausers crack at them from the sky-line.

It is a pretty sight, from some hill far in advance, to turn back and
watch the army coming into view. You push on, scouts feeling the way, to
occupy some prominent kopje on the line of march, and climbing up and
sitting among the rocks, command with your glasses a view far and wide
over the plain. The air has been very cold and sharp, with an intense
penetrating cold hitherto, but now the sun is shining and its mellow
warmth is instantly felt. The rich pure colour-lines, only seen when the
sun, rising or setting, is low in the sky, lie straightly ruled across
the plain, brown and orange and pale yellow, and in the distance blue.
The ten-mile off rocks look but a mile in this air. Every object,
distant or near, is exact to the least detail. So clear are the outlines
you would think there was no atmosphere here at all, and that you might
be looking out over the unaired landscapes of the moon. One would think
that such an air would breed an exceptional race, and that the men, and
horses too, for that matter, of this