of the
veldt, battering each other as they went, like birds that fight and fly
at the same time. Broadwood, however, had got hold of his enemy by the
wrong end. What happened exactly we don't know, but De Wet got clear
somehow, and immediately turned his attention to his beloved railway
line, which he never can tear himself away from for more than a few days
at a time. He is now, I should imagine, in the very seventh heaven of
delight, having torn up miles of it, besides capturing several trains.

De Wet is getting an immense reputation. The rapidity of his movements
is extraordinary. He always has two or three of our columns after him;
sometimes half-a-dozen. Among these he wings his way like a fowl of some
different breed, a hawk among owls. Some amusement was caused by the
report in orders the other day that De Wet had marched north pursued "by
various generals;" as if two or three, more or less, didn't matter, as
indeed it didn't. Of course, mere fast marching would not always
extricate him, but he shows such marvellous coolness and common sense in
the way in which he doubles. Several times he has been reported
surrounded; but each time when we came to look he had disappeared. It is
like a conjuring trick. He seems to have an intuitive knowledge of the
plans of our generals, and to divine how any movements of his will
modify theirs. He makes a swift march. This he knows will set in motion
a certain column. Night comes and back he steals, and dashes out through
the gap left without any one being the wiser. He never loses his
sangfroid, but acts always, in the most hopeless positions, with equal
craft and rapidity. In short, like the prophet Isaiah, he is "_capable
de tout_." For he can hit hard, too. I think since the arrival of the
main army he is the only man who has scored off us at all freely.
Sanna's Post and Reddersberg came first; then, last May, came the
capture of the 500 Yeomanry at Lindley; that was followed immediately by
the surprise of the Heilbron convoy and all its escort; then came the
capture of the Derbyshire Militia, and a few days later the taking of
Roodeval with a train of mails and various details. Even when he had
bolted out the other day between our legs, and was flying north with two
or three cavalry brigades after him, he found time to snap up a hundred
Welsh Fusiliers and break the line as he passed. He is, they say,
extremely amusing, and keeps his men always in a good temper with his
j