laager and expecting to be attacked. Methuen's little campaign strikes
one now as a sort of prelude, or overture, to the main show; but how
very much surprised we should have been that November morning when we
marched from Orange River Camp if you had told us we should ever be
looked at in that light. Ten thousand men was a big army in those days.

We have been on the trek now for about six weeks with Bruce-Hamilton,
and though we have not so far been seriously engaged, there has been
almost daily fighting round the fringes and skirts of the column
("skirt-fighting," you may call it).

"_November_ 17.--Left Lindley. This neighbourhood quite as disturbed as
ever. Shooting.

"_November_ 18.--More shooting. Boers in all hills.

"_November_ 19.--More shooting and galloping about. Reached Heilbron.

"_November_ 20.--Left for Frankfort. Boers in attendance as usual. Our
two guns and pompom very useful."

Those were the last entries I made in my diary. The day's events became
too monotonous to chronicle, but very much the same sort of entries
would have applied to almost every day since. Sometimes there are
exciting incidents. Yesterday half-a-dozen Boers hid in a little hollow
which just concealed them until our column came along, and opened fire
at close range on the flank guard. One or two men were hit and several
horses. My friend Vice had five bullets through his horse and was not
touched himself, which was rather lucky for him (or unlucky for the
horse). A few days before that we were camped on the river and had a
picket on the other side. Two or three Boers crept up the river right
between our picket and the main body, and then walked straight to the
picket as if coming from us and fired into it at point-blank range. They
mortally wounded one of our men and in the dusk escaped. They are as
cunning as Indians. Sometimes, as in these cases, they show great
coolness and daring, while at others they are easily dispersed; but they
are generally pretty keen, and you have to be very much on the alert in
dealing with them.

You at home will probably be annoyed to find the war dragging on so.
About election time the papers were announcing that it was over. It had
been a hard job, they said, but it was finished at last. A good deal was
occurring out here which did not quite tally with that theory, but those
things were ignored or very slightly referred to, so that we on the spot
wondered to see the war drop out of sight,