the sunny, inscrutable
hills, or down into the plain crawling with black oxen.

Among the group of staff officers some one has lost a cigar-holder. It
has slipped from between his fingers, and, with the vindictiveness of
inanimate things, has slid and jumped under a pile of rocks. The
interest of all around is instantly centred on the lost cigar-holder.
The Tommies begin to roll the rocks away, endangering the limbs of the
men below them, and half the kopje is obliterated. They are as keen as
terriers after a rat. The officers sit above and give advice and
disagree as to where that cigar-holder hid itself. Over their heads, not
twenty feet above, the shells chase each other fiercely. But the
officers have become accustomed to shells; a search for a lost
cigar-holder, which is going on under their very eyes, is of greater
interest. And when at last a Tommy pounces upon it with a laugh of
triumph, the officers look their disappointment, and, with a sigh of
resignation, pick up their field-glasses.

It is all a question of familiarity. On Broadway, if a building is going
up where there is a chance of a loose brick falling on some one's head,
the contractor puts up red signs marked "Danger!" and you dodge over to
the other side. But if you had been in battle for twelve days, as have
the soldiers of Buller's column, passing shells would interest you no
more than do passing cable-cars. After twelve days you would forget that
shells are dangerous even as you forget when crossing Broadway that
cable-cars can kill and mangle.

Up on the highest hill, seated among the highest rocks, are General
Buller and his staff. The hill is all of rocks, sharp, brown rocks, as
clearly cut as foundation-stones. They are thrown about at irregular
angles, and are shaded only by stiff bayonet-like cacti. Above is a blue
glaring sky, into which the top of the kopje seems to reach, and to draw
and concentrate upon itself all of the sun's heat. This little jagged
point of blistering rocks holds the forces that press the button which
sets the struggling mass below, and the thousands of men upon the
surrounding hills, in motion. It is the conning tower of the relief
column, only, unlike a conning tower, it offers no protection, no
seclusion, no peace. To-day, commanding generals, under the new
conditions which this war has developed, do not charge up hills waving
flashing swords. They sit on rocks, and wink out their orders by a
fl