fe of the veldt
resuming its routine and circumstance. One passes on through the quaking
air as in a dream, and as though impelled by the great force behind; and
to eyes gazing long on the ground the affairs of tiny creatures become
conspicuous and important. The mere-cats sit listening, and wonder what
the new sound in the grass means, not like wind or rain. Little lizards
basking on the sand suddenly wake up and wriggle away to avoid the thing
against which the shelter of a leaf will not avail them. And always in
front hares and buck by the hundred stream away like the shadows of
clouds over grass. Then someone looks at his watch and shouts "Halt!"
and the welcome word is shouted and repeated down the line until the
sound is lost in the distance, while the tired men throw themselves down
between the burning sun and the sand.

It is like sailing on a wide sea after a storm, when the short and high
waves have died away beneath the tread of smooth rollers. The veldt
undulates from sky to sky, a plain rising and falling about the base of
rocks and island kopjes. One reaches the crest, hoping for a new view,
searching for the clump of trees that means a farm and fresh water; and
one sinks down again into the furrow, while the wave of disappointment
runs backward along the seven miles of column as each man rises to the
barren view. Now an ox, now a mule or a horse falls out and lies down to
die; now a man stumbles and falls, and lies down to wait for the cool
hours.

To men who find this kind of monotony irksome the march is a dreary
business, while to others its bare outline is filled with the interest
of a thousand little happenings. The tired, dusty, shabby "Tommy" is a
man much more agreeable to talk with than his ancestor of the
barrack-room at home; the youngest subaltern has forgotten all about his
swagger mess-kit and the "style" of his regiment, and shows himself as
the good fellow he is; even the Brigadier forgets the scarlet on his
khaki collar, and remembers that he too is a frail mortal. And always,
when other interest failed, one could fall back on that of one's own
sometimes troublesome affairs. On the afternoon of the Dreifontein march
our advance cart with the luncheon had not outspanned fifteen minutes
before it was discovered that one of the horses was gone. There was no
doubt as to why, of course--a soldier had "snaffled" it. I am sorry to
say that in the matter of horse property the average Tommy holds