ers which we encountered was at Abraham's Kraal.
While we were breakfasting about two dozen of them cantered up, of whom
about six were armed. If I had qualms, I hope I did not show them when I
said "Good-morning." I fell into conversation with one of the Boers, and
mentioned incidentally that, from their point of view, the game was up,
and that I supposed he knew that anyone who interfered with peaceful
Englishmen would be hanged. He was a sulky fellow, but he took my word
for it, and presently we began to talk. These Boers were in low spirits
about the war, and spoke of it without enthusiasm or hope. Most of them
were Transvaalers, and two spoke with an unmistakable Glasgow accent,
but on the whole they were gruff and uncommunicative, and, as they cast
envious eyes from their own sorry nags to our well-conditioned mounts,
I was glad to wish them good-day. They had come to bury the dead from
the Dreifontein fight, and from what they told me of the still unburied
Boers both there and at Paardeberg, I gathered that their casualties all
along the line had been heavier than we had thought.

I have said that the neighbourhood of the Boers made our journey
exciting, and there was one point at which the excitement became very
nearly painful. We had made a long stage one day, and at about sundown
arrived at the Modder, which we intended to cross at a drift near
Koodoesrand. This was the dangerous neighbourhood, and we were anxious
to push on and cross the river before encamping for the night. The banks
of the Modder at this drift are about forty feet high and almost
precipitous, the path down to the drift being little better than a track
worn at a long diagonal down the bank. It was steep enough going down,
but when we had crossed the shallow river and begun the ascent of the
other bank we found the track very soft and almost perpendicular. By
fetching a compass and putting the horses to it at a great pace the two
Cape carts managed to reach the top, but a four-wheeled American waggon
stuck fast at the bottom and could not be moved. At that moment the last
of the daylight ebbed, and darkness began to quench the sunset embers.

We tried unhitching the teams from the Cape carts and hitching them to
the waggon, but we only succeeded in breaking harness. It was after the
second attempt, when we were all standing hot and angry after our
unavailing exertion of whip-cracking and shouting, that we suddenly saw
a light shine out from t