which make us seem heroes to ourselves. For the moment
Kimberley transferred its attentions commercially from diamonds to
shells: a less romantic and (if you will believe it) a more sordid
industry; for there were already more storied and pedigreed shells in
private collections and for sale in Kimberley than ever fell into the
town.

Boshof, at any rate, provided a welcome change from all this. It is a
pretty little town of greensward streets and clear brooks; of white
cottages embowered in trees; of rose-gardens and orchards; rather like a
remote country town in Ireland--poor and pretty and sleepy. There were
few able-bodied men left in it, and aged people looked doubtfully out
from their fuchsia-covered doors upon the ranks and regiments of foreign
soldiers who came clattering through the streets on some of those hot
April afternoons. We were to advance, it was now thought, on the 6th; in
what direction we did not know certainly, but we suspected that it would
be along the Hoopstad Road. The arguments and speculations with which we
occupied ourselves need not be recorded now, but it was at once our hope
and fear that we should advance along the north bank of the Vaal. Hope,
because there was work to be done there; fear, lest our smaller force
should be absorbed by Lord Roberts's larger army and become merely its
left flank. Events showed that we might have spared ourselves both hopes
and fears, but fortunately we were ignorant, and so found occupation for
many an hour that had otherwise been empty.

An interval of inaction in the midst of a war is tedious in some ways,
but it is at least of benefit to a mere onlooker, who is thus enabled to
disengage himself from the whirl of operations and to discover the
results of his unwonted occupation. After having lived amongst
soldiers--in some ways and in spite of their profession the most human
and civilised of men--it had come upon me as a shock to find in
Kimberley the same bloodthirstiness that had distinguished the more
thoughtless section of the public at home. Cruel shouting for blood by
people who never see it; the iteration of that most illogical demand, a
life for a life--and, if possible, two lives for a life; the loud,
hectoring, frothy argument that lashes itself into a fury with strong
and abusive language--they all came like a clap of thunder after what I
am bound to call in comparison the quiet decency of the battlefield.
This is a grave thing to say, but it