that the Boers were coming our way, and the guns were turned
out; but it was a false alarm, and the column came on here to Gunning's
Farm, where we arrived after dark. Camping in the dark after a
thirty-mile march is wild work--such a commotion of hails and calls,
such searching for one's camp, and for the watering-place for horses.
The hour of lamplight is precious, and I am near the end of it now.

MUCHADIN, _Monday, May 7th_.

A day seldom passes on which one does not receive fresh proof that the
world contains foolish people. In the small hours of Sunday morning,
when the camp was astir in the darkness, a rifle-shot rang out quite
close to me. I could hear the bullet going up like a rocket until the
sound was lost. It was the usual thing--some idiot charging his
magazine, and forgetting to close the cut-off--with the result that when
he snapped his trigger the gun went off. Any good result of our
discomfortable regulation as to fires and lights is quite cancelled by
such an act, which proves much more certainly than fires can prove the
presence of armed troops. The same thing happened early this morning,
and the pickets were turned out to find that the alarm was false. It is
a great pity, but where the British soldier is to be found in any force,
there seems invariably to be found also the man who lets off his gun by
mistake. The marvel is that the thing generally hurts no one.

Sunday's march was uneventful, except that trouble began among the
horses. One of my four fellow-correspondents lost a fine pair--the
wheelers of his team--which he had bought in Barkly on Thursday, and
which probably returned to their former owner. But as we have no lines
of communication, he will not see them again. My horse fell sick, and
the three hours of the midday bivouac had to be spent in hastily
breaking in to the saddle one of the leaders of my team. The
headquarters staff lost two horses, and five mules strayed from the
supply park. The fact was rather tersely announced by Corporal Jenkins
of the Army Service Corps, who came up while I was talking to his
officer, saluted, and said in the language of his kind--

"Please, sir, I'm deficient of five mules."

The loss of animals from so small a column is really serious, and
everyone is looking blue over his deficiencies. I am deficient of a
spade and two nose-bags. But then I am to the good by one lame dog, who,
in return for slight services rendered on the road, refuses to al