ne lay down where he stood, and it was a strange, troubled
night, with horses stumbling about in the moonlight and blowing with
astonishment into one's face.

This morning, as some of us more than half expected, the enemy had
cleared, but in consequence of a message received from Colonel Plumer
asking us to meet and join him at a certain place we have turned from
our original direction. We reached a dry river at eight o'clock this
morning, and men had to begin to dig in the sand for water for
themselves and their horses. One of my servants found a well fifty feet
deep, from which the bucket hoist and ropes were missing. I had sixty
feet of rope in my cart, and I went quietly away with two boys carrying
all our buckets and bags and kegs, and leading all the horses. We had
two hours of very hard work at that well; and when the horses had drunk
their fill, and every vessel had been replenished, the fact that there
was a well was reported to the Brigadier. In ten minutes a crowd of
troopers was round the well, trampling down earth into the water; but if
we had only had a few engineers everyone could have been supplied in
half an hour.

JAN MASSIBI'S, _Tuesday, May 15th_.

We marched off at half-past three yesterday, keeping west of north; on
and on, until half-past eight in the evening. Everyone was dog-tired,
and dropped to the ground, only to be roused at one o'clock this morning
by the Brigadier, who personally went round and woke people up. He had
to shake me twice, and I imagine that other people were wrapped in just
as profound an oblivion; nevertheless we were on the march again at
1.30.

Oh, the weariness of that eternal plod through the rough grassy ground,
the coldness, the interminable darkness! It was no better on horseback
than on foot, for the animals kept falling asleep and stumbling. At
every halt one tumbled off one's horse and fell asleep, only to be
awakened by the hateful "Stand to your horses." But at last the light
began to glimmer in the east, the air took an even colder tone, so that
even the grasses seemed to shiver with the breath of dawn, and presently
the whole horizon on our right burned with a red fire. Thereafter the
shedding of greatcoats and sweaters and woollen helmets, and the glad
breathing in of the wine of morning. A little after daylight our advance
patrols came in touch with the pickets of Colonel Plumer's camp, down in
the valley of the Molopo River at Jan Massibi's. The Brigad