." Strange
to say, the only way in which to secure an ample meal in Mafeking was to
give a dinner-party, when all sorts of things were produced from secret
reserves and--charged for.

Brigadier-General Mahon's column left Mafeking on Monday, May 28th,
taking the road that runs southward beside the railway, and I think that
everyone breathed a sigh of satisfaction when we were once more fairly
on the road. "The Happy Family" someone called Mahon's force, and there
was certainly never a more united company. He is the kind of
leader--considerate, strict, careless of unessential formalities,
careful of all essential details, jolly of face, kind of eye, a good
companion on the road, a rock of strength and confidence in the
field--who is obeyed in the spirit as well as the letter, and for whom
men would gladly march their feet to blisters. It need hardly be said
that he is an Irishman--"Ould Pat Mahon God bless 'um!" as a friend of
mine said that morning; and the remark was strangely apt, in spite of
the Brigadier's youth and the fact that his name is Bryan.

For four days we marched southward in easy stages across a stretch of
country that was almost blighted by the scarcity of water; we never had
water through which the bottom of a white cup could be seen; nearly
always we had to share with the mules and horses the vast puddle known
in that country as a pan, and at every puddle or waterhole, as the mules
churned it up into inky mud, the wish was the same--"If only we had some
engineers!"

At Maritsani siding we found the first really serious break in the
railway. For about three miles the line was completely wrecked, and two
culverts, one (over the river) spanned by unusually long girders, had
been blasted in the middle and were lying broken in the gap. Even here
it was easy to distinguish between the work of the trained German or
French engineer and that of the ordinary rank-and-file Boer. The Boer
did not understand dynamite, but he had a very fair idea of destruction
from the spectacular point of view, and his work made by far the finer
show. One might almost think that children had been at work, so
laborious and futile were his efforts. The permanent way for perhaps
two miles was bodily uprooted, each length of rails with the sleepers
attached, and laid along the embankment. Not a thing was destroyed; the
fishplates, four to each joint, were lying at a convenient distance, and
even the bolts and nuts for securing the