away for the further service of the Boers it could not be. Among other
acquisitions we captured at Elandsfontein a capitally equipped
hospital train, hundreds of railway trucks laden more or less with
valuable stores, and half a dozen locomotives with full head of steam
on; so that had we arrived a little less suddenly, locomotives, trains
and empty trucks would all have eluded our grasp and got safely to
Pretoria. It was indeed an invaluable haul, especially for haulage
purposes, and we had tramped 130 miles in the course of a single week
to secure it!

[Sidenote: _Dear diet and dangerous._]

Long after dark, weary and footsore and famished, we stumbled back
three miles to our chosen camping ground. Since the previous evening
some of the Scots Guards had managed to secure only a hasty drink of
coffee, so they told me, as their sole rations for the four-and-twenty
hours; but they seemed as happy as they were hungry, like men proudly
conscious that they had done a good day's work that brought them, so
they fondly supposed, perceptibly nearer home. Assisted by many an
undesirable expletive, they staggered and darkly groped their way over
some of the very roughest ground we had thus far been required to
traverse; they got repeatedly entangled in a profusion of barbed wire;
scrambled into deep railway ditches, then scrambled out again; till at
last they reached their appointed resting-place, and in dead darkness
proceeded as best they could to cook their dinners.

Greatly to our surprise the people, who seemed mostly Dutch or of
Dutch relationship, received us like those in the Orange Free State
towns, with demonstrative kindness; and in many a case brought out
their last loaf as a most welcome gift to the just then almost
ravenous soldiery. Every scrap of available provisions was eagerly
bought up, and here as elsewhere honestly paid for, often at prices
that seemed far from honest. Months after at this very place I learned
that eggs were being sold at from ten to fifteen shillings a dozen,
and fowls at seven shillings a-piece!

An Australian correspondent of the _London Times_ declares that as it
was with us, so was it with the troops that he accompanied. About the
very time we reached this Germiston Junction, his men, he says, were
practically starving; and any other army in the world would have
commandeered whatever food came in its way. He was with Rundle's
Brigade, "the starving Eighth" as they were well called,