s or orders to the men to
behave properly. I have trusted implicitly to their own soldierly
feeling and good sense, and I have not trusted in vain. They bore
themselves like heroes on the battlefield, and like gentlemen on
all other occasions.

[Sidenote: _A song in praise of De Wet._]

Lord Lytton tells us that in the days of Edward the Confessor the rage
for psalm singing was at its height in England so that sacred song
excluded almost every other description of vocal music: but though in
South Africa a similar trend revealed itself among the troops, their
camp fire concerts, and the concerts in the Pretoria Soldiers' Home,
were of an exclusively secular type. At one which it was my privilege
to attend, Lady Roberts and her daughters were present as well as the
general, who generously arranged for a cigar to be given to every man
in the densely crowded hall when the concert closed. All the songs
were by members of the general's staff, and were excellent; but one,
composed presumably by the singer, was topical and sensational in a
high degree. It was entitled: "Long as the world goes round"; and one
verse assured us concerning "Brother Boer," with only too near an
approach to truth,

He'll bury his mauser,
And break all his vows, sir,
Long as the world goes round!

Another verse reminded us of a still more melancholy fact which yet
awakened no little mirth. It was in praise of De Wet, who in spite of
his blue spectacles, seemed by far the most clear-sighted of all the
Boer generals, and who, notwithstanding his illiteracy, was beyond all
others well versed in the bewildering ways of the veldt. He apparently
had no skill for the conducting of set battles, but for ambushing
convoys, for capturing isolated detachments, for wrecking trains, and
for himself eluding capture when fairly ringed round with keen
pursuers beyond all counting, few could rival him. Like hunted
Hereward, he seemed able to escape through a rat hole, and by his
persistence in guerilla tactics not only seriously prolonged the war
and enormously increased its cost, but also went far to make the
desolation of his pet Republic complete. So there Lord Roberts sat and
heard this sung by one of his staff:--

Of all the Boers we have come across yet,
None can compare with this Christian De Wet;
For him we seem quite unable to get--
(Though Hildyard and Br