belongings touched, except as the result of a perfectly
voluntary sale and purchase. Indeed, the identic day we left, turkeys,
geese, ducks, and other "small deer," were still wandering round their
native haunts, none daring to make them afraid. The owners had
declined to sell; and our ever hungry men had honourably refrained
from laying unpermitted hands on these greatly enjoyable dainties.
Such honesty in a hostile land, in relation to the property of a
hostile peasantry, made me marvel; and still more when maintained in
places where unmistakable treachery had been practised as in this
identic neighbourhood.

At Wolmaran's pleasant country house, close beside our camp, the white
flag flew, and there our general took up his abode. Some members of
this well-known family were still out on commando, but those that
remained at home eagerly surrendered all arms, were profuse in
professions of friendliness, and were duly pledged to formal
neutrality. But a recent Transvaal law had reduced the wages of all
Kaffirs from about twenty shillings to a uniform five shillings a
week, and Wolmaran's unpaid or ill-paid negroes revenged themselves by
revealing their master's secrets. Partly as the result of hints thus
obtained, we found hidden in his garden over thirty rifles, the barrel
of a Maxim gun, and about L10,000 in gold--presumably Government
money; also a splendid supply of provisions was discovered--presumably
Government stores; and in the family cemetery there was dug up a
quantity of dynamite. The gentleman who thus gave up his arms, and in
this fashion kept his oath, at once became our prisoner, but his house
and its contents remained untouched. And when we left, some of his
barndoor fowls were still there to see us off!

This is a notable but typical illustration of the way in which, with
unwise leniency, surrendered burghers were allowed access to our
camps, and recompensed our reliance on their honour by revealing our
secrets to our foes, and, when they dared, unearthing their buried
arms to level them once more at our too confiding troops.

[Sidenote: _More treachery and still more._]

A march of fifteen or eighteen miles brought us to Bronkhorst Spruit,
the scene of a dastardly massacre in December 1880, of the men of the
Connaught Rangers, who, ere yet there was any declaration of war, were
marching with their wives and children from Lydenburg to Pretoria. I
stood bareheaded beside one of the mounds that hide th