cers say, the finest panoramic view
in the whole world is obtained. The cliff drops almost straight down
twelve or fifteen hundred feet, and at its base huge baboons could be
seen sporting, quite heedless of an onlooking army. Straight across
what looked like an almost level plain, which, nevertheless, was
seamed by many a deep defile and scarred by the unfruitful toil of
many a gold-seeker, lay another great range of hills, with range
rising beyond range, but with the town of Barberton, which I visited
twenty months later, lying like a tiny white patch at the foot of the
nearest range, some twenty miles away. To the right this plateau
looked as though the tempestuous waves of the Atlantic had broken in
at that end with overwhelming force, and then had been suddenly
arrested and petrified while wave still battled with wave. It is such
a view of far-reaching grandeur as I may never hope to see again, even
were I to roam the wide world round; and could Kaapsche Hoop, with its
absolutely fascinating attractiveness, be transplanted to, say
Greenwich Park, any enterprising vendor of tea and shrimps who managed
to secure a vested interest in the same, might reasonably hope to make
such a fortune out of it as even a Rothschild need not despise.

CHAPTER XIII

WAR'S WANTON WASTE

Day after day we steadily worked our way _down_ to Koomati Poort, even
when climbing such terrific hills that we sometimes seemed like men
toiling to the top of a seven-storied house in order to reach the
cellar. Hence Monday morning found us still seemingly close to "The
Devil's Kantoor," which we had reached on the previous Saturday,
though meanwhile we had tramped up and down and in and out, till we
could travel no farther, all day on Sunday.

[Sidenote: _A Surrendered Boer General._]

During that Sunday tramp there crossed into our lines General
Schoeman, driving in a Cape cart drawn by four mules, on his way to
Pretoria _via_ the Godwand River railway station. Months before he had
joined in formally handing over Pretoria to the British, and had been
allowed to return to his farm on taking the oath of neutrality. That
oath he had refused to break, so he was made a prisoner by his brother
Boers. It was in Barberton gaol General French found him and once more
set him free. Such a man deemed himself safer in the hands of his foes
than of his friends, so was hasting not to his farm but to far-off
Pretoria. This favourite commandant was by