ehind, got up an ampler pressure of
steam, but presently it was suggested that the hundreds of Guardsmen
on board the train should tumble out of the trucks and shove, which
accordingly they did, the Colonel himself assenting and assisting. So
sometimes shoving, always steaming, we pursued our shining way, as we
fondly supposed, towards Hyde Park corner and "Home, sweet Home."

At Waterval Onder we stayed the night, and I was thus enabled to visit
once again the tiny international cemetery, referred to in a former
chapter, where I had laid to rest an unnamed, because unrecognised,
private of the Devons. Now close beside him in that silent land lay
the superbly-built Australian, whom I had so often visited in the
adjoining hospital, and whom our general had promised to recommend for
"The Distinguished Service Medal." Not yet eighteen, his life work was
early finished; but by heroisms such as his has our vast South African
domain been bought; and by graves such as his are the far sundered
parts of our world-wide empire knit together.

[Sidenote: _Ruined farms and ruined firms._]

Throughout this whole journey I was painfully impressed not only by
the almost total absence of all signs of present-day cultivation, even
where such cultivation could not but prove richly remunerative, but
also by the still sadder fact that many of the farmhouses we sighted
were in ruins. Along this Delagoa line, as in other parts of the
Transvaal, there had been so much sniping at trains, and so many
cases of scouts being fired at from farmhouses over which the white
flag floated, that this particular form of retribution and repression,
which we none the less deplored, seemed essential to the safety of all
under our protection; and in defence thereof I heard quoted, as
peculiarly appropriate to the Boer temperament and tactics, the
familiar lines:--

Softly, gently, touch a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.

Amajuba led to a fatal misjudgement of the British by the Boer. In all
leniency, the latter now recognises only an encouraging lack of grit,
which persuades him to prolong the contest by whatever tactics suit
him best. Its effect resembles that of the Danegeld our Saxon fathers
paid their oversea invaders, with a view to staying all further
strife. Their gifts were interpreted as a sign of craven fear, and
merely taught the reci