rom their bevelled summits--close enough to be the
channel, in summer, of every scorching blast diverted by them; in
winter, every icy draught. Pestilential place, goal of whirlwinds and
dust-devils, ankle-deep in desert drift--prototype of Berber in a
sandstorm--as comfortless by night as day. But as in nature, so in the
handiwork of men, even in the most repulsive shapes it is possible to
find some saving feature. De Aar has one--one only. Its saving feature
is where a slatternly Jew boy plays host behind the bar of a
fly-ridden buffet. Here at prices which, except that it is a campaign,
would be prohibitive, you can purchase food and drink.

But at night it is not an easy place to find. The station is full of
trains, and, arriving by a supply-train, you are discharged at some
remote siding. A dozen wheeled barricades--open trucks, groaning
bogies piled with war material--separate you from the platform. You
dare not climb over the couplings between the waggons, for engines are
attached, and the trains jolt backwards and forwards apparently
without aim or warning. Up over an open truck! You roll on to the top
of sleeping men, and bark your shins against a rifle. Curses follow
you as you clamber out, and drop into the middle way. A clear line.
No,--down pants an armoured train, a leviathan of steel plates and
sheet-iron. You let it pass, and dash for the next barricade. Thank
heaven! this is a passenger train. As it is lighted up like a grand
hotel you will be able to hoist yourself over the footboards and
through a saloon--"Halt! who goes there?" and you recoil from the
point of a naked bayonet. "Can't help it, orficer or no orficer, this
is Lord Kitchener's special, and you can't pass here!" It is no use.
Another wide detour; more difficulties, other escapes from moving
trains, and at last you find the platform.

De Aar platform at night. If the management at Drury Lane ever wished
to enact a play called "Chaos," the setting for their best scene could
not better a night on De Aar platform. Each day this Clapham Junction
of Lord Kitchener's army dumps down dozens of men, who are forced for
an indefinite period to use the station as a home--tons and tons of
army litter and a thousand nondescript details. The living lie about
the station in magnificent confusion--white men, Kaffirs, soldiers,
prisoners, civilians. A brigadier-general waiting for the night mail
will be asleep upon one bench, a skrimshanking Tommy, who ha