l is surely more imaginative than the
phlegmatic Englishman--and the sorry collection of tin shanties and
flimsy villas, which at so great a distance appear to you of little
more significance than a farm with straggling outhouses--represent to
his mind a town, and he will resent a less appreciative rating of
them. This may appear unreasonable: it is, but it is none the less
true; and in a great measure the variance of focus between the English
and the Colonial mind has been responsible for the girth-galling which
at the beginning of the war marked our efforts in harness with our
colonial _confreres_. We have heard all the defects of the British
officer, because the Colonial thinks quickly and lightly, and wastes
no time in giving expression to his thoughts; we have not heard so
much of the defects of the Colonial, because the British officer,
while focussing his opinions less rapidly, though more seriously than
the majority of Colonials, reserves his criticisms. But they are an
easy people to manage if you can preserve your silence without
offending their vanity. They admire in the Englishman the qualities
which they themselves have not yet fully developed; but it cuts them
to the quick if the evidence of superiority is thrust upon them. Thus,
when the officer commanding the advance-guard, looking down the great
straight road leading into Britstown,--a track which would have done
credit to the Roman Road at Baynards,--commented unkindly upon the
township, the Tiger was hurt, and thought unpleasant things about
British cavalry subalterns in general, and the officer in command of
the advance-guard in particular. But then Britstown had been a town to
the Tiger ever since he could remember. Until he had arrived at man's
estate and visited Kimberley and Cape Town, Britstown had been the
town of his imagination and Beaufort West his metropolis. To the
officer commanding the advance-guard, Britstown and Beaufort West, if
rolled into one, would hardly have earned the dignified classification
of a village. The mental focus of the two men was at variance, and the
Tiger felt that the subaltern possessed the stronger lens. Yet man for
man, on horse or foot, clothed or naked, to the outward eye he was not
a better man. It is here that the feeling lies.

The brigadier halted the advance-guard upon the rise. He wanted to
know something about Britstown. The ugly rumour of Brand's intention
to storm and sack it was still with us. As yet