essed into slabs about fifteen inches long, eight inches wide, and three
inches thick. The smoke from the fires is very dense, and soon fills the
air with a pungent odour, which is not unpleasant in the open, but would be
simply intolerable in a building. The coffee is soon made, and the simple
meal begins; it consists of "rusks," a kind of bread baked until it becomes
crisp and hard, and plenty of steaming hot coffee. I never saw any people
so fond of this beverage as the Boers are. The Australian bushman and
digger loves tea, and can almost exist upon it; but these Boers cling to
coffee. They live, when out in laager, like Spartans, they dress anyhow,
sleep anyhow, and eat just rusks and precious little else. Talk about
"Tommy" and his hard times, why a private soldier at the front sleeps
better, dresses better, and eats better than a Boer general; yet never once
did I hear a Boer complain of hardships. After tea the Boers sit about and
clean their rifles; the women move from one little group to another,
chatting cheerfully, but I saw nothing in their conduct, or in the conduct
of any man towards one of them, that would cause the most chaste matron in
Great Britain to blush or droop her eyes. There is in the laager an utter
absence of what we term soldierly discipline; men moved about, went and
came in a free and easy fashion, just as I have seen them do a thousand
times in diggers' camps. There was no saluting of officers, no stiffness,
no starch anywhere. The general lounges about with hands in pockets and
pipe in mouth; no one pays him any special deference. He talks to the men,
the striplings, and the women, and they talk back to him in a manner which
seems strange to a Britisher familiar to the ways of military camps. After
the chatting, the pridikant, or parson, if there is one in the laager,
raises his hands, and all listen with reverent faces whilst the man of God
utters a few words in a solemn, earnest tone; then all kneel, and a prayer
floats up towards the skies, and a few moments later the whole camp is
wrapped in sleep, nothing is heard but the neighing of horses, the lowing
of cattle, the bleating of sheep, and the occasional barking of a dog.
There is no clatter of arms, no ringing of bugles, no deep-toned challenge
of sentries, no footfall of changing pickets.

At regular intervals men rise silently from the ranks of the sleepers, pick
up their rifles noiselessly, and silently, like ghosts, slip out into