scouts warn him of the movements of the tireless foe. He has
stationed portions of his forces at given points along this line, and his
personal work is to march rapidly with small bodies of infantry, yeomanry,
scouts, and artillery towards places immediately threatened. He has to keep
the Boers from penetrating that long and flexible line, for if once they
forced a passage in large numbers they would sweep like a torrent
southwards, envelop his rear, cut the railway and telegraph to pieces, stop
all convoys, paralyse the movements of all troops up beyond Kroonstad, and
once more raise the whole of the Free State, and very possibly a great
portion of the Cape Colony as well.

General Rundle's task is a colossal one, and any sane man would think that
gigantic efforts would be made to keep him amply supplied with food for his
soldiers. But such is not the case. The men are absolutely starving. Many
of the infantrymen are so weak that they can barely stagger along under the
weight of their soldierly equipment. They are worn to shadows, and move
with weary, listless footsteps on the march. People high up in authority
may deny this, but he who denies it sullies the truth. This is what the
soldiers get to eat, what they have been getting to eat for a long time
past, and what they are likely to get for a long time to come, unless
England rouses herself, and bites to the bone in regard to the people who
are responsible for it.

One pound of raw flour, which the soldiers have to cook after a hard day's
march, is served out to each man every alternate day. The following day he
gets one pound of biscuits. In this country there is no fuel excepting a
little ox-dung, dried by the sun. If a soldier is lucky enough to pick up a
little, he can go to the nearest water, of which there is plenty, mix his
cake without yeast or baking-powder, and make some sort of a wretched
mouthful. He gets one pound of raw fresh meat daily, which nine times out
of ten he cannot cook, and there his supplies end.

What has become of the rations of rum, of sugar, of tea, of cocoa, of
groceries generally? Ask at the snug little railway sidings where the goods
are stacked--and forgotten. Ask in the big stores in Capetown and other
seaport towns. Ask in your own country, where countless thousands of
pounds' worth of foodstuffs lie rotting in the warehouses, bound up and
tied down with red tape bandages. Ask--yes, ask; but don't stop at
asking--damn somebody h