they were good and tender. By the way, we
bought this cabbage with our last three-penny bit. We had sovereigns,
but they are useless in this country, for there is no change. These
people told us that they had been ten months prisoners (at large) of
the Boers. Their men had gone to Basutoland, like many more. They had
been well treated, and suffered little loss, till the advent of the
conquering British, when forty or fifty hens were taken by Highlanders
at night.

A lovely warm afternoon, and for a wonder freedom till four, the first
spell of it for weeks. Went to a puddle some way off, near a Kaffir
kraal, and washed. Some women came with calabashes for water, and I
tried to buy the bead bangles and waist-lace off a baby child, but
failed. Then I invaded the kraal for meal and chickens, but failed
again. I never thought, when I visited Earl's Court a year ago, that I
should look on the African original so soon. Round mud hovels, with a
tall plaited-straw portico in front. Most of the men look like
worthless loafers; the women finely-built, capable creatures.

Heavy firing has been going on all day, mostly with lyddite, on our
side, by the sound. You can see the shells bursting on the top of a
big kopje.

This is a funny little place: pleasant cottages dotted round in
desultory fashion, as though the town had been brought up in waggons
and just tipped out anyhow. Half the houses are empty and gutted; we
are all going to sleep in houses to-night. There has been a row about
looting a chemist's shop; our fellows thought he was away with the
Boers, but he turned up in the middle. There were some curious bits of
plunder.

We are much disappointed at being left out of the fighting to-day, but
it's only natural. We are only half a battery, and have no reserve
ammunition, actual or prospective, for some time.

I have struck my last match. I have now to rely on cordite, which,
however, only acts as a spill. You get a rifle cartridge (there are
plenty to be got, the infantry seem to drop them about by hundreds),
wrench out the bullet and wad, and find the cordite in long slender
threads like vermicelli. You dip this in another man's lighted pipe,
when it flares up, and you can light your own.

In the evening Williams and I made a fire, and cooked our cabbage in
our Kaffir pot, a round iron one on three legs, putting in meat and
some (looted) vinegar. How good it was! It was the first fresh green
food we had eaten since l