eaving England, and it is what one misses
most. Two escaped prisoners of the Canadian Mounted Infantry came to
our fire, and we had a most interesting chat with them till very late.
They spoke highly of the way they had been treated. In food they
always fared just as the Boers did, and were under no needlessly
irksome restrictions. They said that in this sort of warfare the Boers
could always give us points. They laugh at our feeble scouting a mile
or two ahead, while their own men are ranging round in twos and
threes, often fifteen miles from their commando, and at night
venturing right up to our camps. In speed of movement, too, they can
beat us; in spite of their heavy bullock transport they can travel at
least a third quicker than we. Their discipline was good enough for
its purpose. A man would obey a direct order whatever it was. They
only wanted a stiffening of our own class of military discipline to
make them invulnerable. They sang hymns every night in groups round
their fires, "but are hypocrites." (On this point, however, my
informants differed a little.) They said the leader of this force was
Prinsloo, and that we had not been fighting De Wet at all. It seems
there are two De Wets, Piet and Christian. There was a rumour
yesterday that Piet had been captured near Kroonstadt, though
Christian seems to be the important one. But the whole thing is
distracting, like constructing history out of myths and legends.

_July 29._--_Sunday._--Church parade at eleven. It is reported, and is
probably true, that the whole Boer force has surrendered. If so we
have missed little or nothing. About twenty prisoners came in in the
morning, quaint, rough people, shambling along on diminutive ponies.
In the afternoon Williams went foraging for the officers, and I
visited our Scotch friends, the donors of the cabbage, who were very
kind, and asked me in. The married son had just come in from
Basutoland, where he had been hiding, a great red, strapping giant,
with his wife and babies by him. He had originally been given a
passport to allow him to remain neutral, but later they had tried to
make him fight, so he ran away, and had been with a missionary over
the border, whose house he repaired. It was pleasant to see this
joyful home-coming.

Rations to-day, one biscuit and a pound of flour. How to cook it? Some
went to houses, some made dough-nuts (with deadly properties, I
believe). No fat and no baking-powder. Fortunately, Willi