_Saturday._--At 1 A.M. the rest tumbled in on us, and we
started off for the most abominable jolt over the country. For a
wonder it was a very cold night, and of course we were all sitting up,
so there was no more sleep to be got. At sunrise we arrived at Warm
Baths, which turns out to be really a health-resort with hot springs.
The chief feature in this peculiar place is a long row of tin houses,
containing baths, I hear; also an hotel and a railway station, then
the bush-covered veldt, abrupt and limitless. Baden-Powell and his
troops are here, and I believe the Boers are behind some low hills
which lie north of us, and run east and west. Our cart halted by a
stream of water, which I washed in, and found quite warm. Coffee and
biscuits were served out. A lovely day, hot, but still, so no dust.
The column stops here a day or so, I hear. We have been transferred to
a marquee tent, where fifteen of us lie pretty close. The Battery is
quite near, and Williams has been round bringing my blankets, for it
appears the drivers' kits have come on from Pynaar's River. Several
fellows came round to see me, and Williams brought some duff, and
Ramsey some light literature; Williams also brought a _Times_, in
which I read about the massacre in China. I'm afraid the polyglot
avengers will quarrel among themselves. Restless night. I believe I
shall never sleep well under a roof again. A roof in London will be a
bit smutty, though.

_August 26._--Breakfast at seven. Told we were going to shift. Packed
up and shifted camp about a mile to some trees; the other site was
horribly smelly. Installed again in a tent. I have a hardened old
shell-back of a Tommy (Yorkshire Light Infantry) on my right, and a
very nice sergeant of the Wilts Regiment on my left. Some of the
former's yarns are very entertaining, but too richly encrusted with
words not in the dictionary to reproduce. How Kipling does it I can't
think. The sergeant is a fine type of the best sort of reservist. He
astonished me by telling me he had been a deserter, long ago, when a
lad, after two years in the Rifle Brigade, where he was sickened by
tyranny of some sort. He confessed, after re-enlistment, and was
pardoned. He had been fourteen years in his present corps, and had got
on well. Opposite is a young scamp of Roberts's Horse. Looks eighteen,
but calls it twenty-two: his career being that he was put in the Navy,
ran away, was apprenticed to the merchant service, ran away (so