the commanding officer at his camp about it. We compared
notes, and found we had enough money to luxuriously watch his carriage
standing outside at five shillings an hour. It cost a pound, but it
was worth it. We had so much to talk about, that we didn't know where
to begin. A band was playing all the afternoon, and a tea-party going
on somewhere, to which Miss Roberts came. She came round the tents
also and talked to the men. It turns out that Henry and I both came
down from the front on the same day from widely different places, for
he was wounded at Belfast, under Buller.

_September 9._--Jock gave us a complete concert last night, songs,
interspersed with the maddest, most whimsical patter, step-dances,
ventriloquism, recitations. He kept us in roars for a long time.
Blended with the simplicity of a baby, he has the wisdom of the
serpent, and has the knack of getting hold of odd delicacies, with
which he regales the ward. He is perfectly well, by the way, but
when the doctor comes round he assumes a convincing air of
semi-convalescence, and refers darkly to his old wound. The doctor is
not in the least taken in, but is indulgent, and not too curious. As
soon as his back is turned, Jock is executing a reel in the middle of
the ward.

The I.L.H. man is very interesting. Like most of his corps, which was
recruited from the Rand, he has a position on a mine there, and must
be well over forty. He had been through the Zulu war too. His squadron
was with Buller all through the terrible struggle from Colenso to
Ladysmith, which they were the first to enter. They were shipped off
to the Cape and sent up to relieve Mafeking with Mahon. He has been in
scores of fights without a scratch, but now has veldt sores. He says
Colenso was by far the worst battle, and the last fortnight before the
relief of Ladysmith was a terrible strain. But he spoke very highly of
the way Buller fed his men. The harder work they did, the better they
fared. (The converse is usually the case.) I have heard the same thing
from other fellows; there seem to have been very good commissariat
arrangements on that side of the country. From first to last all men
who served under Buller seemed to have liked and trusted him.
Curiously enough, he says that Ladysmith was in far worse case than
Mafeking when relieved. The latter could have held out months longer,
he thinks, and they all looked well. In Ladysmith you could have blown
any of them over with a puff