no roof to its trucks and no shutters to its loopholes, and being in every way inferior to the powerful machines I saw working along the southern frontier.  Nevertheless it is a useful means of reconnaissance, nor is a journey in it devoid of interest.  An armoured train!  The very name sounds strange; a locomotive disguised as a knight-errant; the agent of civilisation in the habiliments of chivalry.  Mr. Morley attired as Sir Lancelot would seem scarcely more incongruous.  The possibilities of attack added to the keenness of the experience.  We started at one o’clock.  A company of the Dublin Fusiliers formed the garrison.  Half were in the car in front of the engine, half in that behind.  Three empty trucks, with a platelaying gang and spare rails to mend the line, followed.  The country between Estcourt and Colenso is open, undulating, and grassy.  The stations, which occur every four or five miles, are hamlets consisting of half a dozen corrugated iron houses, and perhaps a score of blue gum trees.  These little specks of habitation are almost the only marked feature of the landscape, which on all sides spreads in pleasant but monotonous slopes of green.  The train maintained a good speed; and, though it stopped repeatedly to question Kaffirs or country folk, and to communicate with the cyclists and other patrols who were scouring the country on the flanks, reached Chieveley, five miles from Colenso, by about three o’clock; and from here the Ladysmith balloon, a brown speck floating above and beyond the distant hills, was plainly visible.

Beyond Chieveley it was necessary to observe more caution.  The speed was reduced—­the engine walked warily.  The railway officials scanned the track, and often before a culvert or bridge was traversed we disembarked and examined it from the ground.  At other times long halts were made while the officers swept the horizon and the distant hills with field glasses and telescopes.  But the country was clear and the line undamaged, and we continued our slow advance.  Presently Colenso came into view—­a hundred tin-pot houses under the high hills to the northward.  We inspected it deliberately.  On a mound beyond the village rose the outline of the sandbag fort constructed by the Naval Brigade.  The flagstaff, without the flag, still stood up boldly.  But, so far as we could tell, the whole place was deserted.

There followed a discussion.  Perhaps the Boers were lying in wait for the armoured train; perhaps they had trained a gun on some telegraph post, and would fire the moment the engine passed it; or perhaps, again, they were even now breaking the line behind us.  Some Kaffirs approached respectfully, saluting.  A Natal Volunteer—­one of the cyclists—­came forward to interrogate.  He was an intelligent little man, with a Martini-Metford rifle, a large pair of field glasses, a dainty pair of grey skin cycling shoes, and a slouch hat.  He questioned the natives, and reported their answers.  The