directed the infantry attack.  The two Boers who were guarding us listened with great interest, but the single observation they made was that we had only to fight Germans and Hollanders at Elandslaagte.  ’If these had been veldt Boers in front of you——­’ My companion replied that even then the Gordon Highlanders might have made some progress.  Whereat both Boers laughed softly and shook their heads with the air of a wiseacre, saying, ‘You will know better when you’re as old as me,’ a remark I constantly endure from very worthy people.

Two stations beyond Elandslaagte the Boer commando, or portion of commando, left the train, and the care and thought that had been lavished on the military arrangements were very evident.  All the stations on the line were fitted with special platforms three or four hundred yards long, consisting of earth embankments revetted with wood towards the line and sloping to the ground on the other side.  The horsemen were thereby enabled to ride their horses out of the trucks, and in a few minutes all were cantering away across the plain.  One of the Boer guards noticed the attention I paid to these arrangements.  ’It is in case we have to go back quickly to the Biggarsberg or Laing’s Nek,’ he explained.  As we travelled on I gradually fell into conversation with this man.  His name, he told me, was Spaarwater, which he pronounced Spare-water.  He was a farmer from the Ermolo district.  In times of peace he paid little or no taxes.  For the last four years he had escaped altogether.  The Field Cornet, he remarked, was a friend of his.  But for such advantages he lay under the obligation to serve without pay in war-time, providing horse, forage, and provisions.  He was a polite, meek-mannered little man, very anxious in all the discussion to say nothing that could hurt the feelings of his prisoners, and I took a great liking to him.  He had fought at Dundee.  ‘That,’ he said, ’was a terrible battle.  Your artillery? Bang! bang! bang! came the shells all round us.  And the bullets! Whew, don’t tell me the soldiers can’t shoot.  They shoot jolly well, old chappie.  I, too, can shoot.  I can hit a bottle six times out of seven at a hundred yards, but when there is a battle then I do not shoot so well.’

The other man, who understood a little English, grinned at this, and muttered something in Dutch.

‘What does he say?’ I inquired.

‘He says “He too,"’ replied Spaarwater.  ’Besides, we cannot see your soldiers.  At Dundee I was looking down the hill and saw nothing except rows of black boots marching and the black belts of one of the regiments.’

‘But,’ I said, ‘you managed to hit some of them after all.’

He smiled, ’Ah, yes, we are lucky, and God is on our side.  Why, after Dundee, when we were retiring, we had to cross a great open plain, never even an ant-hill, and you had put twelve great cannons—­I counted them—­and Maxims as well, to shoot us as we went; but not one fired a shot.  Was it not God’s hand that stopped them?  After that we knew.’