least of the number were Scotchmen or Irishmen; two more of them did not speak, and I rather think from their appearance that they too were of English race, and preferred to remain silent.  Several of them complained of ill-treatment at our hands, but I must say their complaints appeared to resolve themselves into the fact that on their journeys to and from Capetown their meals had not been quite regular.  Three of us gave them some bread, jam and cigarettes, for which they were extremely grateful.  They wore ordinary clothes much the worse for wear, and told me that they left their “Sunday” suits at home.  On the whole I was most favourably impressed by these fellows, with one exception.  The exception was a Free-Stater who spoke English volubly.  He loudly declared that he was sick of the war and intended the moment he secured an opportunity to desert and go home to his farm.  I felt rather indignant at this person’s remarks, and with an air of moral superiority I said:  “We don’t think any the better of you for saying that; although you are an enemy you ought to stick to your General, and not sneak away from the front”.  But the Free-Stater was not a bit impressed by my rhetoric, and simply said, “Oh, skittles!”

Some of the prisoners were from the Transvaal and they seemed to me much more keen and enthusiastic than their Free State companions, and evinced no signs whatever of despondency or depression.  There was a very pathetic note in the conversation of one of the Transvaalers, a mere boy of seventeen.  He said to me in broken English, “It is such a causeless war.  What are we fighting for, sir?” and I referred him for his answer to three Johannesburg Uitlanders who were standing by.  Accursed as war always is, it is thrice accursed when young boys and old men are called upon to fight.  At present every man in the Republic from sixteen to sixty years of age is at the front.  The authorities intend as their losses increase to call out children from twelve to sixteen, and every old man from sixty onwards who can still see to sight a rifle.  Last and most terrible thought of all, it is an undoubted fact that wives and daughters are everywhere throughout the Republic engaged in rifle practice!  May God preserve us from having to fight against women!  At present entire families are fighting together.  I know one Dutch lady who has no less than six brothers amongst the burghers who have been fighting round Ladysmith, and another who has already lost four sons in the war.  In one of our engagements a Boer boy of seventeen was struck down by a bullet; the father, a man of sixty, left his cover and went to the succour of his son, when he himself was shot, and the two lay dead, one beside the other.