However, there is a whisper in the air that the Boers are not deficient in side-arms; it is rumoured that the President of the Boer Republic has immense supplies of offensive as well as defensive weapons safely placed away until they may be required Right up to date his war policy has been to remain passive, excepting in a few isolated positions, allowing the British to attack his generals in almost impregnable positions, and by so doing put heart into the burghers, and dishearten our forces.  But should the tide of war continue to roll onward in his favour he may attempt to put in force the oft-told Boer threat, and try to sweep the British into the sea.  Should that day dawn, it is rumoured that the enemy will be found well supplied with side-arms and with mercenaries trained to their use in one of the best schools that modern times have known.  Where do these rumours come from?  Well, a Boer prisoner, taunted perhaps by a guard, loses his temper and drops a hint, or a Boer farmer, exultant over the latest news of his countrymen’s success, lifts the veil a little, and a jealously-guarded secret drops out; or, again, a Boer’s wife or daughter, flinging a taunt at a cursed “Rooinek,” allows her temper to run away with her discretion.  There are a hundred ways in which such things get about; only straws, perhaps, but a straw can point the way windward A talkative Kaffir who has been reared on a Dutch farm will at times give things away that would cost him his life if the length of his tongue was known to his master; especially will the nigger talk if his mouth be judiciously moistened with Cape smoke brandy.

Information that comes to a war correspondent’s hand is of many colours, shapes, and sizes, but if he is born to the business he pieces the whole together and picks out what seemeth good to his own soul at the finish.  Sometimes, at the end of a week’s hard work, he finds himself possessed of a patchwork of information like unto Joseph’s coat of many colours, but it is hard fortune indeed if he cannot find something in the lot to repay him for his earnest endeavours.

Slingersfontein.

Rensburg.

Scarcely had I returned from posting my last letter when the camp was in a commotion, caused by the news that the West Australians were in action at Slingersfontein, distant about twelve miles from Rensburg.  To saddle up and get out as fast as horseflesh would carry a man was but the work of a very short period of time, for the gallop across the open veldt was not a very laborious undertaking.  I soon found that the stalwart sons of the great gold colony were in it, and enjoying it.