breath; then push them out suddenly, ready for the osculatory seance, the lips moving as if they were pushed from the inside by a pole.  The “boys” enjoy the picnic immensely.  As a matter of fact, these “boys” always seem to me to be doing one of four things.  They are either eating, smoking, sleeping, or making love; and they do enough love-making in twenty-four hours to last an ordinary everyday sort of white man four months, even if he puts in a little overtime.  One of the most charming things noticeable about a Boer town is the plenitude of trees in the streets.  They are often ornamental, always useful for purposes of shade.  There is no regularity about their distribution; they seem to have been planted spasmodically at odd times and at odd positions.  There is little about them to lead one to the belief that they receive over much care after they have been put into the soil.  I have found a very creditable library in pretty nearly every Boer town that I have visited, and it is a noteworthy fact that all of our most cherished authors find a place on their book-shelves.  One other thing I have also noticed, which, though a small thing in itself, is yet very significant.  In nearly every hotel, and in many of the public places, portraits of our Queen and members of the Royal Family have been hanging side by side with portraits of notable men, such as Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Rhodes.  During the course of the war all kinds and conditions of Boers have had free access to the rooms where those portraits were to be seen, but now I find that no damage has been done to any of those pictures, excepting those of Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Chamberlain.  This has not been an oversight on the part of the Boers, for I defy any person to find a solitary picture of the two last-named gentlemen that has not been hacked with knives.  But the Queen and Royal Family photos have in every case been treated with respect.

Behindthe scenes.

Stormberg.

I am writing this from Stormberg, a tremendously important military position, which was taken on Monday, the 5th, by General Gatacre, without a blow, the enemy falling back cowed by the British general’s tactics.  Had they remained here another twenty-four hours Gatacre would have had them in a ring of iron, but the Boer general is no fool.  He saw his danger, and, like a wise man, he dodged it.  Gatacre’s generalship was simply superb.  Let the idiotic band of critics who sit in safety in England howl to their heart’s content; Gatacre deserves well of his country.  Had he dashed recklessly into this hornet’s nest he would have sacrificed four-fifths of his gallant officers and a host of his men.  Had I to write his military epitaph to-day I should say that “he won with brains what most generals would have won with blood.”

Strangely enough, I was a prisoner in the very room where I am penning this epistle only last Saturday night.  I left here in the centre of a Boer commando, with a bandage over my eyes, on Sunday morning, and returned to the spot surrounded by British “Tommies” a few days later.