The B.R. rose wrathfully and muttered something about it being a d——­ good job for me that I was a wounded man and had one arm in a sling, or he’d show me a heap of things in the fistic line which I should remember for the rest of my life; but as I only laughed he slouched off, and now, when we meet in the street, we pass without speaking.  But I got his history, all the same, from one of the Cape Police, who told me the beggar had refused to join a volunteer regiment when the war broke out, and had remained the whole time in a quiet little Boer village as a British refugee, and had not seen the outside, let alone the inside, of a Boer fighting laager in all his lying life.  Yet such cravens at times help to make history—­of a kind.

Possibly it may interest Englishmen—­and women, too, for that matter—­to know what a fighting laager is like, and as I have seen half a dozen of them from the enemies’ side of the wall, a rough pen and ink sketch may not be amiss.  In war time the Boer never, under any circumstances, makes his laager in the open country if there are any kopjes about.  No matter how secure he may fancy himself from attack, no matter if there is not a foe within fifty miles of him, the Boer commander always pitches his laager in a place of safety between two parallel lines of hills, so that no attack can be made upon him, either front or rear, without giving him an immense advantage over the attacking force, even if the enemy is ten times as strong in numbers.  By this means the Boers make their laagers almost impregnable.  If they have a choice of ground, they pick a narrow ravine, or gully, with a line of hills front and rear, covered with small rocky boulders and bushes.  They drive their waggons along the ravine, and make a sort of rude breastwork across the gully with the waggons.  In between these waggons the women are placed for safety, for it is a noticeable fact that very large numbers of women have followed their husbands and fathers to the war, not to act as viragoes, not to play the wanton, not to unsex themselves, not to handle the rifle, but to nurse the wounded, to comfort the dying, and to lay out the dead.  I have heard them singing round the camp fires in the starlight, but it was hymns that they sang, not ribald songs.  I have seen them kneeling by the side of men in the moonlight, not in wantonness, but in mercy, and many a man who wears the British uniform to-day can bear me witness that I speak the truth.

The Boer never, if he can help it, allows himself to be separated from his horse; and these hardy little animals, mostly about fifteen hands high, and very lightly framed, are picketed close to the spot where the rider deposits his rifle and blankets.  If they allow them to graze on the hillsides during the day, they run a rope through the halter near the horse’s muzzle, and tie it close above the knee-joint of the near fore-leg.  By this means the horse can graze in comfort, but cannot move away at any pace beyond