his emergency pipe, over which a lot of quinine powder had been upset,
so I had a few smokes, in which the flavour of quinine prevailed
unpleasantly. Still, I have no doubt it was healthy. But, oh, where was
my pipe, should I ever see it again? "There is a Boer outpost over
there." "Yes, but I wonder what the deuce has become of my pipe," and
then I bored my vigilant fellow sentinel with the history of that pipe.
With the sun pouring down on us without shelter, without any grub, and
not a drop of water (my bottle I left by Stanley), we were stuck up on
that kopje till past sunset. Where was my pipe, should I get it all
right? At last we got back to camp, and, overjoyed, I received from a
friend my pipe, which he had picked up in the lines. Then, having
partaken of tea, I found myself in for a sleepless night as stable
picket. But it didn't matter, I had got my pipe.

Saturday, September 22nd.

"There is a foe who deals hard knocks,
In a combat scarce Homeric:
It's _not_ the Boer, who snipes from rocks,
But fever known as Enteric."

The idea I have partly expressed in the above lines, is as you know,
correct. The Boer from behind his rock snipes you at a distance, but
Sister Enteric, though unseen, as Brother Boer, is nearer to us. She is
with us in our camps, when we eat and when we drink--often parched,
recklessly drink--and close, unseen and unheard, deals her blows. And
when they are dealt, the nervous ones amongst us _think_. For common
report hath it that the illness takes roughly about three weeks to
develop, and the nervous man thinks back what did he drink three weeks
ago, or thinking of what he ate or drank the day before, dreads the
developments three weeks may bring. When we came in last night we heard
that a poor fellow of our squadron had succumbed to it, and was to be
buried the next morning at 5.30. We bury soon out here. So once again
this week, I formed a unit of the firing party, and did the slow march
with reversed arms. We clicked the three volleys at the grave. Later, we
had two more funerals, the result of Brother Boer's handiwork. They were
two men of Kitchener's Horse, who had dropped behind Ridley's force at
Hekpoort, and had ridden to Mrs. Jennings' farm to buy some bread. These
two were shot by over half-a-dozen concealed Boers at about twenty yards
range. No attempt was made to make them prisoners, and they were
practically unarmed, having revolvers only. Their bodies were