n securing a good civil berth in the town.

[Illustration: "God save the King!" January 1901.]

From these I learnt the fortunes of the battalion up to date. Briefly,
after I left them they were some time at Rietfontein; then at
Buffalspoort, where they did delightful guards, pickets, and early
morning standing to horses; after which those possessed of horses went
on to Rustenburg, I believe, where they now are, the horseless ones
going back into Rietfontein.

So now the Seventh Battalion of Imperial Yeomanry, like many others, is
spread well over the face of the land.[8] Some of the fellows are home;
some on their way thither; some in this hospital, some in others; some
are in the police; some in civil employment; some with sick horses at
Rietfontein; some in a detail camp at Elandsfontein (near Johannesburg);
some with the battalion, at Rustenburg; and some, alas, are not.

[Footnote 8: The subsequent adventures of the battalion under
General Cunningham and later Dixon and Benson I am, of
course, unable to record.]

Whiteing gave me a vivid description of his journey into Pretoria on one
of the steam-sappers running between that town and Rietfontein; they are
known as the Pretoria-Rietfontein expresses. As he put it, they stop for
nothing, over rocks, through spruits and dongas, squelch over one of
French's milestones here and there, the ponderous iron horse snorted on
its wild career till its destination was reached.

THE IRISH FUSILIER'S AMBITION.

Though I am well off for literature of all sorts (my locker is a
scandal), I don't seem to be able to settle down to anything like a
quiet, enjoyable read at all. Tommy Atkins _never_ seems to realise that
one cannot carry on a conversation and read a book simultaneously, or
write a letter.

"Oh for a booke and a shadie nooke,
Eyther indoore or out;
With the grene leaves whysperynge overheade,
Or the streete cryes all about.
Where I maie reade all at mine ease,
Both of the newe and olde;
For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke,
Is better to me than golde."

Thus the olde songe. And the kopjes are gazing stonily at me through the
tent door; a man two beds off is squirming and ejaculating under the
massage treatment of a powerful khaki _masseur_; doctors, sisters,
orderlies, and runners come and go; a triangular duel between three
patients on the usual subject--the