away, deserted houses have been
denuded of all the woodwork they contained--the tin buildings collapsing
in consequence. It was only a short time ago that an elderly
non-combatant complained to me when I asked if he had any wood, "No,
they haf take my garten fence, my best trees, and yestertay dey haf go
into my Kaffir's house and commence to pull down der wood in der roof!"
I am sure it is a fortunate thing that the telegraph posts are of iron.
Were they wooden ones I fear stress of circumstances would have been
responsible for innumerable suspensions in the telegraphic service. A
scout has just been in down below with the information that we shall be
attacked to-night or early to-morrow morning. The machine gun which was
fired a short while ago, was one of our Colt guns at the entrance to the
Nek, getting the range of a kopje opposite. These scouts (I refer to the
few attached to us) are really wonderful (the battalion sergeant-major
invariably alludes to them as "those d----d scouts"). Their information
is always startling and mostly unreliable--still it is interesting and
usually affords us vast entertainment. The scouts referred to are
Afrikanders, and really chosen because they know Dutch and Kaffir. The
fellows will call them interpreters, and they don't like it. On Monday I
went into Pretoria to take the man of ours, who was so nearly done for
in an ambush near Hatherly last month, his kit. He is now well enough to
go home. He is a curious, good-natured old fellow, and in his account of
the affair amused me not a little. After he had been hit and lain on the
ground some time, the Boers cautiously advanced from their cover, and
standing on a bank near where he laid, fired a few shots in the
direction of his long-since departed comrades and then called out to
him, "Hands up!" His reply, as he told me, struck me as quaint and
natural, "'Ow can I 'old my 'ands up?" And seeing the reasonableness of
his remark, they took his water bottle and left him where our surgeon
found him. From Pretoria I have acquired quite a number of books,
including half-a-dozen of Stevenson's. At present I am re-reading his
"Inland Voyage."

_Thursday, July 12th._

We were not attacked last night, although expectation ran high. We had
about a thousand rounds of ammunition between the six of us, and at two
o'clock in the morning had the various posts strengthened by a party of
Burma Mounted Infantry