us showed that they knew they were safe from the infantry, and did not
fear our very weak cavalry. We did not venture to press the matter
beyond long shots. Had we done so, it was evident we should have been
cut up.

Various little incidents occurred. This one amused me at the moment. We
had captured a herd of cattle from some niggers who had been sent by the
Boers to drive them in, and I was conveying them to the rear. From a
group of staff officers a boy came across the veldt to me, and presently
I heard, as I was "shooing" on my bullocks, a very dejected voice
exclaim, "How confoundedly disappointing." I looked round and saw a lad
gazing ruefully at me, with a new revolver tied to a bright yellow
lanyard ready in his hand. "I thought you were a Boer," he said, "and I
was going to shoot you. I've _got leave_ to shoot you," he added, as
though he were in two minds about doing the job anyway. I looked at him
for a long while in silence, there seemed nothing to say, and then,
still ruefully, he rode away. This, you will understand, was right up
our end of the valley, and I was driving cattle on to our ground, only I
had a soft hat on.

We have plenty of youngsters like this; brave, no doubt, but thoughtless
and quite careless about the dangerous qualities of the men they have to
meet. "They'll live and learn," people say. They'll learn if they live,
would perhaps be nearer the mark. The Boers, on the other hand, such as
I have seen yet, are decidedly awkward-looking customers, crafty, but
in deadly earnest, versed in veldt wars and knowing the country to an
anthill. Looking from one to the other, I fear there are many mothers in
England who'll go crying for their boys this campaign.

Later a troop of us penetrated into the deep recess among the hills
where they had their laager. It seemed evident, from the number of
waggons and the amount of clothing and stores left behind and littered
in every direction, that the Boers had not expected to be shifted nearly
so suddenly as they were. There were heaps of provisions, quantities of
coffee tied up in small bags, sugar, rice, biltong, _i.e._ dried strips
of flesh, a sort of bread biscuit much used by them on the march, and
made at the farms, and other things. All were done up in small
quantities in such a way that individual men could carry it. There were
waggons loaded, or half loaded, with old chests and boxes, and many
heaped about the ground. Most contained clothes, and