. Each has
its dam, sometimes more than one, built round with mud embankments, with
huge weeping willows overhanging, and rows of tall poplars and blue gums
(with shreds of bark rattling), and plenty of other trees. The
farmhouses themselves are uninteresting, but the gardens, with their
great thicket hedges of prickly pear and quince and brilliant blossoming
pomegranate, are delightful, especially at this time, when the fruit is
just getting ripe.

It was out on this western side, where we were feeling for the enemy's
right flank, some twenty miles from camp, in a niche half way up the
mountain, that we spent our last Christmas. We rather expected an
attack, as a Kaffir of ours had been taken by them, and might be
expected to reveal our movements. After dark we climbed the hill,
dragging our ponies over the boulders and scratching our way through the
thorns.

The Boer hill was four or five miles distant, north across the plain.
All along its purple sides we ranged with our glasses, seeing nothing;
but after dark several little points of light showed where their laager
was. We sat all night among the rocks (I thought of you and the
roast-turkey and holly), occasional heavy drops of rain falling, and a
flicker of lightning now and then. Heavy clouds rolled up, and the night
set in as dark as pitch. The level plain below us lay flat as a pancake
from their hill to ours. So passed our '99 Christmas, picturesque
possibly, but not very comfortable. Dark hillside; rain in large warm
drops; night dark, with a star or two and struggling moon. In front, a
distant hillside, with points of camp-fire twinkling, where the Boers,
indifferent to our little party, were carousing and drinking their
_dop._ Now and then a yawn or groan as a man stretches his cramped
limbs. Down below under us an expanse of dark plain, like a murky sea,
reaching to our feet, which we peer across, but can make out nothing.
Peep-of-day time is the Boer's favourite hour for a call, and we were
all very much on the _qui vive_ when the white line showed along the
east. No doubt, however, they all had such heads after their Christmas
drink that they were in no humour for such a diversion. At any rate,
they let us alone. Very stiff and weary and wet, we crept down the hill
soon after daybreak and started on our twenty-mile homeward march. It
was 5 P.M. before we reached camp, and we had had nothing to eat all
day. I don't know if we were most tired or hungry. T