s. While
we were in their laager they treated us extremely well, and
gave us food and tobacco. All you read about the Boers in
England is absolutely untrue. They are most kind to the wounded
and prisoners, looking after them as well as their own wounded,
and anything they've got they will give you if you ask them,
even if they deprive themselves. We came up to Pretoria in
first-class sleeping-carriages, and the way they treated us was
most considerate, feeding us and giving us coffee every time we
stopped. The day we arrived we took up quarters on the
racecourse, but we have been moved into a fine brick building
with baths, electric light, &c. They provide us with
everything, from clothes down to tooth-brushes. They also feed
us, and we are constantly getting presents of vegetables and
cigars from private people. In fact, we can have everything we
like except our liberty; for some reason or other they won't at
present give us parole, and we are surrounded by sentries.
There are close upon fifty officers in this building, and they
have got any amount of wounded ones in different places. They
say they won't exchange the officers at any price."

As this letter had evidently to pass through the hands of the prison
censor, we may take the eulogies of the Boers for what they were worth!
However, it is but just to own that there are Boers and Boers. For
instance, it is a fact that Captain Gerard Rice, who was wounded in the
ankle and unable to move, offered a Boer half-a-sovereign to carry him
off the field. The man refused the money, but performed the action with
great kindness.

Father L. Matthews, chaplain of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, who was
captured at Nicholson's Nek on October 31 and subsequently released,
gave the following version of the disaster:--

"We were sent out to occupy the position with the object of
preventing the two Boer forces from joining. We started at 8.30
on Sunday night, marched ten miles, and got to the hill at 1
A.M. The first mishap was that the mountain battery stampeded
and scattered the whole lot of mules. We formed up again and
gained the top of the hill. The guns were gone, but not all the
ammunition. I do not know what stampeded the mules. They
knocked me down. It was pitch dark.

"We had one hour's sleep. Firing began just after daylight. It