ng at her to stop
on account of the noise of the cart. I knew if I rode after her they
would shoot at me, and that if she didn't stop, as they were shouting
at her to do, they would shoot her. Under these trying circumstances I
sat still. It caused quite a coolness on Cecil's part. However the
Boers could see I was trying to get her to halt so they only rode
around and headed her off. We were so glad to see them that they could
not be suspicious. Still, as we had come directly from the English
lines they had doubts. We told them we had lost ourselves and the more
they threatened to take us to the commandant the more satisfied we
were. I insisted on taking photos of them reading Cecil's passport.
It annoyed them that we refused to be serious, we assured them we had
never met anyone we were so glad to see. They finally believed us, and
our passports which describe Cecil as my "frau," and artist of Harper's
Weekly, an idea of Loosberg's. We all smoked and then shook hands and
they went back to their positions. We next met Christian De Vet one of
the two big generals who is a grand character. Nothing could match the
wonderful picturesqueness of his camp spread out over the side of a
hill with the bearded fine featured old Van Dyck and Hugonot heads
under great sombreros. De Vet made us a long speech saying it was only
to be expected that the Great Republic would send men to help the
little Republics, but he had not hoped that the women would show their
sympathy by coming too. All this with the most simple earnest
courtesy. He said "No English woman would dare do what you are doing."
He showed us a farin house on a kopje about five miles off where he
said we could get shelter and where we would be near the fighting on
the morrow. We rode in the moonlight for some time but when we reached
the house it was filthy and the people were in such terror that we
decided to camp out in the veldt. We found a grove of trees near by
and a stream of water running beside it so we made a fire there. We
had only one biscuit left but several cans of bacon and tea. It was
great fun and we sat up as late as we could around the fire on account
of the cold. We could see the Boer fires in the moonlight on the hills
and across the Sand, the English flashlights signalling all night. We
put a rubber blanket on the grass and wrapped up in steamer rugs but
both of us died several times of cold and even sitting on the fire
failed to