force, 30,000 strong, was disposed over a square of perhaps eight miles;
yet if you had ridden all day in circles round the farm of Osfontein,
which was Lord Roberts's headquarters, you might have wondered whether
there were even 5,000 men, so scattered were our camps. The whole air of
the place was that of almost pastoral quietness, and the only sound to
be heard was the lowing of oxen.

Out in the advanced pickets the silence was deeper, but it was not
pastoral. I rode out on the Monday to a little kopje, our most advanced
post--a place within rifle range of the opposite Boer position, about
2,000 yards away. Over the plain, here green and sweet with the smell of
tiny flowers newly burst out by the heavy rains, I rode out from under
the shelter of a big kopje held by Kitchener's Horse. Between it and the
little hill held by the picket the ground was exposed, but a man and a
horse make a poor target at extreme range, and the danger was small.

We cantered along in the midst of the great harmonious silence of
populous fields; the locusts waltzed in the sun, the little mere-cats
stood and watched us for a moment and then scampered into their holes;
the ants were toiling busily beneath a thousand heaps. The plain
stretched to the horizon, with the stone-covered kopjes standing out
like larger ant-heaps.

Something sang in the sunny air above my head, and I flicked with my
whip to drive the locust away. Immediately afterwards I heard the sharp
double report of a Mauser, like a postman's knock, and after that again
the shrill moan, infinitely melancholy, of a flying bullet; and away to
my left, about two hundred yards, the sand rose in a fountain. It was my
first experience under fire, and I confess that for ten seconds I gave
myself up. During those ten seconds I was altogether absorbed in
watching a mere-cat trying to roll something into his house; then I
began to see that I was not in any particular danger at so extreme a
range, and I lost my interest in the mere-cat. But for all that my pony
had to do his best over the space that separated us from the picket.
There were a few more shots, and always the shrill moan, but in two
minutes we were behind the shelter of the little hill.

I climbed up its steep side and found the handful of men, with an
officer, lying among the stones on the windy height. There is no
comfort in picket work. This officer and his men had to lie for
twenty-four hours at a time without shelter