advance of the column, but the thin line of waggons was broken now by
the broad shape of infantry brigades, marching fifty deep across the
grass.

Our own small convoy was not got under weigh without many pains. The two
newspapers which it represented were the proprietors of many and
various beasts. Six riding ponies for the three correspondents, two
horses for the despatch-rider, six horses to draw an American waggon and
two Cape carts, and six oxen to draw an ox cart laden with forage. No
tongue can tell the anxiety caused by those fourteen horses. No more
could be bought, and if anything happened to them our usefulness would
be at an end. I have often arisen during the night and walked down what
we called our "lines," counting the beasts, and feeling like Abraham. To
be sure, one of the horses cost but thirty shillings; we bought him from
a Kaffir whose honesty I should be sorry to vouch for, but he could
pull, and he lived more than a fortnight. For another one I paid a
sovereign at Osfontein, but observing that he did not eat his supper one
night I gently pushed him away a good hundred yards so that he should
not die close to us.

By the time breakfast had been eaten, the oxen caught, the horses
counted, the differences of six jealous servants adjusted, and the carts
packed, we were ready to move off. Then the sun came up and the day
began, and one could canter up to the front of the column, clear of the
dust. On some days one rode up and down, visiting different regiments
or finding out friends who were trudging beside their companies; but on
the day of this march my pony was tired, and I let him amble along in
front of the Guards for the whole eighteen miles.

I wish I could describe for people who have never seen it the grand and
majestic march of 30,000 men with their guns and baggage across a large
country; the slow dignity of a vast seven-mile column winding over the
face of a plain, all the units diverging to pass the same ant-heap or to
avoid the same rough place. After the first few miles it is silent, and
one hears behind one only the sweep of many feet upon the grass. It is
like Fate, or, say, Time with his scythe held steady; the thing comes
and passes and is gone; but ride backward and you shall see the traces
of its passage. Grass downtrodden that shall rise again, little flowers
bruised that shall renew their blossoms; and still the birds singing
peacefully, the hares leaping, the manifold petty li