ses to
warm our frozen frames. We march an hour and rest ten minutes--the hour
is very long, the ten minutes very short.

=South African Dust.=

'The marching would be tolerable were it not for the heat and dust, the
latter lying in some places quite nine inches deep, rising in clouds. It
fills your eyes, nostrils, mouth and throat, causing one's lips to crack
and bringing on an intolerable thirst, which makes it impossible for the
men to be very fastidious, or even prudent with regard to the quality or
source of the water which they greedily drink. At night when we reach
our camping-ground our first thought is of our great-coats, for we are
bathed in perspiration, and as the sun goes down about 5.30, night
immediately following without any twilight, the intense heat of the
almost tropical day is changed in a few minutes into the bitter cold of
what might almost be called, from its length and severity, an Arctic
night.

'At the Zand River I saw my first fight. That morning, as the troops
were drawn up in marching order, the ominous command was given, "Charge
magazines," and every man knew that something was about to happen, and a
murmur ran along the ranks. After an hour's march we came in sight of
the Zand River, with its kopjes on the farther side. As our battalion
came in view of the river we saw the enemy's guns flashing on the
distant kopjes, and showers of shells fell on this side the river into
the trees in our front. On our right some mounted infantry were lying
behind a kopje, and nothing could be more magnificent than to see the
volleying shells burst in a successive line along the ridge of their
sheltering kopje. At the edge of the wood we were halted and ordered to
lie down; as the artillery dashed by us to the front, where they were
soon busily pounding the Boer position, "Advance!" our Colonel cried. Up
we arose, marched through the trees down into the river-bed, and there
we lay while the shells screamed over us.

'The first shell that came screaming--I can use no better term--towards
us seemed to cause a cold feeling inside, and I felt as though my last
hour had come; but that soon passed, and I became so accustomed to them
that I found myself speculating as to where they would burst. While we
lay in the river-bed, one monster burst with a roar like thunder upon
the bank behind, shaking the ground like an earthquake.

'Our rest here was the calm before the storm, and as we awaited the word
to adv