gle shot; we had been strangely welcomed with smiles and cheers and
waving flags and lavish hospitality; but none the less that charming
little capital had made us pay dearly for its conquest, and for our
six weeks of so-called rest on the sodden veldt around it. Its traders
had levied heavy toll on the soldiers' slender pay; and no fabled
monster of ancient times ever claimed so sore a tribute of human
lives. It was not on the veldt but under it that hundreds of our lads
found rest; and hundreds more were soon to share their fate. The
victors had become victims, and the vanquished were avenged. Seldom
have troops taken possession of any city with such unmixed
satisfaction, or departed from it with such unfeigned eagerness.

[Sidenote: _A Comedy._]

My quartermaster friend and myself, unable to start with the Brigade,
set out a few hours later, and tarried for the night at a Hollander
platelayer's hut. The man spoke little English, and we less Dutch;
but he welcomed us to the hospitality of his two-roomed home with a
warmth that was overwhelming. His wife, when the war began, was sent
away for safety's sake; and married men thus flung back upon their
bachelorhood make poor cooks and caterers unless they happen to be
soldiers on the trek; but this man, in his excitement at having such
guests to entertain, expectorated violently all over the floor on
which presently we expected to sleep; fire was soon kindled and coffee
made; the quartermaster produced some tinned meat; I produced some
tinned fruit; the ganger produced some tinned biscuits--in this
campaign we have been saved by tin--and so by this joint-stock
arrangement there was provided a feast that hungry royalty need not
have disdained. Next our entertainer undertook to amuse his guests,
and did it in a fashion never to be forgotten. He produced a box
fitted up as a theatre stage--all made out of his own head, he
said--and mostly wooden; there were two puppets on the stage, which
were made to dance most vigorously by means of cords attached secretly
to the ganger's foot, whilst his hands were no less vigorously
employed on the concertina which provided the accompanying dance
music. This delighted old man was the oddest figure of the three, as
the perspiration poured down his grimy face. To light on such a comedy
when on the war path would have been enough to make Momus laugh; and
when the laugh was spent we swept the floor, for reasons already
hinted at, sought re