fuge in our blankets; and long before breakfast
time next morning landed in Karee Camp.

[Sidenote: _A Tragedy._]

To reach Karee we passed through "The Glen" lying beside the Upper
Modder, where a deplorable tragedy had occurred not long before. A
remarkably fine-looking sergeant of the Guards went to bathe in what
he supposed were the deep waters of the Modder, and dived gleefully
into deeps that alas were not deep. Striking the bottom with his head,
instantly his neck was dislocated, and when I saw him a few hours
after, though he was perfectly conscious and anxiously hopeful, he was
paralysed from his shoulders downwards. A married man, his heart, too,
was broken over such an undreamed of disaster, and in three weeks he
died. The mauser is not the only reaping-machine the great harvester
employs in war time. There have been over five hundred "accidental"
deaths in the course of this campaign. At the Lower Modder we once
arranged to hold a Sunday morning service for the swarms of native
drivers in our camp, but in that case also were compelled to prove it
is the unexpected that happens. One of the "boys" went to bathe that
morning in the suddenly swollen river; he sank; and though search
parties were at once sent out, the body was never recovered. So
instead of a service we had this sad sensation.

About that same time, and in that same camp, one of my most intimate
companions, the quartermaster of the Scots Guards, was one moment
laughing and chatting with me in his tent; but the next moment,
without the slightest warning, he dropped back on his couch, and that
same evening was laid by his sorrowing battalion in a garden-grave.
The other quartermaster, who shared with me the ganger's hospitality
and laughter, when the campaign was near its close, was found lying on
the floor of his tent. He had fallen when no friendly hand was near to
help, and had been dead for hours when discovered. My first campaign,
and last, has stored my mind with tragic memories; it has filled my
heart with tendernesses unfelt before; and perchance has taught me to
interpret more truly that "life of lives" foreshadowed in Isaiah's
saying: "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows."

[Sidenote: _A wide front and a resistless force._]

When, on the 3rd of May, we started from Karee Camp the Guards'
Brigade consisted, as from the outset, of the 1st and 2nd Coldstream
battalions, the 3rd Grenadier Guards, and the 1st Scots Gu