gons were captured and kept. It
was no less an outrage to make prisoners of doctors and orderlies
arriving on such an errand. No protests on their part or pleadings for
speedy return to duty prevailed. They were compelled to accompany or
precede the Boers in their flight to Delagoa Bay, from thence were
shipped to Durban, and after long delay rejoined the Brigade on its
return to Pretoria. For such high-handed proceedings the Transvaal
Government clearly cannot be held responsible, for at that time it had
ceased to exist, and more than ever the head of each commando had
become a law unto himself. It would be false to say that a fine sense
of honour did not anywhere exist in the now defunct Republic, but it
is perfectly fair to assert that on the warpath our troops were
compelled to tread it was not often found. Yet in every department of
life he that contendeth for the mastery is never permanently crowned
unless he contend lawfully.

[Sidenote: _A Boer Hospital._]

The prettily situated and well appointed hospital at Waterval Onder
was originally erected for the use of men employed on the railway, but
for months prior to the arrival of the British troops had been in
possession of the Boer Government, and was full of sick and wounded
burghers, with whom I had many an interesting chat and by whom I was
assured that though we might think it strange they still had hope of
ultimate success. Among the rest was a German baron, well trained of
course, as all Germans are, for war, who on the outbreak of
hostilities had consented at Johannesburg to be commandeered, burgher
or no burgher, to fight the battles of the Boers, in the justice of
whose cause he avowed himself a firm believer. He therefore became an
artillery officer in the service of the Transvaal, and while so
employed had been badly hit by the British artillery, with the result
that his right arm was blown off, his left arm horribly shattered, and
two shrapnel bullets planted in his breast. Yet seldom has extreme
suffering been borne in more heroic fashion than by him, and he
actually told me, in tones of admiration, that the British artillery
practice was really "beautiful." On such a point he should surely be a
competent judge seeing that he was himself a professor of the art, and
had long stood not behind but in front of our guns, which is precisely
where all critics ought to be planted. Their criticisms would then be
something worth.

[Sidenote: _Foreign Merce