short-lived.
The roughness of the way soon turned it into rags and tatters, and
disreputable holes appeared precisely where holes ought not to be. On
this very march I was much amused by seeing a smart young Guardsman
wearing a sack where his trousers should have been. On each face of
the sack was a huge O. Above the O, in bold lettering, appeared the
word OATS, and underneath the O was printed 80 lbs. The proudest man
in all the brigade that day seemed he! Well-nigh as travel-stained
were we, and torn, as Hereward the Wake when he returned to Bruges.

[Sidenote: _Destruction and still more destruction._]

On Sunday, September 23rd, at Hector Spruit we most unexpectedly
lingered till after noonday, partly to avoid the intense heat on our
next march of nineteen miles through an absolutely waterless
wilderness, and partly because of the enormous difficulties involved
in finding tracks or making them through patches of thorny jungle. We
were thus able to arrange for a surprise parade service, and when that
was over some of our men who had gone for a bathe found awaiting them
a still more pleasant surprise. In the broad waters of the Crocodile
they alighted on a large quantity of abandoned and broken Boer guns
and rifles. Such abandonment now became an almost daily occurrence,
and continued to be for more than another six months, till all men
marvelled whence came the seemingly inexhaustible supply. At
Lydenberg, which Buller captured on September 6th, and again at
Spitzkop which he entered on September 15th, stores of almost every
kind were found well-nigh enough to feed and furnish a little army;
though in their retreat to the latter stronghold the burghers had
flung some of their big guns and no less than thirteen ammunition
waggons over the cliffs to prevent them falling into the hands of the
British. Never was a nation so armed to the teeth. As nature had made
every hill a fortress, so the Transvaal Government had made pretty
nearly every hamlet an arsenal; and about this same time French on the
14th, at Barberton, had found in addition to more warlike stores forty
locomotives which our foes were fortunately too frightened to linger
long enough to destroy. Those locos were worth to us more than a
king's ransom!

That afternoon we marched till dark, then lighted our fires, and
bemoaned the emptiness of our water bottles, while awaiting the
arrival of our blanket waggons. But in half an hour came another sharp
surpr