ise, for without a moment's warning we were ordered to resume our
march for five miles more. So through the darkness we stumbled as best
we could along the damaged railway line. About midnight in the midst
of a prickly jungle, a bit of bread and cheese, a drink of water if we
had any left, and a blanket, paved the way for brief repose; but at
four o'clock next morning we were all astir once more, to find
ourselves within sight of a tiny railway station called Tin Vosch,
where two more locomotives and a long line of trucks awaited capture.

[Sidenote: _At Koomati Poort._]

On Monday, September 24th, at about eight o'clock in the morning, to
General Pole Carew and Brigadier-General Jones fell the honour of
leading their Guardsmen into Koomati Poort, the extreme eastern limit
of the Transvaal--and that without seeing a solitary Boer or having to
fire a single bullet. The French historian of the Peninsular War
declares that "the English were the best marksmen in Europe--indeed
the only troops who were perfectly practised in the use of small
arms." But then their withering volleys were sometimes fired at a
distance of only a few yards from the wavering masses of their foes,
and under such conditions good marksmanship is easy to attain. A
blind man might bet he would not miss. On the other hand, he must be a
good shot indeed who can hit a foe he never sees. In these last weeks
there were few casualties among the Boers, because they kept well out
of casualty range. They were so frightened they even forgot to snipe.
The valiant old President so long ago as September 11th had fled with
his splendidly well-filled money bags across the Portuguese frontier;
abandoning his burghers who were still in the field to whatever might
chance to be their fate. That fate he watched, and waited for, from
the secure retreat of the Portuguese Governor's veranda close by the
Eastern Sea, where he sat and mused as aforetime on his stoep at
Pretoria; his well-thumbed Bible still by his side, his well-used pipe
still between his lips. Surely Napoleon the Third at Chislehurst,
broken in health, broken in heart, was a scarcely more pathetic
spectacle! Six or seven days later the old man saw special trains
beginning to arrive, all crowded with mercenary fighting men from many
lands, all bent only on following his own uncourageous example,
seeking personal safety by the sea. First came 700; then on the 24th,
the very day the Guards entered Koomati Poor