nt by co-operation, I'll never get within speaking distance
of a column with which I am told to co-operate again. Issued fresh
orders! Instead of being within striking distance of Strydenburg
to-night, we shall be messing about in the Beer Vlei. Old
Stick-in-the-mud does not mean 'going,' that I full well see. What a
sin it is!"

And we can readily indorse this comment upon the evils of seniority,
which, while giving a cover to impotence at the head, dwarf, handicap,
and crush individual energy in the junior. How much separated these
two men in age? It may have been a couple of years. Even if in the
Army List it had been a single day, the result would have been the
same. The so-called experience of seniority--which too often in this
war has spelled incompetence or unsoldierly timidity--has been able to
subjugate the wiser counsels of the junior, and crush out of his
action that fire and energy of purpose which alone could have brought
success. As in the present case, the senior deliberately ignored the
advice of the man with whom he had been ordered to co-operate, and
taking advantage of the few lines which gave him preference in the
Army List, ordered him to deviate from a scheme which in his heart of
hearts he must have known was the only one which could promise
adequate results,--it might also be said any results at all. Perhaps a
study of developments such as these will furnish some clue to an
explanation of one of the gigantic puzzles of this South African
campaign.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] A gruesome record of successful shooting.

[25] Dutch, swamp.

[26] Team.

[27] Hindustani, arrangement.

[28] Official designation of the field-service regulation overcoat.

[29] Jocular rendering of "Burghers."

VII.

"POTTERING."

"Well, if that place is held, it would take Lord Bobs and the 'Grand
Army' three days to turn it," and the brigadier dropped his glasses to
the full length of their lanyard.

The brigade, doing advance-guard to the whole concentration, had
crossed the great prairie which lies north of Houwater, and the
covering cloud of mounted _eclaireurs_ was already disappearing into
the shade of the mountain fastness in front of us. The giant outcrop
of volcanic rock which is known as Minie Kloof rises, with that
directness peculiar to the vast South African table-land, sheer from a
prairie as level as a billiard-table. A succession of rocky
flat-topped parallelograms, featureless save for t