t of an hour. Automatically the whole
force came to a standstill: checked, bedraggled, and miserable, it
stood it out. To advance was impossible; each depression in the veldt
was a sheet of water, in places inches deep. The whole crust of the
earth had become a sticky sodden morass, and in this mire the column
lay bogged and helpless. Guns and waggons sank axle-deep, their
drunken alignment proving that for the time being they were immobile.
Horses, mules, and oxen struggled and floundered for a foothold,
sinking with terror-stricken sobs and distressful moans until their
bellies were level with the slush. A hideous scene!

There was nothing that man could do: until such time as the natural
drainage of the plain and the parched substratum absorbed the
superfluous moisture, the brigade was as helpless as a steamer with a
broken screw-shaft. Mercifully for the staff, the catastrophe had
overtaken the brigade within a mile of a fair-sized farm; and
eventually, after much labour in the mire, the brigadier and his
immediate following were able to claim its hospitality. Luckily it was
occupied. A smiling good-natured _frau_, on the stout side of thirty,
with a bevy of girls ranging from two to twelve, was endeavouring to
cope with an inundation of sodden troopers from the advance-guard. It
was a nice farm, and to our astonishment Madam Embonpoint proved to be
an English Africander. Her husband was in St Helena, and since the
outbreak of war she had worked her husband's property single-handed.
Madam was anything but hostile; but she prayed that we would not break
into her slender store of provisions, since she had ten mouths to
feed, and the pinch of war was near at hand. Otherwise we were welcome
to such hospitality as her roof would afford us, and she was prepared
to cook and prepare for us any food we might have with us. It chanced
that the officer of the advance-guard was a captain of the Mount
Nelson Light Horse. He was one of the few in that corps who had
impressed himself favourably upon the brigadier, consequently the
chief did not burst into abusive satire when he discovered this
officer in the act of boiling a turkey in the farm kitchen. Now, in
spite of the wet and disappointment, the brigadier had lost none of
his usual gaiety of nature. It is often the case with the best
soldiers, the more adverse the circumstances the lighter their
spirits.

_Brigadier_ (_commencing to divest himself of his wet clothes in front