like all these Free Staters about. They may be able to stir up
the new crop of rebels into doing something desperate. Raw guerillas,
with a leaven of hard-bitten cases, are always a source of danger. But
I think that we worked our own salvation in the skirmish this morning.
They would hardly believe that we should have such a small force with
so many guns. No; our luck was in to-day, when they discovered us
instead of Twine's squadron. We shall make something out of the 20th.
They are the right stuff: that squadron went for that rise to-day in
splendid style. The Boer cannot stand galloping. I may be a
crank--they believe that I am one at Pretoria--but I am convinced that
I have discovered the true Mounted Infantry formation for the sort of
fighting that we are now experiencing out here. If you find your enemy
in any position that you can gallop over, without riding your horse to
a standstill, go for him in extended order. You will get more results
from an enterprise of this kind than from a week of artillery and
dismounted attack. I hear that D. claims to have originated this
formation. Why, I was practising it with my fellows in Natal before
D. was born, or rather when he was an infant in the knowledge of war.
I am as convinced that I am right as I am that the rifle is the
cavalry-man's arm. It is not for shock tactics that you require to
mount men nowadays: the use of a horse is to get into the best
fire-position in the shortest possible time. The battles of the future
will be decided by rifles and machine-guns, not by lance and sabre.
There's heresy for you; but it's my honest conviction!"

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Scoundrel.

[14] The double report made by a small-bore rifle.

[15] The major commanding the battery R.H.A.

[16] _I.e._, Brother Boer.

IV.

THE FIRST CHECK.

The first lesson brought home to the Englishman in South Africa is,
that he must not judge the country by any European standard, for as
long as he continues so to do he will find himself at sea. To show
surprise is to declare ignorance--and the British and Dutch South
Africans, after the manner of all superlatively ignorant races, have
the profoundest contempt for those in whom they themselves can discern
ignorance. Thus when the kindly eminence of a hill gives you a
ten-mile view of some tiny townlet--a view conveying no inkling of the
importance of the centre which you are about to approach--it is well
to be silent. For the Colonia