, mule waggons, Scotch carts, ambulance waggons,
with huge Red Cross flags, ammunition carts, artillery, slaughter
cattle, and, last of all, the naval battery, with its two enormous
4.7-inch pieces, dragged by long strings of animals, and guarded by
straw-hatted khaki-clad bluejackets, passed in imposing array, with here
and there a troop of cavalry to protect them or to prevent straggling.
And here let me make an unpleasant digression. The vast amount of
baggage this army takes with it on the march hampers its movements and
utterly precludes all possibility of surprising the enemy. I have never
before seen even officers accommodated with tents on service, though
both the Indian frontier and the Soudan lie under a hotter sun than
South Africa. But here to day, within striking distance of a mobile
enemy whom we wish to circumvent, every private soldier has canvas
shelter, and the other arrangements are on an equally elaborate scale.
The consequence is that roads are crowded, drifts are blocked, marching
troops are delayed, and all rapidity of movement is out of the question.
Meanwhile, the enemy completes the fortification of his positions, and
the cost of capturing them rises. It is a poor economy to let a soldier
live well for three days at the price of killing him on the fourth.[1]

We marched off with the rearguard at last, and the column twisted away
among the hills towards the west. After marching about three miles we
reached the point where the track from Frere joined the track from
Chieveley, and here two streams of waggons flowed into one another like
the confluence of rivers. Shortly after this all the mounted forces
with the baggage were directed to concentrate at the head of the column,
and, leaving the tardy waggons to toil along at their own pace, we
trotted swiftly forward. Pretorius's Farm was reached at noon--a
tin-roofed house, a few sheds, a dozen trees, and an artificial pond
filled to the brim by the recent rains. Here drawn up in the spacious
plain were the Royal Dragoons--distinguished from the Colonial Corps by
the bristle of lances bare of pennons above their ranks and by their
great horses--one squadron of the already famous Imperial Light Horse,
and Bethune's Mounted Infantry. The Dragoons remained at the farm, which
was that night to be the camping place of Clery's division. But all the
rest of the mounted forces, about a thousand men, and a battery of
artillery were hurried forward to seize th