represent the enemy in the field. Having got so
far, he does not feel justified in stopping until he has thrown in some
flowery language concerning a Boer cannonade upon British ambulance
waggons, full of wounded; from that he drifts by easy and natural stages to
Dum-Dum bullets, and the robbing of the wounded, and insults to the slain.
And that is very often the person who is quoted in newspaper interviews--as
a gentleman who was an eye-witness, and etc., etc., etc.

And yet, for some reason which I have been unable to gauge, the military
authorities talk of sending all correspondents away from the front. It
seems to me that it would be far better to give _bona fide_ newspaper
men every reasonable opportunity of discovering the truth instead of
hampering them in any way. I fail to see why Great Britain and her Colonies
should be kept in the dark concerning the progress of the war, for all the
foreign Powers will be well supplied with information from the Boer lines;
and, if we are blocked, some at least of the British newspapers will most
assuredly go to foreign sources for news, if they are not allowed to obtain
it for themselves. Others will content themselves with news gathered
haphazard, and the last state of the Army, as far as the public mind is
concerned, will be far worse than the first.

Colonel Hoad, who commands the Australians at Enslin, has offered the seven
hundred and sixteen men, who up to date have acted as infantry, to the
authorities as mounted infantry, and the offer has been accepted, much to
the delight of the men, all of whom are very eager to get into the saddle,
as they imagine that when their mounts arrive they will get a chance to go
into action. They have been practising horsemanship during the day, and did
fairly well, as many of them are expert riders, many more are fair; but a
few of them are more at home on a sand-heap than in a saddle. There are not
many of the latter kind, however. They will soon knock into shape, for
Colonel Hoad hates the sight of a slovenly horseman as badly as a duck
hates a dust storm. He is an untiring rider himself, and will work the
beggars who cannot ride until they can.

After the arrival in Capetown of the two celebrated soldiers, Lords Roberts
and Kitchener, I made it my business to converse with as many Boers as
possible in regard to the two Generals, and was astonished to find how much
they knew concerning them. How, and from whom, they get information p