ral to reply in the public Press to
the letter of a private serving under him!

The bells of the Cathedral tolled mournfully as the old year died. Would
that its bitter memories could have perished with it! And then from
steeple and steamship, locomotive and factory, a babel of sound burst
forth as sirens and bells and whistles welcomed the birth of 1900. Yet,
as the shrill greetings died away, one heard the tramp of infantry
through the streets. The Capetown Highlanders--a volunteer
battalion--were under arms all that night, as a rising of the Dutch had
been anticipated on New Year's Day. May the new year see the end of this
cruel strife, and the sun of righteousness arise upon this unhappy land
with healing in his wings! As one sits in the dimly-lit wards while the
train tears through the darkness, and nothing breaks the silence save
the groan of a wounded man or the cries of some poor fellow racked with
rheumatic fever--at times like these one thinks of many things, past,
present and future. An ever-deepening gloom of military disaster seemed
to be spreading itself around us--Magersfontein, Stormberg and the
latest repulse on the Tugela, a veritable [Greek: trikumia kakon]! Of
course, in the long run, we _shall_ and _must_ win. But what afterwards?
Will the vanquished Dutch submit and live in peace and amity with their
conquerors, or will they preserve the memory of their dead from
generation to generation, and cherish that unspeakable bitterness which
they at present feel for England and her people? Verily all these things
lie on the knees of the gods!

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Since these lines were written Lord Roberts has personally testified
to the misuse of the white flag in the Paardeberg fighting.

[B] Cf. _The River War_, by Winston Spencer Churchill, vol. ii., p. 394.
"It is the habit of the boa-constrictor to besmear the body of its
victim with a foul slime before he devours it; and there are many people
in England, and perhaps elsewhere, who seem to be unable to contemplate
military operations for clear political objects, unless they can cajole
themselves into the belief that the enemy is utterly and hopelessly
vile."

[C] _Cf._ Tacitus, _Agricola_, xxvii.: Iniquissima haec bellorum
condicio est; prospera omnes sibi vindicant, adversa uni imputantur.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance
Train, by Ernest N. Bennett