er member of our little society had a very fair voice
and good knowledge of music, for in the days of his boyhood he had sung
in the choir of a Welsh cathedral; since that time he had practised as a
medical man and driven a tramcar. The weather was very trying sometimes
and J----, our Welsh singer, had acquired an almost supernatural skill
in leaping from the train when it stopped for a couple of minutes,
securing a bottle of Bass and then boarding the guard's van when the
train was moving off. On one of these successful forays I saw J---- send
three respectable people sprawling on their backs as he violently
collided with them in his desperate efforts to overtake the receding
train. The victims slowly got up and some nasty remarks about J---- were
wafted to us over the veldt. We had a couple of cooks. One of them was
an American who had served in the Cuban war, the other a big Irishman
called Ben. The American _chef_, being the only man out of uniform on
the train, had access to alcoholic refreshments at the stations, which
were very properly denied to the troops, and he rejoiced exceedingly to
exercise his privilege. He could sleep in almost any position, and
generally lay down on the kitchen dresser without any form of pillow, or
slept serenely in a sitting posture with his feet elevated far above his
head.

We steamed away from the Capetown station in the afternoon. The regular
service had to a large extent been suspended, and here and there
sentries with fixed bayonets kept watch over the government trains as
they lay on the sidings. If it was thought prudent to guard trains from
any injury in Capetown itself, one can realise the absolute necessity of
employing the colonial volunteers in patrolling the long line of some
600 miles from the sea to Modder River.

"Queen Victoria's afternoon tea"--as we called it--was served about
five. The two orderlies for the day brought from the kitchen a huge
tea-urn, some dozen bowls, and two large loaves. We supplemented this
rudimentary fare with a pot of "Cape gooseberry" jam, the gift of a
generous donor, and improved the quality of the tea with a little
condensed milk. Fresh from the usages of a more effete civilisation I
did not feel after two cups of tea and some butterless bread that
"satisfaction of a felt want"--to quote Aristotle--which comes, say,
after a dinner with the Drapers' Company in London, and for two nights I
tore open and devoured with my ward-companion a