by the leaden hail. Nevertheless, when the
guns had perforce to cease fire on the advance of our infantry, the
Boers who held the orchard leapt up from behind the earthwork and poured
such a murderous fire upon our men that they were forced to withdraw. It
was the old story over again--that shell fire, unless it enfilades, does
not kill men in trenches.

As everybody called the river crossed by the railway the Modder, Modder
let it be. Its real name, however, is the Riet, of which the Modder is a
tributary flowing from the north-west and joining the main stream well
to the east of the line. As a stream the river does not impress the
visitor favourably: its waters were yellow and muddy, and the vegetation
on its banks was thin and scrappy. There are no respectable fish in
either the Modder or the Orange River; even if the fish could see a fly
on the top of the liquid mud, they haven't the spirit to rise at it.
Some of our officers, it was said, had managed to land a few specimens
of a coarse fish like a barbel which haunts these streams, but I should
not think any one, even amid the monotony of camp rations, was very keen
about eating his catch, for a good many dead Boers had been dragged out
of the river. It was, in fact, a rather grisly joke in camp to remark,
_a propos_ of our water supply, on the character of "Chateau Modder, an
excellent vintage with a good deal of body in it"! There was a tap at
the station, which by the way is some distance north of the river, but
on attempting to fill a bucket I found the tap guarded by a sentry,
because, apparently, the water came from the river and was thought to be
dangerous.

The water question is always a difficult one in exploring or
campaigning. One can do a certain amount with alum towards rendering the
water less foul. Rub the inside of a bucket with a lump of alum, and in
ten minutes most of the mud sinks to the bottom, and the water is
comparatively clear. But besides producing a nasty flavour in the water,
if used in any quantity, the astringent alum tends to produce
disagreeable effects internally. Of course the only absolute guarantee
against the bacilli of enteric fever or other diseases which may be
admitted into one's system by drinking, is to boil the waters for five
minutes; but it is very provoking, when the thermometer stands at 90 deg. in
the shade, to wait until the boiled water cools, and as it is impossible
to boil a whole river a few thousand bacilli m