that here and there one may find an unmitigated scoundrel in
their ranks who would fire on white flags, loot houses and use explosive
bullets. On the other hand wounded and captured soldiers have repeatedly
testified to the great kindness shown them by the enemy. In short, I
have invariably found soldiers more generous and fair towards the enemy,
and less disposed to blackguard them recklessly and unjustly, than
newspaper writers and readers. Men who have faced the Boers have learnt
to respect their courage and devotion, and I feel sure that British
officers and soldiers deprecate much of the atrocity talk anent foemen
so worthy of their steel, and however little they may sympathise with
some portions of Dean Kitchin's sermon, they would at any rate desire to
support his wish that the "quarrel should be raised to the level of a
gentlemen's quarrel".[B] Quite recently Lord Methuen spoke like an
honourable and chivalrous British soldier when he declared that he
"never wished to meet a braver general than Cronje and had never served
in a war where less vindictive feelings existed between the two opposing
armies than in this."

One more word on a kindred topic and we will leave criticism alone! The
tone adopted by some sections of the Colonial and even British Press
with respect to the religious feeling of the Boers is very painful. Some
correspondents have described with evident glee how Boer prayer-meetings
have been broken up by Lyddite shells. I feel sure that no British
General would think for a moment of deliberately shelling any body of
the enemy assembled for prayer, and the vulgarity and wickedness of such
paragraphs would certainly not commend itself to the best sentiment of
the British army. Again and again the Boers are described in the Press
as "canting hypocrites" or their thanksgivings to God as
"sanctimonious". What right have we as Christians to bring such
wholesale charges against our Christian enemies? Several thousand
burghers advanced from Jacobsdal to reinforce Cronje, and as it marched
the entire force sang the Old Hundredth in unison. There is something
splendid and majestic in such a spectacle as this. Let us as Englishmen
fight our best against these men and defeat them thoroughly, but do not
let us sneer at their religious enthusiasm!

On December 10th, as we were standing on a siding at De Aar, a telegram,
arrived ordering us to leave for Modder River in the morning. We were
delighted at the pr