ry. This personal experience, in itself unimportant, is
typical of a general improvement. I may add, in confirmation of
it, that during the last two months the mail train from Capetown
to the north has only been late on one or two occasions, and then
it was a matter of hours. Six months ago it was quite a common
event for it to arrive a day, or a couple of days, late. I need
not enlarge on the far-reaching importance of the improvement
which these instances illustrate. Not only have the derailments,
often accompanied by deplorable loss of life, which were at one
time so common, almost entirely ceased, but, owing to more
regular running, and especially the resumption of night running,
the carrying capacity of the railways has greatly increased.
Indeed, it is the inadequacy of the lines themselves to meet the
enormous and ever-increasing extra requirements resulting from
the war, and the shortness of rolling-stock, not any interference
from the enemy, which causes us whatever difficulties--and they
are still considerable--we now labour under in the matter of
transport. When the large amount of additional rolling-stock
ordered for the Imperial Military Railways last summer is
received--and the first instalment will arrive very
shortly--there will be a further great and progressive
improvement in the conveyance of supplies and materials for the
troops, the civil population of the towns, and the concentration
camps.

[Sidenote: Contraction of area of war.]

"The advance made in clearing the country is equally marked. Six
months ago the enemy were everywhere, outside the principal
towns. It is true they held nothing, but they raided wherever
they pleased, and, though mostly in small bodies, which made
little or no attempt at resistance when seriously pressed, they
almost invariably returned to their old haunts when the pressure
was over. It looked as though the process might go on
indefinitely. I had every opportunity of watching it, for during
the first two months of my residence here it was in full swing in
the immediate neighbourhood. There were half a dozen Boer
strong-holds, or rather trysting-places, quite close to Pretoria
and Johannesburg, and the country round was quite useless to us
for any purpose but that of marching through it, while