nd he actually managed to rejoin the
headquarters of his corps in time to share in the entry into
Pretoria. Shortly after this he was again shot at Heidelberg, this
time through the other knee, and again made a second and equally
marvellous recovery. Towards the end of the war he commanded Roberts'
Horse, and later on the South African Light Horse, and his trekking
during the campaign amounted to no less than 9000 miles.

[Illustration: Issuing Queen Victoria's Chocolate. Colour-Sergeant
Connel, 'G' Company, on left.]

PART II.

TREKKING.

CHAPTER I.

VRYBURG TO HEIDELBERG.

'None of us put off our clothes.'

_Neh._ iv. 23.

Now commenced a different phase of warfare. If, in the constant
fighting of the Natal campaign, the regiment had been called upon to
prove its fighting capabilities--a call to which their noble response
earned them encomiums wherever they went--they were now to be called
upon to prove another essential of the true soldier--their mobility.
And well they proved it. Day after day, week after week, the tired,
footsore, but stout-hearted column-of-route made its slow and
wearisome way over the apparently limitless expanse of the swelling
veld. And how monotonous that veld can be none can appreciate save
those who have experienced its deadly sameness. Ahead, behind, all
round, nothing but veld, veld, veld. No trees, no hills, no rivers, no
lakes, no houses, no inhabitants! Here and there, perhaps, a miserable
shanty of the sealed-pattern South African type: rough stone walls and
corrugated-iron roof, a room on each side of the door, a narrow
verandah--occasionally occupied by a quiet, peaceful-looking old
patriarch, with a grey beard, and an air savouring rather of the
pulpit than the sheltered side of a boulder--a scraggy tree or two,
and a lick of water in a 'pan'--or pond as we should call it--hard by;
a woman, some children, and a couple of goats; a few mealie cobs
yellowing on the roof, and a scared, indignant, and attenuated fowl.

Alas! how those quiet-looking, quiet-spoken old gentlemen, open Bible
on knee, deceived us. Oh, no! they had never wished for war. Fight?
yes; they had fought, and surrendered, and taken the oath, and hoped
never to fight again. Peace? yes; they wanted peace, and urged us to
hasten on and conclude it. The same story everywhere: in the villages
as in the solitary hamlets. A vast, empty, forsaken wilderness, with
no