iedly arrested further progress, took
soundings, and bearings of different landmarks, and found that we were
some twenty-five miles from our reckoning--so far, in fact, as to have
picked up the next light-house instead of the one we thought.

After this 'twas plain sailing, though I had never been into that port
before. Made it about noon, took possession of a convenient mooring-buoy
inside the breakwater--which buoy I found out later was sacred to the
French flag-ship or somebody like that--called on our Admiral there, and
was among friends. Yes, by heck, I let 'em buy me a drink at the club--I
needed it! Had oil enough left for just about an hour more!

Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1918.

* * * * *

While the great campaigns were being waged on the western fronts, there
was being carried on in a more remote part of the world a series of
operations which involved as hard fighting and as many difficulties as
were encountered in any other field of action. The campaigns in East
Africa which resulted in driving the Germans from their former colonies
are described in the following narrative.

EAST AFRICA

JAN CHRISTIAAN SMUTS

[Sidenote: Learned South Africa in The Boer War.]

In the strenuous days of the Boer War I learned to know my South Africa
from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean as one learns a country only under
the searching test of war. I came to know the unfrequented paths, the
trackless parts of the bush, the wastes where people do not often go. I
believe it is generally admitted that I covered more country than any
other commander in the field on either side--and my movement was not
always in the direction of the enemy!

[Sidenote: Obtaining water on the Kalahari Desert.]

When the present war broke out, I proceeded once more on my extensive
travels, and I became something of an expert in the waterless, sandy
wastes of the southern half of German Southwest Africa. As for the
Kalahari Desert, over which the movement of men and transport was
supposed to be quite impossible, we did not rest until we had sunk
bore-holes for water for hundreds of miles, and until we had moved a
large force of thousands of mounted men across an area in which it was
thought no human being could ever move. One of the reasons of our
success in that campaign was that, moving through the Kalahari Desert,
we struck the enemy country at its very heart. The travels of
Livingstone, of