ir life
did some of us a world of good, and in many instances it was not easy to
recognise in a bronzed civilian soldier the erstwhile sallow clerk or
shop-assistant.

It was at this stage of our travail that the Basuto Chief (Lerothodi)
followed up the fashion of the day by launching a proclamation of his
own which commanded all his people to return at once to Basutoland. Now,
we had shut up with us in Kimberley some thousands of this worthy
tribe. They received their Chief's command and set about preparing for
instant departure, with the Colonel's blessing. We white folk were not
at all sure that the Boers would be so gracious with _their_ blessing.
The process of starving us into submission was in full swing (and
succeeding, alas! but too well). It was thus obvious that a reduction so
substantial in the gross total of stomachs to be catered for would not
tend to starve us the sooner. But the enemy did not deem it politic to
attempt the task of driving Basutos and Britons to the sea together. The
sympathies of the powerful Basuto chief were not on their side, and it
would have been unwise to have risked offending him. So it was that the
natives were permitted to pass unmolested to the kraals of their
childhood. The enemy did not like it--any more than did King John when
he signed the Great Charter--but it had to be.

In the meantime some news had come in to which the Colonel was pleased
to give publicity. It was astonishing all the trifling tit-bits we did
hear; and they occasionally excited interest--until discovered to be of
home manufacture--the distinctive work of local genius. On this
occasion, however, the tit-bit was "Official," and to the effect that
the rebels at Douglas had been routed by the Canadian volunteers. This
was gratifying; we blamed the rebels for our own beleagured state, and
the moral lesson of the rout at Douglas might hasten the discomfiture of
the gentlemen who surrounded us. I have yet to learn that it did in any
shape or form.

It was triumphantly proclaimed in the afternoon that our patrols had
brought in a host of Republican cattle; and when almost simultaneously
with this announcement _two_ proclamations were issued from Lennox
Street, it was more than hoped, it was assumed, that the meat ordinance
was to be relaxed. But it was not so. The first of these monuments to
circumlocution had a final rap at the canteen. There were a few bars and
canteens outside the barriers of the town; the