mbshell in crushing a dignity already injured; and the gusto with
which the Colonel and the Civil Commissioner were relegated to Connaught
was excusable.

A good deal of rumbling was heard on Friday; it might have been thunder,
or perchance artillery. Some said it was nature; others that it was
guns' work. But nobody seemed to think that it mattered a great deal. We
had grown tired of noise, nothing but noise. The whistle of the armoured
train, which kept patrolling the line (the bit that was left of it) was
more interesting, sometimes an innocent soul would allow his fancy to
beguile him into hoping that the whistle portended the approach of a
Cape Town train, with food and mail-bags, and he would march off to the
station on desperate speculation to meet it.

In pursuance of an idea which had long occupied his thoughts the Colonel
despatched a mounted force to cross the border into Free State
territory--at which we could look across with the naked eye. What good
purpose the visit was to serve was not obvious; but it was attributed to
a desire on the Colonel's part to win the distinction of being the
_first_ to invade the enemy's territory. At any rate, the distinction
_was_ won. The men had not far to travel; and they did not go far when
they crossed over, for the Oliphantsfontein camp blocked the way. The
Boers were awake, but the audacity of the raid would appear to have
deprived them for the moment of their visual senses. The Light Horse
drew quite close ere the propriety of halting was suggested to them. The
suggestion was naturally expected to issue in the first instance from
the cannon's mouth; but the guns said nothing, and their silence
emboldened our fellows to persist in their breach of etiquette until
they made a startling discovery, namely, that the guns had been removed.
This unexpected slice of luck so inspired the invaders that they
advanced rapidly and drove out the enemy, whose resistance was feeble. A
general inspection followed; the pantries and cupboards of the houses
around were the objects of a special scrutiny, but not a bone, not an
egg, not a crust was found! In one house a Boer lance with a white rag
for pennon was picked up. This curio was carried back to town, and
ultimately became the property of an enterprising curiosity
shop-keeper, who cut artistic bullet holes in the pennon with his
scissors--thereby adding largely to its curiousness. The bullets that
made the holes were also a good li