m. I forgot an important
event of the evening in the arrival of a bag of mails, parcels only,
brought by a convoy from Kroonstadt, which has just come in. To my
delight I got one with a shirt and socks (which I at once put on over
the others), cigarettes (a long exhausted luxury), Liebig, precious
for evening soup, and chocolate, almost too good to eat for fear of
getting discontented. We are on half rations of biscuit, which means
three, and a tin of Maconochie each, a supply about enough to whet
your appetite for one meal in a life like this, but it has to last the
day of about seventeen hours. The ration is issued the night before,
to eat as we please, and, of course, there is coffee soon after
reveille, and tea in the evening. There is a cupful of porridge also
with the coffee, paid for by deduction from our pay, so that one
starts in good fettle. I don't know why the whole column shouldn't get
fresh meat every day, for the country is teeming with cattle, which
are collected and driven along with the column in huge herds. Many of
the farmhouses are smoking ruins, the enemy, after annexation, being
rebels according to law, and not belligerents; but it seems to me that
such a policy is to use a legal fiction for an oppressive end, for it
is quite clear that this part of the Orange River Colony has never
been conquered.[A]

[Footnote A: I leave this as I wrote it, but drivers are not
politicians, and doubtless there were special circumstances, such as
treachery, concealed arms or sniping, to justify what at the best must
be a doubtful policy; for a burnt farm means a desperate farmer.]

_July 4._--_Wednesday._--Up at five after a bitterly cold night, but
there was a long delay before starting. We are rear-guard to-day. Just
before leaving an infantry man shot himself while cleaning his rifle.
There was a little buzz and stir, and then all was quiet again. He was
buried in half an hour.

A dull day's marching. After about ten miles we halted to water horses
and rest. While watering, the Boers sent over a futile shell from a
big gun. On return we unhooked and grazed the horses. Things looked
peaceful, and there was a warm sun, so I ventured to unstrap my
kit-roll and spread my blankets out to dry. They were still wet from
the rain of two nights ago. I had scarcely spread them out when "Hook
in" was shouted, and back they had to go, half-folded, in a perilously
loose bundle. (You can never count on five minutes, but it