on) has surrendered. Anyway, some British
prisoners have escaped and come in. Grazing in harness for the rest of
the day.

_July 27._--Reveille at 5.15. Hooked in and waited for the whole
convoy to file by, as we are to be rearguard. It took several hours,
and must be five or six miles long. It was a heavy, misty day, and
some rain fell. Started at last and marched up the valley, which
narrowed considerably here, under the shadow of beetling cliffs, for
about eight miles, with incessant momentary halts, as always happens
in the rear of a column. Suddenly the valley opened out to another
noble circle bounded by mountains on all sides, some wearing a
sprinkling of snow still. Here we came to the pretty little town of
Fouriesberg, and joined the general camp, which stretched as far as
you could see, thousands of beasts grazing between the various lines,
and interminable rows of outspanned waggons. At night camp fires
twinkled far into the distance, and signals kept flashing from high
peaks all round. An officer has been telling us the situation, which
is that the trap is closed, the Boers being surrounded on all sides;
that they are expected to surrender; that it will be a Paardeberg on a
bigger scale--the biggest haul of prisoners in the war.

Some commandeered ham was served out, and we fried ours over the
cook's fire with great success. I may say that the service mess-tin is
our one cooking utensil, and the work it stands is amazing; it is a
flat round tin with a handle and a lid. It is used indiscriminately
for boiling, frying, and baking, besides its normal purpose of holding
rations.

_July 28._--Reveille at six. After waiting in uncertainty for some
time we were left, with the Staffords from Hunter's column, to guard
the town, while the other troops moved off. We camped just outside the
town, and there was a rush for loot directly, of course only from
unoccupied houses, whose rebel owners are fighting. Unhappily others
had been there before us, and the place was skinned. But we got a
Kaffir cooking-pot, and a lot of fuel, by chopping up a manger in a
stable. My only domestic loot was a baby's hat, which I eventually
abandoned, and a table and looking-glass which served for fuel. But we
found a nice Scotch family in a house, and bought a cabbage from them.
There was a dear old lady and two daughters. Williams dropped two
leaves of the cabbage, and got a playful rebuke from her. She said he
must not waste them, as