but
the Infantry, of course, had done the bulk of their work when we began
ours. It was curious that this was the first occasion on which the
three arms of the C.I.V., Infantry, Mounted Infantry, and Artillery,
had been united under one command.

We spent the next two days in preparations for departure, in sorting
of harness, sifting and packing of kit, and great burnings of
discarded rubbish.

On the first of October, Williams and I walked into Pretoria to do
some business, and try and pick up some curios. We had an exhausting
conflict with a crusty old Jew, with whom we bargained for scjamboks
and knobkerries. It was with great difficulty we got him to treat with
us at all, or even show us his wares. He had been humbugged so often
by khakis that he would not believe we were serious customers, and
treated our advances with violence and disdain. We had to be
conciliatory, as we wanted his wares, though we felt inclined to loot
his shop, and leave him for dead. After some most extraordinary
bargaining and after tempting him with solid, visible gold, we each
secured a scjambok and a knobkerry at exorbitant prices, and left him
even then grumbling and growling.

Scjamboks are whips made of rhinoceros' hide. They take a beautiful
polish, and a good one is indestructible. A knobkerry is a stick with
a heavy round knob for a head, overlaid, head and stem, with copper
and steel wire, in ingenious spirals and patterns. The Kaffirs make
them.

I also wired to my brother to meet our train at Elandsfontein. He had
written me, saying he had been sent there from the Convalescent Camp,
having the luck to find as his commandant Major Paul Burn-Murdoch, of
the Royal Engineers, who was a mutual friend of ours.

I was on picket duty that night--my last on the veldt. The camp looked
very strange with only the four lines of men sleeping by their kits,
and a few officers' horses and a little knot of ten mules for the last
buck-waggon. It was an utterly still moonlight night, only broken by
the distant chirruping of frogs and the occasional tinkle of a mule's
chain.

At seven the next morning we met the C.I.V. Infantry and Mounted
Infantry, and were all reviewed by Lord Roberts, who rode out with his
Staff to say good-bye to us. He made us a speech we were proud to
hear, referring particularly to the fine marching of the Infantry, and
adding that he hoped we would carry home to the heart of the country a
high opinion of the regular