l at one time from a bad kick, but whom he
ended by transforming into as smart and peaceable a little mount as
you could find. My own chance came at last; and when about the end of
April one of our drivers was sent home sick, I took his place as
centre driver of an ammunition waggon, and kept it permanently. I said
good-bye to the roan and Argentine, and took over a fine pair of bays.

My chief impression of the weather is that of heat and dust, but there
were times when we thought the dreaded rainy season had begun; when
the camp was a running morass, and we crouched in our tents, watching
pools of water soaking under our harness sheets, and counting the
labour over rusted steel. But it used to pass off, leaving a wonderful
effect; every waste oat seed about the camp sprouted; little green
lawns sprang up in a single night round the places where the forage
was heaped, and the whole veldt put on a delicate pink dress, a powder
of tiny pink flowers.

By the middle of May we began to think we had been forgotten
altogether, but at last, on the morning of the 17th of May, as we were
marching out to drill, an orderly galloped up, and put a long blue
letter into the Captain's hand. We had seen this happen before, and
our discussions of the circumstance, as we rode along, were sceptical,
but this time we were wrong.

CHAPTER IV.

BLOEMFONTEIN.

The railway north--Yesterday's start--Travelling made easy--Feeding
horses--A menu--De Aar--A new climate--Naauwport--Over the frontier--
Bloemfontein--A fiasco--To camp again--The right section--Diary days--
Riding exercise--A bit of history--Longman's Hospital--The
watering-place--Artillery at drill--A review--A camp rumour--A taste
of freedom--A tent scene.

From my diary:--

"_May 20._--_Sunday._--I write this on the train, on the way up north,
somewhere near Beaufort West; for the long-wished day has come at
last, and we are being sent to Kroonstadt, which anyway is pretty near
to, if not actually at, the front. Our only fear is now that it will
be too late. All day the train has been traversing the Karoo, a desert
seamed by bare rocky mountains, and without a sign of life on it, only
vast stretches of pebbly soil, dotted sparsely with dusty-green dwarf
scrub. But to go back. We started yesterday. All went smoothly and
simply. At eight, kit was inspected; in the morning, bareback
exercise; at twelve, tents struck; at 12.30 dinner; at one, 'boot and
saddle.' When w