'Kroonstadt' is redolent of war, but, 'Bloemfontein'
spells inaction. However, there was no help for it. We slept on the
ground, and precious cold this new climate was. I hadn't my Stohwasser
blanket, and spent most of the night stamping about and smoking. At
reveille next day rations were still lacking, but we all trooped off
to a tin hut and had tea, given by an unseen angel, named Sister
Bagot. 'Boot and saddle' sounded at nine, and we marched off to the
camp, about two miles away. There was a very nasty ravine to cross,
and we had to have drag ropes on behind, with the gunners on them, to
steady us down the descent. I was driving centres as usual, and saw
the leaders almost disappear in front of me. At the bottom we crossed
a stream, and then galloped them up the other side. Soon after we
passed through Bloemfontein, a quiet, dull-looking place, like a
suburb of Cape Town, mounted a long hill, and came out on to another
broad plain, kopjes in the distance, and tents dotted far and wide.
The first moving thing I saw was a funeral,--slow music, a group of
khaki figures, and the bright colours of a Union Jack glinting
between.

"Our right section, that is, the other half of the Battery, from which
we had been separated ever since Stellenbosch, had trained on a day
ahead of us, and were now already encamped, so we marched up and
joined our lines to theirs, pitched our tents, and once more the
Battery was united. And what a curious meeting it was! Half of them
were unrecognizable with beards and sunburn, as were many of us, I
suppose. What yarns we had! All that day, in the intervals between
fatigues, and far into the night, in the humming tents. Jacko was with
them. He had been lost on the journey, but came on by a later train
very independently."

We all had a presentiment of evil, and, as it turned out, we were kept
nearly a month at Bloemfontein, while still reports of victories came
in. Yet news was very scarce, and had we known it, the period was only
just beginning, of that long, irregular warfare, by which the two
provinces had to be conquered, when the brilliancy of Roberts's
meteoric march to Pretoria was past. We were to take our small share
in work as necessary and arduous as any in these latter stages of the
war.

Meanwhile we were now a complete battery, and worked hard at our drill
as such, though there was very little to learn after our long training
in Cape Colony. We kept our spirits up, though the