iring great agility on the
part of the clipper.

"For a 'stableman,' as I am now, the evening is rather a busy one. At
seven you have to make up the feeds for the last feed; at 7.45 put
them round the harness-sets behind the horses; at eight feed, for
which all hands turn out; at 8.30 take off nose-bags and put on
muzzles; and after that make up another feed ready for early next
morning. You can't finish before 'lights out,' and have to go to bed
in the dark, to the loudly expressed annoyance of your neighbours in
the tent (I sleep in a tent these nights), on whose bodies you place
the various articles of your kit while you arrange your bed, and whose
limbs you sometimes mistake for materials for a pillow, when you are
composing that important piece of upholstery.

"_May 30._--_Wednesday._--In the afternoon Williams and I went to
visit a friend in Langman's Hospital. Bloemfontein is a town of
hospitals, red crosses flying at every turn. The mortality is high,
even, I was surprised to hear from our friend, among sisters and
hospital orderlies. Out of six sisters in his hospital, which seemed a
very good one, four had enteric at the time, and one had died of it. I
was on picket duty this night, and had a lively time chasing loose
horses in the dark. A new sort of head-rope we are using seems very
palatable to the horses, as they mostly eat it for supper, and then
get loose.

"_May 31._--Out at riding exercise we came to a fortified kopje, where
we dismounted, and were allowed to examine a beautifully made trench
running round the top, very deep, and edged by a wall of stones
arranged to give loopholes. Some one found a Boer diary in the dust,
the entries in which seemed to alternate between beer and bible
reading. We always water at the common trough, the last thing before
return. Such varieties of the horse species you could see no where
else; thick, obstinate little Argentines, all with the same Roman
noses and broad, ugly heads; squab little Basuto ponies, angular
skeletonesque Cape horses, mules of every nationality, Texan, Italian,
Illyrian, Spanish; here and there a beautiful Arab belonging to some
officer; and dominating all, our own honest, substantial 'bus and tram
horses, almost the only representatives of English horseflesh. There
are always a few detached horses stampeding round ownerless, or
limping feebly down with a lost, hopeless look in their eyes, tripping
at every step over a tattered head-rope, and