"Bloemfontein?"
Just lay your map open on the grass to-morrow and see if they were not right. It is because their view has not been narrowed by maps. The four winds of heaven are their compass, the stars their beacons.
The following night we marched until it was very late, and had to wait as usual for the waggons. During these halts the men flung themselves on the ground, and invariably fell fast asleep. When the order came to mount there was sometimes a little confusion. A lad of sixteen, who was still half-asleep, mounted his horse; a thud as of something soft falling on the ground was heard. As it was very dark, we did not know what it meant; but some close by explained that the boy, poor fellow, not being well awake, instead of getting astride, had got right over his horse and landed on the other side. When we had proceeded to thirty miles from Hoopstad, we turned suddenly on the third night at such an acute angle that our route ran almost parallel with that by which we had come. On the following morning we reached the shop of Jelleman, and learned during the course of the day that the English were still persistently following up their original course. They had not then adopted the flying-column system, and went on with their encumbrance of large convoys, with an impetus very much like that of an elephant which, when charging, cannot make a short turn. This enabled General Botha to carry out his manœuvre successfully.
The following day was Sunday, the 21st of October. We were then at the farm of Mr. Singleton on the way back to the railway. It was a lovely day, and very refreshing to hold service there under the trees at a dam. Here an attack had been made on us the previous night, which we had been unable to resist. I shall describe it.
There had been a strong wind the day before with signs of rain, and we had prepared ourselves as well as we could for a wet night. But it did not rain—something else happened: an attack—oh, that the muse of Aristophanes inspire me while I record this—an attack of frogs! We had lain down to sleep near the dam, and shortly after we had retired to rest the frogs came out of the water. Perhaps the strong wind, causing a movement in the waters, had sent them forth. They came in large numbers and leaped about to their hearts' content. Here one tumbled on the blanket of a sleeper, there another placed his wet feet on the face of another, and you heard screams in the darkness, as of persons shrinking back from cold baths. It was thought that the attack could be repulsed by blows from hats and boots. But the amphibious enemy had not the least inclination to sound the retreat. They unceasingly renewed the attack, and were continually being supported by fresh reinforcements from the dam. The issue at length hung in the balance, and the shame of a possible defeat filled us with apprehension. Woe is me! The human beings retreated. Here one man snatched up his bedding and fled—and there another. I must record it. Our warriors lost the battle, and were forced to evacuate their positions before an attack of—Frogs!!
In the afternoon we proceeded. Nothing of interest took place. Each day we travelled some distance. The red sand of the desert was in evidence, and the level plains remained as dreary as ever. It was very dry, and the heat was often very fatiguing. Water was procurable from dams and wells only; the water of the former was often dirty, and that of the latter brackish. We had often to drink where our horses drank, and where the geese and ducks swam. On one occasion, after we had boiled our small kettles and drunk our corn coffee, we heard that we had made coffee with the water of a dam in which shortly before some 400 soldiers had bathed! How dreary it is to be in a country where there are no springs and no streams.
In the course of our wanderings through the sandy plains we came to the farm of a man named Stiglingh, and there I saw for the first time what a farm looked like where the English had burnt down the house.
There stood the walls with black borders to the doors and windows and along the gables, proving that the building had been a prey to the flames. The tops of the trees before the house were scorched, and a vine lay half torn from the wall against which the owner had trained it. It was dreadful within to go from room to room and view the total destruction there. The heaps of ashes showed that the devastation was complete.
And what was the effect of this spectacle on the burghers?