Unhappy Fifes to have lost him! * * * * * Returning to where my poor saturated horse was miserably standing, I mounted and slowly rode along with the convoy. After going some miles, I was pleased to see the waggons turning off the slippery track on to the veldt and outspanning. Seeing close by the road, lying on the site of a former camp, sheets of corrugated iron from the roofs and other parts of a few wrecked and deserted houses in the neighbourhood, I dismounted and secured two large bent ones (these placed on the ground like an inverted V form excellent shelters for tentless men), and proceeded to carry them and drag my steed towards the camp. It was a long way and an awful fag. At length through the pelting rain, there bore down upon the Sussex Yeomanry lines two large bent sheets of galvanised iron, cursing horribly and followed by a dripping horse. Suddenly the sheets fell clattering to the wet ground and his comrades beheld the writer of these immortal letters. Whiteing, Boleno, and the rest of our special clique or mess, who had arrived before me had already commenced constructing Mealie Villas (being the name given to our family residence wherever we are). The ground was, of course, saturated by the rain, which continued unceasing all day. Huddled together in the cribbed, cabined and confined space of our "home, sweet home," half-naked, but fairly cheerful, we passed the time in everlastingly patching up the leaks and defects in the construction of the Villas. The next morning we had _reveille_ at six, and turned out promptly to feed the wretched horses; the poor, woe-begone looking creatures, hardly one of which was properly picketed, were standing expectantly amid a perfect cobweb of muddy, tangled picketing ropes in the quagmire, which represented their lines. One of the fellows, who had passed the night under our ox waggon, on lifting his rain-sodden blanket, found to his surprise and disgust a fine iguana, about four feet long, nestling against his body. The sun began to smile upon us, and we advanced to a better camping ground a few miles further on at Leeuwfontein. Here we outspanned and soon had our wet blankets, clothes, and other articles spread out on the veldt drying. The Force remained halted on Sunday, though we Yeomanry were sent out on a foraging patrol and returned with ducks and oranges galore. Late in the day, "Nobby," sallow, and with a week's beard on him, paid us a visit. He told us he had been bad and was dying, but bucked up at the sight of our rifles, which he pronounced as being in a disgustingly dirty state. "I'd like to be yer sergeant-major. I'd make yer sit up," quoth he indignantly, and then proceeded to give us the history of his own gun, and the godliness of its cleanliness. He also related to us portions of the history of the Border Regiment. "We're the Unknown Regiment," remarked Nobby, half bitterly, "but they ought ter know us