“Yes, quite sure,” was the answer, and the entire party was passed without any further trouble, and for all the sentry knew they might have gone straight to the Boer camp, which was only a few miles away; but owing to the fact that the party was one apparently of gentlemen, he did not see fit to refuse the permission to pass through the lines, even though the field marshal had given his strictest order to the contrary. This was not a single occurrence; any person could pass through the lines at any time, providing he did not speak English with a Dutch accent. To do that was to arouse immediate suspicion, and at times our own “Yankee twang” was enough to cause the Tommy to ask questions; but a few words of explanation invariably brought a polite apology. The Englishman makes a natural sailor, but he is not a natural soldier, and it requires a great amount of training to make a good man of him in the field; he may drill well, march well, and look well, but he needs much training and good leadership to fight well. When he has that, there is no better soldier to be found. It is in this respect that the Americans, as well as the Boers, excel the English as soldiers. They have been taught to hunt wild game in the wilderness of the great plains and deep forests; they have been taught to shoot and to ride in their childhood. The reason is obvious--they are a people of a new country; both Americans and Boers have but recently fought back the way for civilization, and, in fact, are still doing the same thing. New York has forgotten the stress, Chicago is fast forgetting it; but the great West has not forgotten it at all, and everywhere in America the spirit of adaptability to rough conditions still pervades our life. Each year every man, woman, and child who can get there seeks the mountains or the woods for a few days or weeks, to satisfy the natural American longing for the wild out-of-doors life that our forefathers knew. But in England there is no open shooting as we know it, there is no camping as we know it. It is true that the great estates have excellent shooting, so far as their idea of hunting goes; but to our point of view it is a senseless slaughter. Tame deer are driven up to the guns to be shot, or domesticated wild birds are flushed by beaters toward the hidden shooting party. The size of the day’s bag depends merely on the supply of ammunition or the endurance of the trigger finger. [Illustration: Heliographing from Diamond Hill to Lord Roberts in Pretoria.]