Several storekeepers talk of getting things from Salisbury, and if prices rise very much perhaps it would pay. The average rate per waggon to Salisbury lately was nearly 25s. per 100 lbs. weight. The mines are still working fairly, and may be kept on. The Kaffirs round here seem to take little interest in the war, and the most of them have not the remotest idea where Natal is, although the Matabele came from there less than seventy years ago. Of course they all know the Boers, and thoroughly detest them, as they have very good reason to do. We have only had a few showers of rain here so far, and the grass is very poor. We can work our donkeys much at present on that account, as I want to have them in good order, as transport will be very high when communications are again established." In Southern Rhodesia the Boers were kept in check by the activities of Colonel Holdsworth. In order to reconnoitre, and, if possible, attack the Boer laager at Sekwani, he started on the 23rd of November with seventy-five mounted men and ten cyclists on a night march over sandy roads in a region where water was extremely scarce. At daybreak they reached the Dutch laager and caught the Boers napping. Lieutenant Llewellyn wished them an energetic "Good morning" by means of a Maxim gun at 1000 to 1200 yards range, with the result that the enemy, about eighty strong, were routed from their position among the kopjes. The Boers retired to other kopjes, and from thence offered resistance, but as storming them would have entailed considerable loss, the British force returned to camp. They, however, burned a large store of ammunition and captured some rifles. Therefore their hundred-mile march, accomplished in twenty-three hours, was not profitless. MAFEKING, NOVEMBER Poor Mafeking! The inevitable hung like a ghost over everything--bodiless, formless, but always there at the elbows of the gallant band that so long had held out against the foe. He was now coming closer--closer, continuing to sap and approach by parallels, till before long not only shells but rifle-fire would render streets impassable, shelters useless, and fortified positions dangerous. Colonel Baden-Powell's brilliant wits were hard pressed to keep the enemy from carrying the town by storm, and all who valued their lives lived underground, burrowing like rabbits, or in bomb-proof shelters, from which occasionally they were routed, not by fire but by water.