The British once having put their hand to the plough, had stuck manfully to their work, not in hope of reward, but in the belief in the ministry of their great race. Beyond the minor considerations of franchise and political advantage, there had been greater and higher ends to be attained, and as the flag was fluttering over the capital of the Free State these great ends served to inspire and refresh those who almost fainted by the way. Where the British flag waved there was freedom, enlightenment, progress, evolution--there was emancipation from sin, injustice, and degradation; therefore at the cost of precious lives, and for no personal gain, the great end for which they toiled and suffered and died had to be achieved. Every ideal, whether merely human or bordering on the divine, demands enormous sacrifices from those who desire to realise it, and the spread of civilisation calls for its ministers and martyrs, and will continue to call for them so long as there are men of heroic mould who, regardless of personal cost, are ready to prize and protect a great and national cause. Only this reflection could serve to hearten and brace our warriors at the front, for, at this time, Lord Roberts' glorious position was far from a happy one. It was impossible to ignore the cost at which the prestige of his country and his splendid success was being secured. He found himself at Bloemfontein with the wreck of an army on his hands, with men dropping thick as flies from disease resulting from the terrible exhaustion of the march and from the insanitary conditions of the camp at Paardeberg. There the only water available for drinking purposes had flowed down from the Boer camp a mile and a half up the river, and was polluted by rotting carcases in various stages of decomposition, and, as a natural consequence of these conditions, Bloemfontein was suddenly filled with an appalling number of sick, some 2000 patients suffering from typhoid and enteric, in addition to a very considerable number of wounded at the fight at Driefontein. How to help the abnormal number of sufferers was a problem that taxed the medical authorities to the utmost, for it was impossible to meet the huge demand under the existing conditions. To improvise mere accommodation for so large an influx of sick within the narrow confines of Bloemfontein was a hard task in itself, and even the field-hospitals were inadequate, for owing to the rapidity of the march from the Modder no tents were carried with the force, and none were available until railway communication with Cape Colony could be restored. The Commander-in-Chief of this immense army in this dilemma had but a single narrow-gauge line of railway between himself and his base some 700 miles distant, and this line of rails was not yet available. The first duty was to utilise it for the bringing up of supplies sufficient to sustain the bare life of the healthy force, and prevent those who were sound from joining those who