She had engaged to deliver 500 saddles a week at £10 each; but a good many of the Burghers to whom the saddles were distributed sold them back to the worthy lady’s agents for £4 or £5, and she then sold them again to the State, after changing the more conspicuous of them a little. So that these wretched saddles were always reappearing on the scene, as in a review at the Châtelet; but each of their migrations brought in a solid sum to Mrs. D----. It is not difficult to see why there was no money for the combatants. X After forty-eight hours of fighting from Elandsfontein to Florida, on May 29 and 30, we were cut off from the road to Pretoria by General French and his cavalry. Without horses it was impossible for us to follow the retreat, and we found ourselves shut up in Johannesburg. We succeeded in enrolling ourselves among the police of the mines, which gave us a temporary shelter, and perhaps saved us a sojourn at St. Helena; for we were determined not to take the oath of neutrality, but to begin fighting again as soon as possible. On May 31 the English entered Johannesburg. The English flag was hoisted with great pomp at noon in the great square, in the presence of Lord Roberts. Dr. Krause had been empowered to surrender the town. Johannesburg is a very English town. Its behaviour at the time of Jameson’s raid sufficiently proved this, and many of the more irreconcilable Burghers who had been brought into hospital there wounded ran away before they were cured rather than remain in the hostile town. The Union Jack was accordingly greeted with loud shouts of ’Hip! hip! hip! hurrah!’ Nevertheless, we often met Burghers in the crowd who, like ourselves, were only biding their time to return to the front. I saw one old man weeping silently. I am not sentimental, but I have rarely felt a more poignant emotion than this mute and dignified despair excited in me. I hurried away. I think I should have wept myself. The entry of the troops began at about 10.30, and lasted four hours. About 12,000 men marched through the town, and in the environs, as far off as Elandsfontein, some 50,000 passed, it was said. But what a procession it was! There was no order; the men barely marched in ranks. No uniforms, officers and soldiers huddled together, dirty, and many of them in rags. They had eaten nothing since the day before, when the ration had been two biscuits. On they came, or rather dragged themselves, with drooping heads, one with his rifle on his shoulder, another with his slung across his back, one with the butt-end uppermost, some without bayonets, others with bayonets fixed. Some officers had our Mauser rifles, others Lee-Enfields, others sporting rifles. Nearly all, both officers and soldiers, walked with the help of sticks. From Bloemfontein to Johannesburg they had covered 250 miles, fighting every day, and sometimes marching 45 kilometres without a halt across country.