On my arrival, I presented myself to Major Davies, the commandant of the military police. He speaks French very correctly, was very agreeable, and gave me leave to go about the town on parole. I had only to leave my address with him, and to report myself at his office every morning at eleven o’clock. On the 13th a plot was discovered to seize the town. About 500 arrests took place during the evening. As I had taken the oath of neutrality, I was not among the conspirators, and while hostilities last I can say no more on this subject. On the 14th I received a permit to return to France, and I started by the two o’clock train that very day. All along the line the railway-stations had been converted into entrenched camps. We continually passed trains loaded with horses, guns, and men--some twenty in all, perhaps. We arrived at Kroonstad at eleven in the morning on the 15th. Nothing remained of the sheds and the goods-station which we had burnt on May 12, with all the stores. Involuntarily I took out my pocket-book, and read the names of the men who then composed the French corps. We were not forty altogether. Three had been killed, five had disappeared, the others were dispersed. I tried to go out of the station to revisit all those places in the town where we spent a fortnight, gay, full of hope, almost complete in numbers. But the station was surrounded by sentries, and no one was allowed to pass. From a distance the prospect was dismal enough. The streets were deserted, and, as if to emphasize the fact that everywhere there is suffering, the Red Cross flag floated sadly over the town. In the foreground, close to us, on the line, and in the sidings, were deserted railway-carriages, half burnt, overturned, and broken. All round the town were field hospitals and vast camps. There were about 11,000 men in all, I was told. A feverish activity reigned at the station, a continuous bustle and movement. Convoys of provisions and arms followed each other in rapid succession. We counted sixteen during the day on the 16th. Horses and mules were entrained in some, others brought back the worn-out horses. Many of these poor beasts had died on the road; most of them could hardly stand. They were dragged along a few steps, and a non-commissioned officer put a bullet through their heads inside the station. Thirty or forty thus executed lay heaped one on another in a pool of blood, which ran in a little stream towards the line. On the platform stood cases of ammunition and arms. Several placed together contained Lee-Enfield cavalry carbines, and were marked ’Very Urgent.’ On the 16th we were still at Kroonstad, and a trainful of prisoners passed going to East London. It became one of the daily exercises of the garrison to walk to the station and see the travellers. Two questions were to be heard perpetually: ’Do you think it is nearly over?’ ’Have you any Kruger pennies?’