When cheerfulness was more or less restored somebody espied a herd of buck about a mile away. The keen sight of the Boers is astonishing, and the way they detected the movements of the buck at that distance was a revelation. Some of us could see nothing at all, but the keenest thought they could spot a little bit of colour which the Boers said was a herd of about twenty buck. In a minute three of them were blazing away with their Mausers, but the herd cleared without casualty. Throughout the rest of the way the Boers blazed away without intermission at anything and everything that suggested itself as a target. There certainly was no idea among them then that it would be well to husband ammunition. I see by the papers that their commandants are said to be exhorting the Boers now in the field to save their cartridges for officers, and not to waste any on the Tommies, but at the date of which I am writing they behaved as if their supply of ammunition was inexhaustible. About midday a halt was called, the niggers did something to the harness, which dropped on the ground, and the mules, freed, were quickly up to their knees in an adjacent dam, and soon after that busily engaged with the veldt grass. Only once a day were they supposed to get a feed of corn, and from all we could hear that day only came round about once a week. In the meantime the Boers had fished out an empty wine case, smashed it up, lighted a fire, and placed a great kettle on top. While that was boiling the carcass of a sheep was produced from a sack, and all and sundry hacked a piece off. When the kettle had boiled and the coffee was made, the fire was heaped up afresh with wood, and every man had his bit of meat on the end of a stick, held it in the flames, where it fizzled and cracked and spurted as merrily as any steak on a grill in London town. There was a dish of salt to dip into when you judged the cooking complete. Our rusk sack was still partially filled, and wasn’t the dam full of water within a few yards of us? ‘What more could the —— Englishman want?’ said Brother Boer, as he lapped up all the coffee! In the newspapers the Boer is made to speak of the _verdomde rooinek_, but my experience of the Boer is that he prefers Tommy’s pet adjective before all others.